“Did she murder you, Grandad? Did Mum murder you?”
My ghostly grandad pulled back from me, looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “She didn’t mean to. Lord above, she really didn’t. And believe me, it wasn’t that simple.”
I couldn’t understand it.
“How did she do it, then? How did it happen?”
He beckoned me over to the side of the tower. The ground looked miles away, gravestones like little rocks in the grass.
“I fell, from here.”
“She pushed you?”
“No, no!” he said, and clutched my hand in his cold fingers. “I was searching for her and your grandma. They’d been arguing for hours before your mother stormed out of the house, and I knew Rhona would be going crazy, threatening all sorts if your mother left with Thomas. She was convinced he was the Devil, and convinced you were the Devil’s daughter, but I promise you, she truly believed you could be saved.”
He sighed a sad sigh.
“She does love you, Katherine. Your grandma loves you very much, despite how she shows it.”
It had never felt like it. She never seemed to think I could besavedof whatever madness she thought I was blessed with.
Hans must have seen my expression, talking to the man who was invisible to him.
“Listen to whatever he’s telling you,” he said. “He knows the true soul of everyone involved.”
“I needed to see the grounds because I knew they were here somewhere,” Grandad carried on. “It was dark when I got here, and I couldn’t see them. I could hear them rowing but I couldn’t see where they were.”
He clutched his hands together, shaking his head in frustration.
“Their voices were going crazy, screaming, and I was shouting for them, but they didn’t listen, and I thought it would come to serious blows. I really did. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been such a fool and climbed up here. I was just trying to bloody see them. To stop them.”
I could picture Grandma’s cold face telling me he fell, and was there a hint of something else in her eyes I’d never noticed before?
Pain?
Grandad pointed over to the far side of the grounds, in the corner by one of the old graves.
“They were over there, arguing. Your mother was packed and ready to go, and you were crying in her arms. She was screeching, saying she was leaving, and she didn’t care if Thomas was the Devil or not, she was going anyway. Rhona couldn’t take it. She said she didn’t raise your mother to be like that, and I was so angry with myself for not stepping in sooner, but Rhona was Rhona. Trying to argue with her is like raising a red rag to a bull.”
I knew that well enough.
He waited a few moments before he continued. Hearing him speak was like hearing a confession. He seemed so relieved to be telling the story.
“I waved at them from here, trying to get their attention. I shouted for them to stop fighting, but they didn’t hear me, they were too busy screaming at each other. I’d have gone down there if I could and tried to scream some sense into them myself, but I didn’t have time. It was all happening so bloody fast. Thomas was on his way to get you and Serena, and Rhona went into a rage.”
I could imagine that, too. I knew Grandma’s rage when she lost her temper.
Grandad carried on.
“I yelled as loud as I could when she tried to tear you from your mother’s arms, but she didn’t mean harm, not really. She believed she was trying to protect you and Serena from the Devil. I just should’ve stepped in sooner… Damn it. DAMN IT!”
I braced myself. “How did you fall, Grandad?”
He shrugged. “I was leaning out, trying to get their attention, waving my arms around like a bloody madman, and your mother exploded and lost her temper along with your grandma. But with your mother it was much stronger, desperate. And the power… oh my life, the power. It all came out of her in one huge blast that shook the ground. I mean it, Katherine. It shook the earth of this whole churchyard,” he told me. “The tower rumbled, and I was leaning out from the turrets like a fool, and your mother was screaming in the middle of the night. I should have backed off… I should’ve…”
I placed my hand on his shoulder.
“It’s not your fault, Grandad.”