Once she triple-checked the boxes in the section inscribed with the year of the marriage, she made herself triple-check the year before it. Then another one before that.
My parents’ marriage was illegal.
She tried not to think, tried to focus on what she had to do. Simply knowing in her gut wasn’t enough. Pru knew she needed evidence.
Heart sinking, she walked the length of the island to the Fowler mansion, thoughts leapfrogging each other in her head.
The evening settled around her shoulders as a shawl, and Pru felt like a thief. Well, when all was said and done, she was one. She didn’t bother knocking, the spare key in her hand burning her skin. The town’s council was in session, and her father was spending more and more time at the town hall anyway, the latest debacle with Paloma Allende and the permits for the works on Viridescent Cliff and Astronomy Resort having him on the ropes.
The hallways and the dining rooms were all a blur until she burst through the door of the small study and looked into the dark brown eyes of the portrait.
The last pieces of the complex, tainted puzzle clicked into place loudly, making her flinch. She felt tears fall freely down her cheeks and tried to wipe them away. It wasn’t a time for them. And she shouldn’t cry for any of these people anyway. They made their beds. The only one who stepped into the eye of the storm guileless and honest was Rhiannon, and she had been the one to drink from the poisoned chalice for everyone.
Pru took the portrait down, refusing to look at it again. She wrapped it in papers from her father’s desk, caring very little what she was ruining or about concealing her presence in the mansion. He’d know she was here anyway. She stuffed the small canvas under her cardigan.
For a brief moment she stopped in her mother’s bedroom and glanced at the Belcourt statues holding such prominent place. The reasons he had kept them were now glaringly obvious, cold against her body despite the clothing. Had he loved Margaux? Maybe. A French woman of dubious reputation would’ve certainly caused a lot of issues for him. Pru tried to remember anything loving about her grandfather, the one who was mayor before her father, and couldn’t. The older Fowler was…not a kind man.
Now, her mother was another story. From an influential and rich family, she’d have gotten Jedidiah the blessing he likely sought. So, was it his guilt? Is that why Margaux was everywhere in this house? Was this his penance? Pru couldn’t quite fathom any of these scenarios.
Still, Pru saw the room with new eyes. Her father kept so few of her mother’s things, practically nothing, the space having been stripped of the wallpaper that she had picked years ago, yet the Belcourts remained. They didn’t fit—not in her mind, and not in the room. Heck, not even in the mansion. The Fowler home was all Victorian elegance, and the Belcourts were sharp edges of the modernity her father had so often railed against.
As she made her way to the ground floor again, she passed by the perpetually closed door of the Fowler library and something stilled her steps, forcing her to stop in front of it. It was unlocked, and as she flipped the light on, she almost gagged at the dust and musty air surrounding her. Books were stacked up to the very ceiling, papers were strewn all over the floor. The chaos and mess were overwhelming.
Pru was never allowed to be in here. Now the space seemed truly fascinating despite the wreckage. She was always told to stay out of the library and that it was for her own good. It was full of easily breakable things, important papers, books that were hundreds of years old. Nothing a child could handle carefully. Not a place for her.
Now looking at the stacked shelves and objects lying all around her, Pru felt truly deprived. And no, maybe as a kid she’d not been able to understand their value, but for a curious and precocious teen? A young woman discovering her family’s heritage? All of this was priceless. Why had her father hidden it?
And speaking of heritage. High on the shelves behind a massive desk were several immense tomes with inscriptions on their backs. Most of them held the Fowler seal, but a few werenot familiar to her. She climbed the small library ladder and pulled the first one out. To her surprise, it carried a crow on the heavy leather cover, and Pru’s breath caught.
Is this…? Could it be…?
She flipped it open, and as dust rose and settled in her hands, the name stood stark against the yellowing paper.
Crowhart.
Pru almost dropped the book. Was this the Crowhart Family Bible? She turned the first page and an arresting face looked at her with eyes of green tempest, their expression intense and all-seeing. The words under the portrait in sharp relief against the aging paper. Gwendolyn Abigail Crowhart.
Why did father have this?
Pru looked back up to the shelf, the tomes’ spines branded with other seals, some kinds of birds she couldn’t quite place.
What is this?
The sound of the front door got Pru to freeze. Her father had returned, the town hall meeting must’ve ended. Darn it, she lost track of time.
Tucking the Crowhart tome under her arm, Pru grabbed the biggest Fowler Bible and the one with the birds she couldn’t identify and made for the back door.
As she ran through the garden, her father’s voice caught her before the gate did, smacking her in the chest even as the wrought iron slammed her in the face, throwing her onto her back, the books falling on top of her like bricks of cement weighing down a drowning man.
She heard the steps behind her and scrambled up, her body acting mostly on autopilot, an entity possessed.
Get up, get the books, get the painting, get out.
And then… As never before, her thoughts materialized, the power in her hands emerging like wind, like a hurricane tearing the centuries-old lock to little bits. The iron of the hingesmoaned under her magic, and she watched both fascinated and terrified as it slowly drew open.
“Prudence Ophelia!”
Her father’s voice was close now, and that note of recognition that Pru despised—because as always it made her feel seen in ways she didn’t want to contemplate—was back. With her magic helping her, Pru threw her entire body into pushing the heavy garden gate, throwing it open, seeing the path into town gape in front of her, illuminated by the beam of the Dragon Eye lighthouse.
