Chapter 3 - THE SCAR ON HER WRIST
The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the steady drum of rain against the windowpane.
Walter stared at the blackened silver bluebird dangling from my neck, his eyes wide with a terror that had been buried for decades. Kayla covered her mouth, taking a slow step back toward the door.
“Human bone,” Walter repeated, the words sounding hollow, impossible. “Sarah, that can’t be true. Margaret told me the house was empty when the fire started. She said Ellen was playing in the front yard.”
“My mother was in the house,” I said, my voice trembling as the pieces of my family’s history began to rearrange themselves into a nightmare. “Grandma’s letter explicitly says Ellen saw who struck the match. She was inside. But whose bone was buried in the ashes with her bracelet?”
“Arthur’s men,” Walter muttered frantically, rubbing his temples. “There were two of them at the property line. One of them must have gone inside.”
“Or Arthur himself went inside,” I said.
I stood up, carefully tucking the charred bluebird back beneath my sweater. The cold metal rested against my skin like a warning.
“I need to talk to my grandmother,” I said.
“Margaret won’t tell you the truth,” Walter warned, looking up at me with desperate, watery eyes. “She’s spent her entire life protecting her brother’s reputation. Arthur was the golden child. Margaret would have let the world burn to keep his name clean.”
“She doesn’t have a choice anymore,” I said. I looked at the white bakery box sitting on the table. The blue icing that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WALTER was beginning to bleed into the white frosting. “I’m going to come back, Walter. I promise you.”
“Take the letters,” Walter said, his trembling hand pushing the stack of unopened envelopes toward me. “If she tries to lie, show her the postmarks. Show her I never stopped trying.”
I carefully placed the letters, the scorched train ticket, and the cruel note from my grandmother into my purse.
Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of my grandmother’s immaculate, single-story brick home on the affluent side of town. Margaret was seventy-nine now. Since my mother’s death eighteen months ago, our relationship had strained to the point of breaking. She was a rigid, unforgiving woman who demanded perfection and punished vulnerability with stony silence.
I unlocked the front door with my spare key. The house smelled of lemon polish and stale lavender.
“Grandma?” I called out.
“In the kitchen, Sarah,” her sharp, unwavering voice replied.
I found her sitting at the pristine marble island, drinking a cup of black tea and reading the local newspaper. She wore a tailored cashmere cardigan, her silver hair perfectly styled. She didn't look like a woman harboring a fifty-year-old murder.
“You’re visiting on a Tuesday,” Margaret said without looking up from the paper. “To what do I owe the disruption?”
“I went to the Oak Creek care facility today,” I said, standing in the doorway.
Margaret’s hand froze mid-air. The teacup rattled faintly against the saucer as she set it down. She slowly turned the page of her newspaper. “I don’t know anyone at Oak Creek.”
“Stop lying,” I said, my voice sharper than I had ever dared to use with her. I walked to the island and pulled the stack of letters from my purse, slamming them onto the marble countertop.
Margaret’s eyes darted to the faded envelopes, resting on the NOT AT THIS ADDRESS stamps written in her own hand.
“I met Walter,” I said.
Answer one: Margaret couldn't deny intercepting the letters. The physical proof was sitting right in front of her.
But Margaret didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry. She simply folded her newspaper with maddening precision.
“He abandoned your mother,” Margaret said coldly. “I protected her from a deadbeat gambling addict who chose the bottle over his own child.”
“He bought a train ticket for two,” I shot back. “He was coming back to get Ellen. But he couldn't, because the house was surrounded by Arthur’s thugs, and it was burning to the ground.”
Margaret stood up, her posture rigid. “Arthur saved us from ruin. Walter put us in debt to violent men. Arthur paid them off.”
“Arthur burned your house down!” I yelled. I reached into my purse and pulled out the letter she had written to Walter. “You wrote this to him. You told him Ellen saw who struck the match. You told him they were looking for something.”
Margaret stared at the letter, all the blood draining from her aristocratic face.
“I know about the silver bluebird bracelet,” I pushed, stepping closer to her. “I know you gave it to Arthur on the porch. And I know I found it twenty years later, buried in the ashes of the sunroom with a piece of human bone.”
Reversal: Margaret looked me dead in the eye. “I didn’t give the bracelet to Arthur, Sarah. Arthur wasn’t at the house that night.”
The room seemed to tilt. “Walter saw you.”
“Walter saw what he wanted to see in the dark,” Margaret spat. She reached for the edge of the counter to steady herself. “Arthur was out of town. He was in Chicago on business. The men at the house were the loan sharks Walter owed money to. They came for the deed to the house.”
Open two: If Arthur was in Chicago, who struck the match? And whose bone was buried in the sunroom?
“Then who were you talking to on the porch?” I demanded.
Margaret refused to answer. She turned away, gripping the edge of the sink, her breathing shallow and ragged.
“Look at me!” I grabbed her arm to turn her around.
As I did, the sleeve of her cashmere cardigan pulled back.
I froze.
May you like
Running up the inside of my grandmother’s right forearm, stretching from her wrist to her elbow, was a thick, jagged, horrific burn scar.
Cliffhanger: Margaret yanked her arm away, quickly pulling the sleeve down to cover the mutilated skin. “You think you want the truth, Sarah,” she whispered, her voice shaking with a dark, terrible grief. “But if you open the cedar chest in the attic, you will destroy the only good memory you have left of your mother.”
