Esme's Gift

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

As Esme tipped the shards of china into the bin, she wished she could banish with them the scene she had just witnessed from the past. She ducked back into the living room to see if the noise had woken her father—no such luck—then grabbed a bundle from her waterproof satchel.

Inside was a loaf of fresh breyberry bread, baked that morning in another world.

Back in the kitchen, she cut several thick slices, brewed a pot of coffee, and piled everything on a tray. After returning to the living room, she set the tray down and stared at her father.

Fear fluttered in her stomach. Her tongue had a metallic taste to it. She swallowed, but the taste wouldn’t go away. Leaning over her father, she spoke right into his ear.

‘Dad. Dad. It’s me, Esme.’

One bleary eye opened. Drool dribbled out the corner of his mouth.

‘Dad, it’s me. I’m back!’

Finally, her voice managed to penetrate the recesses of his liquor-soaked brain. She helped him sit up, and he blinked at her from a face dirty with stubble. Half-moons of exhaustion hung beneath his eyes.

‘Esme? Is that really you?’

His quavering hand met hers, its touch forcing out hot, itchy tears from her eyes. Blinking them away, she wrapped her arms around him. Beneath the whiskey, he smelled of fish and grime and the sea—and sorrow.

When they finally broke apart, he gazed at her with cloudy eyes. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Out. Here, I made you coffee, extra strong, just the way you like it.’

He downed two cups, but refused the breyberry bread. When he was down to the dregs of his second mug, his eyes cleared a little. The fuzz in his brain must have, too, because he was able to string more than a few words together.

‘I thought I’d never see you again. I went to Spindrift, searched the cliffs, waited for your body to wash ashore …’ Esme flinched at the broken expression on her father’s face. ‘I thought the sea had snatched you away, the way it took your mother. Where were you?’

‘You didn’t get my letter?’ she asked in a small voice.

Aaron’s black brows knitted together. ‘You mean this one?’

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter Esme had sent from Esperance. It was crumpled from having been read countless times.

‘I found this on the doorstep when we got home from our honeymoon.’ He unfolded it and read parts of it aloud, his tone incredulous. ‘I’m spending the summer with some people who knew Ariane. Don’t go looking, you won’t find me. Really? What else was I meant to do? And this: If you’d like to write, give your letter to the messenger bird that delivered this one.’ He gaped at his daughter. ‘The messenger bird?’

‘I—’ Esme stopped short.

The letter had sounded perfectly reasonable when she wrote it—reassuring, without giving too much away about where she really was. But now that she heard it read back to her, she realised how distressing it must have sounded to him.

‘I thought you might have been kidnapped!’ Aaron cried, waving the letter frantically. ‘Or that this was some kind of sick joke! The only part that sounded like you was …’ He glanced back down at the letter. ‘Please tell Mavis I’m not missing her at all.’

‘I didn’t mean to be gone for so long,’ Esme tried to explain. ‘I went to Spindrift, just for one night, just to get away from Mavis for a bit, and then …’

Her father wasn’t listening. ‘I thought somebody might have forced you to write this letter. I even thought you might have lost your mind, like—’

His hand clapped to his mouth. He’d never before come this close to telling Esme what he knew about Ariane.

‘Like my mother,’ said Esme. ‘I already know, Dad.’

His features paled. ‘You know … what?’

‘I know what you think happened to Mum. I know she was being treated by someone called Doctor Wright from the Garson Sanatorium. I found a letter from him on Spindrift saying she should go on medication. You’d thrown it in the fire, but I pieced the scraps together. I know that everybody thought she was—’

‘We didn’t think it,’ said her father, burying his face in one hand. ‘We knew something was wrong with her. She kept talking about other worlds, the way her grandmother used to. Trying to convince me they really existed. Then one day, she told me she’d gotten better, that she’d made it all up, that I could stop worrying. I was so happy—she’d come to her senses at last. Then she said she had to go to Spindrift for a week to prepare for an exhibition.’

His eyes misted over. ‘I—I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. But by the time you were old enough to know, I couldn’t bear to think about it anymore.’

Esme glanced toward the corridor. Any moment now, Mavis would return, likely with Penelope in tow. Time was running out to tell her father about Ariane. She couldn’t put it off any longer, but she was finding it hard to breathe. The eerily bare walls seemed to be shrinking around her.

