Chapter Two

Phelan

Neither of us readily answered Gyda, mostly because our mother started to sob hysterically and we both sat in what I imagined was mutual silent horror over the situation.

The most honest answer I could provide Gyda was that she was not a competent mother and she should never have bore children, but given her agitated state, I couldn't imagine admitting that to the woman that I had not seen in over forty years and whom I never thought I would see again. She was far too fragile and the truth seemed cruel.

Given her emotional state, I considered moving a more appropriate distance away, but I wasn't sure there truly was a place where I could be near her while still far enough away for her comfort.

In truth, I didn't want to sit further from her. I wanted to wrap my arms around her until she stopped crying, to hold her in the way I vaguely thought I remembered her holding me as a very young child.

At last she looked at me, lips parted as she continued to hyperventilate with each breath. "Phelan?" she managed to say, her voice softer than before. She looked at me in disbelief, clarity within the cloud of her troubled eyes. "And Erik?"

"Yes," I said, hoping she believed me.

She looked at me for a long moment, studying my features, perhaps memorizing the terrain of my face.

"Are you spøgelser?" Gyda asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Spøgelser?" Gyda drew back further from me, though in truth she had nowhere else to go.

"No," Erik assured her. "We are not."

"I don't believe you," she muttered as she began chanting words that were too frantically mumbled for me to understand, hands clasped as if in prayer.

"Erik, what is she saying?" I asked.

"Ghost," my brother answered. "She is asking if we are ghosts, malevolent spirits. She is praying for protection from us."

Considering I had never expected to find Gyda alive, especially after paying for her burial, I supposed she also expected to never see us either, apparently for similar reasons.

"If you are bad spirits, please leave this house," she pleaded, per Erik's translation.

"Gyda," I said sharply. "Listen to me. We are not ghosts. We are both alive," I said, extending my hand toward her.

She flinched, her eyes wide with terror as she lifted her hands to shield her face. I couldn't blame her reaction, not after all she had survived, but it still hurt my heart to see how she responded to me.

After a long moment, she swallowed and nodded, appearing more calm at last.

"Please, tell me what happened that I lost my children," she whispered. "Tell me what I do not remember."

I took a breath, knowing there was a lengthy explanation I wasn't sure I had time to offer.

"You were unable to care for us." I gently said.

We were still seated on the floor beside one another with Gyda dangerously close to the missing floorboard beneath the rug.

Her bottom lip quivered. "Unable?" she asked.

"You were not well most days," I continued.

It was a painful truth to convey, one which brought me no pleasure as it resurrected a past best left forgotten.

"What was wrong with me?" my mother asked.

I looked from her to my brother, who was still standing a distance away, as if he worried his presence would greatly disturb Gyda more than mine already had since the moment we had found her in the house.

"I'm not a physician, so I cannot say for sure," I answered.

"You do know, but you will not tell me," she said, her voice raised like a petulant child.

Her tear-filled eyes were more alert than I recalled from my childhood, but still filled with wildness like that of a frightened rabbit in the woods caught in a snare. I hadn't been in close proximity to my mother in over forty years and wasn't sure if I remembered her correctly or what was normal for her.

Forty years of separation. The very thought made the breath still in my lungs. I had never imagined I would see her again, the woman who by name was my mother, but in reality had been nothing tangible to me. How she had managed to survive all these years was beyond me.

"I remember so little of you," she said to me in Danish. "How can that be? How do I not remember my own son?"

Because you were not a mother to me and I was not your son.

Her gaze flickered to Erik again. "And what I recall of you cannot be true."

It didn't seem possible for my heart to break any more than it had over the years, but the aching that I had managed to keep at a reasonable distance returned.

"I don't want you to sit here on the cold floor," I said, kneeling beside her. "Please, let's get you somewhere more comfortable and we can speak further."

Gyda eyed me suspiciously when I offered my hand. She pulled her knees closer together and recoiled from me as if she thought I would assault her right there in front of my brother. "I can do it myself."

"Of course," I responded, withdrawing my hand.

Once we were both on our feet, she bumped into the wall and rattled the paintings.

"Careful," I said, reaching toward her.

I should have expected it, but I was still dismayed when she flinched and stepped away from me.

"Neither of us will harm you," Erik said.

Gyda turned to look at him. "I was chased through the house and cornered only moments ago," she reminded us.

My lip parted, but I couldn't find the appropriate words to speak. She was correct; I had chased her out of the kitchen and into the parlor thinking she was a thief or trespasser up to no good. In hindsight, I imagined she thought I was her dead husband, stalking her through the house until he caught her and made her pay severely for running from him.

