Starling House(79)
Scenes flash through my head, a montage of shaky home videos that never happened: Jasper and me eating dry chicken on a big suburban patio, sitting across the table from a set of blond cousins in name-brand clothes. My picture in the family album, right next to Mom’s. A present under the Christmas tree with my name on the tag in pretty cursive: Opal Delilah Gravely.
So ordinary. So tempting. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted, the list I thought I burned a long time ago: a home, a name, a family. I know there’s a catch, a price—I know nothing is free for people like me—but for a minute I can’t move, can’t breathe, for wanting.
Baine interjects, smoothly, “After all this is wrapped up, of course.”
I pry my teeth apart. “All what?”
Gravely makes a gesture suggesting there are gnats in the room. “This fuss over the Starling property. You’ve heard about the plant expansion? Well, it all depends on a new coalfield opening up. Picture it—real mining in Eden again, for the first time since we buried Big Jack. My surveyors tell me there’s a good seam on the Starling property. We hold the mineral rights—always have, since the eighteen-somethings—but the Starlings won’t budge. Liz here”—he nods at Elizabeth Baine, whose eyelid gives another twitch—“has a reputation for solving this kind of problem.”
Baine looks coolly back at me, and I know if I announced that she was actually investigating a doorway to Hell she would deny it very convincingly.
“So we’d all be grateful,” Gravely concludes, “real grateful, if you could help her out.”
And there’s the price tag. It doesn’t seem like a bad trade, to be honest. I give them Starling House—I let them paw through an old mansion that isn’t mine and never will be, I betray one brave, stupid boy—and in exchange, I get everything.
A home, a name, a family.
The word “family” sets another montage off in my head, except this one isn’t imaginary. I see Bev, jabbing her finger in Constable Mayhew’s face; Charlotte, asking me to come with her; Jasper, pretending to sleep so that I can pretend to sleep. Arthur’s coat neatly folded on the couch. Arthur’s hands tangled in chicory and Queen Anne’s lace. Arthur’s face turning up to mine while the poppies bow around us.
I tilt my head, studying Don Gravely—my great-uncle, I guess. This man who looked away while we lived on ramen noodles for eleven years, who would have kept on looking away if it weren’t for his bank account and his business plans. And why not? We share a little blood, maybe a curse, but he’s never stayed in town long enough to know what it’s like when the mist rises. There’s nothing that ties us together except a name I didn’t even know I had.
It occurs to me, looking at those eyes, chips of cold limestone, that the Starlings probably had it right. That the only name worth having is the one you choose.
Gravely is getting impatient, his jaw working, his fingers tap-tapping. I smile at him, and from the way he flinches I think it must be my real smile, mean and crooked. I lean across the table, shoulders screaming in their sockets. “Go fish, asshole.”
The change comes quick: Gravely’s genial good-old-boy act disappears. His hands go still, upper lip peeling away from his teeth. “God, you’re just like her. Leon spoiled her rotten, gave her every little thing she wanted, and it wasn’t enough.” It was never enough, for Mom. She was all hunger, all want, insatiable. I’ve always hated her for that appetite, just a little, but now I feel a strange sympathy. It turns out I’m hungry, too.
Gravely’s face is turning a blotchy mauve. “She goes and gets herself knocked up—insists on keeping it, refuses to marry the man—shames the Gravely name—” His sentences are fragmenting, cracking under the weight of a twenty-six-year-old grudge. “And then still, after all those years, after everything she did, Leon was going to give it all to her. She didn’t work for it, she didn’t deserve it—I was the one who—”
“Give what to her?” My voice is cool, not loud. There’s no reason it should leave a ringing silence in its wake. Gravely shrivels again, turtle-like, and Baine looks like she’s preventing herself from rolling her eyes only through years of elite training.
Gravely is breathing hard, almost panting. “Doesn’t matter now. I burned the will myself, and your mama drove into the river before she knew what was coming.”
“She knew.” The words taste true. You’ll see, Mom told me. She told Bev she was going to make things right, and I think she meant it. I think she was going to bend that stubborn spine of hers and claim the inheritance her daddy offered, and buy us a better future.
But dreams don’t last long in Eden. The mist rose high, the wheels left the road, and by the time Constable Mayhew bought me that Happy Meal, my future was gone.
Stolen, by this stone-eyed bastard.
A surge of fury puts me on my feet. “You—”
“Enough.” Baine’s voice is cool, a little bored. “The past is over, and you can’t prove anything, can you?”
I open my mouth, then close it. The only evidence I had was my mom’s number written on a dead man’s receipt, her picture in the family photo album. It’s all ashes now, smoke and rumor.
“But let’s talk about the future,” Baine continues. “I think it’s safe to assume the courts would grant Jasper’s guardianship to his uncle, especially given his sister’s . . . behavior.” She cuts a glance at me, handcuffed and panting, reeking of smoke.