The Truth Against the World (21 page)

“Let me just try putting my head in, then.” I got down on my knees in front of the hole, then lay on the ground, stretching out my legs so that most of my weight was outside. I inched forward until my head and shoulders cleared the edge. “Can you hand me the flashlight?”

“One torch, coming up,” Gareth said. I clicked the button and shone the beam down into the depths.

My stomach did slow flips, afraid of what I might find. I craned my neck to check every corner and flashed the beam in slow arcs from one side of the dirt floor to the other.

I didn't see anything.

I wanted to see her. And I didn't want to. But I couldn't control the feeling of despair that welled up. What if she was stuck now, roaming around? Or maybe she'd taken up residence in Gareth's phone? I wanted to laugh at that, but it wasn't funny.

I hung my head for a moment, then scooted back out.

“I think she's gone,” I said.

“Not gone,” Gareth said. His voice sounded strange. I turned away from the cromlech to look at him.

He was staring fixedly at something behind me, just above my head.

I whirled around, just in time to see a flash of a white dress, a small figure, not-quite there, sitting on the giant capstone and dangling her legs. She flickered in and out, visible one moment, gone the next, hardly substantial to begin with, but I could see her smiling like the Cheshire cat. Something inside me wanted to smile back. I stepped closer.

Then I heard … whistling. Not just the wind past my ears, or the distant scolding of gulls over the ocean. It was most definitely somebody whistling, and little by little it was getting nearer. I whirled around to face Gareth.

“Somebody's coming,” I hissed. Somewhere nearby, I heard something drag against the ground, a gate opening and then shutting with a mild clink. The whistling continued, an off-key tune I didn't recognize. I thought I could hear heavy footsteps now, and I caught a glimpse of an orange hard hat past the crumbling walls of the ruined church. It was Sunday, wasn't it? Why would there be a worker here? I started to panic, picking up the metal box and looking frantically around for the backpack.

Then I remembered: Olwen.

I turned again. She was gone. I could swear I heard a bubble of laughter disappearing into the air, but then all I heard was the worker's whistling, his crunching steps.

And then it stopped abruptly and he was standing there on the rise, blocking the only way out. Behind us was the cromlech, and behind that, the clifftop and the sea.

The worker was tall, dark-bearded, and frowning. Gareth thought frantically, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for why they were there. The truth was just too weird.

“I'm tired of you bloody kids coming in here all the time and leaving your dirty cigarette butts and worse all over the site. This is a construction zone! It's not lovers' bloody lane.” He dropped his toolbox and crossed his arms.

“But we weren't … ” Wyn began, her voice barely audible.

“Leave this to me, er, baby,” Gareth said, shooting her a warning glance. He saw her clamp her lips against whatever she was going to say, looking surprised. He hoped she trusted him. He could be getting them in worse trouble, but he had to take the chance. He needed Wyn to hide the metal box. If the worker saw it … what if he figured out they'd been digging around? What if he confiscated it? Or worse, what if he reported them to the police? Gareth took a deep breath and hoped he looked more cocky than he felt; he tried his best to channel Amit.

“Look, sir, I just wanted to have a nice picnic with my girl, you know, out here by the ocean where nobody would disturb us.” He winked at the construction worker knowingly. “You know how it is. Come on, Wyn,” he said, shooting a darting glance at the cairns off to one side. “Gather our things. We'd better go. We don't want to miss the bus back.” He took the backpack off his back and tossed it to her, hoping she'd be able to stash the box in there without attracting too much attention.

The worker came closer, glowering at them.
“You bloody English vacationers come in and think you own the place, don't you? Well, the rules apply to everyone,” he said, not backing down.

Gareth was infuriated. As if it wasn't bad enough, back in London when people teased him about being a Taffy. He found himself wanting to say,
But I'm Welsh!

But he held back. He kept his eyes on the ground and stuffed the anger back inside. He had to stay calm, try to talk their way out of this. Meanwhile, Wyn had edged away, toward the cairns, and was crouching down to open the pack. He shot her a look, willing her to stay quiet. Things would get even more complicated if the worker found out Wyn was American.

