The Lost Coast Read online

  “Tradition that allows filth like Ares Apostolou into my home.”

  “Tradition that allows you to live quite comfortably and has made you a highly respected vigneron. So don’t be so eager to bite your ancestors in the ass.” I might have laughed at her unexpected sauciness if I hadn’t suspected what the subtext was for this conversation.

  “Just leave Millie out of it.”

  Signe’s fingers tamped down the dirt in the pot with vigor. “I’m not the one who brought your little skogsrå into it.”

  Lukas put his hand at my back in a clear invitation to vacate the garden. I was more than happy to oblige. “Sorry about that,” he murmured as we left. “She’s a bit set in her ways.”

  “What’s a skogsrå?”

  A little humorless laugh escaped him. “The pot calling the kettle black.” He removed his hand from my back when we turned down the hallway. “Listen, you need to stay away from Ares.” His tone was a little annoying, but I didn’t disagree.

  “I have no intention of going anywhere near Ares.”

  “Yet you traipsed off alone with him into the woods within minutes of meeting him.”

  I stopped in my tracks with an indignant glare. “Traipsed? He insisted on accompanying me to the cottage. He thought I was going to tamper with evidence.”

  “Why were you going there?”

  “I must have left my laptop and my phone there. I can’t find them.”

  Lukas frowned. “I saw them on your desk last night.”

  “You did? Well, I thought I’d put them there. I don’t understand where they could be.”

  “You didn’t put them away?”

  “No, and I’ve checked everywhere.”

  “You’re saying someone at the Strand stole your laptop and your phone out of your room.”

  I folded my arms. “I’m not saying anything except that I can’t find them. Unless you have some kind of Swedish house elf here that’s moving my things, I don’t know what to tell you. But they’re gone.”

  Lukas smiled unexpectedly. “A tomte? Perhaps we do. I’ll look into it for you.”

  My defensive demeanor softened. “How did you even know Ares went with me, anyway?” That voice on the path nagged at me. It had sounded like Lukas. Maybe I was losing my mind.

  “Surveillance,” said Lukas.

  “Surveillance? What do you mean, like cameras? You have a security system out there in the trees?”

  “Something like that.” He crossed his arms, and with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, two distinct sets of marks were visible on them—as if someone had raked their fingernails across his skin.

  “Lukas.” I stared at the marks, trying to tell myself how ridiculous the thought was that had leapt into my mind. “What happened to your arms?” I looked up and saw in his eyes that I’d caught him at something.

  He unfolded his arms and frowned at them, pushing his sleeves down belatedly to cover the marks. “Nothing. An allergy. I was scratching.”

  I turned my palms up and curled my fingers, studying my nails. There were fragments of bark beneath them. There was too much now I couldn’t explain—voices I thought I’d heard, trees that seemed to breathe and pulse with life, imagining Lukas’s face among the stand of redwoods when I’d felt someone watching me. And Lukas appearing in a flash of lightning on the hill behind the cottage to rescue Konstantin—after it had seemed as though a tree had moved to push Koste out of the way of a falling branch. I had to be losing my mind.

  I pressed my fingers to my lips. “What—are you?”

  Lukas raised an eyebrow. “What am I? I’m your uncle, Millie.” His voice deepened roughly. “Something I have to keep reminding myself every time I see you.” He grasped my hand and drew it away from my mouth, his fingers lingering for a moment on mine before he dropped my hand, shaking his head. “So don’t—do that. Stop doing those little things that make me miss you.” A smile that was more pain than happiness flitted over his mouth. “And please. Don’t wear the blue hat anymore.”

  I stared after him, pulling the hat from my head as he walked away. I’d forgotten I was wearing it. Shit. I had no idea what was going on here, but one way or another, I was in trouble.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The funeral took place the following day. The coroner had released Aravella’s body to be cremated. Injuries sustained in the fall had been officially recorded as the cause of death, though the sheriff’s department still hadn’t determined whether to classify her fall as an accident, suicide or murder. I weighed the awkwardness of going against the awkwardness of not going. Staying away seemed rude, and if only for Konstantin, I wanted to pay my respects.

