The Truths We Make (House of Poe #1)

16. Scattered Pines

Scattered Pines

Friday, Present

T he formal dining room is packed with caterers and guests, which leaves me confident no one will notice one less among them. Everything is drabbed in red, black, and morally grey, including the staff. Most guests are muted in their dresses and ties, all trying to wring the last drops of their own style into the very strict dress code by deviating from the boldness of the hues. They whisper and stare at the ones unlucky enough to realize what deathly casual meant, showing up in staggering purple or green, and easily plucked from the pack for judgment.

The room is hot with the number of bodies toasting to the dead. I can feel the soft prickle of the first dabs of sweat on my neck. I’m on my second stiff drink, still working to erase the still-building heat of my memory and my instant regret with the ever-turning wheels of my curiosity. The distinct feel of hands in my hair and soft gasps at my ear has me forcing the tide of want and depression back, choosing instead to focus on Pax.

I know Oliver has more of the letter hidden somewhere, and that he is reluctant to share with me how the clue we found in Carolina fits into the next part. He stands now, startling in his dark black suit and midnight blue shirt, drink in hand, smiling with June and Matt. The pull of our youth is strong as I see them in a variation of a place I’ve seen them in a thousand times. Back then, I would’ve joined in, walked to stand next to Oliver just a little too close, and laughed too, even when it wasn’t funny. Now, I only see the opportunity to slip further away from them all.

I’ve made it to the edge of the room before a man steps in, blocking my exit. I look up into crystal blue eyes, dark blonde stubble trimmed, and lips set in a crease that is made for apologies. I know I can’t run from Roger all night and if I stay here and argue with him in the open, I’ll lose the only chance I’ll have to find Paxton’s letter. I grab his hand and tug him along.

“Eve, I think—” he starts.

I spin, teeth bared, and grit out as quietly as I can, “Shut up.”

I don’t know who’s listening and I can’t afford to cause a scene. The humiliation of this group of people learning of Roger’s betrayal is enough to make anyone’s stomach turn. Not to mention what’ll play out once Oliver spots us together. I can’t take the chance for the gossips to catch on. Thankfully, Roger takes my words to heart and continues to follow me silently the rest of the way out of the room.

Once we cross the threshold of guests into the belly of the house, where I only see workers bussing from the kitchen and back again, I release my hold on him and continue walking toward the front of Dellbrook. He follows without prompting, eager to try our conversation again.

“We should talk,” he says.

I sigh, rolling my eyes. The enormity of his explanation too big and too obvious for such words.

“We do,” I give. “Just not here. Come on.”

I lead him through the hall and into the foyer, where a grand staircase waits. The stairs are trimmed in black, railing ingrained in gold. Soft wooden wings fly up and away, the details worn but impressive still. This is the part of Dellbrook even I do not know well. Where I feel most out of place. The kitchens and the servant stairwells feel like home. But this? This is the reminder of why it isn’t.

Still, this is the fastest way to the room I need to be in. I climb the stairs, Roger, hesitantly, following. These stairs don’t creak or bend as we move, and we reach the landing as if transported. The ceiling glistens from black to dark grey and back, letting the light play tricks with the dimensions. The hall here is wide and long, nooks for windows and seating found every few doors. A small bookshelf always within reach when you find yourself wandering with nothing else to do. Luxuries provided for a wealthy family whose lives are wrapped up in words.

No one is up here now. No one would dare. The only ones welcome here are Poes. I pray, again, we’re not caught.

I come to the door I need, and hesitate for only a single breath before I grasp the knob and push. The first inhale is filled with citrus and cedar, a remnant of his favorite cologne, and I smile a watery smile. I forgot how much I missed that smell, one I would forever pair with Paxton’s tanned skin, shining from the lake, breaking out into a grin that lit his face. It’s the invitation I need to fully step inside.

His room is how I imagined he left it—clean and tidy. Nothing out of place. Everything folded, and the bed made. His awards and trophies perfectly lined up in his glass bookcase. The cleaners have been here making sure not a single speck of dust mars the effect of his just left room. The walls are still painted bright royal blue, a harsh clash to the black, grey, and red of Dellbrook. Exactly how he wanted it.

I walk farther, dragging my hand against every surface absently. I catch the paper sitting on his desk and rush over, hoping but not believing it could be that easy. When I see that the paper is blank, I huff a laugh. I would’ve been disappointed if it had been anything else. Still, I see it is only a single sheet, so I gently fold it up and put it in the pocket of my dress. Just in case Oliver overlooked it.

Next to the paper is a book, twilight purple and etched with gold. The flaking swirls and dips, mimicking clouds, as it writes out the word, dream . My blood pounds in my ears as my heart picks up speed at the word, remembering the clue. I hurry to open it, fingers catching on a hollow spot in its pages. When I flip it open, I see the perfect cut out for a key tucked in close to its spine. Empty . I sigh out in defeat, knowing Oliver has already beaten me here.

