The Truth Against the World (11 page)

Against a rather disconcerting aural backdrop of kicks, punches, and muffled groans from the television, Gareth loaded the Swansea Local History page and clicked on the Cwm Tawel link. He was brought to a simple, sparse site: a black-and-white photograph of some old-fashioned-looking folks standing in front of the town chapel, which he vaguely recognized from his last visit. Underneath the photo was a menu of about eight links, most of them useless to him. He didn't need
Places to Stay
,
Traeth Tawel Caravan Park
,
Cwm Tawel in 1900
, or
Getting to Cwm Tawel
.

Then he saw exactly what he was looking for:
World War II Memories
. He clicked. A long, dense page of text flooded the screen, and he scanned it eagerly.

Below all the general information about who'd fought in the war, how many people had died and whatnot, he found anecdotes from residents of the town. Pages and pages and pages of them. Stories about dads joining the Home Guard and mums hoarding ration coupons. Land Girls tilling plots of vegetables and older brothers who never came home. Bomb shelters in back yards. The terror of air raids. His head began to throb. How would he even know where to start, or what was important? He didn't even know Wyn's great-gran's full name. Something Evans.

Frustrated, Gareth spun around in the office chair, and then stopped. Wyn would have a much better idea of what to look for. He got his phone out and texted her. Now that she had a mobile number, there was no reason why they couldn't be in contact in real time and tackle the problem together.

Check your email,
he wrote.
Sending you a link in just a sec.

He turned back to the computer and was about to send the email when he remembered one more thing.

Yeah, I do know that song. I've been hearing it too. I don't know what it means. I always thought it was a sweet song, but it's getting a bit creepy.

Not much else he could do for now. It was getting late.

Up in his room, he changed into a pair of pajama pants and a
bow ties are cool
T-shirt, then flopped down on top of the covers.

One last time, he looked at the messages on his phone and opened the photo that had appeared during the dance. The little girl was there still, but as he stared at it, he realized that something was different. The other times she'd appeared in his phone, Olwen's figure had been blurry, or faded, or frustratingly dim. But he could see her vividly now, almost as though she'd posed for the photo.

Almost as if she was
trying
to get him to see. But what?

It didn't make sense—it sounded crazy just entertaining the idea. But he couldn't help swiping his fingers across the screen, zooming in just a bit more. He saw nothing but darkness around her, but he saw her face more clearly than ever, brushed with the misty light filtering down into the cromlech from the sky above. He scrolled around, zoomed in even closer. Her long dark hair was smartly combed, and she was wearing a lacy white dress that hung large on her tiny, fragile frame. Over the dress was a silver, oval-shaped locket. Her eyes were surrounded by dark, sickly looking smudges, huge in her gaunt face. Yet she was still a beautiful child.

A ghost. A real ghost. And it wasn't at all like the ridiculous ghost-hunting shows on the science fiction channel.

It made his breath catch, the tragedy of it all. He didn't know how on earth he could help. But he would keep trying.

12

Tecaf fro, bro mebyd.

The fairest place is the neighborhood of one's youth.

Welsh proverb

When the train rumbled past a huge white suspension bridge across a river, we were really, officially, in Wales, according to the signs. The blue-gray sea, now tossing, now calm, continually disappeared and reappeared to the south. I followed our progress on the map in Mom's tour book as we stopped at the occasional train station: Port Talbot. Neath. The bustling city of Swansea.

Meanwhile, Mom sorted through her folder of paperwork, getting everything we needed to check in to the cottage. Dad was snoring, jet-lagged. And Gee Gee … like me, she couldn't seem to stop staring out the window, her face rapt. I shifted closer to her and she smiled back at me, her face so serene that I didn't want to disturb her by asking more questions. I just wanted us to be happy, in this moment.

The weather had been bright during much of the trip, but the sun had gone behind clouds by the time we arrived in the quiet little port town of Llanelli.

“Llanelli,” I murmured to myself as we pulled our luggage out of the storage area and down the steps of the train car. “Llanelli.” I still hadn't quite mastered that double-L to my satisfaction. But the air smelled like the sea, and people around me were speaking Welsh and English, flowing from one to the other without a pause, and I couldn't keep a smile from spreading over my face. We were here.

The bus to Cwm Tawel wasn't a double-decker like I'd been hoping for, so I went straight to the rear window seat for a better view. Once we left the town behind, I could see the white-capped, steel-colored ocean under the gray sky on one side of the bus, and rolling green hills dotted with sheep on the other.

After a few miles, the bus crossed a river and turned slightly inland; the sea receded and then disappeared behind a ridge of hills. About forty minutes later, we arrived at the Cwm Tawel bus stop.

We stepped out of the bus and into the misty air, the driver clambering out of her seat to help us with Gee Gee's wheelchair. I looked around me and swallowed past a sudden lump in my throat. I'd never been to this place in my life, yet it was so strangely
home
. There were farms on either side of the road we had just traveled, with pastures of cattle and sheep that stretched all the way up the vivid green hillsides encircling the little valley. Nestled at the bottom was a scattering of buildings and houses, a few miles square. And then there was the eerily familiar smell—ocean air and grass and the tang of farmland. I had to remind myself to keep breathing.