  I rode to the service with Clara and Signe for the most uncomfortable ten minutes of my life. Clara barely spoke, avoiding my eyes, as though cowed by the presence of Signe. But Signe clearly felt no such reticence.

  “Normally, no one but family is allowed at one of Our funerals,” she said, saying “our” as if it were a proper noun, like the Strands and Apostolous were royalty. “But then I suppose, technically, you are family, even if your heritage isn’t pure.”

  “As pure as Lukas’s,” Clara interjected, and then looked out the window at a disapproving glance from her sister.

  “I have nothing against outsiders in and of themselves, you understand,” Signe continued. “It’s just the continued dilution of the Strand blood.”

  “Well, good news,” I said. “I don’t plan on diluting it any further.”

  Signe gave me a patient almost-smile. “Not everything turns out as we plan. But I wonder, Millie, how much of Our heritage you even retain. Do you feel drawn to this place?”

  “This place?” I glanced out the window. “The Lost Coast?”

  “The Lost Coast. The Strand.” Signe nodded. “The Grove.”

  “What is this Grove? I keep hearing the term, but no one has explained its significance.”

  “The Grove is where you are now,” said Signe as the limo pulled into a secluded, unpaved lot. “If it speaks to you, perhaps you are indeed one of us. If it doesn’t…” She shrugged. “Well.”

  I was never happier to get out of a car in my life. But apprehension settled over me like an early dusk as Roger, who’d arrived before us, helped me out. The Grove looked exactly as I’d pictured it in my dreams. Towering trees seemed to close in around us though we were in a small glade, with very little daylight reaching the ground. A ring of mushrooms formed a classic fairy mound at the center, where the Apostolous, like a coven of witches, were gathered in a half circle as if waiting for us to complete it.

  Lukas and Konstantin waited for the aunts to climb out of the car before the four of them moved as one toward the others—Konstantin taking halting steps on his crutches, but steps nonetheless—while Roger and I brought up the rear. I thought it interesting that Roger was considered family, while Karolina was apparently not. Or perhaps she hadn’t gotten along with Aravella. It was hard to tell with her.

  When we arrived at the mound, it looked like a strange standoff.

  I turned and whispered to Roger. “Who’s officiating?”

  “No one,” he murmured.

  Alexis flicked a cool gaze at me before turning to Signe. “Is she going to be all right here?”

  “We’ll see,” said Signe.

  Lukas stepped into the center of the circle, the urn in his hands. “Revered ancestors,” he said quietly, “I bring you one of your daughters from a distant land to become one with the earth that binds you.” He moved to take the cover off the urn, but Alexis stepped forward and put a hand on his wrist. Beside me, Clara gasped.

  “All that will remain in your Grove is the piece of her you took.” She nodded toward Konstantin, giving the boy a sad smile before returning her attention to Lukas. “Koste ought to come home with us to where he would be cherished and nurtured, but yo
ur prenuptial agreement can’t be broken now that she’s gone, and so we accept that he will remain here. But her ashes go with us.”

  Lukas’s chest rose and fell with a deep, controlled breath as though he were exerting a great effort. Perhaps it was the effort not to punch his sister-in-law. He certainly looked like he wanted to. “That isn’t how it’s done among our family.” His jaw was so tight as he spoke, his mouth hardly opened. “You have to allow her spirit to join the Grove.”

  “Your Grove is your own concern. Her roots are in Thessaloniki.”

  Lukas looked to his aunt. “Aunt Signe?”

  Signe stood with her hands clasped before her, the long navy-blue skirt she wore fluttering lightly in the wind. “I’m…uncertain. The agreement didn’t cover this.”

  “Pappa?” Konstantin looked up at his father anxiously. “If Mamma’s spirit goes to Thessaleeky, can she still watch over me?”

  Lukas swallowed as if he couldn’t make his throat work.

  “Of course she can, sweetheart.” Every head swiveled toward me when I spoke. I met Lukas’s eyes. “Konstantin needs to rest his leg. He’s been standing too long. Why don’t I take him back to the car?” At Lukas’s wordless nod, I went to Konstantin and put one arm around his back to steady him as we walked back over the pine needles and grass.