“Eve?” Roger says a question in his voice.

I’d almost forgotten him. The book shuts with a thump that rings with finality. I turn to see he’s leaning in the doorframe, keeping himself outside the room I’m now encased in.

“Yeah… we can talk now.”

I don’t know what else to say. There are a million questions, but I’m too locked up in fear to ask any of them. What if I ask the wrong one? What if he can spin his way out? One of the greatest things adulthood has taught me is that if you’re looking for answers from a liar, you let them hang their own rope. So, that’s what I do. Let Roger tell me what he thinks I need to know first.

“Here?” he asks, arms splayed wide like I’ve lost my mind. Like it is sacrilegious to talk about secrets and breakups in the room of a man who just died with them in abundance.

I shrug. “It seems fitting. He would’ve loved it.” And even if he wouldn’t, he deserves to bear witness, I think.

Roger’s laugh startles me. “Yeah. Yeah. He would have.” His words are a confirmation and a slap all in one. He knew Paxton.

“He always said you were going to rip me to pieces one day, and that when you did, I needed to remember it was my own fault. I could never blame you. That was a promise I made. To him.” He points around the room as if I’ve forgotten what him we’re talking about. “One of them, anyway. We were friends. I thought the world of Pax. He was the only thing I was sad about leaving behind when I went to NYU. So, naturally, when he asked me for a favor, I didn’t even think twice. Of course, I’d help him.”

I wrap my arms around myself, telling my heart to stay still. You wanted answers. You could’ve gotten on a plane and been home by now. You needed to stay , I scold myself . I try to picture a younger Roger looking at Pax like he hung the moon. It isn’t hard. He always had that effect on people.

“He said, ‘Catz, there’s a girl, she’s like family, but we’ve had a falling out. She’s at NYU too. Would you watch out for her?’ And I thought, sure, why not? I’d be there, anyway. He wasn’t asking anything crazy. He just wanted to make sure you were alright. I could understand that. But then I met you. And I couldn’t mind my own business. When I started asking questions, he just laughed, like he knew I’d be sucked right in.”

“You were sent to hook up with me?” I ask, mortified. This is so much worse than I imagined. I thought he just lied to me, that maybe he didn’t know in the beginning, but once he did, he kept it from me. But if Paxton had orchestrated this whole thing… If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.

“NO!” Roger shouts. “The opposite. He told me to leave you be, said you’d been hurt enough. He never told me what happened, but I could guess. And after seeing that you left with Oliver… I have a pretty good idea. Though, I liked you. I wanted to hang around and I think when he realized I had actual feelings for you, he let it go. He stopped asking so many questions, only sticking to one.”

“And? What did he have to know?” My heart pounds wondering what he could want to be kept apprised of. Did he know all the times Roger and I slept together? All the times I hooked up with other people, desperate to forget my past? How many times I cried and cursed being alone, while Roger tried in vain to tell me he was there for me?

“He always asked if you were happy,” he says with a soft sadness.

Of course he did. Never mind that he didn’t call and ask me himself. Or visit. Or text. I know I said I wanted to be left alone, but he knew better than to think I could mean it. Not for this long. He had to know I still talked to Madeline and Alexander on the rare occasions they’d call Isabel and I’d pick up the phone. He had to know that my stubborn heart made sure I never hit dial, no matter how many times I pulled up his or Oliver’s number on my phone. But maybe if he had tried again, I could’ve forgiven him. Maybe we could have moved on. Instead, he put Roger in my path. Set me on a course to be here, in the mess of being a pawn.

“What did you tell him?” I ask, unable to stop the morbid need to know from escaping my lips.

He looks at me, head tilted in thought. “Most of the time, I told him you were happy enough. Other times, I said not yet, but she will be .”

Tears prick at my eyes. No longer able to stand in this room as its walls close in around me and the pain I thought I’d done so well to hide surfaces. I hurry to escape, frustrated that I can’t look around more. I want to open drawers and roll his things between my fingertips. I want to smell his last days here and feel them soak into my bones. But not at the expense of seeing them tarnished with this confined grip around my throat. Not with knowing he tipped over the domino that’s cascaded into the first man I could have almost loved since leaving here, being a liar and a con. A man who knew I was never whole, no matter how I tried to conceal it.

I skirt around Roger, done with his explanations. They’re enough. If he’s a suspect for killing Paxton, if there’s more to the picture than a happy getaway for him, I, for once, do not want to know. Let Oliver untangle that mess. I need to pretend he doesn’t exist in this place, which is impossible when I can hear his feet pounding behind me as I walk deeper into the hall. I spin on him.

“Ro, that’s enough! I don’t want to hear anymore. I don’t want to talk to you or see you. I can’t be around you,” I gasp.

