House of Royals(5)

Like this house.

I take another deep breath, reminding myself to take this one day at a time.

I close my eyes and imagine myself back in Colorado. Leaving my tiny apartment, with it’s old, hand-me-down furniture, slightly off smell, heading to work at four in the morning to start the rolls. And the muffins. And the scones. And everything that smelled like comfort.

I’d worked at the bakery for four years. I liked the job. I was good at it. But it could never pay me much, and I could never go anywhere with it.

Well, I’m somewhere now. With more money than I’ll ever know what to do with. My entire life had changed.

And there is this constant feeling on my shoulders that something extraordinary is about to happen.





FOR A WEEK, I HID on the property. Katina cooked for Rath and I, and the grounds crew and the housekeepers. I made an extra effort to be nice to them, to be polite and sweet, but there was always fear in their eyes whenever they looked at me. I didn’t understand that.

I wandered the gardens. Memorized the maze. Made use of the pool.

And I moved into the master suite.

It’s grander than me. A massive king-sized canopy bed dominates the room. Ornately carved furniture lines the walls. Beautiful drapes hang in the windows that look out over the river on one side of the room and over the front gardens on the other side.

The space is immense.

But I can feel my father here.

And with every passing day, I feel the hollow hole inside of me growing bigger. I want to know him. I want to know what he was like.

But there is a problem.

Even though this was his house and, as far as I can tell, he’d lived here for a very long time, there is nothing personal around. No journals, no letters, no knickknacks. Nothing. The only traces of him I can find are his wardrobe in my closet, that portrait of him in the library, and the fear his staff felt—and has now transferred to me.

Rath had said my father was a great man, so why was everyone else on the property afraid of Henry Conrath?

I want answers.





IT TAKES NINE DAYS FOR me to feel like a self-caged animal. I’ve been hiding in this mansion to avoid embracing my new Southern life, and I need to be brave.

So on a Monday, at six in the evening, I take a walk down the driveway. It’s a long walk. I reach the gates. I climb them. And I keep walking down the road.

This is something I am still getting used to: no mountains here. The land is so flat. Yes, there are small rolling hills dotted around. But I am used to the towering Rocky Mountains.

I swat at a mosquito. They’re everywhere. All the time. I quickly learned that repellant is required when stepping one toe outside. I’m regretting not taking one of Henry’s vehicles. But it will be a while before I feel comfortable enough to drive them, like they actually belong to me.

On the Conrath plantation, there is the false sense that we are out in the middle of our own world, when really, the minute you turn off the driveway, you pop out onto a road that leads right into town. It is only a quarter mile walk, maybe, before I connect onto Main Street.

Beautiful, old houses line the road, many of them with signs out front marking them as historical sites. I pass a gas station. More houses. Eventually, there are the town’s schools. Elementary, middle, and high school all right together. There’s a church, a bakery, a few restaurants, a grocery store, two more churches, and finally, city hall, which is attached to the library.

It’s a beautiful building. Huge, brick, with a great tower and a bell at the top. A marker with a plaque out front says it was built in 1731, just six years after Silent Bend was established.

My walk into town has been quiet. People are friendly, giving me a tip of their hat as they said hello and offering pleasant smiles, but I didn’t really talk to anyone. Which is kind of a relief. I’m still not used to the oftentimes heavy Southern accents.

But I quickly have to get over that when I walk up to the counter in the library.

“Well, you must be new in town,” a woman with auburn hair and glasses perched on her nose says as I walk up. The glasses make her look older than I think she really is. “I don’t recognize you, and we don’t often get tourists wandering into the library.”

I offer a little smile and stop at her desk. “Yeah, I just moved in a little over a week ago.”

“Well, welcome to Silent Bend,” she says with a kind smile. Her accent is strong, but I can at least understand her. “What can I help you with?”

“Uh,” I stumble, trying to collect my thoughts. This is my first interaction in my new town—a very small one. I don’t want to come off as the wrong type and my request is a strange one. “I was wondering if you might have any information on the Conrath Plantation?”