The Truth Against the World (25 page)

27

Teg edrych tuag adref.

It is good to look homewards.

Welsh proverb

“All right,” my mother said in a tight voice. “Time to talk.”

I brought the tea I had just made into the front room and sat down on the easy chair, hoping my parents wouldn't notice how tensely I was gripping the mug. My parents sat on the sofa on the other side of the coffee table. Mom looked like her usual self for the first time in days, her cream-colored cardigan spotless and her dark hair immaculately blow-dried and styled. Dad, on the other hand, looked like he hadn't slept very well. He had serious bed head and his shirt was rumpled.

“Now that we've had a chance to sleep on it,” Mom continued, “why don't you explain to us what, exactly, you were doing with Gareth yesterday when we specifically told you not to see him without our permission?”

“So you didn't call Mr. Lewis?”

“Answer my question, please.” Her voice was cold, and I started to really worry.

Not only that, I still hadn't heard from Gareth since his one short text. I began to wonder if something was wrong with my phone.

Or his.

I trusted him. I knew he would do what he could. But every muscle fiber in my body felt as tense as a harp string.

“Well?” Mom just kept looking at me, her lips pressed together in a straight line. If this was how defendants felt when she was cross-examining them, I didn't envy them one iota.

But it wasn't about me this time. It was about two people who could no longer speak for themselves.

“I guess I'll start from the beginning,” I said. I crossed my legs, smoothed down my navy-blue dress, cleared my throat, and took a sip of tea. Finally, I turned to my dad. He was the one who really needed to know. He was the one who was connected, like I was.

“I started having nightmares not long after Gee Gee moved in with us,” I said without preamble. That was where this had all started. “I talked to Gee Gee about it. She told me that all Davies women were sensitive dreamers.”

Mom gave me a look but I kept going, and to my parents' credit they didn't interrupt, although Mom looked extremely skeptical. I didn't go into too much detail, but I told them I'd been blogging as a way to get things off my chest, and that was how Gareth found me online, when he'd done a search for Olwen Nia Evans.

Dad stopped me. “Wait—wait. Gareth just happened to look up your name on the Internet? I don't understand.”

“It's a little creepy, don't you think?” Mom added.

I smiled nervously. “That's the thing. Gareth was doing a school project on his family tree. A few months before that, he'd been here in Cwm Tawel with his family, visiting his great-granddad, and while they were hiking he found a grave marker from the 1940s that said Olwen Nia Evans.”

Mom sat up straight. “Quite a coincidence,” she acknowledged.

“Gareth also dropped his phone into a cromlech—in that churchyard we went to the other day, but it wasn't fenced off then—and when he went inside to get it, he … ” I swallowed. “He saw a little girl in there. She told him her name was Olwen, and she was lonely. When he turned around to help her out, she was gone.”

“What?” Dad was leaning forward now, his elbows resting on his knees. “So maybe he imagined it.”

I sighed. “While he was researching his family, he got curious about Olwen. That's why he looked up her name online. But all he found was my blog.”

“Don't tell me you've put your full name out there in public,” Mom said, frowning.

“It's fine,” I started, ready to rail against my mother's paranoia, but then finally there was a knock at the door, saving me from whatever I was going to say next.

“Just a minute now,” my mom warned. I ignored her and jumped up to open the door. Gareth was standing there, and not just him, but his great-granddad too. I felt a million pounds lighter and couldn't stop the relieved smile that spread over my face. I lunged for Gareth and hugged him.

He turned pink, which made me grin even harder. I was even happy to see Edward Lewis. Something about him looked different, though I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. He was standing a little taller, maybe? He leaned to one side, peering around me, and addressed my parents.

“Mr. Evans … Mrs. Evans.” He nodded at them crisply. “I'm sorry if I've arrived unexpectedly, but I feel that an apology is overdue. I should have come earlier to express my condolences on the loss of your grandmother.”

He addressed that last part to my dad, looking at him expectantly.