Bjorn had been gone for over twelve years and yet her instinct was to fight off the man who resembled him, the person she did not know as her son. I feared she would never know me as anything but the image of her dead husband.

"You do not live here," she said when no one spoke. "Neither of you."

"No, we do not," Erik replied, taking a seat first. "I live in Paris and Phelan lives in Brussels."

"Are they nearby?" she questioned, sitting opposite my brother on the settee.

I found myself taking the chair across from Gyda, closest to the kitchen door. In silence I studied my mother, examining the woman in her sixties who had no knowledge of the world.

"You have never heard of Paris or Brussels?" I asked, attempting to sound genuine when I felt as though my question was quite condescending. Of course she had no knowledge of either place. She'd lived on a farm in a tiny community with fewer than five hundred people and very little education and then had been abducted into the middle of nowhere with no ability to read or write. She had known nothing at all.

Gyda shook her head. "They are villages, yes? Like Skyderhelm and…this place."

"This is Conforeit," I said.

Again she merely stared at me with her feral eyes. "Yes, this is called Conforeit. I remember."

"Skyderhelm is in the country of Denmark," I explained. "Where I live is in Belgium, and Erik lives in Paris, which is in France, same as Conforeit. They are very large cities with millions of people."

Her eyes widened. "Millions of people?" she questioned in pure astonishment.

"Yes, lots of people and many buildings as well."

"How is that possible? For millions of people to live in one place?"

"Large buildings," I said, feeling like it was a question Eliza would have asked me when she was a girl of six who wanted me to explain the world to her.

"You live far away," Gyda said to me. I couldn't tell if she was disappointed or relieved. "In this large city called Brussels."

"I actually live closer to Conforeit than Erik does," I answered.

"But you reside in a different country?"

I nodded. "Yes, but the northern border of France and southern border of Belgium touch. Where we are currently is northern France. Paris is toward the center."

"Northern France," she echoed like a young student repeating after her teacher. "We are in Northern France."

"I could draw you a map if you'd like and show where we are located."

Gyda looked me over. "You are intelligent," she said. "You know the world."

I forced a smile. "You are very kind to say so, but I am an artist and drawing is what I do."

Gyda looked forlornly at me. She was frail for a woman in her sixties, thin as a reed with knobby hands. Our mother appeared uneasy on the settee, bony arms hugging her thin body as if she still feared what we would do to her.

Her features reminded me greatly of Erik with their high cheekbones and green eyes, and both of them had thinner noses and longer chins. Somehow, Erik and I still favored one another as well despite him inheriting our mother's features and I unfortunately becoming the spitting image of Bjorn.

"Why did you try to hurt me?" Gyda asked me suddenly.

My heart sank at her inquiry.

"He didn't," Erik said before I could answer. "Lan would never harm you, not intentionally."

"You kicked the door open," Gyda said. "Like a crack of a whip. I thought you would beat me. I thought you would…do things to me."

There was no suitable reply. My own mother had never heard of Paris or Brussels, but she knew the crack of a whip and the danger of being struck and most certainly how a man could force himself onto a woman. The very thought made my stomach turn that I had frightened her.

"I had students staying here recently," I explained. "They returned to the house and you were here. They were startled by an intruder and I was informed of this incident. Erik and I are traveling back to Paris, but stopped here to make sure the house was secured and nothing was missing."

"An intruder? I am not an intruder. I live here," she said, her tone defensive. "I have lived here for a very long time. This is my house, not theirs."

"The house belongs to me. I purchased the property many years ago and allow my art students to stay here several weeks out of the year," I told her.

"You? You own my house?"

"Yes, it went up for auction and I purchased it, but that does not mean you are not welcomed here."

"This is my home. I need this to be my home." Gyda looked frantically around the room, her words spoken with more urgency. "They were not welcomed here. They were evil spirits that had taken over the house. They frightened me and I frightened them and they ran away. But I was afraid they would return, so I waited in the woods for the house to settle again."

"To settle?" Erik questioned.

"Yes. The house becomes angry sometimes. I can feel it in the floorboards and the rafters. There are noises. Voices. The house warns me of danger."

"It's probably the branches against the windows," Erik said quite sensibly. "I heard it last night with the wind howling. The wind chimes sound like singing. I am certain that is what you hear."

