Casteel 2 - Dark Angel PART ONE . One Coming Home . ALL ABOUT ME THE LARGE HOUSE LOOMED DARK, mysterious, and lonely. The shadows whispered of secrets, of incidents best forgotten, and hinted of dangers, but said nothing at all about the safety and security I needed most. This was my mother's home, my dead mother's home. The longed-for home that had called to me when I lived in that mountain shack in the Willies; called loud and sweet into my childish ears so I had been beguiled by thoughts of all the happiness waiting just for me, once I was here. Here in these rainbowed rooms of dreams fulfilled I'd find the golden pot of family lovethe kind I'd never known. And around my neck I'd wear the pearls of culture, wisdom, and breeding that would keep me free from harm, from scorn, from contempt. And so like a bride I waited for all those wonderful things to appear and decorate me, but they didn't come. As I sat there on her bed, the vibrations in her room aroused the troubled thoughts that always crowded into the darkest corners of my brain. Why had my mother run away from a house like this? Poor Granny had led me out into that cold, wintry night so many years ago, to visit a cemetery where she could tell me I wasn't Sarah's first child, and show me my mother's grave. My mother, a beautiful runaway Boston girl named Leigh. Poor Granny with her ignorant, innocent brain. What a trusting soul she'd been, believing her young-est son Luke would sooner or later prove himself worthy enough to lift up the scorned and ridiculed name of Casteel. “Scumbags,” I seemed to hear ringing like church bells in the darkness all around me, “no good, never will be no good, none of 'em . .” and my hands rose to my head to shut out the sound. Someday I'd make my granny proud, though she was dead. Someday when I had my string of degrees I'd go again to the Willies, to kneel at the foot of her grave, and I'd say all the words that would make Granny happier than she'd ever been in life. I didn't doubt in the least that Granny up in heaven would smile down on me, and she'd know at last one Casteel had made it through high school, then college ... What an ignorant innocent I was to arrive with so much hope. It had all happened so fast: the plane landing, my frenzied scramble to find my way through the crowded airport to the luggage carousel, all the worldly things I'd thought would be so easy, but they weren't so easy. I was scared even after I found my two blue suitcases that seemed amazingly heavy. I looked around and floundered, filled with trepidation. What it my grandparents didn't come? What if they had second thoughts about welcoming an unknown granddaughter into their secure, wealthy world? They had done without me this long, why not forever? And so I stood and waited, and as the minutes passed I became convinced they'd never show up. Even when a strikingly handsome couple advanced toward me, wearing the richest clothes I'd ever seen, still I was nailed to the floor, unable to believe that maybe, after all, God was at last going to grant me something besides hardship. The man was the first to smile, to look nlie over really carefully. A light sprang into his light blue eyes, bright, like a golden candle seen through a window on Christmas Eve. “Why, you must be Miss Heaven Leigh Casteel,” greeted the, smiling blond man. "I would know you anywhere. You are your mother all over again, but for your dark hair." My heart jumped in response, then plunged. My curse, my dark hair. My father's genes spoiling my future, again. “Oh, please, please, Tony,” whispered the beautiful woman at his side, “don't remind me of what I have lost . .” And there she was, the grandmother of my dreams. Ten times more beautiful than I had ever pictured. I had presumed the mother of my mother would be a sweet, gray-haired old lady. I'd never imagined any grandmother could look like this elegant beauty in a gray fur coat, high gray boots, and long gray gloves. Her hair was a sleek cap of pale shining gold, pulled back from her face to show a sculptured profile and unlined face. I didn't doubt who she was, despite her amazing youth, for she was too much like the image I saw every day in the mirror. “Come. Come,” she said to me, motioning for her husband to sweep up my bags and hurry. “I hate public places. We can get to know each other in private.” My grandfather sprang into action, picking up my two bags, as she tugged on my arms, and soon I was hustled into a waiting limousine with a liveried chauffeur. “Home,” said my grandfather to the chauffeur without even looking his way. As I sat between the two of them, finally my grandmother smiled. Gently she drew me into her arms, and kissed me, and murmured words I couldn't quite understand. “I'm sorry we have to be so abrupt about this, but we don't have much time to spare,” said my grandmother. “Miles is heading straight for home, Heaven dear. We hope you don't mind if we don't show you around Boston today. And this handsome man next to you is Townsend Anthony Tatterton. I call him Tony. Some of his friends call him Townie to irritate him, but I sip lest you don't do that.” As if I would. “My name is Jillian,” she went on, still holding my hand firmly between both of hers, while I sat en-thralled by her youth, by her beauty, by the sound of her soft, whispery voice that was so different from any I'd previously heard. “Tony and I plan to do everything we can to see that you enjoy your visit with us.” Visit? I hadn't come for a visit! I had come to stay! Forever stay! I had no other place to go! Had Pa told them I was coming only to visit them? What other lies had he put in their heads? From one to the other I glanced, so afraid of embarrassing myself with tears I knew instinctively they'd find in bad taste. Why had I presumed that cultured city folks would want or need a hillbilly granddaughter like me? A lump came to choke my throat. And what about my college education? Who would pay for that if not them? I bit down on my tongue in order not to cry or say the wrong thing. Perhaps I could work my way through. I did know how to type . . . And in their black limousine I sat for long moments