It took my dad a moment to recover his composure, but then he said, “Oh, well. We've all needed time to cope, anyway. But I don't see the need … we're in the middle of a bit of a … ”

“Well, in light of my prior acquaintance with Rhiannon, I'm afraid my behavior has been a bit poor. But one does what one needs to, to get by, you see.” Mr. Lewis's thick gray eyebrows beetled into one of his dour frowns. Somehow it didn't seem as forbidding as it had before.

Gareth caught my eye and gave me a small smile.

“Prior acquaintance? So you knew my gran?” Dad still looked perplexed.

“I did,” Mr. Lewis said. “It's rather a long story, but I think you might be interested in hearing it. From what Gareth tells me, he and Wyn have been quite busy incurring your wrath.”

Dad raised his eyebrows at the mention of the two of us. “Perhaps you'd better come in, Mr. Lewis. Can I get you some tea?”

Mom frowned, but she stood aside as Dad gestured for Gareth and his great-granddad to come in. I started to worry. What had they planned? With all five of us in the small sitting area, the cottage seemed cramped instead of cozy and I felt uncomfortably warm.

Gareth gave me an unreadable look as his great-granddad settled into the easy chair where I'd been sitting. I brought two kitchen chairs over and sat down in one of them. Gareth sat in the other, pulling it closer to me, and my parents took up their spots on the couch again. I picked up my teacup, now filled with milky dregs, and turned it around and around in my hands, very aware of Gareth sitting just inches away, but equally conscious of my parents and what felt like a sword hanging over my head.

“This may come as a bit of a surprise,” Mr. Lewis began, “but Rhiannon and I had an … acquaintance … which I think you should be aware of, and I've been made to understand that you aren't.” For once, my parents' attention was no longer focused on me. They were both staring at Mr. Lewis, and I could tell they were already full of questions. But they held off as he related his sorrowful tale: his evacuation to Cwm Tawel, his growing love for Rhiannon, the birth of their child, and the devastation he felt at having to leave her and the child to find work. By the time he'd finished, I'd refilled and drunk two more cups of tea.

“But how?” My dad said. He looked drained and pale. “How could this have stayed hidden for so long? And why wouldn't she have told me? Or at least, told my dad. We don't have secrets in our family.”

Mom looked at me pointedly when he said that, but I ignored her because Gareth was pulling out a small pile of letters and putting them on the coffee table.

My heart stuttered, I was so anxious to see them. But first, I jumped up and got the metal box from my room and placed it next to Gareth's set of letters. I took out the two letters from Edward to Rhiannon, and also the birth and death certificates.

“Here's the proof,” Gareth said, gesturing at the yellowing papers. My parents picked them up carefully and gazed at them in silence.

“I had no idea about this,” Dad said after a moment. “And you knew?” He looked at me, then Gareth. “How in the world did you find out? I mean, I just don't understand why Gran wouldn't have told me any of this.”

“It wasn't easy for Rhiannon,” Mr. Lewis put in. “There can be a bit of a hostile climate in small towns sometimes, when something happens to disturb the status quo.” He exchanged a glance with Gareth. “We experienced a bit of that this morning, in fact.”

I looked at Gareth questioningly.

“Peter,” he muttered under his breath, and I nodded, only a little surprised.

“What I don't understand is why this all came to light now,” Dad said to Mr. Lewis.

“I'm sure that Olwen—Wyn—here can tell you more about it.” Mr. Lewis gave me an encouraging look. It was so different from the glance full of fear he'd directed at me last night that I was taken aback.

I gathered my thoughts and said, “It's pretty much like I told you. Gareth found my blog, and the first thing we wondered was, were we related? When nobody knew of any connection, we did some research, and the more we found out, the stranger it got. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I kept having these dreams about Gee Gee, and weird things were happening to Gareth, too. The girl he saw at the gravesite … ” I stopped, not sure how to explain his ghostly visitations without sounding insane.

Gareth cleared his throat. “I'm not the kind of person who believes in ghosts,” he said bluntly. “So I assumed it was a prank. But it doesn't matter. When we found out our great-grandparents were from the same village, we thought it was far too much of a coincidence. It had to mean something. But nobody would tell us anything useful.”

