Chapter Thirteen: Adelaide March
1716 Words
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ADELAIDE MARCH
In the morning, Danny was coming back. We’d planned his return for months, but somehow, I’d gotten so wrapped up in Bradley Endless that I’d forgotten. I was a horrible girlfriend. I woke in the morning to the sound of my Mum’s voice, calling me. “Adelaide!”
I got up, and got quickly dressed, to find Danny’s brother standing there with a grim expression in the living room.
“Patrick!” I hugged him. I hadn’t seen him in weeks. “What are you doing here? I told you, I’d pick Danny up.”
His face was crest fallen. “Adelaide, Dad thought it would be best if I was the one to…to…”
I know he told me what exactly happened. I know he did. But I could not tell you the exact details of it. The minute he spoke the words, “Danny’s dead” it was as though my reality became a sort of blurred thing. The only thing I could focus on was that I was still wearing Bradley Endlesses necklace, that I clutched his necklace as Patrick told me about Danny’s death.
I remember my knees buckling, and Patrick having to catch me to keep me from hitting the ground. The rest of the week was a blur.
Visits to Danny’s parents.
The funeral.
Standing by the grave well into the evening. I stayed by the grave for so long, that eventually, Patrick had to come get me. “Come on, sweet girl,” he said, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, “you can’t stay in this place. Danny wouldn’t want you to. Come on, let’s get you inside. Get you something warm to drink.”
He took me back to his apartment. Patrick lived above a small bookshop in town, that he was the manager of. The less daring of the two brothers, he had always lived a quiet, reserved life. He had been with his partner Mark since they were twenty-one, but despite Mark’s attempts to make Patrick an honest man Patrick preferred living alone.
I sat in the kitchen of Patrick’s small, flat, only dimly aware of what was going on. The older, dark haired man tried to chat as merrily as he could while making me tea. “Patrick,” I said finally, “what do you know about the Endless family?”
He stopped what he was doing and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Why do you ask?”
“Well people always say that the Endless family has connections to faerie. That it’s how they got their fortune. If they have connections to faerie, do you think they have connections to other things? Like death?”
Patrick ran a hand over his hair. “Adelaide, I know what you’re thinking but the myths about the Endless family are simply that. Myths. Edward Endless had a spot of luck during the war. No one could ever figure out how, or why, and because he was a writer, that’s when the stories started.”
I clutched my necklace. “But what about the children?”
The tea kettle whistled. Patrick poured our drinks, turned off the stove, then brought them over to the dining room table. He sat down next to me. “What do you mean?”
“No one actually knows anything about the Endless siblings. They’ve lived here their whole lives, but no one can remember anything about them. Have you ever been to the estate?”
“Of course!” Patrick said. “Everyone’s gone to the estate for holiday celebrations, or errands and things. Half of the town runs because of Edward Endless tours.”
“But could you tell me anything about any memories you had of them?”
“Why, of course. Emma Endless comes into the bookshop all of the time or came before she went to America. And Louisa sometimes goes to the pub on Fridays for dinner.”
“But do you remember ever talking with them?”
He frowned and tried to think hard about it. “Why the sudden interest in the Endless family anyway?”
I hesitated. If I told him the truth, I would sound crazy. “You’re going to hate me if I tell you…. but you’re the only one I can tell without sounding insane.”
He took a sip of his tea. “Why don’t you tell me first, then we’ll decide on whose horrible and who isn’t.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay…okay…”
“Do you remember…. back before Danny and I got together, my Mum had to send me away for a little bit to….to the hospital?”
“The institution?” Patrick said. “Yes, I remember that. You kept on saying that there was someone who visited you while you slept. That you were waiting for a dragon to come to claim you.”
I fiddled with the dragon’s eye necklace around my neck. “Patrick, before you came to tell me about Danny the other day, Bradley Endless told me something. He…. he told me that we had had a whole life together, one that I couldn’t remember because of the estate. The estate is cursed, and if you stay on it, you remember everything about faerie. Everything about the Endlesses. But if you leave, you forget everything.”
I ran a hand through my blond hair. “I’m crazy, right?”
Patrick opened his mouth, then closed it. “There was something that happened, a few years ago, with Bradley Endless. Bradley Endless, and you that is. But Danny couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and when he asked you, it was as if you had completely forgotten everything.”
I straightened in my chair. “What was it?”
“It was summer. The year that Emma Endless was going away to college. For one reason or another, you were there. Danny got home early from basic training, and he thought that he would go surprise you. But when he got to the Endless estate, he saw you and Bradley arguing by the old fence that borders the field between the Endless Estate and yours.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “What were we arguing about?”
“Something to do with memories being taken,” Patrick told me, “but the whole conversation seemed so ridiculous, along with your absolute denial of the whole thing.”
“Patrick, I really don’t think it’s that crazy,” I whispered, “I…I believe Bradley Endless and I…oh god.”
I was crying again. It seemed like I hadn’t stopped crying all week. As if it had been a constant, steady stream of my emotions coming to the surface. Patrick’s face softened, and he reached across the table to take my hand.
“Oh, my poor girl,” he whispered, “Dale’s seen its fair share of the strange and unusual. I feel like you’re asking my permission to explore that. You don’t have to ask anyone their permission to do anything. If knowing the truth about the Endless family is going to put your heart at ease, my dear, by all means explore it with your hearts content.”
I squeezed his hand back. “I don’t know what’s real, and what’s not anymore, Patrick.”
“Well,” he said with a small, sad, smile, “you’d best go find out then, hmm? And drink your tea.”
I drank my tea, sipping it thoughtfully, allowing myself to calm down enough that I wasn’t crying anymore. The first love of my life was gone, and I had a stranger chasing after my heart. Who maybe wasn’t such a stranger after all.
But Patrick was right.
I had to figure out what was real, and what wasn’t if I was ever going to survive. The sooner, the better. When I felt alright enough to walk home by myself, I called Bradley as soon as I was out the door of the bookshop where Patrick’s flat resided up above.
“Hullo?” he said on the first ring.
“Bradley,” I said, “it’s me.”
“Adelaide,” he said, always saying my name like it was a promise, “I wanted to call you as soon as I heard, but I didn’t think it would be okay. Are you alright?”
“Danny’s dead, Bradley,” I said, “the day he before he was supposed to come home…a roadside bomb I…. I don’t know how I am, actually. But I do know that I need to see you as soon as I possibly can. Is that okay?”
“Of course, it’s okay,” he replied, “where are you? Do you want me to come get you?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s fine. I could use the fresh air. You’re at the estate I take it?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I told him.
“Adelaide…. are you sure?”
“Positive,” I answered, “I’m okay enough to walk.”
“Alright. I’ll see you then.”
I walked by myself, alone to the Endless Estate. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and for the first time in a long time I felt something besides sadness. I felt determined. Determined to get answers. And I knew I would.
- Writer
