The Tale of Halcyon Crane (8 page)

“Of course,” I told him. “I don’t have any idea what she might have left to me, but it will be nice to have some token of who she was.”

He smiled sadly, picked up a sheet of paper that had been sitting on his desk, face down, this whole time—the will, I assumed—and said, “I’ll just read this aloud.”

I braced myself for what I was about to hear.

“ ‘I, Madlyn Crane, being of sound mind and body, do hereby leave all my worldly goods to my daughter, Halcyon Crane, also known as Hallie James.’ “

I gasped.

“ ‘I do have one stipulation, however. The house is not to be sold. Hallie, you are a fourth-generation islander. You were born in that house. Your great-grandfather built it and he would want it to stay in the family as much as I do. Come and go as you wish, use my money to maintain it, but do not sell it. Raise your family here as I intended to raise mine.’ “

He stopped. “There’s a bit more, but it’s just legal stuff. We changed her will almost immediately after she found out you were alive. She had planned to divide her estate to endow several arts foundations, but the fact of your existence changed her mind about that. Madlyn was a very family-oriented woman.”

I was silent for a moment. “I can’t believe she left everything to me.”

“Of course you’re shocked. This is so unexpected. You have just inherited a fortune from a woman you didn’t even know.”

“What do you mean, a fortune?”

“Madlyn was a wealthy woman,” he said. “Her death has quite literally changed your life.”

He handed me a stack of bank statements, investment reports, and other financial documents I didn’t recognize. I looked through them, dumbly, not really knowing what I was seeing. But I do know one thing: There were a lot of zeroes. Madlyn Crane was worth millions. And now, unbelievably, so was I.

My mind was spinning. It raced from the goodbye letter I’d send to my boss, to finally being able to pay off all my creditors, to taking that trip back to Europe I’d always dreamed of. I had never in my life been financially secure, and now, in an instant, I was
wealthy
. After a moment, though, I felt ashamed. “I wish I could trade all that money for the childhood I was supposed to have had here.”

William’s eyes met mine. He gave me a slight smile and shrugged.

“What do I do now?” I asked him.

“You have a house and a couple of dogs waiting for you.”

The enormity of that statement had not yet hit me. A house? Dogs? It didn’t feel real. But then again, nothing had, from the moment I read Madlyn’s letter.

“I’ve got the keys right here,” he continued. “I thought you’d probably want to head out there after you heard they were yours.” He stood up and reached for a brown leather jacket hanging on the coat rack in the corner. “I’ll take you, if you’d like.”

“Really? Do you have the time? I mean, what about your other clients?”

He looked around the empty room. “Everyone here can just wait until we get back.” He laughed and then explained that his business, like everyone else’s, slowed to a crawl when the seasonal residents packed up and went home.

“I’ve always meant to go south for the winter like so many people here do, my parents included,” he said, pulling on his jacket, “but I never quite manage to do it. There’s something about this island in winter that intrigues me. I love the solitude. It’s like the whole place exists just for me.”

“I’ve been feeling exactly the same way,” I told him. “Like I’ve walked onto my own deserted movie set.”

“You get it, then.”

I nodded. But I didn’t get it, not really. To me, the emptiness was more than a little unsettling, as if I were wandering alone in a graveyard. I felt it encircle me as we walked out the door and into the wind. The scent of rain was hanging in the air.

“My car’s out back,” he said, leading me around the building.

Car? As we rounded the corner, I saw what he meant. An enormous white horse—the kind of animal that I imagined had pulled fire trucks in the past—stood tied to a railing. Behind it stood a contraption that could only be described as a buggy. It had two wheels, a seat designed for two, and a canopy over the top. Looking up at the heavy gray sky, I wished for a real car—or at least an enclosed carriage like Henry’s.

“This is Tinkerbelle,” he said to me, reaching up to scratch the horse’s nose.

It struck me funny, such a dainty name for such a massive, muscular horse. “I had a very tiny cat named Tinker-belle once,” I teased him. “It suited
her
.”

He laughed, held out his hand to help me into the vehicle, and glanced upward at the rain clouds. “I hope we make it before the downpour.”

I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance and hoped so, too. “How far do we have to go?”

“Only a couple of miles.” He untied the horse, hopped into the driver’s seat, took the reins, and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Let’s go, Belle.”

And we were off. At a snail’s pace. Belle was in no hurry to deliver me to my past and seemed unconcerned about the impending rain. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get to the house quickly enough. “You know, I could run faster than this,” I said, giving William a sidelong glance.

“You’re free to lope ahead of the buggy any time the mood hits you. But don’t lag behind. It can get quite unpleasant in back of a horse.”

I laughed. “Hey, you must have a whole staff of people who do nothing but clean up after horses. I haven’t seen any—evidence—the whole time I’ve been here.”

“We do indeed,” he said. “It’s the most glamorous job on the island. We usually save it for the spoiled children of wealthy seasonal residents.”

I was grateful for the bit of levity. As we got closer and closer to the house, the reality of my past life here was looming larger. I felt almost suffocated by it, but somehow the sound of Belle’s hooves on the cobblestones, along with
the swaying of the buggy, had a calming, almost hypnotizing effect. It was the heartbeat of this place.

“I love that sound,” I murmured, referring to the hoof-beats. “It’s a sound from the past, isn’t it? Our ancestors heard it constantly as part of their daily lives, but now it’s almost nonexistent in our world.”

“It’s funny you picked up on that. I always imagine what it might’ve been like in New York or Chicago a century ago: no cars, people coming and going in carriages, business deliveries being made by horse-drawn wagons. Hoofbeats everywhere. That sound was the constant din of traffic back then. They probably didn’t even hear it or register it, because it was always there, every time they went out in the street. We’ve replaced it with engines and motors.”

