Chapter Forty-Seven

Chills ran along my spine and I couldn't stop pacing as the train neared the station. I felt claustrophobic every mile closer I came to my enclosure. My teeth sunk into my bottom lip and my heart hammered tirelessly in my chest the moment our destination was announced. Suddenly, my knees became shaky and I sank into my seat and stared out the window.

The journey back to where I had escaped from had been very little like the venture that drove me from its grips. Instead of being blissfully out of it, I'd been hyper aware of every moment that the entrapment grew closer. And despite having the safe anchor of Vlad at a distance—a reason for going back—it still filled me with a quiet dread as the train pulled into the station.

All the sayings about facing your fears making everything smaller... they're true.

When I stopped off the train, no one looked me at me strangely. No one even seemed to recognize me. As I passed through the station and made my way out to the main road, it never occurred to anyone to give me a second glance. I was just another person. Just another face.

Until I began walking to the lawyer's office.

It felt like I'd thought too soon as I made my way across the deserted street and fell into a rhythm as old as time. Somehow it was as if my body knew how to instantly adjust. And though I hadn't walked such a distance in years, my legs eased right back into their old pace to where I was gliding effortlessly through town.mwhich did not go unnoticed or without being talked about.

Only a mile from the train station, I was at the lawyer's office within fifteen minutes.

Mr. Frye was a wizened old man who looked as if he could join Amelia any day. Of course, he was also a wise old man and all of the preparations for Amelia's departure had already been made. There was only one thing he had to detain me for: her will.

My surprise was unequaled when I was informed that she left me everything. Truly, though I was her last living relation, I hadn't thought that she would bestow anything on me. After a separation of nine years—which must have only added to the image of us gratefulness I already suffered from in her eyes—it hardly seemed likely that her last hours would allow for her to be disposed towards generosity to me. Yet, it was all mine from the train tracks to the ravine and every rock and wildflower in between.

I found no comfort in it. No sense of belonging. Not an ounce of rightness. There wasn't even a pinch of gratitude in me for the property. Rather, it felt like the last shackle she could possibly place on me. The lock was in place and the key was a long way off.

When I left Mr. Frye's office, it was in a heavy-minded stupor. I wandered with no real sense of where I was going and no true intentions on going anywhere. Which meant I should hardly have been surprised when I shook off a little of my thoughts and realized that I was standing at the train tracks. Already I had walked so far and thought nothing of it. And though I'd already mentally determined on not returning to that house until the moment I absolutely had to, my body's old habits were impossible to break. There was just enough consciousness for my surprise before I inevitably crossed the metal rails and continued on my journey.

It amazed me to realize that my path was still there.

I didn't sleep that night. How could I? Instead, I wandered in and around the little shack as the night proceeded. For some reason, I didn't touch a thing. It felt wrong to do so. Disrespectful. Amelia had a place for everything and everything was in its place. There was nothing left of me in that place.

Realizing that, I ran all the way to the edge of the ravine. There I dropped to my knees and cried in ecstatic relief. My fears, seemingly so justified by my previous treatment in that house, had fallen back to the earth, no more than dust lingering on my mind. If there had been something left of myself there, I don't know how that would have affected my mind. But the fact that nothing remained... it felt as if I was free. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel the need to hurl myself over the edge just to escape everything. And I could walk away without even wondering what it would be like to fall.

When I returned, I faced it all. And it all didn't matter anymore.

I laughed and sobbed in elation and release. It was over now. All over.

My eyes were red but without swelling the following morning when I entered the funeral home. Amelia had never been one for religion or people, so I was expecting a fairly quick ceremony with little to trouble my suddenly euphoric brain. Of course, it would be in those last moments that she was certain to test the endurance of my patience.

Amelia's funeral was held on a bright, joyous day beneath a brilliant blue sky. Beside the priest, I stood on the grassy lawn of the cemetery staring at the closed casket. From the corner of my eye, I watched as a flock of vehicles continued to pull in and park. It shocked me to see so many people whom I'd never once had occasion to talk to—much less anyone who might appear to know Amelia. I was less surprised to see that most of them were withered, gnarled old people leaning on the arms of one reluctant child or another. When at last it seemed everyone had arrived, I turned my attention to the priest.

That's when I felt my insides just vanish. I was hollow. Stunned.

Alec.

My breath caught in my chest and I couldn't believe how hard it was seeing him again. How difficult it was to stand there, so close to him, and be unable to speak. Not that I was capable of it. From the moment I spotted him, my throat had become parched. Dry as desert sand.

A smile pulled at my lips as I watched a breeze blow up his hat, revealing his brown hair beneath it. The white tuxedo he wore was quite out of place at a funeral. Just as he had promised Amelia nearly eleven years ago.

I admit, with him standing there, I could barely pay attention at all to the priest as he spoke over Amelia's grave. When others were called upon to give testimonies as to her character, I could understand only enough to make me shake my head knowingly.

Then came the other part of that promise.

Stepping forward, Alec cleared his throat and looked around in a haughty manner. Never once did his eyes meet mine. Appearing just as I remembered him, he smiled brilliantly at everyone, causing many angry scowls to be cast his way.

"When I was but a young teenager, I was thrown very much in the way of Amelia Winthrope through a very treasured friendship with his great-nephew, Oliver Hart," he began.

Eyes flickered to me and I did my best to keep my features impassive. Alec's eyes lit with remember mischief. "It felt as if I had hurled myself in front of an express train."

Half-heard growls of protestation were uttered and I found myself staring down any would-be dissident. If I could sit through their protestations, they could certainly hear Alec's words. They would be nothing but embellished truth. From both our hearts.

"Amelia Winthrope was a woman who knew what she wanted—and didn't want—from life. She asked for little, but expected perfection when she did. With the most astounding direction, she kept everything around her in a firm, unyielding grasp.

"I saw all of this up close and personal in the jealous, greedy way in which she kept Oliver to herself. For there were few who could truly love Amelia Winthrope. She made that exceedingly difficult in her time on earth, I am sure. And it astounds more than myself in the way Oliver cared for her in the amount of time he remained in Amelia's custody. I cannot say that I would have been so kind.

"Amelia was bitter. Angry. Pessimistic and irritable. And all the while in one of her better moods, I've personally learned. Do I know what made her this way? No. Do I care? Not at all. She is and always will be the most fearsome woman in my life." Alec paused, taking a look around at all the unfriendly faces. And, for the briefest second, he met my eyes.

It was then that I noticed how false his bravado was. The smile and haughtier were for show. Just like the tuxedo. Though he'd made this promise with every intention of enjoying it, I could see now that he found no real pleasure in this task. Even after all the years apart, he was still as easy for me to read as if I'd seen him only the day before.

Alec looked directly at me, then, and announced, "but I can't say that I regret it. Without such a figure in my life, I'm not sure what path these past years would have taken. Yet, because of what I learned in my contact with her, I became a better man than ever the child I was.

"Amelia taught me what it was to be a family. What it truly meant to never turn your back on another person. She taught me to do what needed to be done, no matter the cost to myself. And she taught me... she taught me that you can't cling to everything you fear to lose. It's the surest way of driving it away from you forever."