Chapter sixteen
Many more years passed us by. Change affected neither Caspian nor me. Joseph found us after Father’s death Mal offered to let him stay with us. Understanding the family’s shortness of money, Joseph moved Father’s business closer to the house so that he could help support everyone. I regretted my father’s death, but I did not cry or mourn him—he made himself dead to me long before his actual death.
“You look no different than you did at the manor,” Joseph told me when we finally got to sit down together.
“Yeah, I’m not sure whether it’s a blessing or a curse.”
“It is a blessing, and don’t you dare say otherwise. I found a grey hair a few days ago, and I’m not that old. How have things been here?”
“It’s been great. The girls and Mal are absolute dreams. I imagine Mal is like Mother would’ve been.”
“So…I did not make a mistake in having you come here?”
“I never said that,” I said, not wanting to admit defeat.
“Oh, so it was a mistake?” he asked with a sly grin.
“Shut up.”
…
One morning while folding laundry with Mal by the clothesline, we noticed three horsemen coming in our direction. Two of them pulled a cart behind them.
“I wonder what they want,” she said tensely.
Since the attempt on Caspian’s life several years before, we had learned to be wary of people coming to the house. Henry was the only one in the house. He had a dreadful hangover, so the other men left him at home. I ran up to the house.
“Henry, wake up!” I said, shaking his shoulder.
He snorted, but made no movement. After trying a few more times, I gave up. Running back outside, I made it to Mal’s side just as the men drew to a stop in front of her.
“Where’s Henry?” Mal whispered.
“I couldn’t wake him up, and I couldn’t find his sword,” I said.
Mal raised her voice. “What do you want?” she asked the men coldly.
“Are you Mallory Good?” the man in front inquired.
“Yes,” Mal answered carefully.
“Mabel Hillsong has recently died and she has left her wealth to her son. She said I might entrust it to you.”
Mal’s eyebrows shot up. “Um—okay.”
“Where shall I have my men put this?” he asked, gesturing at the two chests in the cart.
“Inside. Thank you.”
They hauled the chests inside and then returned to us.
“There is also a message. Shall I read it?” he offered.
Mal nodded, and the letter went as follows:
Dear Mal,
I write to thank you for raising my son. I did not spend as much time with him as I would have liked, but I spent enough time with him to know that you did a fantastic job raising him. He is a caring young man, and I am sure you are proud of him. I know I am.
I am dying now—of bitterness, I suppose. I will not make this a lengthy letter, but if there is one person I will impart my final thoughts to, it has to be you. I wonder if I was right in pursuing the life I did. Should I have stayed with Caspian and raised him? It was not I, in the end, that brought about Gregory’s downfall, so it seems like my life was all for nothing. I will leave it up to you to tell Caspian who his birth mother is, if you want to. But you are his real mother. You were the one who raised him, who was there for him.
I have money set aside for you in the trunks, and the rest for Caspian. It is the money I received after my brother’s death. I never used it, so it is for you to do whatever you like.
Regards,
Mabel
Mal wiped tears from her face and accepted the letter from the messenger’s hand. The visitors bowed respectfully and departed. We went back to the laundry.
It was then that I finally realized what the rhyme on the fountain meant. Mabel—though she had not drunk from the Fountain—had done things she regretted and those ‘sins’ made her pay, in the end. She did not get to watch Caspian grow up, and she wished she had done things differently. I imagined the price was worse for those who could not die.
“How did you end up with Caspian?” I asked. “How did Mabel find you?”
“You know Mabel?” she asked with a pained expression.
“Well—I met her. Caspian doesn’t know who she is, though.”
“She was running away from Lord Fitch,” Mal said quietly. “It was a cold winter that year, and we heard a sound at the front door. When James opened the door she was lying on our doorstep. Her lips were blue, and she was round with child, so we took her in. She was sick with a fever and went into labor two days later.” She paused her work to smile a little. “He was the smallest baby I’d ever seen. He had those big blue eyes. All my children had brown. Anyway, when she regained her strength, she told us her story, how she’d been married to Lord Fitch and found out how he murdered his wives. She’d been walking for five days before she found us. You can imagine my surprise when she told me she wanted to bring him down. There she was, a girl of seventeen.” She laughed a little. “I tried to tell her she couldn’t do that, but she was set on killing her husband. Finally I told her that she couldn’t take a child with her to kill a man. She got real quiet. I thought I’d gotten through to her, but she told me this was something she felt she had to do. She asked me if I could keep Caspian, and I said yes. James and I knew that this was a suicide mission, but we couldn’t stop her. The best we could do was care for her child. She came back once, when Caspian was three, but we never saw her again.”
Mal and I completed our chore in silence. I could not imagine leaving my child with strangers, even if I knew that what I was doing was right.
“How about we go see what’s in those chests?” I asked.
After closing the door we opened the trunks. Gold and silver coins filled them to the brim. As promised, a portion was set aside for Mal and Mr. Good. Mal got up to sit on a chair. “What do I tell him?” she asked. I knew she referred to Caspian.
I sat back on my heels and looked at her. “I would tell him,” I said. “There’s no reason not to, now that Mabel’s left the door open. But if you don’t want to, I can understand that.”
The door opened, and Mr. Good entered. He kissed his wife.
“What’s all this?” he asked gesturing at the trunks.
“Caspian’s inheritance from Mabel,” Mal responded.
Mr. Good appeared surprised. “Really?”
She nodded. He shrugged, and then headed out the back door. One of the girls, Helen, pushed past him.
“Mama, Lydia’s stuck in the tree again and she wants you,” Helen said.
Caspian came in through the front door at that moment. “What’re those doin’ here?” he asked, shocked. Mal looked desperately at me. “I’ve gotta go help Lydia. Merry, will you…” she looked pointedly at Caspian, and then left with her daughter, leaving us on our own. Caspian looked at me expectantly.
“It’s your, um, inheritance,” I said slowly.
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have a—”
“It’s from your birth mother,” I interrupted.
“My what now?” he asked in surprise. “Mother said she die—”
“Some people came by to deliver it just a little while ago,” I interupted.
Caspian searched at my face. “Merry, what are you not tellin’ me?”
“Your mother was supposed to tell you, and now she’s gone and left me to do it,” I said, frustrated.
“Tell me what?”
“Mabel’s your birth mother,” I blurted.
Momentarily stunned by the news, he just stood there.
“Anythin’ else you haven’t told me?” he demanded.
“Nope, I don’t think so.”
He ran a hand through his h
air. “How long have you known?”
“Since the ship. She didn’t want me to tell you,” I defended myself.
“So…she told you but not me? Why?” he asked.
“I asked.”
“You…asked?”
“I had a hunch,” I said.
He nodded, and I was glad when he said no more.
…
“We’ve got money enough to hire a ship now,” Caspian told me later as he helped me with the dishes.
“But there’s the problem of how to get there,” I countered. “Neither of us knows the way, and those who do know are scattered about the country by now. There’s also the question of whether they would help, even if we found them.”
Caspian pursed his lips. “Do we know the general area in which any of them lived? I think someone said they lived near Wind Haven.”
I thought hard and handed him a plate. “Drake lived near Blue River. There was another one in Kingstown, but those are both big places and a long way away. I don’t think we want to spend that much time away from our families. We might have all the time in the world, but they don’t. I wouldn’t mind being immortal for a few more years if it means I get to stay with Joseph a little longer.”
“I agree,” Caspian said. “But remember that the longer we take to find the navigators, the more likely that they’ll be dead before we can get to them.”
I bit my lip. “It’s worth it,” I said finally.
“Okay, then. We’re stayin’.”