He nods, eyes stricken, lip pouting .

“I know, Eve. I do. But I just need to tell you one more thing and then I’ll go,” he sighs out, looking behind him in solace. “There was one other thing Paxton made me promise. It made little sense to me then, and it still doesn’t. But if I were a betting man, I’d guess you know exactly what it means. A few months ago, he begged me to take a trip with him. I hadn’t seen him in ages, and I didn’t want to lie to you, but he was obstinate. So, I went.”

The trip to Carolina. Even if I don’t want to know, he’s going to tell me. I wait for the car to wreck right into me.

“We got drunk, and he kept saying how much he missed you. Missed how things were before. Then he pulled me close and forced me to promise that if anything ever happened to him, I would get you to come here, to Dellbrook. That I would tell you everything. He sounded worried but convinced I could help him. That I needed to. He kept mumbling that you needed to find the letter, and I needed to make sure you were here so you could.”

My mind is stuck on letter and it repeats in my head. It wasn’t only for Oliver to find, this was for me, too . An elation in my soul floats up through disappointment, a constant golden light from my youth of following the boys around. Of being included in their games. I choose to snatch it up and sharpen my focus on finding it instead of on the tattered mess of my life lying before me.

I practically run deeper into the house, to the next door I need in the hallway. I fly past the oil portraits, floor to ceiling windows and reading nooks, and then hesitate outside its solid ornate oak. Roger has fled with me, standing only paces away, staring, waiting.

“I… There’s something I need to do. Alone. And I can’t talk about us or this. At least not now.”

He nods. “Oh. OK. A few guys from college are here, so I’ll be around for the night at least. And for what it’s worth, I am sorry. I never wanted to lie to you. If you believe anything, please let it be that.” He gives a sad, lonely wave. “Whenever you’re ready to talk, and I do mean whenever, I’ll be here.”

For all his resiliency, I always liked how Roger knew when not to push. He never made me crazy. Never left me reeling. Even now, when I can see in his eyes that he wants me to ask him to stay, that he needs me to tell him it isn’t over, he won’t try to overwhelm me. He won’t fight that I want to be alone. He trusts I know best for myself, even though it’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told. If this trip back to Dellbrook has taught me anything, it’s that I know nothing .

“I’ll… let you know,” I grit out.

It’s the best I can offer him. He leaves back the way we came, and I breathe out a lungful of relief. I try the door and unsurprisingly find it locked, which is expected. The good news is that I know the trick. I’ve understood the Poe boys for years. I know how they move, how they tick, and I know where they hide their keys.

My hand grazes around the door frame, looking to catch my fingernail on an unsuspecting seam. A tiny sliver of wood drags out from it, three-quarters of the way to the top, just past the third hinge, and I hurry to dig my nail in and pull. A small, finely made block of wood releases itself from the rest of the oak and I smile to myself.

The core of the un-lodged block is delicately carved, a tiny raven stamped at its end. I walk to the short bookshelf, directly across from my prized door, and scour its contents until I find one that reads Edgar’s Greatest Works . I pluck the soft leather binding out, flipping it over until I see the metal lock on its front with the smallest indent that, to others, may be an undetermined blob. To those who know, however, it is a single, solitary bird who has carried the Poe name far and wide for centuries.

The lock clicks out of hold, and tucked inside the paper with a bolded title of Ligeia is a key. I run my fingers along the story the metal was once holding and down the carefully scribbled notes in the margins. Blue and black ink run wild, a long-held conversation between brothers, until I hit an odd dash of purple at the bottom, messily scrolled, reading, ‘ you’re both wrong, Ligeia was the embodiment of freedom, unfit for the burden of marriage. Death becomes her’. I laugh at my audacity, even years later.

Hurry, Eve! You have little time to find the letter. I rush back to Oliver’s door, knowing it is true. Once Roger returns to the party, it’s only a matter of time before Oliver wonders where I’ve gone and comes looking. I click the key into place in the lock and shoulder in the door, holding my breath.

The sound of waves greets me, lulling and quiet, from a tiny speaker tucked into the headboard of his massive black bed. I roll my eyes at his predictability—the last time I’d been here, it had, at least, been midnight blue. Now, everything has turned to ash and smoke. Tar and tobacco. Towering stacks of tilting books line the floor, blooming open as my eyes reach the top. There are notes and highlights, post-its and receipts marking miscellaneous pages. Each I know is carefully placed. A chaotic organization of words. Just like his mind .

A small shelf sits just above his desk, filled with scattered notebooks whose bindings can barely hold their overused pages. I move to it, knowing somewhere within one of them must be what I’m looking for. What I need .