Gee Gee inhaled slowly, then let out a sigh. “It looks just the same,” she said. My dad nodded. She turned to me and gave me a smile that wavered just a little.

Next to the bus stop was a pub, a weathered-looking building of dark wood called the Friar's Folly. Across the street was an old stone post office. A main road, called Cwm Road, stretched to the south toward the barrier of hills that separated the valley from the sea. On both sides of the road were businesses, cottages, and smaller lanes branching off toward the hills. All of it hauntingly familiar.

We hauled our luggage into the cozy warmth of the bus station, which seemed more like somebody's living room than a public building. It held an old-fashioned pot-bellied stove, a ticket desk, several wooden chairs, and a postcard stand.

There was a smiling, rosy-cheeked woman with graying brown hair behind the ticket desk, and as she caught sight of us, her eyes widened.

“You
are
here,” she said, coming straight over to Gee Gee and grasping her hands tightly. She had the same lilting accent as Gee Gee, only more pronounced.

“Can that be who I think it is?” Gee Gee smiled broadly at the woman and squeezed her hands in return. “Little Margie Jenkins from Llanfair Street?”

“Indeed,” the woman confirmed. Her wide grin dimpled her round cheeks. “Only it's been Margie Robinson for a little while now.”

“Well, well. Has it really been so long since I was back?”

“I hardly remembered what you looked like,” Margie said, leaning down to hug Gee Gee. “You'll have to drop in for tea soon, all of you. Peter and I got a little place on the new Stryd Myrddin, near the school, since you and Rhys were here last. Much quieter than that flat in Ammanford.”

“Peter. Of course I must see little Petey. Not so little, now.”

“Elderly, in fact,” said Margie, laughing.

“My, how things change,” Gee Gee said softly. I shifted my feet and stared at the postcards on the rack, flipping through a few nearly identical scenes of misty green hills.

“
Of course,” Margie added, “we'll be along to visit you as well. You'll be shocked to see how the farm has changed. English owners,” she said with a sniff. “Same couple that owns the caravan park down at Pontfaen Sands. Lovely little beach.” She turned toward me with a conspiratorial smile. “Perfect place for a girl your age, I should think. You'll have to catch a bus, though.”

My thoughts raced. If that was the same beach I'd seen in the dream, it would be the logical starting point for finding the cromlech. Then again, there were miles of beaches around here, but it seemed like a safe assumption. I'd have to ask Gareth; he was the one who'd actually been there.

“That sounds lovely,” Mom said, somehow acquiring a British accent out of nowhere. “We can all go when the weather warms up.”

Dad nodded. “Thank you.
Diolch
,” he added.

“Yes,” Gee Gee said with a sigh, her eyelids fluttering. “Pontfaen sounds like an excellent idea. But for now, I'm afraid, I'm wanting to get some rest.” She slumped a little lower in her wheelchair. Bundled in a huge green coat, she looked smaller and frailer than ever. Almost as though she were shrinking.

Margie went over to her desk, picked up the phone, and spoke a few sentences in Welsh very quickly, then hung up. “Hugh Jones will be along in no time with the cab.”

She looked at me again, curiously this time. “You do take after Rhiannon!” she said. “You've got the same eyes. As if you're hiding the mysteries of the world.” She smiled.

I froze, my gaze glued to the floor. Yes, I was hiding things. But I wasn't the only one. And soon, I hoped, I'd find out just what Gee Gee was keeping hidden.

Before long, a roomy black taxicab pulled up outside the bus station. The front door opened to admit a blast of chilly sea breeze and a stocky, round-faced man who introduced himself as Hugh, doffing his cap. He didn't look that old, but his brown hair was already balding. He had cheeks red from the brisk wind and merry blue eyes. There were introductions all around, and each of the ladies was treated to a great, enveloping, two-handed handshake, including me. As he drew away, I glimpsed an old blurry tattoo of a little Welsh dragon on the inside of his right wrist.

“Cute,” I murmured.

He grinned at me and picked up my suitcase. “Anything you need, anything at all,” he said, loading our luggage effortlessly into the trunk of the cab. “You just phone me up and I'll be there in no time. If I have passengers, I'll just chuck 'em out into the ditch.”

We all laughed at that, even Gee Gee, whom Hugh lifted right into the front seat as though she were a little girl. Mom, Dad, and I slid into the rear seat of the cab.

I rolled down the window momentarily. “
Diolch yn fawr
, Margie!”

“You know some Welsh?” Hugh looked at me curiously in the rearview mirror.

“I've been learning a little,” I admitted, rolling the side window back up.

“I must say, I've never met an American who speaks
yr hen iaith
.” The old language.

“Truly a Davies at heart,” Gee Gee said. I blushed.

“Me own dad and mum didn't see the need for me to learn it. Said I'd get a better job knowing English,” Hugh said, chuckling. “And look at me now! Going to night classes.”

“A proper nationalist.” Gee Gee grinned.

I smiled. Maybe I could find some of these night classes.

