“You mentioned,” Hulda spoke quieter, “wanting to talk to me about something?”
The earth shifted beneath his feet, until the outer wall of the Quincy Market was down, with gravity yanking him toward it.
Mullan, the name read. Merritt moved his thumb. Ebba C. Mullan.
His pulse quickened until his rapid heartbeat was the only sound inside his skull. He exhaled shakily, and suddenly he was eighteen years old again, standing in the middle of the street after a heavy rain with nowhere to go. No family to take him in, no fiancée to soothe his hurt, no child to take his name, no promises left to keep—
“Can’t be,” he breathed, taking in the entirety of the poster pasted to the wall of the market. Trying to remember how to read. To think. It advertised a concert in Manchester, Pennsylvania, which would pay tribute to the great German musicians. Small print on the bottom third of the page listed the members of the orchestra. Fate had glued his hand right to her name: Ebba C. Mullan, flutist.
Ebba Caroline Mullan, his Ebba, had played the flute. She’d been devoted to it. At that moment, he could hear it ringing through his memories: her playing in the front room while he read a book, chiding him for not listening—
“Merritt?” Hulda asked from somewhere very far away.
One of the scars crisscrossing his heart began to bleed. He’d never found out what had become of her. Only that she hadn’t wanted him, just as his father hadn’t wanted him. He’d never gotten any closure, even from her family—
“Merritt?”
He forced air into his lungs. Tried to anchor himself to reality. “Ebba,” he wheezed. He pointed to the name. “This is . . . Ebba.”
Hulda pushed up her glasses. He tried so hard to focus on her, but something had ruptured in his mind. Something he had locked and buried and poured shovelful after shovelful of dirt onto. Something he had shot up dummy after straw dummy to mask, to hide.
“Who is Ebba?” she asked.
It spread like a sickness, seeping into his arteries, veins, capillaries. “The one . . . the reason my father . . .”—he swallowed—“。 . . disowned me.”
Another something ruptured at the thought of his father, but he shoved it down with a hard swallow.
And Ebba . . . She’d been all he’d had left until she wasn’t. She’d vanished as swiftly as the snapping of two fingers. Shattered his world in an instant and left him to pick up the splintered pieces. He still didn’t know why. That question plagued him more than anything else, even the heartbreak. He’d stepped up, ready to make it right, to take her to the nearest church and work two, three jobs if needed to provide for their family. She’d accepted what he had to offer. Until she vanished. No letter. No word. No trace.
And here she was. In Manchester.
His mind yawned and gaped, stretching the wound wider, until it bled. He was over it. He’d been so good at pretending it didn’t affect him—
The performance was tomorrow night. If he left now, booked a hotel, got up when the kinetic tram got running . . . yes, he could make it, if the show wasn’t sold out. He didn’t care how much the ticket cost. He could finally know. He could finally glue together at least a few of these broken pieces . . .
Hulda’s gloved fingers brushed his wrist. “You look sick.”
He shook his head. “I-I’m fine.” Stepping back from the poster, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m fine.” The lie came so easily, for he’d spent the last thirteen years practicing it. “I . . .” I need to talk to you. But he was unraveling. He couldn’t announce his intentions to Hulda when he was unraveling. She wouldn’t want him if he was unraveling, just as Ebba hadn’t wanted him—
He cleared his throat. Desperately tried again for an anchor. “I . . . I’ll see you back to the boat. Wait, no.” He didn’t want Hulda traveling home on her own in the dark, not with the attack so recent. Squeezing his eyes shut, he did some silent calculations. Yes, he could manage. Return her to the island and sail back here. “We need to head back now. I need to—” Flustered, he gestured to the poster. “I need to do this.”
Hulda, stiff, glanced between him and the poster. “But it’s in Manchester.”
“I know. I know.” He rubbed his eyes. “But I have to . . . I have to see her. I have to know.” He could take Hulda with him, but then she’d see all his broken pieces. She’d see the broken things pushing out of the darkness, slicing him open, turning him to mulch—