  Konstantin was quiet with concentration until we reached the limo he’d arrived in and I’d taken the crutches and helped him into it. “I don’t want Mamma to go to Thessaleeky,” he said, catching his breath after the exertion. “How can she be here if she’s there?”

  Sitting on the edge of the seat with my feet on the ground, I reached out and brushed away the hair that shrouded his eyes. “I don’t think her spirit will go where the urn goes, Koste. I think her spirit is with you, always. I think grown-ups like to argue over silly things because they’re too afraid to say what they mean, which is that they’re sad and hurting, just like you. So they argue about urns and agreements, as if they can somehow have her back if they win the argument.”

  “That’s stupid,” said Konstantin. “She’s dead.”

  “I know, honey. But it’s hard to let go when you’re sad.”

  “Like Mamma was sad when she jumped?”

  “Maybe. If she did. But we don’t know that. She might have fallen by accident.”

  Konstantin pondered this. “Like when I fell. She shouldn’t have been in the tower.” His mouth curved into a troubled frown that echoed his father’s mannerisms. “Except when I fell, it wasn’t an accident.”

  My skin prickled with apprehension as if the air were electrified. “What do you mean? Did you remember something?”

  Before he could answer, a deep rumble seemed to rise out of the earth and the car began to rock. We’re quaking. It was the way I always thought of it when an earthquake happened. I took Konstantin’s hand to reassure him. I’d been in enough, large and small, that they didn’t alarm me. The Loma Prieta quake of ’89 when I was five had been the worst, and this was nothing like that magnitude.

  “Forest giants,” said Konstantin.

  “It’s just an earthquake,” I reassured him. “Just a small one. We’ll be okay.” But earthquakes were short, and the ground was still moving, the trees still swaying in a rippling motion as though a wave were passing through them.

  In the clearing, no one had made a move to leave or take cover. Alexis still stood in front of Lukas, presumably to prevent him scattering Aravella’s ashes, and a breeze seemed to be surging through the glade, lifting and whipping at everyone’s hair. Perhaps the motion of the trees had stirred a kind of whirlwind at its center.

  The continued quaking began to alarm me. It felt as if it had been going on for more than a minute—long enough, it seemed, to liquefy the ground beneath us. The electric sensation I’d felt before intensified, and a rushing sound began in my ears like the rustling of leaves in a high wind. I closed my eyes, holding tight to Konstantin’s hand, and the rustling differentiated into an odd whisper, as if a dozen soft voices were murmuring my name—Emilie.

  Into this susurration of sound, other words emerged. The voices were now whispering the names of everyone here—Lukas. Clara. Alexis. Roger. Ares. Signe. Aristos. Konstantin. Basil. And the names of those were not—Aravella. Sebastian. Per. Justus. Helena. Ulla. These last two names, I didn’t know. And then there were other sounds, snatches of thought that seemed to flow from those in the Grove. It was impossible to tell from which individual the thoughts emanated merely by the voices, as they were all the same odd rippling flutter, but some were easier to identify than others: she goes with us—never liked her—little sister—her poor boy—I’m sorry, Vella—she wasn’t a Strand—it’s his fault—she’s gone too soon—can’t do this, can’t do this, can’t do this, please— The chorus of voices shattered abruptly as Aristos shouted aloud, “I can’t do this!”

  I opened my eyes as he burst from the circle, breaking some invisible vine that bound them all together. I couldn’t be certain now if the words had been in my own head or whether the whispering had been some kind of ritual chanting the families had engaged in. Whatever had happened, it couldn’t have been what it seemed—the trees whispering. Because that was ridiculous.

  The ground had stopped quaking somewhere during this odd tribute to Aravella, and Aristos walked swiftly away from the gathering with his hands in his pockets. Tears were running down his cheeks as he hurried past me to his limo. The rest of the mourners began to move away from one another as if waking from a trance, heading for the cars more slowly.