“And radios.”

“And most recently the constant chatter of people on cell phones. That’s my pet peeve, by the way, the privilege of listening to somebody else’s conversation.”

“I know. I can’t stand it.”

“Another reason to love the island,” William said. “No cell service.”

I snuck a glance at his ring finger—empty. Why? He was an eligible, presumably well-off lawyer. You’d think he’d have to beat women off with a stick. Living in Seattle, he certainly would have.

“So, William—” I began.

He interrupted. “Call me Will. Everybody else does.”

“Will.” I smiled, forgetting what I had intended to say. We rode in silence for a while, the swaying of the buggy and Belle’s hoofbeats calming me. My eyelids felt heavy. For the
first time that day, the adrenaline that had been stirred up the night before seemed to dissipate, leaving my body. Tired from too little sleep, I might have nodded off if a rumble of thunder hadn’t pealed through the sky.

“We’re almost there,” Will said to me. “We’ll make it before the rain starts. Madlyn lives just up the hill on the cliff.” And then, quietly: “Lived.”

It occurred to me for the first time that he was grieving for her, too. “Did you know her well?”

“Quite well, actually.” He sighed. “Not only was I her lawyer, Madlyn and my mother were the best of friends. They grew up together.”

Suddenly, it clicked. How could I have been such an idiot? The ease I felt with this man, roughly my age, whose mother and mine had known each other so well . . .

“Will.” I looked deeply at him, trying to spark any hint of memory. “Did we know each other, before?”

He grinned broadly but stared straight ahead. “I was wondering if you’d remember.”

“We were friends?”

“We played together all the time when we were kids. I practically lived at your house.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was five years old when my father took me away from this place—still a child, yes, but plenty old enough to remember a friend, a mother, a home. But a huge expanse of nothingness existed in my brain where those memories should’ve been. I felt empty, my entire childhood covered by a dark shroud. Who or what had draped it there?

“I don’t remember anything, not one thing,” I said, shaking
my head. “It’s crazy. The only memories I have of my childhood involve me and my father in our little town north of Seattle, just the two of us. Why can’t I remember this place? My mother? You? It’s not like I was a baby when—”

My words evaporated in the air. We had turned into the driveway of the house where I was born, just as fat raindrops began to fall. I could swear I saw my mother, long auburn hair, fisherman’s-knit sweater, colorful scarf, and all, standing on the front porch, waving.

T
he sky opened up and the rain fell to earth with a fury, beating down so hard it was difficult to see much past the rim of Will’s buggy.

“You run up to the house, and I’ll put Belle and this contraption in the stable,” he directed.

I did as I was told. I jumped out of the buggy and hurried up a set of steps onto a covered front porch, where I paused to catch my breath and look around. Rain pounded down behind me, but the porch was dry. It was difficult to make out the view, in all the rain and fog, but I could tell this much: The house sat on top of a cliff overlooking the water.

My entire body was humming with electricity. This had been my home. It had not been destroyed by fire then, all those years ago, as my father had told me. My one clear memory of that time, the fire, was a lie.

Will hurried up the steps to the porch, shaking the rain off a large umbrella.

“You had an umbrella all along!”

“I found it in the stable.” He laughed. “Sorry.” He pointed out into the rain. “You can’t tell now, but the view from this
house is incredible. You can see downtown, the harbor, and the lake beyond it. I think it’s the best view on the whole island, and that’s saying something.”

I turned, catching a glimpse of a porch swing swaying back and forth in the wind, as though an unseen rocker were admiring the view.

“Shall we go inside?” Will suggested.

“Not just yet,” I said, not realizing how heavily I had been breathing until I settled onto the swing. “This is a lot to process at once. Can we sit here for a minute?”

He sat down next to me and we swayed back and forth in silence for a while. I noticed containers filled with wilting autumn plants and flowers—black-eyed Susans (my favorite), mums, and several other kinds I didn’t recognize—scattered here and there on the porch. The welcome mat in front of the bright red front door said go away. That made me smile.

“After you—well . . . died”—William’s eyes were on the ground—”I didn’t come here for years. I couldn’t.”

For the second time that day, something obvious occurred to me. This man had lost a friend all those years ago and now she had reappeared, back from the dead. I wasn’t the only one having a tough time with this new reality. I wasn’t the only one with a lot to take in.

“What did everybody think happened to my father and me?”

“Boating accident,” he said quickly. “They found your overturned kayak. The entire island put their boats in the water to search for you, but . . .” His words trailed off into a sigh.

I didn’t quite know what to say. “How about we go inside?” I offered, trying to push out of my mind the image of
dozens of colorful kayaks, rusting fishing boats, and elegant cruisers all searching for me. Will produced a set of keys from his pocket, unlocked the front door, and held it open as I walked through it into my home.

I found myself standing in a large square foyer, the living room on one side, the dining room on the other, and a grand wooden staircase ascending in the middle.

“Where’s the welcoming committee?” Will looked left, right, and up the stairs. “Girls! Tundra! Tika!”

I heard a clatter of toenails on the wood floor, and two enormous dogs burst through the swinging door separating the dining room from what I assumed was the kitchen. They looked like huskies but were much bigger; their thick white and gray fur, bushy tails, long legs, and dark masks around steely golden eyes all hinted at ancient timberwolf ancestors. One was carrying a twisted rope bone in her mouth; the other had a stuffed rabbit. The dogs wiggled and curled around our legs, their great tails wagging, ears pinned back in greeting. Will was scratching and petting them in return, murmuring, “Good girls! Such good, good girls!”

One of them, the bigger of the two, jumped up on me, putting one saucerlike paw on my shoulder and the other on the top of my head. I was afraid to move. “They’re friendly, right?”