Page 112 of Fractured Fates

I drop my gaze from my grandfather’s face and my eyes land on the drawers that line the underneath of the solid desk.

There won’t be anything of interest in them, but I drop to my knees anyway and open the top drawers. Gold-plated pens, a stamp and a wrist watch.

The second drawer has more but they are similar briefings to the ones that lie on the desk’s surface.

The third is much the same.

The fourth one though … the fourth one contains a stack of files. I halt, my breath catching in my throat.

I lift the first one and flip open the folder. It’s full of pages, notes and information, all about one magical. I don’t recognize the face or the name, but I make a mental note of both, my heart beating faster.

The second, third and fourth files are the same. Another face, another name. None familiar.

I begin to despair.

There’s one more file in the drawer. I lift it out and onto my knee. I flip back the cover.

The picture of a young woman stares up at me. The photo faded but the details clear.

For a long moment, I think it’s her. The color of the eyes, the angle of the jaw. But then slowly I understand that it isn’t. The nose is wrong, the hair too light, the forehead too broad, the lips too thin.

It’s not Rhianna. But those are her eyes.

32

Rhi

Who am I?

Now I’ve allowed myself to ask that question, it’s a question that won’t leave me alone. It buzzes around my head as I lie in bed, Winnie and Pip snoring in unison, and won’t let me sleep.

I recount every conversation with my aunt, every nugget of information she’d relayed. I strain hard to remember. The exact words. The precise phrasing. I try to conjure in my mind’s eye all the things she’d shown me and all those she hadn’t as well. The photo she kept by her bed, the map she drew from memory, the locket around her neck …

The locket. She always wore it. Never removed it. It hung there, the silver oval resting against her clavicle. I never saw it opened and when it came to burying her, I couldn’t bear to part her from it, even though she’d told me to take it.

I flip onto my side in irritation. How stupid could I be?

I didn’t keep that locket like she asked. Apart from the money in the tin and the herbs in the jars, she left me no other hints. No diary, no journal, no letters. Nothing. That necklace was my only clue.

I picture that locket. Silver with a pattern of faint flowers engraved around its perimeter. Flowers that looked like … I crinkle my forehead, forcing the memory back. But it’s too buried and it changes as I force it into existence. I never looked at it properly, never held it in my hands and studied it, traced my thumb over the engraving.

Winnie’s wrist watch ticks in the darkness and outside the wind rushes through the tall trees. I burrow down under my covers.

I miss the clearing and the wood. I miss the freedom. I miss my aunt.

I can almost hear her voice in my ear, her footsteps in the hallway, her hand twisting the door handle …

I freeze.

The door handle? Did I hear that for real or was I dreaming?

I hold my breath, certain I can hear the door of our dorm creak open. The noise is faint, hardly audible. I peer through the darkness.

The door stands ajar and yet there’s no one there. The doorway is empty.

Am I really awake?

I stare at the space, at the empty room, at the darkness, and I swear I hear the floorboards creak, the whispers of a stranger’s breath.