Page 6 of House of Royals

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?”

I was right in hesitating in asking. The woman’s face pales and her eyes grow wider.

“The Conrath Plantation?” she questions me. “What interests you in that old place?”

I hesitate in answering. The woman studies me, and I wonder if she’s recognizing features in me that my father had. I don’t know how well the people in town knew him. It would seem he should be known, since it’s a small town, but I get the impression he didn’t go out much.

“It’s such a beautiful place. I was just curious about it’s history,” I lie.

She looks at me for a long moment. And I already feel like an outsider in this tiny town. I am an alien here.

“I’ll see what I can find for you,” she finally says. “But you won’t have long. We close in thirty minutes and we don’t allow the city record books to be checked out.”

“Thank you,” I let out in a relieved breath. “I really appreciate it.”

She looks over her shoulder back at me one more time as she shuffles off to a back room.

I turn and observe the library.

It’s small. Rows of bookshelves are divided in half, one side labeled fiction, the other non-fiction. A row of tables occupy the space between them. I settle myself into the closest one.

A few minutes later, the librarian returns with a large, leather bound book and a copy of what appears to be a newspaper article.

“This is what I could find,” she says as she sets them down in front of me. She turns to a marked page in the book.

“Thank you,” I say again. “What’s your name?”

The woman looks at me, and for the first time, I realize that she seems nervous. Anxious. Suspicious, even. “Bella,” she offers.

“I’m Alivia,” I say, trying to smooth out the bumps in our meeting, even though I’m not quite sure as to the reason why they’re there.

She just gives me a little nod and shuffles away.

My eyes turn down to the page Bella opened for me. At the top of the page, it says clear as day:Conrath Plantation. But what is surprising about the page, are the blots of ink, blocking out large portions of the text.

I turn a few pages back and forth. The book seems to be a record and history of all the old houses in Silent Bend, put together by the historical society. But the Conrath page is the only one that seems to have been tampered with.

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