completely stunned by the enormity of their misunderstanding. Before I could recover from this shock, her husband began to speak in a low, husky voice, using words that were English, but strangely pronounced: "I think it best that you know from the beginning that I am not your biological grandfather. Jillian was married first to Cleave VanVoreen, who died about two years ago, and Cleave was the father of your mother, Leigh Diane VanVoreen. Again stunned, I felt myself shrink. He was so much the kind of father I'd always wanted, a soft-spoken, kindly man. My disappointment was so dev— astating I couldn't fully experience the joy I had once upon a time expected to feel when I knew my mother's full name. I swallowed again, and bit down even harder on my tongue, letting go of the image of this fine, handsome man being of my own flesh and blood, and with great difficulty I tried to picture Cleave VanVoreen. What kind of name was VanVoreen? No one in the hills and hollers of West Virginia had been called anything as odd as VanVoreen. “I feel very flattered that you look so disappointed to hear I am not your natural grandfather,” said this Tony, his smile small and pleased. Puzzled by his voice, by his tone, I turned questioning eyes on my grandmother. For some reason she blushed, and the flood of color into her lovely face made her even more beautiful. "Yes, Heaven dear, I am one of those shameful modern women who will not put up with a marriage that isn't satisfying. My first husband didn't deserve me. I loved him in the beginning of our marriage, when he gave me enough of himself. Unfortunately, that didn't last long. He neglected me in favor of his business. Maybe you've heard of the VanVoreen Steamship Line. Cleave was inordinately proud of it. His silly boats and ships demanded all his attentions, so even his holidays and weekends were stolen from me. I grew lonely, just as your mother did . . ." Tony interrupted: “Jillian, look at this girl, would you! Can you believe those eyes? Those incredible blue eyes, so like yours, so like Leigh's!” She leaned forward to flash him a cool, chastising look. “Of course she's not Leigh, not exactly. It's more than just her hair color, too. There's something in her eyes . . . something that isn't, well, as innocent.” Oh! I had to be careful! I should think more about what my eyes might reveal. Never, never should they even guess what had happened between Cal Dennison and me. They would despise me if they knew, just as Logan Stonewall, my childhood sweetheart, despised me. “Yes, you're right, of course,” agreed Tony with a sigh. “No one is ever duplicated in every detail.” Those two years and five months I spent in Candlewick, just outside of Atlanta, with Kitty and Cal Dennison, had not given me the kind of sophistication I needed now, not as I had previously thought. Kitty had been thirty-seven when she died, and she'd considered her advanced age intolerable. And here was my grandmother, who had to be much older than Kitty, and she didn't appear even as old as Kitty, and as far as I could see she had a strong hold on confidence. Truthfully, I'd never seen a grandmother who looked so young. And grandmothers in the hills came in very young ages, especially when they married at twelve, thirteen, or fourteen. I found myself speculating on just how old my grandmother was. In February I'd be seventeen, but that was still months away. My mother had been only fourteen the day I was born; the same day she died. If she'd lived, she'd be thirty-one. Now I was rather well read, and from all the facts I'd learned about Boston blue-bloods, I knew they didn't marry until they finished their educations. Husbands and babies weren't considered essential to the lives of young Bostonian girls as they were back in West Virginia. This grandmother would have been at least twenty when she married the first time. That would put her in her fifties, at least. Imagine that. The same age as I remembered Granny best. Granny, with her long, thin white hair, her stooped shoulders with her dowager's hump, her arthritic fingers and legs, her pitifully few garments drab and dark, her worn-out shoes. Oh, Granny, and once you'd been as lovely as this woman. My intense and unrelieved study of my youthful grandmother brought two small tears to shine in the corners her cornflower blue eyes so much like my own. Tears that lingered without falling. Made brave by her small, unmoving tears, I found a voice: “Grandmother, what did my father tell you about me?” My question came out tremulously low and scared. Pa had told me he'd talked to my grandparents, that they would welcome me into their home. But what else had he told them? He'd always despised me, blamed me for killing his “Angel” wife. Had Pa told them everything? If so, they'd never learn to like me, much less love me. And I needed someone to love me for what I wasless than perfect. Those shining blue eyes swung my way, totally void of expression. It bothered me how empty she could make her eyes, as if she knew how to turn all her emotions off and on. Despite those cool eyes and those tears that defied gravity, when she spoke her voice was sweet and warm; "Heaven dear, would you be a darling girl and not call me 'Grandmother'? I try so hard to retain my youth, and I feel I have been successful in my endeavors, and being called 'Grandmother' in front of all my friends who think I am years younger than I actually am would defeat all my efforts. I'd be so humiliated to be caught in a lie. I confess I always lie about my age, sometimes even to doctors. So please don't be hurt or offended if I ask that from now on you just call me . . Jillian." Another shock, but I was growing used to them by now. “But . . but . . .” I sputtered, “how are you going to explain who I am?and where I come from?and what I'm doing here?” “Oh my dear, sweet dear, please don't look so hurt! In private, maybe on rare occasions, you could call me . . . oh, no! On second thought that just won't work. If I allow you . . you'd forget and thoughtlessly call me 'Grandmother.' So I am right to start us off like this. You see, dear, it's not real lying. Women have to do