Page 39

LEXI

J en put her arms around my shoulders.

I stared straight ahead at the far wall, my grandmother’s china cabinet, full of her teacup collection, frozen, while Jen tried to hug me close, to offer solace and a hug of support. I just stared blinking at that china cabinet, wondering, how would I know if I was adopted?

I scoffed to myself.

I knew I wasn’t adopted. I knew it, it was a fact, I had always known it, it had always been true, except…

I had always kind of wondered.

When I was younger I wondered about it a lot, thinking of my family as a little bit different from me in some way.

But didn’t all little kids wonder that sometimes?

Your parents would be embarrassing or mean and feel foreign and you’d wish that there was an explanation better than, ‘parents are just like that sometimes.’ It was a way of coping with growing up, millions of little girls thought they were adopted, sometimes.

But then when my parents died… after that, I hadn’t wanted to think about it anymore.

It seemed unfair. Traitorous, almost. Like I was an ungrateful brat for having it ever cross my mind.

So it didn’t cross my mind.

It had been years since I had felt that way.

Those feelings were long lost relics of my youth.

Jen said, “You’re shaking.”

“Was I adopted?”

She was quiet. Then she said, “No, of course not — did anyone ever tell you that you were adopted?”

“No, definitely not.”

“See? I think people tell you if you are.”

“But my parents died, maybe they died before they could tell me.”

“Ah, sweetie.”

Her hands smoothed up and down on my arms, trying to sooth and soften me, but I was stiff and staring, my mind computing nothing.

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right.”

“That’s enough?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. Do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know. Not logically, but… somewhere down deep it hit me, my dream you know?”

“I think you’re in shock.”

I nodded. “Probably, I’m feeling really fuzzy headed, having trouble being logical?—”

Cooper stormed in.

“He won’t totally leave, but said he’d be out on the edge of the property. I did my best.”

Jen let go of me.

He stood in front of me. His brow furrowed. “How are you doing?”

“Not good.”

“You look weird, like your eyes aren’t focusing right.”

Jen said, “I think she’s in shock.”

He said, matter-of-factly, “Not a reason for it, you can’t let him get in your head, Lexi. He’s manipulating you.”

“How…?”

“He knows you’re kicking him out of the back-shack. He’s a sociopath, he’s been working on you for days, now he found a weird in?—”

“Was I adopted?”

Cooper’s eyes went wide. “Lexi, no! You can’t listen to him, your family is your family!”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because this story is ridiculous, told by a nutjob, out of nowhere. It’s not true.

Your parents loved you, you loved them. You were raised by them here in this house, passed down through your family on your ancestral land.

I’ve never met anyone with as long an ancestral family line.

You have roots, how can you… jeez.” He frowned.

“Come on, Lexi, you live in the same house your great-grandparents built with their own hands.”

He looked at Jen, “What are you telling her?”

“I’m telling her that she’s probably not adopted.”

“ Probably? Seriously, Jen?”

She shrugged and then said this, and it chilled me to my core.

“I mean, her trust fund is really odd. Her family wasn’t that rich.

How’d they leave her so much? She doesn’t even have all of it yet, and she’s never had a job.

It’s probably millions of dollars, easy. You and I talked about it, you agreed.”

The world slowed down around me, a rushing sound around my head, inside my head.

I barely heard Cooper saying, “Aw, come on, Jen, that’s not fair — that was when I first met her.

We talked about it, sure, but you know the deal.

Her parents had money, passed down from her grandparents, good investments, you know… ”

But I stopped listening, my dream was playing out, me in a dark corner with light flickering on my cheek from a fire in a hearth, so scared, watching a rough strange man beat a man, a kind man, who cared for me, who I loved, while a woman, who cared for me, begged for his life, and then I was snatched, and carried away, a rough hand over my mouth.

I took a step back, shaking my head.

No no no no no.

In the dream I had been dropped down onto a riverbank and something was thrust into my hands, the man had yelled, ‘Hold it!’

And I looked down.

It was a vessel.

I had held a vessel in my hand.

I shook my head.

No no no no no, I turned around, stumbling. I almost fell down, arms out, lurching down my hallway. It was hard to keep on my feet, my balance was off, my vision obscured, my heart yammering in my chest, my knees weak.

Inside my head, that little girl’s voice, ‘ Where they go? Go back! Take me back!’

‘Och nae, lass, daena let go ? —’

Why couldn’t I remember what happened next?

Where had that little girl gone, where had she ended up?

I shoved out the front door and out onto the porch.

Torin was sitting on a boulder at the end of the driveway.

He turned and saw me, I yelled, “What do you mean I was given over to another household?”

The screen door slammed behind me, Cooper said, “Lexi, let’s come in, let’s talk this all out.”

I stumbled down the steps out onto the grass, walking toward Torin in my sundress and rainboots, yelling, “Answer me, who were my parents, who raised me?”

Torin strode toward me. “Princess, I daena ken who yer parents were. I daena understand how this has happened, but I will make it right. This is my oath tae ye, I will?—”

A gust of wind rose on the lawn. Torin looked up at the sky. “Och nae!”

There was a rumble of thunder. The sky roiled with dark clouds climbing into the sky above us.

Torin yelled, “Princess, go tae the house!” He unsheathed his sword.

But when I turned, four men on horseback, broke from the trees. They were charging up the yard, tearing across my grass. My land shook with the rumble of their hooves. The wind from above whipped at my hair and I was frozen in fear at the sight of the horses.

Cooper yelled, “Lexi, run!” But I wouldn’t make it to the house, they would get me first .

How did I know they wanted me ?

I just knew.

Torin rushed in front of me, trying to protect me from the men charging at us.

Then, over the crest of the two lane road in front of my house, raced four more men on horseback riding in a line.

The hooves of their horses dug into the gravel of the driveway, spraying rocks around as they raced, the men were frightening, intense, and carrying guns.

Torin was trying to block me from all directions.

I clutched his cloak, the wind of the storm rising so much that I was buffeted almost off my feet. I screamed, “Torin!” As a man on one of the horses caught up to me, and grasped my arm trying to wrest me up.

Torin yelled, “Princess, daena let go!”

He swung his sword. One of the men was sliced through his side, a spray of blood, his horse reared.

I stumbled back and fell on my ass.

And then men and horses descended on us as the storm rose, a blast of wind, shots fired but the crack was dampened by the roaring wind.

A man was on me, a horse screamed nearby. I was trying to grasp Torin’s hand, his kilt, his cloak, anything, but it was pressure, wind flattening me, my voice screaming in my ears. Lexi! As pain rose up my legs to my chest and filled my body so that it felt like I was going to be torn to pieces.

And then I blacked out from the pain.