The taxi trundled up a slight hill, taking the road leading east from the bus station. We passed another pub and a few houses, and then suddenly we were surrounded by fields. Hugh turned left onto a gravel road that was bordered on either side by low hedges and drove up to a huge stone farmhouse. Behind it was a handful of more modern bungalows. A faded blue-and-white sign on a post read “Gypsy Farm Cottages.”

Hugh pulled the cab up alongside a dirty yellow farm truck with a few bales of hay and some farm implements lying in the back.

“I'll just fetch Mrs. Magee for you and she'll get you settled right in,” he said, sliding out of the driver's seat.

By the time we got Gee Gee out and into her wheelchair, Hugh had returned with a tall, reedy woman in a gray pantsuit. Her short dark hair was cut in a severe, jagged bob. She had an air of strictness as she surveyed us all, like she ought to have a pair of half-moon spectacles on a chain around her neck and a blackboard pointer in her hand.

Mrs. Magee led us to the nearest cottage, a low-roofed place paneled in whitewashed wood. Next to the front door, a slate plaque read
Primrose Glen
in large block letters, and
Gypsy Farm Cottages
in smaller script beneath. Hugh followed us in, a suitcase in each hand.

Briskly, Mrs. Magee explained the amenities of the cottage and the times that the farmhouse was open for meals. She handed each of us an old-fashioned-looking metal key.

“So different now,” Gee Gee said mildly, turning the key over in her hands. “My uncle once owned the place, you know.”

Mrs. Magee's demeanor softened. “Then you'll be wanting to see the old photographs up in the farmhouse, I'm sure. They were left by previous owners. You can come by later and help us identify them for labeling.”

“I'll go too,” I said. At least looking at photos would be something I could do with Gee Gee that wouldn't be exhausting. And maybe I'd find something that would help me figure things out, though I wasn't sure what.

Mom and Dad talked to Mrs. Magee for a few more minutes, and then she left us to settle in. Hugh had put our suitcases in the front room, which had a sitting area in the center and an attached kitchenette. There were two back bedrooms, one of which already had a hospital bed set up inside; one bathroom; and a tiny front bedroom. Everything was decorated in dusty roses and blues and greens, with watercolor landscapes on the walls.

“I like the artwork,” I said, “but I'm not sure about these doilies.” I reached out to touch one; it was made of flimsy paper.

“Good God, they're everywhere,” Dad said.

I walked into the front, south-facing room, and my breath caught. It had a gently sloping ceiling, a four-poster bed, and two large windows on the south wall that looked out on the farmlands and village. This room was so mine.

“Dibs on the front!” I yelled, bringing in my suitcase.

“Not fair,” Dad complained, poking his head around the doorway.

“What?” I said innocently. “I was here first.”

He laughed. “It's fine. We'll take the room across from Gran. We'll be able to help her more easily if something happens.” His smile disappeared, and he turned away to put Gee Gee's luggage into her room. I checked out the one tiny bathroom, which had a toilet that flushed by actually pulling a chain on a wall tank. I pulled it, just to see, and jumped at the sudden roar of water. I took a picture with my new phone to send to Rae.

After freshening up, I helped Gee Gee unpack, putting clothes away in the wooden bureau and hanging up dresses in the tiny closet. Dad was unpacking in the other bedroom, opening and shutting drawers, and Mom was looking around the kitchenette. Gee Gee was lying on her bed, directing me, until she fell into a doze, emitting a light snore every so often.

Every time she snored, my chest tightened with anxiety and I looked at her, checking to make sure nothing was wrong.

Finally, I got to the last of the clothes from the boxes we'd sent ahead. I put a gray raincoat on a hanger and hung it in the closet, and then pulled the last item out of the box—a '50s-style dress in light blue with a lacy white collar. It was the dress Gee Gee wore in my picture of her as a young woman, newly arrived in America. I realized that though she hadn't worn it in years, she'd be able to fit into it again without any trouble. In fact, it would probably hang loosely now.

I stared at the dress for a while, my eyes filling with tears. I swallowed hard, put it on a hanger, and left the room as silently as possible, my throat aching. We had so little time left, and I could already feel Gee Gee slipping away.

After sobbing out the last of my remaining energy alone in the front bedroom, I drifted into a deep and dreamless slumber. I woke some time later to the sound of muffled voices. The sun was lower in the sky, the village falling into shadow as a layer of clouds moved in. The digital clock on the wooden nightstand read 6:12 p.m.

I turned on the unfamiliar bedside lamp, fumbling for the switch, and stood up groggily. After digging around in my duffel bag, I finally found my hairbrush and got my hair to lie reasonably flat. Then I rinsed my face at the sink in the corner, drying it on a rose-colored hand towel. At least I'd gotten the best room in the whole cottage.

When I opened the door, my parents were standing in the front room talking to a short, sturdy woman with reddish blond hair pulled back in a tidy braid. Gee Gee was sitting on the slightly worn sofa.

“Wyn,” Mom said, “come here for a minute, please, and meet the on-call nurse.” The nurse was wearing an official-looking white jacket, and over her shoulder was a navy-blue messenger bag printed with
Valley Local Clinic and Hospice
.