Gyda switched her gaze to my brother, her eyes filled with anger. "No, there used to always be a voice here," she insisted. "For years I could hear it whispering, but most of the time all the voices are sleeping. They are tired now. The house is weary."

"What kind of voices?" Erik asked.

Gyda lowered her gaze, hands balled in her filthy skirts. For all of the years that I had stayed at the house, there had been no signs of personal belongings within any of the rooms other than the occasional garment left behind or the items I supplied. I hoped that she had other clothing she could wear and that she hadn't been in the same skirt and blouse for years.

"There was a soft voice at first, long ago," she said. "But he is gone."

Erik leaned forward, hands clasped on his knee, his eyes wide and intense. "A soft voice?"

"A child," she said without looking at either of us. "I thought it was my son returning to me, calling from heaven. I thought it was you, but it could not be. I am now certain it was the trickery of a lutin." She touched her tangled locks of hair. "They disturb me, knotting my hair when I sleep."

"A lutin?" I incredulously asked. They were mythical creatures, sometimes helpful, but more often mischievous house spirits that hid items and knotted hair, but rarely were responsible for more nefarious actions.

"Yes, they all over the woods," she insisted. "They infest the land and the house."

Erik's lips parted, but he didn't speak.

"The voice would come from the floorboards, all around the house," she said, speaking barely above a whisper. "I could hear him from my chair and I would speak to him, but he never answered me."

"What did you ask?" Erik questioned.

Gyda rocked back and forth in her seat. "I would pretend it was my lost baby and ask him if he still loved me," she said, her eyes and voice distant. "I would ask him what it felt like before he was born, if he felt my hand on him when he moved in my belly."

Erik and Gyda's eyes were both filled with immense sorrow. She lifted her gaze and pointed to the hall.

"There," she said. "There used to be a door, but it is gone now. The boy has been sealed inside the walls by magic and mischief, and he suffocated long ago. He was murdered, murdered at the hands of that nasty little lutin."

"No." Erik inhaled sharply. "That…that was me that you heard."

Gyda turned her attention back to my brother. "Why were you inside the floors and the walls?" she asked. "Were you attempting to play a wicked trick on me? Hiding in the floors and walls like a mouse? Shame on you!"

Erik was breathing harder than before. "No, I wasn't hiding in the floors," he answered. "I was in the cellar."

Gyda's eyes widened. "Why did you choose to stay in the cellar?"

Erik gaped at our mother, bewildered by her inquiry.

"It was not my choice. I never had a choice," Erik replied. The emotion in my brother's eyes was unbearable and I looked away from him, regretting that we had ever stepped foot in Conforeit again and I had subjected him to this torment.

"It was my fault," I blurted out, needing to protect my brother.

"No," Erik said. "No, Lan, that was not your doing."

Gyda's gaze switched back and forth between us. "What has happened? What are you speaking of? Did you put my baby into the cellar?" Gyda asked me, her eyes hardened and nostrils flared. "Did you trap him in there? My son?"

My mind reeled as if I had been thrown into a tempest that uprooted the past. "No, of course not. I would never do that to Erik."

"Liar. You are a liar!"

"Phelan had nothing to do with it," Erik firmly said.

"Tell me what happened, tell me how you were trapped in the cellar, yet you are here before me now. It does not make sense," Gyda frantically demanded.

"Our father put me there," Erik said. "From the age of three and a half until I was twelve. He would not let me out. I escaped as often as I could, but he punished me each time he found me."

I shuddered at Erik's raw admission and the look of horror and disbelief on our mother's face.

Slowly she shook her head. "You were in the cellar?" she asked my brother. "This cannot be. I would have known. I would have taken you out. I would have had you with me. You are lying. You were not in the cellar. You could not have been in the house. I would have known! I would have heard my baby."

Erik shook his head. "Please, listen to me. I am not lying."

My brother spoke softly, his voice low and even, not quite a whisper, but in a tone that I had never heard before from anyone else. The quality was exceptionally soothing, and I found myself compelled to listen, as did our mother, who appeared hypnotized by Erik's voice.

"How did I not see my own son?" She reached out, but reconsidered and withdrew her hand. "You are a spirit. You cannot be real."

"Mor." he said.

Gyda blinked, looking at him as if she had seen him for the first time. "Yes, min søn?"

"When you saw me, you did not know who I was."

"I would know my son. I am certain I would know my son."

Erik shook his head. "You didn't acknowledge me," he said. "You were afraid of me."

"No," she whispered.

