Matt sat in the hide and sweated for an hour. He was having trouble staying awake when there was a disturbance in the thicket and Shinichi came out, leading the laughing, singing children.
Sheriff Mossberg didn't come out with them.
Chapter 22
The afternoon after Elena's "discipline," Damon took out a room in the same complex where Dr. Meggar lived. Lady Ulma stayed in the doctor's office until between them, Sage, Damon, and Dr. Meggar had healed her completely.
She never talked about sad things now. She told them so many stories about her childhood estate that they felt they could walk around it and recognize every room, vast though it was.
"I suppose it's home to rats and mice now," she said wistfully at the conclusion of one story. "And spiders and moths."
"But why?" Bonnie said, failing to see the signals that both Meredith and Elena were giving her not to ask.
Lady Ulma tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. "Because...of General Verantz. The middle-aged demon who saw me when I was only fourteen. When he had the army attack my home, they slaughtered every living thing they found inside - except me and my canary. My parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles...my younger brothers and sisters. Even my cat sleeping on the window seat. General Verantz had me brought in front of him, just as I was, in my nightgown and bare feet, with my hair unbrushed and coming out of its braid, and beside him was my canary with the nighttime cloth off its cage. It was still alive and hopping about as cheerful as ever. And that made everything else that happened seem worse somehow - and yet more like a dream, too. It's difficult to explain.
"Two of the general's men were holding me when they brought me before him. They were really propping me up more than keeping me from running, though. I was so young, you see, and everything kept fading in and out. But I remember exactly what the general said to me. He said, 'I told this bird to sing and it sang. I told your parents I wanted to give you the honor of being my wife and they refused. Now look over there. Will you be like the canary or your parents, I wonder?' And he pointed to a dim corner of the room - of course it was all torchlight then, and the torches had been put out for the night. But there was enough light for me to see that there was a heap of round objects, with thatch or grass at one side of them. At least that is what I first thought - truly. I was that innocent, and I believe shock had done something to my mind."
"Please," Elena said, stroking Lady Ulma's hand gently. "You don't have to keep on with this. We understand - "
But Lady Ulma didn't seem to hear the words. She said, "And then one of the general's men held up a sort of coconut with very long thatch at the top, braided. He swung it casually - and all of a sudden I saw it for what it really was. It was my mother's head."
Elena choked involuntarily. Lady Ulma looked around at the three girls with steady, dry eyes. "I suppose you think me very callous for being able to talk about such things without breaking down."
"No, no - " Elena began hastily. She herself was shaking, even after tuning down her psychic senses to their least extent. She hoped Bonnie wouldn't faint.
Lady Ulma was speaking again. "War, casual violence, and tyranny are all I have known since my childhood innocence was crushed in that moment. It is kindness now that astounds me, that makes my eyes sting with tears."
"Oh, don't cry," begged Bonnie, throwing her arms around the woman impulsively. "Please don't. We're here for you."
Meanwhile Elena and Meredith were regarding each other with knitted eyebrows and quick shrugs.
"Yes, please don't cry," Elena put in, feeling faintly guilty, but determined to try Plan A. "But tell us, why did your family estate end up in such bad condition?"
"It was the fault of the general. He was sent to faraway lands to fight foolish, meaningless wars. When he left he would take most of his retinue with him - including slaves who were in favor at the moment. When he left once, three years after he had attacked our home, I was not in favor, and I was not chosen to be with him. I was lucky. His entire battalion was wiped out; the household members who went with him were taken captive or slaughtered. He had no heir and his property here reverted to the Crown, which had no use for it. It has lain unoccupied for all these many years - looted many times, no doubt, but with its true secret, the secret of the jewels, undiscovered...as far as I know."
"The Secret of the Jewels," Bonnie whispered, clearly putting it all in capital letters, as if it were a mystery novel. She still had an arm around Lady Ulma.
"What secret of the jewels?" Meredith said more calmly. Elena couldn't speak for the delicious shivers that were running through her. This was like being part of some magical play.
"In my parents' day, it was common to hide your wealth somewhere on your estate - and to keep the knowledge of its hiding place strictly to the owners. Of course, my father, as a designer and trader in jewels, had more to hide than most people knew of. He had a wonderful room that seemed to me something like Aladdin's cave. It was his workshop, where he kept his raw gems as well as finished pieces that had been commissioned or that he designed for my mother or out of his imagination."
"And no one ever found that?" Meredith said. There was just the slightest tinge of skepticism in her voice.
"If anyone did, I never heard about it. Of course, they could have gotten the knowledge out of my father or mother, in time - but the general was not a meticulous and patient vampire or kitsune, but a rough and impatient demon. He killed my parents as he stormed through the house. It never occurred to him that I, a child of fourteen, might share the knowledge."