Iris did not care. “You are feeling better, I trust?”
“Yes.” I offered nothing more.
“What, are you twelve?” Oliver burst out and walked over to the counter. Even though he’d protected me when I wasn’t there to speak up for myself, it was clear that he too still smarted from my rejection. He tossed a bag of chamomile tea into a mug and added hot water. My eyes fell to the table. I didn’t want to look at any of them. After a few moments, Oliver slid the tea in front of me. I grasped the mug in my hands, grateful for the comfort of its heat.
“You accused us of some pretty wicked crimes yesterday,” Iris said, her tone measured, even. She had obviously practiced saying these words many times during the night. “We know something happened, something that was upsetting. However, instead of coming to us, trusting us, you sent us away. You told Peter and the golem that we lied to you about your mother’s death. Then you went one step further and said we killed her?”
“And you are in here talking about how I killed Tucker and need to be shipped off before I start taking out the whole of Savannah one by one.”
Ellen threw her hands over face. Her shoulders hunched up and convulsed as she sobbed.
Iris reached over and put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “No one said that.”
Ellen lowered her hands. Her face was grief stricken, puffy, and red, and dark circles stood out beneath her eyes. “I loved him,” Ellen’s voice warbled. “I really did.” She looked at me through heartbroken eyes, mascara clumped and eyeliner dripping in watercolor rivulets down her cheeks.
My anger started melting. “I know that. I do,” I said. There was no way she had harmed Tucker. No way. “I swear I didn’t do anything to him. I would’ve never done a thing to Tucker, because I know you loved him.”
“And you don’t think we loved our sister?” Ellen asked. “Do you really think that Iris and I killed her in cold blood? Do you really think we could have? Do you really think I could have?”
Emotion overwhelmed me, and I too burst into tears. “I am so sorry about Tucker.” I reached out and took Ellen’s hands.
“I know, baby. I do believe you are.”
“You have to know I wouldn’t hurt him. Intentionally. Even if I thought I was dreaming. I just don’t have that kind of hate in me.”
Ellen looked at me, the storm clearing from her eyes. I knew she realized that this was true. “No. You don’t. I don’t know why I let my heart think that you might.”
Iris came around to me, pulling my head into her bosom. “There, there, there.” She stroked my hair and bent over to kiss the top of my head. When I managed to pull myself together, she tilted my face so that she could look me directly in the eye. “I don’t know who or why, but I believe someone is trying to sow the seeds of doubt and mistrust among us. Someone who wants the four of us to battle each other. Someone who wants it bad enough to kill to make it happen.”
“Okay,” Oliver said, his tone telling us that he planned to take control of the situation. “The Taylors have an enemy. That isn’t exactly a new item for the family history book. What do we know about this enemy? Only one thing, and that is that he or she knows they don’t stand a chance against us if we stay united.”
“That was your pep talk?” Iris asked as a palpable sense of relief settled over the four of us. Even Ellen smiled at her big sister’s sarcasm. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Iris turned to me. “So now you tell us what happened. What could have possibly made you think we killed your mama?”
I drew a breath. I couldn’t believe anyone would have been so cruel as to toy with me this way. To offer my mother to me and then snatch her away. “She found me,” I said. “Right after the accident with Peadar. She came and took me away.”
“Who did, darlin’? Who found you?” Oliver asked. Even through the maelstrom of emotions that whipped through me, it amused me to hear his accent coming through so heavily.
“My mama. Emily.”
“Now, Mercy, that isn’t possible,” Iris said. “You know she’s been gone for quite a long time now. Someone is playing some kind of cruel and horrible joke.”
“Perhaps she came to you in spirit? A ghost?” Ellen offered.
“No. She was real. She felt solid,” I said, even though my own experiences told me that didn’t really count for much. “She said she was alive. That she didn’t die having me.”
“Oh, Mercy,” Ellen breathed. “If only that were true, but I was there. Iris too. You know. We’ve told you what happened.”
“She said you lied. That you took Maisie and me from her, and then forced her to create a double that you could bury.” I lowered my eyes. “Besides, Wren told Jilo that he saw Mama here in the house on the day you all supposedly buried her.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Oliver held up his hands. “Let’s slow down a bit here and start over at the beginning. Someone—someone pretending to be Emily—came to you—”
“Maybe, but I’m not sure she was pretending.”
“You think it really could have—”
“A double, you say?” Iris interrupted him.
“Yes. She said that she can create doppelgängers.”
Iris and Ellen looked at each other. “Do you think it’s possible?” Iris finally asked. “We were so focused on the girls,” she said to her sister. “Could Emily have managed to give birth and then switch places with a double?”
Ellen paused before answering. “Yes. It’s possible,” she finally said. “By the time I knew that Mercy would live, and I could turn my attention back to Emily, she had passed. I’m not sure that I’d sense the difference between a dead body and a body that had never had any life.”
“But even if Emmy had the magic to do that, why would she?” Oliver asked.
“Tell us what she said. All of it,” Iris commanded, ignoring her brother. “Don’t skip anything, even if you are afraid it might hurt us.”
“Go ahead, sweetheart. Tell us exactly what’s been happening.”
Oliver nodded, telling me to go on.
I dug deep into my gut, asking it to tell me whether I should put my trust in these three. I wanted—no, needed—to believe in them. But I’d also needed to believe in Maisie, and I had learned the hard way that my desire to trust someone didn’t make them trustworthy. Someone was lying to me, be it my mother, someone pretending to be my mother, or one or more of the three sitting before me. In the end, I decided to offer my family the benefit of the doubt. I took a deep breath and told them everything. Almost.
TWENTY-SIX
Iris and Ellen both retreated to the places they felt most comfortable, Iris pulling on my grandmother’s sunhat and heading to the garden, Ellen opting for the darkened library and an open bottle. Now, however, didn’t seem like the appropriate moment for any kind of intervention.
Oliver sat deep in thought, staring down at nothing, wiping his hand down his mouth and chin. I could practically hear the wheels spinning in his head. He looked up at me. “I have an idea of how we might find out who is behind all this.”