“Look, we're sorry. We'll just be going now, okay? See, my girlfriend got all our things and we'll head back to the Pontfaen bus stop. We haven't left any rubbish or anything. No trouble, right?”

“No trouble?” The worker sneered at him, but at least he wasn't as threatening. “No trouble? The last bus left a half hour ago,” he said with evident satisfaction, “so there's no way getting back now, is there. Unless I ring your families.” He took a mobile phone out of his pocket. Wyn looked up from zipping the backpack, alarm written all over her face.

“Please, sir, let me do it,” Gareth said, trying to sound placating rather than desperate. He took out his phone. Fate must have been smiling on him, because the construction
worker relented and put his own phone away. Gareth steeled himself and dialed the only Cwm Tawel number he knew would definitely have a car: Wyn's parents'.

21

Trech angen na dewis.

Necessity is stronger
than choice.

Welsh proverb

This was definitely the biggest trouble I'd ever been in. And the irony was, my parents were madder about what we
hadn't
done than what we actually did.

Dad was sitting in the front passenger seat sighing periodically, and he wouldn't look at me even though I kept trying to catch his eye in the rearview mirror. Mom was driving along the winding road back to the village, utterly silent and tight-lipped. Every time I tried to explain what had happened, she cut me off with “We'll discuss it later.”

Obviously, the real explosion was yet to come.

It wasn't fair, though. It was the construction worker's word against ours. I couldn't believe we'd had the bad luck to run into him again, in the parking lot at the beach. He'd seemed to relish the opportunity to chastise us in front of my parents and throw all kinds of accusations around, ranting about smoking and snogging and littering. But we hadn't done any of the things he'd accused us of … except trespassing on the site and getting caught. I couldn't believe we'd been so stupid as to miss the bus back, even after we'd made sure to check the time.

On the other hand, we had Olwen's metal box now. I hoped it would all be worth it in the end.

I nudged Gareth and smiled, pointing silently at the backpack. He smiled back, just a little, and I felt a flash of relief.

“I had a feeling things were getting a little too heavy with you two,” Mom said later, after we'd dropped Gareth off at his great-granddad's house and returned to the cottage. “And today—well, I really don't know what to say to you.” Her eyes bored holes into me, as if she were trying to peek into my brain.

My face burning with humiliation and anger, I got up from the armchair. “We weren't doing any of those things the guy said,” I said loudly. “Mom, do you honestly think we were up there smoking and—whatever? When have I ever expressed any desire to smoke?”

“These European kids all smoke, Wyn. Now be honest. Did Gareth offer you a cigarette? He didn't pressure you into anything, did he?” Mom looked up at me with a slight frown.

“No! Gareth doesn't smoke,” I said, sitting back down and sagging against the arm of the chair. I wasn't sure if that was true, but I'd never seen him with cigarettes. He never smelled like smoke. “All we did was miss the bus.”

“And trespass on a construction site,” Dad put in. “That is so dangerous. I just don't understand.” He looked at me as if he'd never seen me before, his eyes weary. “I mean, the worker said you were in an area that's closed to the public. Was it an accident?”

Guilt zinged through me. “No, but—”

“Then are you suggesting that worker was lying?” Mom got up and started pacing in front of me like she was back in a San Francisco courtroom.

“No,” I said, defensively. “I just mean, he never bothered to hear our side of the story.”

“Well, no wonder,” Dad said. “If I were him and I'd just found a couple of kids doing who-knows-what in a fenced-off area, I'm not sure any excuses would matter. I'm just really surprised, Wyn.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Don't you even want to hear my side of things?” I gaped at him. I'd always thought I could talk to Dad about anything and he would hear me out. Of course, that was before.

Before everything.

“Later,” he said. “For now, just please promise us you won't go anywhere without telling us exactly where you're going to be.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And we'd prefer it if you didn't visit with Gareth unsupervised,” Mom added.

“What? Mom, that's ridiculous.”

She rounded on me. “Those are our terms, Olwen Nia Evans.” I jerked. “We are here as a family.” Then h
er voice softened. “I know you've been eager to have a friend your own age here, but your dad and I need some time to discuss how to deal with this
…
incident, okay? Be reasonable.”

