Page 28 of Serpent & Saviors

“I was saying there is something you need to know,” she offered solemnly.

“What is it?” I answered, sensing that it was important.

“I always wondered what happened to that girl. Elizabeth and I spoke shortly after Victoria’s mother died. She was distraught, of course, and kept going on and on about how her daughter wasn’t a drug addict.”

“Nan, often times people turn from one vice—”

“I know and while she had suffered with alcohol addiction for a brief period of time during Victoria’s younger years, she’d been clean and sober going on six years. Not only that, but her mother was taking her father back to court for custody. She was counting on that to play to her advantage. It never made sense to Elizabeth.”

The story was intriguing. Maybe we should look deeper into the suicide. I made a mental note to call Nik later.

“I’ve tried to ask little of you over the years,” Nan stated, tears filling her eyes.

My heart caught in my throat because not only did I know what she was going to ask, I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it.

“Save her,” she said fiercely.

I pulled my grandmother into my arms and held her. “Nan, it’s not that easy. She has to want it and it’s complicated by the fact they have a son together.”

She pulled back sharply, grasping my shirt. “That makes it more imperative.”

“I’m trying. She’s so closed up. I know he’s manipulating her, holding their son over her head, but it’s as if he has something else on her. I can’t get her to trust me.” I sighed, feeling powerless.

Maybe if you were focused less on fucking her, you would have that trust by now, Counselor.

I chastised myself with a hundred and one different thoughts.

“Why don’t you check in on her? I’m going to inquire about dinner.” Nan patted my hand before walking away.

After shooting a message to Nik to investigate further into the overdose situation, I took a deep breath. I walked back toward the drawing room. My footsteps echoed softly on the hardwood floor.

Victoria was nowhere to be found. Panic hit, and then I noticed her sandals sitting near the piano bench. Where could she have gone? I called her name and got no response. A small sob caught my attention, and I knelt down.

Victoria was laying under the piano. I called her name once more, and she still didn’t respond. I wiggled under the piano and joined her. Lying beside her, I settled in and stared at the underside. Small fingers delicately traced something scrawled there decades ago.

“It’s crazy. If you had asked me earlier when I met my grandmother for the first time, I would have told you when I was twelve. But look,” Victoria said, her voice filled with amazement. She gestured to the markings.

In a very distinct, childish scrawl was the name Tori. I tried to imagine a small version of the woman next to me defacing her grandmother’s prized piano.

I let the name roll off my tongue. “Tori, huh?”

She turned her head, and her eyes lit up. “My mother and grandmother called me that.”

“What is it with nicknames? Nan calls me Andy. She’s the only one I allow to do so,” I said affectionately.

Victoria’s eyes shone with love. “Once I saw it, everything came back to me. I remember my mother and grandmother arguing. No, not about me carving my name here.” She smiled. “I think it was about my father. Funny how I just recalled that.”

“Sometimes our brains create gaps or what I like to call pauses. It’s a way to protect itself. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“I don’t actually remember if I carved it that day or another time. But it’s absolutely my handwriting. Well, it was. It’s much more refined now.”

“Is it?” I teased as her cheeks turned red.

“It would be if I wrote. I spent two long, hard years perfecting my penmanship.”

“Oh, did you get your knuckles whacked by the nuns, too?”

Her face changed immediately, and she looked away.