Reckoning (5 page)

I plant another kiss on her head before placing her gently back in the sun. Grabbing a snack bag of Doritos from the cupboard, I head to the back porch. I can see our neighbor, Mr. Davich, tending to his prize roses.

“Hi, Mr. Davich,” I call, raising my hand in greeting.

He looks up in surprise and smiles, his watery blue eyes squinting beneath the brim of his tattered fishing hat. Henry Davich has lived in the same house for almost fifty years. And ever since I’ve known him, he’s been alone. His wife passed away the year before we moved in, and his four children are scattered across the country. With the exception of a granddaughter, who grudgingly stops by once a month to see if he’s still alive, he rarely has visitors. I know he’s lonely, so I try to spend as much time with him as I can. He’s helped me a lot over the years, even acting as my math tutor in the sixth grade when the concept of fractions had totally eluded me. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably still be sitting in Miss Keppel’s fourth period math class, banging my head against the desk, wishing for a speedy death.

“Hi there, Kat,” he answers, his voice quivering with age. “Beautiful day, isn’t it? School must be nearly done. I’ll bet you’re excited.”

“I can’t wait! It’s been a long year.”

“I’m sure you did well.”

“Thanks. I think I did OK. Your roses look great,” I add, knowing how much it pleases him to hear them complimented.

“Oh, yes, yes. They’re going to put on quite the show this year.” He points to a fat pink bud. “These were the missus favorites, you know.”

I watch a purple tinged orb of light float across the yard. It stops, hovering near his head. A soft voice pushes its way into my thoughts. Smiling, I don’t resist it. “Mrs. Davich loves…” I stop, correcting myself. “I’m sure Mrs. Davich would have loved them.”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “Yes, she would have.” He looks across the yard. “But she wouldn’t care for those weeds springing up over there.” He laughs and heads to the far corner.

“Probably not,” I agree. “Talk to you later!”

I step down to the flagstone patio and take a seat in one of the wicker club chairs. Munching distractedly on the Doritos, I stare at the diamond-like patterns in the bark of an ash tree next to the garage. A gentle breeze blows through the yard, making the leaves quiver and shake. I watch them, intrigued by the play of light and shadow across their emerald surface. The breeze shifts, lifting my bangs from my forehead. Suddenly tired, I lay my head back, gazing through the leaves into the cerulean sky.

“
Katriona.
”

It comes again. Whispering across the wind. Emanating from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Clenching my jaw, I tell myself to ignore it. Grabbing another chip, I chew loudly, humming Beethoven’s Fifth.

I don’t want to admit it, but the voice makes me nervous. I can’t make sense of it. I’ve heard a lot of different words and messages over the years, but I’ve never heard my name called before. And combined with the incident this morning, it puts me on edge.

Part of me wants to run inside the house and pretend I never heard it. But another part wants to listen. To find out more. I slowly lay aside the chips and sit quietly, wondering if it will happen again. But all I can hear is the gentle sigh of the wind along with a distant car horn.

The back of my neck prickles and I sit up straighter. A feeling of uneasiness creeps over me.

Like I’m being watched.

I peer through the cracks in the fence. I see Mr. Davich, crouched low, pulling dandelions. My eyes sweep across the yard to the opposite side and the house beyond. The house with the freshly mown grass. I gaze at it, my fingers unconsciously curling into a fist. My stomach tightens. I shake my head. Despite my growing uneasiness, I know the house is empty.

The wind rustles the leaves of the trees. Birds call to one another within the branches. It’s a beautiful afternoon. I should be calm and peaceful. But the uneasy feeling won’t leave me.

With relief I hear the sound of my mom making her way up the basement stairs. She messed up her knee last winter in a skiing accident, and, despite months of rehab, going up and down stairs is still a slow process. She steps out to the patio, planting a kiss on my head before taking a seat beside me.

“How was school, sweetheart?” she asks, dropping a handful of papers on the table. She sits back, tucking her blond hair behind her ears.

“Fine,” I say absently, my eyes still darting nervously around the yard. “How’s Dad?”

“He’s good. He’ll be home Friday.”