  Alexis, with the urn like a prize in her hands, strode toward the car, arguing with Ares, and I caught a piece of their conversation. “Perhaps if you had let him bring Thanos,” Ares reproached her, “he’d have held it together. You have Basil.”

  “Don’t compare my marriage to his perversion. It’s unnatural.”

  “And everything about us is just so damned natural, isn’t it, Alexis.” He gave me a wan smile as they passed by.

  I stepped out of the car as Lukas arrived, but Konstantin still clung to my hand from inside. “Can’t Millie ride with us?” he pleaded.

  Lukas looked at me with a question in his eyes, and I gave him a slight shrug. As uncomfortable as it was to be in his presence, I wasn’t relishing another ride with the aunts.

  Behind Lukas, Roger rested a hand on his shoulder. “That’s all right. I’ll switch with Millie.” He nodded toward us and continued on toward the other limo.

  * * * * *

  We were quiet as shadows marked our faces from the dappling of the trees soaring above us on the drive back to the Strand, Konstantin leaning against my shoulder while I curled an arm around him.

  Seated across from me, Lukas spoke at last as if waking from a reverie. “Thanks for stepping in, Millie.”

  I nodded. “Of course. I didn’t quite feel like I belonged there anyway, being an outsider. It was a private family matter.”

  “And do you still? Feel like an outsider, I mean?” When I hesitated, uncertain what he was getting at, he added, “You didn’t feel…drawn in…by anything?”

  I glanced at Konstantin. He was asleep against my shoulder. “Like what?”

  Lukas studied my face a moment and then raised an eyebrow. “Like a chorus of voices in your head that didn’t belong to you, for instance.”

  I held his gaze a moment. “I might have heard something.” He nodded, exhaling as if he’d been holding his breath. “So exactly what was it that happened out there? Some kind of pagan…consciousness raising?”

  “Communion with the Grove. Only family can hear it.” He smiled sadly. “I won’t deny hoping you wouldn’t be able to.” We’d arrived at the Strand, and the limousines filed in procession toward the manor.

  “So what does it mean?” I asked as we pulled up to the house.

  “It means we need to have a talk that we do
n’t have time to have right now. Aunt Signe should probably be the one to explain things to you, but I think it would be better if you heard it from me.” There was always something I had to hear from someone around here.

  The driver opened the door and gave me a hand to help me out, and I gently woke Konstantin before extricating myself, taking the crutches to hold for him until he got on his feet. But instead, Lukas stepped out of the car and whisked Konstantin into his arms with the boy’s legs around his waist, and Konstantin wrapped his arms around Lukas’s neck and laid his head against his father’s chest. I had to look away, overcome at the tender exchange between father and son. It seemed it had taken tragedy for Lukas to realize how much he loved his son after all.

  Signe and Clara had arrived just before us, and Signe paused on the steps and gave me a studying glance before addressing the group as the Apostolous arrived. “Karolina is preparing a buffet for the wake. We’ll gather in the salon at four o’clock this afternoon to remember Aravella.” It was just past noon. “In the meantime, there are box lunches in the kitchen for everyone to take at your leisure.”

  I decided to take mine to eat in the little glassed-in sunroom just off the indoor garden. But no sooner had I sat down to eat my lunch than Ares entered with his own.

  He glanced at me and at the other leather upholstered wicker chair across from me. “May I?” I couldn’t exactly say no or get up and leave, so I nodded and Ares sat, unwrapping his sandwich from the box in his lap. “What did you think of the funeral?”

  “I’ve never actually been to one before,” I said. “But I gather this wasn’t the usual sort.”

  “How fortunate for you not to have lost anyone in your life.” He sounded sincere despite the potential for sarcasm. “The families have their own ways. Aravella told us you hadn’t been aware of your own familial connection for long.”

  “No. I grew up elsewhere, believing I had no family.”

  He studied me for a moment. “Do you mind if I ask about the scars? I’m sorry if that’s rude—”

  “No, it’s fine.” It had taken him longer than most. “I was in a fire when I was an infant.” I figured it was none of his business where and how.