"Oh, I'll hope, Johann." Ian couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice, and he didn't really try. It comforted him, gave him an emotion that didn't hurt so badly. "What I won't do is care."
"Will you help her when we get home?"
"When you get home. I'm not returning to Lethe House right now."
"But-"
Ian raised a hand for silence. "Don't bother, Johann. And for God's sake, don't break any more bottles to prove your point. I'm heading for all the train stations and postal offices between here and New York. I'm going to post notices about a nameless, faceless woman in my care and beg for information about her. Maybe that
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damned lobsterman will read a notice and come forward."
"You're hoping someone will come and claim her" You're damn right I am. Let her break someone else's heart."
Chapter Ten
The quiet gurgle of running water.
The rhythmic thunk-splash of wet cloth on a washboard.
Women talking in low, muted voices, too softly for any single word to be heard.
They were talking about something important, something just out of reach. Selena felt terribly alone, disconnected from the sights and sounds and movements around her. A stranger in the darkness, waiting, watching.
Random images floated through her mind, taunted her with wisps of remembrance.
A wicker laundry basket, a metal pie tin, a small, perfectly round wooden box.
She had no words to label the items, no memories to match them. Simply a vague realization of things ...
"Sshh, hush, little one. Sshh . .."
Selena heard these words more distinctly. They were spoken in a quiet, lilting voice that was familiar. She realized suddenly that she was asleep, that she had been dreaming. The memory of what that word meant and the experience it implied slipped into her mind.
"Sshhh, little one. I am never so far away as you think."
A hand caressed her cheek, and even though there 115
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was a lingering remnant of pain in her jaw, it felt good, that touch, so good.
She came awake slowly, and the strange dream drifted out of reach, forgotten almost immediately. The room was steeped in darkness, with only a sliver of moonlight through the glass windowpane to relieve the shadows. Night stained her coverlet a deep, charcoal gray.
"Sshhh, little man. Don't cry now."
Selena turned toward the voice, and noticed for the first time the woman sitting beside her bed, drawn close, her rail-thin shoulders draped in a lace shawl so delicate, it looked to be made of cobwebs. Reddish blond hair lay twisted and piled on her head. She was moving slightly, rocking back and forth, though the chair wasn't moving. Something satiny-a timepiece ... no ... lantern ... no.
Selena couldn't name the thin strip of silvery white that twined through the woman's thin fingers.
Maeve. The name came almos
t effortlessly this time, and her ability to recall it filled Selena with joy. She tried to remember what to say now, the proper greeting of woman to woman. "Maeve," she whispered, "hello ... there."
Maeve didn't glance at her, seemed not to notice she'd spoken at all, and Selena wondered if she'd said the wrong thing again. "Maeve?"
"I heard your weeping," Maeve said finally. "You mustn't worry. He'll be back. Your father always comes back."