But this time around, I wasn’t the topic of conversation. I only heard a little bit, but it sounded like they were making small talk—exchanging life updates, or something else to that effect. I didn’t see any signs of porcupines, so I made a quick trip back to the kitchen to return the broom. By the time I got back in my hiding spot, Vince was gone.
Richard noticed me. “Oh? Who do we have here?”
I lifted the cup of tea in my right hand to show it to him. “I brought you royal milk tea.”
“Thank you very much.”
The cup in my other hand was supposed to have been for Vince, but with him gone, I decided to drink it instead. I explained—rather guiltily—that I hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop. I had just stumbled upon them when I came to bring them tea. Richard cracked a small smile. Either he bought my excuse or didn’t mind me overhearing a not-very serious conversation. Which was it?
“Did you guys get a chance to talk things out?”
“We did.”
Good. Considering the volume and complexity of the bad blood between Vince and Richard, the phrase “reconciling” sounded almost too casual. At the same time, look what happened to Richard and Jeffrey. If those two had managed to talk it out—if that level of communication was possible—then maybe Vince and Richard had a chance. Maybe not now, but someday soon.
For someone who had arrived with Marian, Vince was good at making himself scarce. Even after we cleaned up the mess of the party at the end of the night, Marian reported he didn’t go back to the house where she was. But a month or so later, I got a thank-you message from Marian on my computer. He must have resigned himself to his steamed bun-wrapping fate at some point.
Looking back on it, so much had happened since I had first come to Sri Lanka. To me, to all the people in my life, to the world at large. And yet time marched on like nothing changed.
It was strange. Now that I was closing in on my mid-twenties, I felt like I was starting to get a hang of this whole “being alive” thing. And there was no doubt about it—I had the man sipping royal milk tea next to me to thank.
Richard beat me to the punch before I could do just that. “Seigi, I have gifts to pass along to you.”
“From Vince?”
“No.”
Richard reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a large package. It must have been quite a trick, fitting something so big into such a small pocket. Anyway, the package contained three things: a square-shaped present box the size of a sheet of B5 paper wrapped in blue flower-patterned wrapping paper; another box wrapped in more of the same, this one about the size of my hand; and a white envelope. A letter?
“What are these?”
“Gifts from Octavia to you.”
Oh, I thought. I see.
I didn’t think she would come, but I still gave Vince a party invitation to pass along to her. She didn’t respond either way, which was more or less what I had expected. After spending so much time alone, I imagined attending a loud, raucous party would have been difficult for her. Henry had made the right call inviting her to the ring ceremony instead of the funeral.
At Richard’s encouragement, I tore open the biggest package first. Inside was a thick, heavy ledger with two women’s signatures on the cover. It was the same ledger Henry had shown us: the records of all the fake jewelry transactions Leah made and Octavia’s grandmother managed as her second trustee.
“It is yours to keep. It has little significance to us now.”
No, no, no. Even if all the transactions happened close to a hundred years ago, this ledger was full of people’s personal information. Worse, the people in it could all be traced to English aristocrats living today. It could be linked back to living people. The Claremont brothers had worked themselves to the bone fighting the tax audit that the butlers had been so worried about, and in the end, the tax board decided to overlook the falsified jewelry. If the ledger were brought to light again, I knew they wouldn’t be so forgiving. It was partially thanks to the butlers’ efforts that the Claremonts had gotten off easy, so in the end, maybe it was a good thing the butlers had been that concerned.
Richard saw me overthinking; I must have been making some horrible face. So when I asked him if he could hold on to it for me, he smiled, put his hand to his chest, and accepted it. Whew. The ledger would leave my possession and go back to its rightful place.
When I said as much, Richard made an odd face.
“Hm? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. It’s merely a strange coincidence.”
“What is?”
“…The phrase ‘leave for its rightful place’ is one my grandmother once said to me.”
A rightful place. Was that, like, a thing? Or a person? Richard tilted his head in contemplation when I asked, which I thought was an odd reaction. Maybe it could have been both. A “rightful place” sounded like an inescapable, preordained fate, but from what I knew, Leandra—Leah—led a life unbound by fate. She married for love and came to England, shielded her husband from its aristocracy, and raised her children there. I wondered if she ever felt like England was her rightful place. If so, then she was a very strong soul. She reminded me of my grandmother.
“We both sure had amazing grandmothers, huh?” I joked.
A shadow of Richard’s usual beautiful expression lingered on his face. “Yes, I suppose,” he said, but it sounded like he didn’t mean it.
I wondered what that was all about as I opened the second package. This one held a piece of amber wrapped in a ball of cotton. It was the same chunk of amber Octavia always wore around her neck. What was it doing here?
“According to my grandmother’s ledger, this amber is authentic. However, it was indeed one of the gems she distributed, and the butlers hoped to reclaim it. Instead, Vince suggested I give it to you, and you would understand what to do with it. I take it this cryptic comment means something to you.”
“Yeah. It does.”
I remembered Octavia’s so-called plan and picked up the shiny golden gem. The amber was mounted in a bed of gold bullion, polished, and cut into a gorgeous cabochon. I could see air bubbles inside, which would have proved it was artificial if this had been a ruby or sapphire. But the opposite was true in amber. Air would get trapped in the sap as it ran and hardened into “stone.”
Amber. Elektron in ancient Greek and kohaku, a word whose characters came from China, in Japanese. The ko character meant “a tiger lying down,” while the haku represented “this gemstone.” Together, that meant amber was a jewel that resembled a tiger sprawled on its side. Amber’s soft colors and fun lumpiness made the ancient Greeks picture thunder and lightning, while the Chinese, a tiger. I thought the dramatic difference between the two was something precious. Something incredible. Maybe because it was like the gemstone was telling me everyone could look at the same thing and draw completely different conclusions.