I clenched my hands together in my lap and nodded. But I couldn't stay in the same room with them any longer. I got up, walked to my room, shut the door, and dropped heavily onto the bed. They would relent eventually. If they didn't, then they were the ones being unreasonable.

After wallowing for a while, I felt less angry and went over to the basin to splash water on my face and wash the dirt off my hands. Turning back to face the room, my eyes fell on the backpack sitting next to the foot of the bed.

I sat back down. Gently, almost reverently, I unzipped the backpack and pulled out the metal box. It was rusty and dirty; I set it on one of the spare hand towels and cautiously wiped off the worst of the grime.

I couldn't wait anymore, couldn't wait for Gareth. He would understand—he'd been the one to push the backpack into my arms with a meaningful stare when we'd dropped him off.

I reached behind my neck and unfastened Gee Gee's necklace. The inner clasp of the locket opened more easily this time, and the tiny, age-darkened key fell out into my lap. It looked like nothing special, nothing at all, but at that moment it was the most important thing. I jiggled the little key into the padlock's dirt-encrusted keyhole.

After some jabbing and twisting, the key finally went in and I was able to lift the lid of the box. It was only about five inches deep and maybe eight inches wide, but as I removed each object I was amazed that something so small held so much.

The first thing I took out was a book bound in dark blue, water-stained leather. My stomach flip-flopped and I carefully opened the cover. It was definitely a diary, and I recognized Gee Gee's precise handwriting, though it looked a little different. Younger, maybe. More rounded. Maddeningly, though, it was all in Welsh. I set it aside for the time being and looked inside the box again.

Sitting on top of a stack of yellowed paper was a tarnished locket. On the outside, it was identical to the one I wore. But on the inside, when I forced it open, was a tiny scrap of folded lace. And the photo, instead of being a baby picture, showed two faces—a mother, whom I recognized as a very young Rhiannon, and a little girl.

I knew the little girl right away, too, and I shivered. That thin, sad face. Here it was, recorded in a photograph that really existed. Not a ghost. Not a dream. I touched it, feeling the dry paper under my fingertip. A strange feeling rose inside me, and suddenly I felt certain: the picture of the baby in Gee Gee's locket was Olwen, too.

And this necklace must have been the one Olwen was wearing in my dreams. One for mother; one for daughter.

Someone tapped at my door, and I jumped.

“Wynnie,” came Dad's voice, muffled by the door. “Could you come out here, please?”

Now what? I hastily threw a blanket over everything on the bed and opened the door a crack.

“Wyn, we've been speaking to Gareth and his great-grandfather on the phone, trying to get the situation figured out.” Dad grimaced. “Actually, we called and spoke to Mr. Lewis earlier, and then Gareth just called back and gave us his explanation for what happened.” He sighed. “We're still not sure what to think, but he gave us such a nice apology, your mom and I think you should probably do the same for Mr. Lewis. Okay? Gareth's on the line now; he said he'd get him on the phone for you.”

I swallowed hard and followed my dad back into the front room, running through various options in my head, none of them good ones.
I'm sorry, Mr. Lewis, for any worry I caused? Sincere apologies for convincing your grandson to illegally jump a fence?

I picked up my parents' phone, which was lying on the kitchen counter. Dad sat down next to Mom, who was holding a law journal and clearly trying to look like she wasn't eavesdropping.

“Hello?” There was silence on the other end. “Mr. Lewis?”

An impossibly gravelly voice said, “How dare you spend the Day of Rest snogging with my innocent little great-grandson in the middle of a historical restoration zone? Eh? Eh?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “Um … ” I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to laugh, and turned toward the wall so my parents wouldn't see my expression.

“Uh oh. Are your parents there?” Gareth asked.

“
Yes, sir,” I said in a contrite tone, glancing back at them. “It really was an accident, and I'm really sorry, Mr. Lewis.” My stomach ached from holding in laughter.

“Okay, I'll be sure to tell him,” Gareth said, chortling. I would have to get him back for this, someday when we weren't both under house arrest. “Listen, Wyn. My great-granddad just left for the pub. I was hoping you'd be able to talk. Can you get somewhere private? Or call me from your phone?”

“Yes, I'll try … sir,” I said. I leaned my forehead against the wall and grinned.

