Return to Valemont

The road to House Valemont had become narrower over thirteen years.

That was not literally true.

Roads did not shrink simply because nobody used them anymore, although the weeds at the edges seemed determined to prove otherwise.

The last village lay several miles behind me, and beyond that the land opened into low fields still green from spring rain before climbing gradually towards the hill.

I had walked it before, although never often enough to make returning feel normal.

Today felt different.

Most of the iron had disappeared years ago, taken for scrap or stolen by people who had no reason to respect a ‘treasonous’ crest.

One stone pillar still stood tall. The other had collapsed into the grass. I passed between them anyway.

The gardens were gone.

I could still place the roses, hedges and paths if I tried, but grass and wildflowers had reclaimed most of what remained. The manor itself was only foundation and fragments now; enough marble remained to tell me where the entrance hall had been, although knowing where everything belonged didn’t make any of it return.

I continued east instead.

The memorial stood beneath the tree.

Someone had built it long before I first came back: three flat stones beneath a larger one bearing the Valemont wolf.

No bodies lay beneath it.

There had never been enough left to bury.

The tree had survived anyway. The old oak from my childhood had been blackened almost to the roots, most of its original trunk split and dead.

Years later, new growth had forced itself from the old roots. The younger trunk was thick enough now that both my hands would not have reached around it.

I rested my palm against the bark.

Most of my memories of this place ended in that fire.

Whenever I had returned before, I could still picture Mother somewhere inside the manor, surrounded by flames. Now, I remembered her beneath this tree, waiting while I took my time climbing down.

The memory arrived so normally that I almost missed what was different about it.

Another followed: Elara catching me outside the kitchens with half a honey cake wrapped poorly inside a napkin, as she informed me that theft became less impressive when the thief left a trail of crumbs behind.

Then Jonas from the stables teaching me how to whistle through two fingers because I had decided that ordinary whistling lacked any sense of authority.

I still couldn’t do it.

Marta from the laundry complained that nobody in the manor understood the purpose of pockets if they were only going to fill them with stones.

People I had spent thirteen years remembering as bodies became irritating again, in a different kind of way.

Alive.

And that hurt.

“I knew I’d find you here.”

I turned, and saw Isabelle standing several paces away near the remains of a low stone wall, one hand resting against it as though she had been there for some time.

“You followed me.”

“No, I came looking for you.”

“Isn’t that basically the same thing?”

Isabelle ignored me and walked towards the memorial.

She stopped beside the three stones, but she didn’t immediately sit. Her gaze moved over the carving, then towards the tree.

“Your parents?”

“Yes.”

“And Elara?”

“This is for everyone, mostly.”

She nodded and lowered herself onto a section of fallen stone while I stayed beside the tree.

For a while she said nothing.

It made the whole situation a bit more tolerable.

Eventually, she looked towards the memorial.

“What was your mother like?”

I glanced at her and saw only curiosity.

“Dangerous.”

Isabelle blinked.

“To whom?”

“Mostly me. She could find me anywhere.”

“That sounds less dangerous and more competent.”

“You never tried hiding from her.”

Her mouth curved.

“So she was strict?”

“No. Father was stricter. Mother was worse because she usually waited until I explained why whatever I had done was stupid, then asked one question that made me reconsider my entire existence.”

“That explains a lot.”

“I regret answering.”

She smiled, but the next question came more quietly.

“And your father?”

I looked across the ruins towards where his study had been.

“Everyone thought he was serious.”

“Was he?”

“Yes, but there was a lot more to him.”

I remembered him lowering a newspaper because I had entered late, pretending not to smile when Mother won an argument, spending twenty minutes explaining why sliding across marble in socks was dangerous before quietly asking whether I had at least broken the ugly vase.

“He was terrible at pretending not to find things funny.”

Isabelle’s eyebrows rose.

“Really?”

“He thought he was excellent at it.”

“That sounds familiar.”

I looked at her, and she stared back at me innocently.

I decided not to reward her.

“He seemed strict, but he cared more than I understood at the time.”

“What about Elara?” she asked.

“She had started working here before I was born. She knew everything I did before I did it. I once hid sweets under my mattress, but she eventually found them.”

“How long did that last?”

“Until dinner.”

“That long?”

Isabelle laughed softly as I looked back at the memorial.

For years, talking about my family had meant explaining the massacre.

Their final choices. The passage. The screams.

Everything that happened at the end.

Nobody had asked what made Mother laugh.

Nobody had asked what Father was like at dinner.

Perhaps because I had never given them a reason to think those answers still existed.

“They would have liked you,” I said.

The sentence escaped before I could inspect it.

I considered pretending I had said something else, but the ruins provided nowhere useful to hide.

“Your mother or your father?”

“Mother immediately. Father would have needed evidence.”

“That seems fair.”

“I mean, you did kick me through a window.”

We both chuckled, and my attention drifted towards the collapsed eastern side of the estate.

Cedric had taught me there.

The training yard still stood beyond the manor ruins, weathered but recognisable.

“Is this why you came?”

“Partly.”

The war would begin soon. Four weeks of preparation had left little else to organise, and my head had become considerably less useful than I preferred.

“I spent a long time thinking this place existed because of what happened to it. Every time I remembered my parents, it ended in the study. Elara ended in that corridor, and Sir Edmund ended in the tunnel.”

I touched the bark beneath my hand.

“They had lives before that. I don’t want Cedric to be the only thing I remember about them.”

“He isn’t.”

“I know that now.”

That was the point.

Wind moved through the young leaves overhead. Somewhere deeper in the ruins, a bird landed on loose stone and sent a pebble clattering down what remained of a wall.

“I’m still going to kill him if I get the chance.”

“I assumed you would.”

“You say that very casually.”

“It’s not like it’s a huge secret at this point.”

I looked at her, and she met my eyes without smiling.

“But that isn’t why everyone else is fighting.”

“No.”

“And it isn’t the only reason you are anymore.”

The sentence sat between us longer than I wanted it to.

Eventually Isabelle stood and brushed the dust from her trousers.

“We should go.”

“Why?”

“Because my father has somehow acquired twelve additional crates of apples and decided that it is now my problem.”

I stared at her.

“How?”

“That is exactly what I asked. Also, I may have temporarily put Marek in charge of them, and I doubt it’ll be long until he finds out the truth.”

“Then we should probably hurry back.”

“I knew you’d understand.”

We started walking back towards the old gates.

Halfway there, I looked back at the memorial one last time.

I had left this place before, but I had never really said goodbye.

Leaving now no longer felt like abandoning them.

I turned away and caught up with Isabelle.