Graveyard Child by M. L. N. Hanover

Author:M. L. N. Hanover
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781451678086
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2012-12-31T18:30:00+00:00

chapter twelve

“You should go,” Dad said as he stepped into the kitchen. Mom’s eyes went wide, and she hesitated. Dad shot a look at her that would have peeled paint, and her face went pale. “Go upstairs and see that Curtis is doing his work. This isn’t a conversation you need to hear.”

Mom’s mouth worked, her lips making a wet sound, and then she lowered her eyes. “Yes, dear,” she said, almost too quietly to hear. She passed out of the room like a ghost. Dad gestured to the chairs. The table was new. The wood still smelled of sap and varnish. Chogyi Jake and Ex and I sat while Dad walked down the steps to the TV room and toward the garage.

“You leave too, Jay,” Dad said. “This is between me and her. You don’t have to expose yourself to it.”

“I don’t care if we haven’t said our vows yet. My wife’s in danger,” Jay said. Dad stopped, looking back over his shoulder. He might almost have been proud of Jay’s answer.

“As you choose,” Dad said. He ducked into the dimness of the garage and Jay took a seat at my right hand. It was only a few seconds before Dad came back. He had a massive book in his hand, leather bound and ancient looking. I’d seen the family Bible a few times. Usually, Dad read out of a common, hard-bound Bible, but when something especially momentous rolled through our lives, we knew it because he pulled this out and read from it. I felt an echo of excitement that belonged to a little girl I hadn’t been in a decade and a half: if he’s brought this out, things were serious. As if they hadn’t been before.

Dad placed the Bible on the table and looked around. I realized we’d taken all four chairs, but before I could do anything about it, Ex stood up and offered his. Dad sat in it without looking at him. He put his hands on the massive book, closed his eyes, gathered himself.

“I had two siblings,” he said, turning the book over and opening the back cover. Blank pages flipped through his fingers. “Eric and Nadine. You wouldn’t remember Aunt Nadine. She died when she was eight. Caught a fever. She was the oldest, and then Eric and then me.”

He paused. There on the page a vast tree of names grew, written in different hands over the course of centuries. I hadn’t known it was there before. And halfway down the page, I saw Nadine Heller, Eric Heller, Gary Heller. Of the three, only my father’s name was linked to anything—Margaret Fournier—and then, from them, Jason Heller, Jayné Heller, Curtis Heller.

My hand reached out without me, fingers pressing the page. I didn’t see it at first, and then I did. The names traced a line back up the page, not always connected, or not directly. Michael Bishop Heller. Amelia Norwich. Nellie Skinner-Bowes. Anderson Skinner-Bowes. Elmer Bowes. There was no entry for Sarah or Toomey Conaville.

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