“I have to know what's in the box,” Gareth said. “Okay, I'll let you go. Call me later.” He switched back to his grumpy-old-man voice. “And see that you don't go corrupting my perfect, angelic grandson anymore.”

I hung up, closing my eyes and composing myself before turning around to face the room. Dad got up, smiling at me, and came over to give me a hug.

“You did good, Wynnie,” he said. “Listen, why don't we all go out for dinner? As a family?” He sounded apologetic. “I know this hasn't been much of a vacation. Maybe we can try to enjoy our last week here. Next Monday's our flight home.”

Our last week. I shrugged out from under my dad's arms and stood there stiffly. It seemed like hardly any time was left.

I had to finish going through the metal box.

“I don't feel well,” I said, looking at the floor. I was lying outright and it felt horrible, especially after everything else that had happened today. “You guys go, and I'll come with you some other time. I think I just want to lie down.”

“Are you sure, honey? We made a reservation in Carmarthen at one of the restaurants there.” Dad put his hand on my shoulder, gently. “We really want you to come.”

“I'm not hungry,” I said. I actually wasn't. I was too preoccupied by what I might find. “Please, Dad.”

“Do you want us to stay home with you?” He felt my forehead. “You feel okay, but it's been a hard few days. Maybe it would be better if—”

“No, Dad. You guys go. I'll be fine here. I'll take a nap.”

He looked at me tiredly for a few moments. “Okay, well, I guess your mom and I will let you get some rest, then. We'll call you when we're on our way back. We'll bring you something.” His eyes narrowed for a second. “Please don't go anywhere.”

While my parents got ready, I upheld the pretense of illness by starting up the electric kettle and getting out some chamomile tea. Once I had the cottage to myself, I hurried back into my bedroom. I threw the blanket onto the floor, revealing the open box, the weather-beaten diary, and the locket, just as I'd left them. I'd already half-convinced myself that I'd imagined it, but there they were.

I sat back down on the bed and eagerly lifted the rest of the papers out of the box—a short stack of folded documents and letters mixed together. I gently unfolded the top sheet. It was a death certificate. It read
Olwen Nia Evans
and gave the date of death:
19 July 1950
. Though it wasn't a surprise anymore, it still brought tears to my eyes.

Six years old.

Next were two brief letters, both in English and in an unfamiliar handwriting. I brought them closer to the bedside lamp and read:

20 March 1949

Dear Rhiannon,

I have enclosed some money for you and Olwen. It isn't much because I have only just found work at the Big Pit. Some of the mines have closed down and there aren't as many jobs as there used to be.

It has been very exciting out here. Village life was so dull sometimes and the change has been good for me. I was not a very good farmer.

Please kiss Olwen for me.

All my love,

—E.

5 July 1949

Dear Rhiannon,

I am happy to hear that Olwen has not been ill this summer. Still, I have enclosed a few pounds just in case. I have been very busy and tired. But I am happy and don't think I will need a farm job, especially not one with sheep. I hardly ever saw live sheep before moving to Wales—the only lambs I saw in London were the ones that ended up in my stew.

Sorry for the brief note, but I must leave for breakfast and the pit. My thoughts are with you and Olwen as always.

—E.

Who was this mysterious “E”? Maybe he'd been one of the evacuated children. Looking at the letters gave me the strangest feeling. His signature … that jagged, blocky way he wrote his name.

I set the letters aside and unfolded the last document.

It was a birth certificate: Olwen's birth certificate. But the more closely I looked at the document, the more confused I got. The name on the birth certificate wasn't Olwen Nia Evans.

It was Olwen Nia Davies. Her mother's name, of course, was Rhiannon Davies. So Olwen
had
been born out of wedlock. I let out a shaky breath.

Then, my heart just about stopped when I saw the father's name: Edward Henry Lewis.

Edward Lewis.

Lewis was Gareth's last name. A common-enough last name. But I remembered: in our first Skype conversation, he'd told me his great-grandfather was Edward Lewis.

I let the birth certificate fall gently onto the bed. My stomach knotted. I had to see Gareth. There was proof here, finally, proof that even my parents would take seriously, but I had to talk to him first. And maybe find a translator, too, if we couldn't manage the diary on our own.