“You’re home early for a change.”

“They didn’t need me anymore today, so I thought I’d get home and try to get caught up on things here. Any homework?”

“Not really. Just some studying for our English final.”

“That’s good. Hey, I like your hair like that.”

“Hmm?” I ask in confusion, before remembering that I had pulled it back into a ponytail earlier in the afternoon. As usual, the small elastic band has worked its way down from the back of my head to the nape of my neck, releasing several strands that now hang loosely around my face.

“It’s pretty,” she adds. “It really shows off your cheekbones.”

“Yeah, right,” I say sarcastically. “What cheekbones?” The traces of baby fat that insist on clinging to my cheeks drive me crazy.

My mom laughs softly. “Oh, they’re there. In another year, you’ll be a knockout.” She winks and stretches her legs into the sunlight.

I ignore the comment, not interested in talking about my cheekbones. Or lack thereof. “What do you know about my namesake?” I ask, the thought suddenly appearing with a burning intensity in my head.

She turns to me in surprise. “Great granny Katriona?”

I nod, wondering what had made me ask the question. Maybe it has something to do with my name whispering through the trees. The name I share with my great-great grandmother. It suddenly strikes me that don’t know anything about her. The only thing my mom has told me is that I look a lot like her: Same eyes, same hair, same complexion. At least as far as my mom can remember. She only met her once when she was eleven, but she said she was the most striking woman she had ever seen. I suppose I should feel complimented, but I really don’t think there’s anything striking about me.

My mom clears her throat and says, “I never really knew her. I only met her once when I was pretty young. And she died a few years after that. So I guess I was lucky I got to meet her when I did.”

“She lived in Scotland, right?”

Mom nods. “We took a trip there one summer. My mom and dad and me. Rediscovering our heritage, that sort of thing.” She pauses, and I wait patiently for her to continue. “We saw more castles and battlefield sites than I thought existed. It was really kind of boring. But I guess it was fun, too.”

“And Katriona?” I prod.

“Great granny Katriona,” she says thoughtfully, gazing into the distance. “Wow. I haven’t thought about her in years. She was…remarkable. That’s the only word I can think of to describe her. I’m not sure how old she was, but at the time I thought she was ancient.” She turns to me and smiles. “You know – anybody over forty must be near death, right?”

I roll my eyes and gesture for her to continue.

“Anyway, she was probably in her eighties, and she was just a really vibrant woman. There was, I don’t know…an
energy
about her. Like there was nothing that could slow her down. And she still had the most amazing eyes. Just like yours. I’ll never forget that. When she looked at you, it was almost like she knew your thoughts.” She shrugs one shoulder.

“What was she like?”

“I never really knew a lot about her. She hadn’t had an easy life. But I do know there was something very different about her.”

“Like what?”

My mom licks her lips, searching for the right words. “I don’t know if I can explain it. You kind of had to be there. She was this really old woman living on her own in a tiny, two room cottage in the middle of nowhere. And I
do
mean the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t a neighbor for miles. And she wore these long dresses. Like you see in old pictures. But people didn’t dress like that anymore. At least no one I’d ever seen. I remember thinking it was really weird.”

A picture starts to form in my head of a stooped old woman, long skirts swirling about her ankles, stirring a kettle over the fire.

My mom shifts position, rubbing her knee. “The thing I remember the most is how hard it was to find her. I don’t think my mom was even sure she was still alive. We had a general idea of where she lived, somewhere outside of Mallaig in the Highlands. So we asked around in the town, trying to get directions, but nobody seemed to know for sure. We finally came across an old woman in this little teashop that remembered her. It was funny. But
weird
funny, you know? Like she was suspicious of us. She gave us a really odd look, but told us what roads to take, where to turn. Then, to make it even weirder, she looked at all three of us and said, ‘God be with you’. Then left the shop. Just like that. My dad was pretty fed up by then and mumbled something about it all being a waste of time. But my mom talked him into going. She said that if we didn’t find her, we’d just forget about it, and head back to Glasgow. It took forever. We must have gotten lost three or four times and had to keep backtracking to the main road. But we finally figured it out and eventually pulled up to this tiny little cottage. It was one of those places that are now considered so picturesque and romantic. You know, photos in magazines and travel brochures. But back then, it wasn’t. And definitely not when your great-great-grandmother lived there. No electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing. I don’t know how she managed, all those years by herself.” She pauses, brushing a strand of highlighted hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear. “She was still a beautiful woman. Even in her eighties. Her hair was the same color as yours, but kind of curly. And there was hardly any gray in it. But it was her skin that was really remarkable. She had a few wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead, but that was it. For as old as she was, it was kind of…I don’t know, unnatural, I guess. Or it was to me anyway.”