Steeling herself for his reaction, she said, ‘Mum’s alive, Dad. That’s what I came back to tell you. I found her. She’s … in Esperance.’

Her father went very still.

‘No,’ he said in an agonised whisper. ‘Not again.’

‘But she’s not well. She couldn’t come back with me.’

‘No … It’s happened to you, too.’

He glanced around the room, like a man on a sinking ship searching for a lifebuoy. His eyes settled on the whiskey bottle.

‘Dad, wait.’ Esme heaved up her satchel. ‘I brought proof. In here, there’s a roll of film with pictures of Mum, and a compendium she illustrated, over in Esperance. It’s about Aeolia’s myths and legends—’

Her father groaned. ‘Aeolia is a myth, Esme.’

Glass in hand, he was pouring himself another drink. When she tried to pass him the roll of film, he pushed it away and took a deep draught.

‘This is all my fault,’ his grim lips mumbled beneath whiskey-slick stubble. ‘I should have known when you objected at the wedding. And then I left you here on your own … with Mavis, of all people.’

While Aaron was blind to Penelope’s faults, he’d always shared Esme’s low opinion of Mavis. At least in that respect, his eyes weren’t welded shut. Part of her wanted to show him the bank statements she had found, but she couldn’t—not now. He was staring at her like she was a stranger, her features blurred through lenses of disbelief.

‘Can’t you see this is all in your head? Your mother’s gone.’ He slowly enunciated each word, as if hoping they might leap into Esme’s addled brain and fix things. ‘Lost … at … sea.’

He squeezed his eyes shut, then murmured in a tar-thick voice, ‘Oh, Esme … what are we going to do with you?’

‘It’s perfectly clear what we need to do,’ said Mavis, from the doorway. ‘Take her straight to see Doctor Wright at the Garson Sanatorium. In fact, I’ll take her for you.’

Esme shot up and swung around, caught off guard.

Mavis, wrapped in her well-worn brown cardigan, entered the room. Penelope, petite and perfectly formed, flitted in beside her. If Mavis, in her drab attire, resembled a moth, Penelope was like a butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis. Everything about her shone: her new dress, her sleek fair hair, and her jewellery, especially the enormous diamond that Aaron’s parents had paid for, glistening on her manicured finger.

Her eyes lit up upon seeing Esme. Esme, however, didn’t think for one moment that Penelope’s happiness was related to her safe return—in any way but one. Now Aaron had no excuse not to move down to the village.

‘Oh, Esme!’ Penelope cried in the syrupy voice she always put on when Aaron was around. ‘Thank goodness you’re back! The horrors you must have been through. We were all so worried. It’s like everything stopped while you were away.’

I’ll bet it did, thought Esme.

Mavis caught sight of the envelope in Aaron’s hand. ‘Is that Es-may’s infamous letter? Sent by pigeon post, from an imaginary world?’

‘I should have known you’d be eavesdropping,’ muttered Esme.

Mavis smiled almost fondly at her. ‘It was quite educational. I’m truly amazed at how creative deluded minds can be.’

Esme curled her fingers into a fist, then let them go. After her glimpse into Mavis’s childhood, her hatred for her step-aunt had begun to dissipate. Anything Penelope fed Mavis, Mavis believed. Esme somehow doubted Mavis knew about whatever was going on between Aaron’s parents and Penelope.

‘Now, now, Mavis,’ Penelope tinkled. ‘Stop it. Give the poor girl a chance to recover from her ordeal. And don’t call her Es-may. It’s pronounced Es-mee.’

Penelope flashed Esme an ingratiating smile.

‘Why don’t I take you to Doctor Wright myself, get you checked over? I’m sure he’ll be able to take care of you.’

Esme glared at her. ‘I don’t need to be taken care of. Stop talking to me like I’m five years old.’

‘But darling,’ Penelope simpered, ‘don’t you see it’s for your own good?’

‘Dad,’ said Esme. ‘Say something to her. She’s not going to listen to me.’

Throughout the whole exchange, Aaron had remained oddly silent.

‘Dad?’ She turned toward him.

Aaron had topped up his whiskey glass again. His eyes were glazed over. He was on his way back to that pleasant land where nothing mattered except the next drink.

He blinked up at his daughter.

‘Penelope knows what to do. Let her look after you. I can’t lose you again.’