Mom had a weird sideways twist to her mouth, like she'd tasted something sour. “So you thought it was a good idea to dig up the past,” she said. “Even though people obviously wanted you to mind your own business. You know, there are legal ramifications to that sort of behavior.”

“It wasn't like
that
,” I said. “Gee Gee kept talking about how hard life had been, but when I tried to find out more, she wouldn't answer my questions. I just wanted to know, Mom. Or it would all disappear forever.” I tilted my head at her, willing her to understand. “And then Gee Gee was gone.” For a moment I just sat there, tears sliding down my cheeks and stinging the wind-chapped skin there.

Gareth put a hand on my arm and I pulled myself back together. “All we could think to do was to go back to where Gareth had found Olwen's grave—where it all started for him. That's when we found the box. There's more in it, too.” I removed the diary and locket and set them in front of my parents, along with my notes translating the diary.

Mr. Lewis watched closely as Mom and Dad pored over the pages. Dad's eyes grew wide, and even Mom raised her eyebrows, looking mildly shocked.

The more amazed they looked, the more I relaxed into my chair. Even if I couldn't tell them everything, they had the tangible evidence now.

“Oh, Gran,” Dad said indistinctly, almost to himself. His face was anguished and I felt like going over to hug him. Instead, I said, “It was no wonder Gee Gee wanted to come back. She'd finally be able to rejoin Olwen. And now she can, Dad.”

“Olwen. I didn't realize … when she suggested the name Olwen Nia, I had no idea she'd once had a daughter.” Dad thumbed gingerly through the diary and my notes. “I just didn't have a clue. How could I not have known?”

“She was good at keeping secrets, Rhiannon was,” Mr. Lewis said with a sad grimace. “Both of us were, evidently.”

“What made you open up, if you don't mind me asking?” Dad's voice was surprisingly gentle.

“There's no harm to anyone anymore,” he said simply. “Ellen—my wife—is gone, and nobody else is left to remember or be hurt.”

“Nobody who matters,” Gareth murmured, probably thinking about Peter.

“Olwen remembers,” I whispered. He looked at me with soft eyes, full of understanding, and I leaned over until I was resting my head on his shoulder.

“Well, now what?” Mom asked, glancing at me sidelong. “We're only here for a few more days. I don't see what else we can really do.” She set down Olwen's birth and death certificates, her face sad. I felt momentarily like I was falling: only two more days until we'd take the train back to London, and then a few days later, we'd be on the plane to San Francisco. No more Wales, no more Gareth. I was about to drop from exhaustion, but it was time to speak up one more time.

“I think I know what we should do,” I said.

It was a clear day, one of the few non-gray days we'd had. The sun shone warmly down on my hair though the air was still cold, and I shivered at the contrast in temperature, pulling up the zipper on my coat.

It had taken some time to convince everyone, but now it was afternoon and we were on our way to the cromlech, one final time. We'd packed a bag with the now-empty metal box and the two containers of Rhiannon's ashes, and then all five of us piled into the rental car and drove down to the beach. Even Mom was quiet as we made our way slowly along the grassy path. It felt like there was an expectant hush in the air. But there was also a feeling of rightness, like leaving Gee Gee's ashes as close to Olwen as possible was the right thing to do to bring them together again. We'd scatter some in the sea, like Gee Gee had always said she wanted—but I had other plans for the second container.

Finally, as we reached the clifftop just before the bend in the path, Dad stopped.

“I remember this place,” he said, his voice incredulous. “I haven't been here since I was a toddler, but I've been he
re before. Gran and Gramps must have brought me.”

He set down his bag and pulled out one of the containers of Gee Gee's ashes. With the crisp, salty breeze blowing out toward the sea, he upended it and set the ashes drifting down onto the choppy waves far beneath. He was quiet for a few minutes, looking out at the blue-gray water. Mom went over to him and put her arm around his waist, and they stood there silently, the wind tossing their hair into wild snaky shapes. Finally, they turned back toward us.

“Shall we continue?” Dad said, his voice hoarse. He walked back from the cliff edge and put his arm around me. “Come on, Wynnie. I think we've got a fence to climb.”