“Maybe she just had really good genes,” I say, my vision of her transforming, changing to an old, but beautiful woman, her hair falling in red curls down her back, a warm woolen cloak around her strong shoulders as she walks along well-worn paths.

“Maybe so,” Mom says. “Let’s hope you and I can be so lucky, huh?”

I smile and nod. “But she didn’t always live there, right?” I ask, piecing together the small bits and pieces of information I knew.

“No. I think she moved there when she was about twenty-five. She used to live in the town with her husband and child. It was a nice place. It was still there when we visited.” Mom pauses, sucking in her lower lip. “That was an odd story.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know all the details. I don’t think anyone in the family did. It was like some ancient, dark secret or something. But from what I’ve learned, Katriona’s husband died. How or why, I don’t know. But not long after, the townspeople claimed she was a witch and they forced her out, took her child from her. With nowhere else to go, she went deep up into the hills.”

“That’s horrible!” I exclaim, suddenly feeling as though I’m the one who’s been betrayed. “Why did they say she was a witch?” I wonder why my mom has never told me any of this before.

“I have no idea. My grandmother never talked about it, and if my mom knew, she never told me.”

“But to be forced out of your home…to leave your child…how could such a thing happen?”

“You have to remember, Kat, that it was a very different time. People had different ideas about that sort of thing, especially in the highlands of Scotland.”

“But it’s just so wrong!”

“I agree, but that was the way things were then. Keep in mind, we’re viewing this from a very modern perspective.”

I look at my mom, wondering why this doesn’t outrage her as much as it does me. This is her family we’re talking about. Her great-grandmother who had been so unfairly persecuted. I try to put aside my anger and focus my thoughts. “Did your grandmother ever see her mother – Katriona – again?”

“I don’t think so. Katriona’s daughter, Anna, was taken to live with an aunt and uncle in Glasgow. Not too long after, they moved to London and a few years after that, they emigrated to the United States.”

“And she never tried to see her mother or find out what happened to her?”

“I don’t think so. Or, if she did, it was never talked about.”

“Well, what about Katriona?” I ask. “Did she ever try to find Anna?”

“I honestly don’t know, Kat. It’s possible, I suppose. But she may not have had any way of finding her, or if she did, she may have thought it was best just to leave her be.”

I sit back in the chair, full of frustration and anger at what my great-great-grandmother must have gone through. Newly widowed and friendless, her only child taken from her, forced to live in some remote cottage for the rest of her life. All because of some stupid, superstitious belief.

“When did all this happen?” I ask. I feel as though I’ve been hit with devastating news. News my brain is having difficulty processing.

Mom raises her eyebrows and purses her lips. “It must have been…” She exhales slowly. “Sometime in the late 1800’s.”

More like the 1600’s
, I think.

“But there is one more piece to the story,” Mom continues, snapping me back to attention.

“What?”

“There was a story within the family at one time that Katriona was pregnant when she was exiled from the town.”

“Really? Was she?”

“I don’t know. It was just one of those old family tales. More than likely, it was made up sometime through the years to add more drama and mystery.”

“But what if it wasn’t? What if she really was pregnant? What happened to the child?”

Mom shrugs. “She may have miscarried. It could have died in infancy, any number of things. But I really don’t think there was any truth to it. But the funny thing is, every generation since has had one daughter. And no other children. First your great grandmother, then your grandma, then me.” She laughs. “Maybe you’ll be the one to break the cycle.”