The flood of tears in Gyda's eyes streamed freely down her cheeks. She continued to rock back and forth, her movements faster than before.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "I don't understand how you did not tell me you were here. I asked for you. I spoke to you. but you would not answer me."

"I was not permitted to speak to you," Erik answered, his tone still low and even despite the sorrow in his gaze. "My father, he would not allow it."

"Why? Why did he keep you there?"

"I don't know," Erik whispered, looking away at last.

"You were real," Gyda whispered. "All that time and you were real."

Erik sniffled and turned his head away. "Yes, I was real," he said quietly, the sound of his voice returned to normal. "I wanted out. I never wanted to be down there."

Gooseflesh rose along my arms at my brother's confession. While I had never expected that Erik desired confinement, hearing him speak of being forced into the cellar by Bjorn was overwhelming. It felt as though my own hands had put him there, into the prison I had sealed for good years later.

Gyda stood abruptly, her feet unsteady. "I must go," she said under her breath.

"Where?" I asked. "Where are you going?"

"Away," she answered.

Neither one of us tried to stop her or glean further information. She stood and teetered toward the rear of the house, disappearing through the swing door and into the kitchen. A moment later, the back door opened and closed.

Erik and I sat in silence for a long time, both of us looking in different directions.

"What do we do?" Erik asked at last.

"What do you mean?"

"Do we…do we leave?" he asked, looking across the room at me. "Surely you are not locking the house so she cannot get inside?"

Quite frankly I didn't have the heart to lock the doors and keep my mother away from the only home she knew, even if she was half-feral and unaware of the world around her. If anything, I felt as though I needed to leave the house available for her to have shelter and the meager amount of food left behind.

"I should stock the pantry," I said more to myself than my brother. "Change the linens, provide soap…Something to make her comfortable."

"And then we return to Calais?" Erik asked.

"The next train should depart around nine-thirty," I answered. "We should have time to walk back to the center of the village and hopefully hail a cab back to Calais before the train leaves. If that is what you want to do."

"Is that what you want to do?" Erik asked me.

We stared at one another for a long moment. As much as I disliked being away from my fiance and friends any longer than necessary, I had no idea what would happen with Gyda if Erik and I left again.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"I want to return home," Erik replied.

I nodded. "I agree."

"But," Erik said suddenly. "We cannot leave her like this. Can we?"

"Kire, I don't want to leave like this, but we have no idea when she will return," I pointed out.

"No, but when is the next train departure after the nine-thirty? If there is time to wait to see if she comes back…"

"There is a schedule in my coat pocket," I said as I rose to retrieve the pamphlet from the bedroom with Erik on my heels.

"There are departures practically every four hours for the rest of the day. Nine-thirty, one-fifteen, five-ten, and lastly at eight-twenty," I replied. "If you want to wait a few hours here, we can see if Gyda returns and still make it back within a day. I don't know if that will change anything, but if you want to wait a while longer, we can make lunch and..."

Erik stood near the window with his back to me.

"Did you hear me?" I asked when he didn't reply.

"Yes." He glanced over his shoulder at me. "She's still here."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Our mother is still outside," he said.

"Outside? Doing what?"

"Sitting."

"Sitting where?"

"By my grave," he said.

Erik's words made me shudder as I stepped toward him and followed his gaze to where Gyda knelt with her arms outstretched, gathering the bits and pieces of the false headstone that had belonged to Erik.

After the house had become mine, I'd smashed the damned stone with a sledgehammer in a moment of unbridled rage and grief, destroying the monument that signified my brother had died.

Through the closed window we could hear Gyda wailing in despair, begging for God's forgiveness as she placed the shards on her skirt, rocking back and forth.

"I cannot bear to see her like this," Erik said under his breath. He turned and walked past me while I remained by the window, head bowed as I weighed our options.

There were no suitable words of comfort to speak to someone who mourned a relationship that had never been. My brother and I should have been closer to our mother. She should have been our world and our comfort when we were younger and we should have been her protectors as adults.

I had always wanted to be loved by my mother, to feel soothed by her voice rather than frightened by her ramblings.

But I knew nothing about her other than she had suffered tremendously for the majority of her life. She was nothing to us and Erik and I were strangers to her as well. There didn't seem to be much we could provide for her as far as a relationship and I wasn't sure if she would accept financial assistance in the form of providing food and necessities while she lived alone in the house for the remainder of her days.

From the corner of my eye I saw Erik outside of the house, slowly approaching our mother, who was still on the ground, rocking back and forth as she continued to sob.

I inhaled sharply as Erik reached out to Gyda and she turned to face him.