I start gingerly at first, sorting through the pages. A few framed photos catch my eyes, a few of young Oliver and Paxton, happy and carefree. There’s one of the three of us, a candid Madeline caught, where we’re all reading underneath the leaning tree. Then I see a newer one, certainly within the last few years, of Oliver and Ally. They’re dressed to the nines. Oliver’s eyes are soft, his grin a ghost, but she’s smiling hard enough for the both of them. I scoff and pull my eyes away from the photo. I force myself to sort the pages faster. I move through them, loose reams falling to the floor unbidden. I pick one up to find a poem that is both flushing and embarrassing to read;

The song I want to make love to is The sound your hips make rubbing against mine, Your breath rasping into the hollow of my neck Soft moans against the underside of my ribs And curse words that sound like gospel Your body is ink Spilling onto the page Of our white bed sheets

I see Ally’s smiling face in my peripheral and the piece of paper rips beneath my nails. I follow the sound apart with my sanity. I pick up and read another.

An item on his leger. A word in his poem. A moment to be smiled on, reminisced, and then promptly forgotten only to be picked up again when reality became too cruel to bear. Unlike the other women, he wrote into his body. Just like the one he wrote into his heart. The one who still resides His tattoo, his scar.

With each one that describes a curve of a breast or a smile like the stars or a passionate love he cannot let go, I become more frantic, until finally something feral rises in me. I slash poem after useless poem, thought after reckless thought. Large slits of notes lay at my feet, but I still haven’t found one that resembles the handwriting I long for.

Only the one inflicts pain.

I hadn’t planned on this. I wanted to come and go like the ghost I was in his life. To take what I wanted and flee. The crunch of paper on my toes and the mess laid out around me shows there’s no chance of that now. He’ll know. He’ll see my envy cleaving through eight years of his loving someone else. Many someones, by the looks of it. He’ll feel the rough edges of my heart, soaking the pages in gasoline. He’ll smell the sulfur of my fury in the torn words. The hurt I could no longer push down deep inside. And I’ll be left with nowhere to hide.

I suppose this is the least consequence of shattering a heart, so I’ll hold my head high. At least, I can hope. Who knows who’ll I’ll be when he turns his hollow eyes on me after this. Oliver puts words above all, and I’ve silenced a decade of his voice in mere minutes. He’ll never forgive me. In the madness that’s taken hold, I’m not sure if I mind. I didn’t want to risk my heart again. Two birds, one stone.

Just as I’m about to give up, a single sheaf falls to the floor. Its thick paper is folded up and appears more yellow than the other scraps around it. I bend down and grab it up, unfolding it by the edges as carefully as I can. There I find a scrawl I know. I scan the first few lines.

Oliver, I need you to know what happened to me, if it happens, which looks inevitable at this point. But first, there’s something you must do if you want to know the truth.

Below is my name along with Paxton’s bible verse telling Oliver to include me. I’m burning to read the whole thing, to dissect every ink stain, but I don’t want to be caught here amongst the rubble before I’ve even copied it. Like lightning, I push it into my pocket and waltz out, mindful to lock back up as I go. Oliver will know it was me, and destroying his work is bad enough. I don’t want to allow a random guest open access to the one place he keeps under lock and key, too. Even my impulsiveness has its limits.

I cannot stop the urge to jog down the hall and stairs, from the foyer into the main hall that leads me into the formal dining room where everyone is still sipping drinks after eating dinner. I pant, less from the exertion and more from the nerves of what I’ve left behind and what I’ve found. In only a few days at Dellbrook, I’ve become ruination. Shame paints my cheeks. I don’t have to worry about the girl I was because every action since I walked in has proved she’s no longer in control. It cuts another piece off my already tattered heart.

It's fine. Once I’m home, I can go back. Be different. I can finally be kind and healed and happy. It’s a placation Roger would give me. One I would despise for its falsity. My brain stutters as I realize it’s a sad reminder he’ll no longer be a wall I can hide behind. Don’t think about it. Only the letter. The letter that is pushing me to believe something sinister happened, and that I need to look more closely at Oliver’s suspects. I imagine its thick edges in my pocket waiting to be read. Soon , I tell it as I pat where it sits.

My whole body feels like it’s vibrating on nerves as caterers’ stream by me. I’m almost to the thrown open doors where the world can calm down and I can pretend to be normal again. I square my shoulders and lift my head, ready to take on what’s left of this evening, even if I’m not ready to face Oliver after what I’ve done. Tiny cuts bleed out my confidence, but I don’t let it show. Not until the second I cross the threshold and lock eyes with him from across the room.

He's smirking, glass held loosely by his side, an arm snaked around his middle. I follow that arm until I reach the face of a woman who has tucked her lips so far into his neck she practically kisses him as she laughs. Her poppy red gown gleams in the lighting, somehow sticking out amongst the others. Memory plays tricks on me as I swear I can hear the high-pitched tinkle of it from here, even through the crowds of mindless chatter and gossip. My blood runs cold as it hits me.

Ally McVie is in Dellbrook.