“Destiny.” It sounded lame to her, even though the answer had an odd effect on him. Sighing, his shoulders lost the tenseness that had kept them pinched slightly together, and he relaxed. What was that all about? Did he have something to hide?
“She’d only been gone from the house for a short time. You didn’t hear anything? See anyone?”
“No. I’m sorry. I told Zack everything. I wish I could be more help.” This man, one who by all accounts had been bedridden for months, still managed to make his way here today. Maybe he’d done it before. Not for the first time—or even the hundredth—Adriel wished for her powers back. One quick probe would reveal Edward’s every secret.
Not that she would employ that method now. In her time among them, Adriel had begun to learn why every human kept secrets. When your soul is caught between the light and the dark, sometimes the dark wins. Oh, not always in the bigger ways, but those split-second impulses when spite overcomes charitable thought and vitriol spews out on someone who didn’t deserve it. Or when temptation pulls and sucks away common sense. Most of those secrets are spawned in arrogance and concealed in shame. Without transgression, there was no way to understand redemption. These lies and regrets were all part of growing.
Adriel suspected Lydia’s death was part of Ben’s story. What if she’d been wrong all this time, and the two deaths were unrelated? Edward sneaking around after dark and letting people think he was incapacitated was shadier than the dappled light underneath a weeping willow.
“…thought of her lying there alone and in pain, even for a few minutes, is intolerable.”
“If it helps, I didn’t sense she was in any discomfort.”
He wanted to believe. Everything about him reached toward that ideal like a flower trying to touch the sun. “You can’t know that.”
Actually, she could. But she wasn’t about to explain how she came by her information, so she patted his arm in sympathy. Her touch unlocked the floodgates, and he started to talk about his wife. He painted a very different picture from the one Pam had given Adriel.
It hadn’t been malice behind Lydia reporting her neighbor for building a temporary lean-to shed to cover his lawn tractor for the winter—the man hadn’t hired an architect to design the structure. Surely it would fall on him, and it was Lydia’s civic duty to protect the poor wight from his own folly. The eyesore of a boulder in their lower field had nothing to do with her reasons for digging a half mile-long, unnecessary ditch. The new in-ground pool two doors farther up the hill might rupture, and all those gallons of water needed somewhere to go. Why, she was only protecting the town from a deluge. It was nothing more than solid common sense.
Every time Adriel felt an eyebrow raising incredulously, she forced it back down. Even a not-quite human with very little experience in day-to-day living could see through these excuses like they were made of glass. After her death, even Lydia realized it was hogwash. Nevertheless, Adriel let him wind down until he’d talked himself out; plied him with sympathy and two more glasses of lemonade.
“So, you see, she was misunderstood at every turn. My wife was a good woman who only…”
“Shame how they found that boy buried out here, don’t you think?” Adriel cut him off mid-sentence with no regret for being rude, then intently watched him form a response. Strong emotion flickered across his face. Not guilt. Guilt was too strong a word. Adriel decided it was remorse. He chose his next words carefully.
“The whole town searched for him for weeks. When nothing turned up, talk turned ugly. People figured he’d run away from home. I never bought that story. The Allens were decent folk. Not the kind a young boy would take to the streets to get away from, you know? But, people talked. Before long, there was speculation about abuse. Funny how people take to whatever suggestion comes up—after a month or so, someone called in the state. Instead of helping with the search, they sent social services.”
Someone? Oh, I wonder who that might have been, Adriel thought sarcastically. “The results?”
“Nothing. There was nothing to find. The daughter went up one side of the social worker and down the other about how her parents never raised a hand to her or her brother, and how he would never leave his happy family. Fiery little thing. From what I heard, she backed that social worker into a corner.”
My heart went out to Pam and her family. First to lose their son so mysteriously, then to be investigated for allegations that cast doubt on the family—whether disproved or not.
“And no one noticed a freshly dug grave when it was right out in plain sight? How could they not?”
“Well, you see, back in those days, there was a stand of pine trees running on the property line between this place and ours. Big bone of contention between Lydia and Craig when she proved they were straddling the line and had them cut down.” Judging from his chagrined expression, the trees had probably been Craig’s all along. “That must have been six or seven years ago, now,” Ed mused.
“So the grave would have been hidden by the lower branches?”
“Must have been hard work digging under there, but easy to conceal. Sweep the downed pine spills out of the way, then when it’s all over, brush them back and no one would ever notice. Poor fella so close all these years. Not two miles away from his parents, and they never knew. What’s the world coming to?”
“History is rife with accounts of how badly people treat each other. Every generation thinks theirs is the worst. They’re almost never right.” Adriel knew this for a fact. “Ed, forgive me for asking such a personal question, but
