house settlement. Not gonna lie, I can’t wait to be free of that shit. Thanks for helping me with that.”
She pressed her lips together, and I could almost hear the angry outburst about Ragna on her lips, though she swallowed it back.
Even now, I couldn’t help feeling a loyalty to the woman who’d raised me.
Even calling her Ragna felt disrespectful.
Calling Herc my father felt like a lie.
But I had a sister. I had to remember that.
Valerie and Nathan finished, and I listened to the energetic murmur rising from the stewards. Perfect. I didn’t want to dampen their spirit with the don’t be complacent speech, but arrogance was a certain way to lose a grid in my amateur opinion.
Now, there was an edge in the air that told me they were ready to bring their A-game.
Wade approached with a middle-aged woman on his arm. “Andie, have you met Harlow Greene? Let me introduce the two of you.”
Switching on my head steward smile, I shook her hand.
An hour of introductions passed before I managed to escape to my room. I dragged the last journal from beneath the tallboy. After Pascal’s office search, I didn’t want to take any chances.
There had to be something in here.
Changing into my threadbare pyjamas, I ducked under the covers, adjusting the bedside lamp to shine on the page.
“Child-Ragna, give me something solid, please. People around here be lying.”
I see my friends together, but it’s just nothing like what I feel for Murphy. It’s like we’re one.
“Oh, brother.” Flicking through ten pages of loved-up teen life, the details of their latest sexapades, and Grandmother Charise’s death, I slowed at another passage.
Mother and father are gone, and Herc is so busy now. He’s so short-tempered, and I’m trying to be the person he needs me to be, but I feel so alone. If Murphy left, I couldn’t go on. What are we even doing playing this game? What’s the point when everyone I love dies? One person holds my happiness in his hands. And that’s so terrifying that sometimes I can’t speak.
I paused at two frantically written words on the next page.
Murphy’s sick.
Sitting straighter, I scratched at my aching calf.
He came down with it last week and it’s getting worse. I’m so angry he concealed this! He knows I can’t live without him, but—of course—he didn’t want me to worry. He’s aching all over and has a sore throat. He’s downplaying how bad things are, but my Murphy is always cheerful. Now, he looks so tired. If he doesn’t get better tomorrow, I’ll call the doctor.
An overreaction for the flu, but she’d been clear on what Murphy meant to her. Margaret Frey wondered if Ragna never forgave Murphy for dying and leaving her alone. It seemed strange at the time, but more and more, I believed the theory could hold weight.
But what about me?
Savannah had to be heavily pregnant with me right now, but there hadn’t been any mention of her in the journal. They really did hide me from everyone. Did that speak for the lack of trust between Herc and Ragna, or the lack of trust between Savannah and Ragna? Savannah was only mentioned in the fondest terms in the journals, so if so, the problem was one-sided.
My heart stopped at the next passage.
Murphy lied to me. He knows why he’s sick.
We can’t see a doctor.
No one can know.
I turned the journal toward the light to better see, but the three following pages were a mess of emotional ramblings and no specifics. “Come on, Child-Ragna. Give me something.” My urge to figure this out passed healthy curiosity weeks ago.
I had to understand.
I was desperate to understand.
Herc and Savannah can’t know.
Especially with the baby due next week. They’d never see our side.
“You did know about the pregnancy,” I murmured.
I’d never felt less like sleep as I focused on her words. “Come on. Tell me what happened.”
Even after everything. This was still about her.
Still about me missing her.
The light illuminated four words.
I read each of them, heart hammering. And I knew the words were now burned into my mind forever.
Tears had blurred the ink on the page twenty-one years ago. I traced the uneven, smeared words with a shaking hand, feeling her dire hopelessness through the coarse page.
Murphy’s becoming a Luther.
“Andie?”
I peered over the readying mass of stewards. They’d dressed in a dusty red that would allow them to camouflage against the iron ore. Protective vests and helmets on, we otherwise tried to keep bulky equipment to a minimum