Page 27 of Heir of Uncertain Magic

“Can I help you?” Nelson Sutcliffe set a paper aside and stood. “Hope there isn’t trouble in ...” He paused, looking Merritt over. His forehead creased, but his lips tilted just a little. “Merritt Fernsby. You sure have grown.”

Merritt’s fingertips, embedded in his pockets once more, pressed into his thighs. “Did you get my letter?”

That smile broadened slightly, but the rest of the man fell. “I did, I did.” He came around the desk. “Come, let’s go inside.”

Merritt eyed the other door. “Your family—”

“Wife is shopping, and the kids are grown,” he said.

Merritt froze. Why hadn’t he thought of that?Kids.He had half siblings.Family.Mind racing, he tried to recall the Sutcliffe children. Their names, what they looked like ...

He numbly followed the constable into the house, through a tidy kitchen, and into a modest sitting room. Sutcliffe sat down on the end of a yellow sofa. Merritt hovered near the door.

Sutcliffe chuckled. “I’m not going to eat you.”

He lowered himself into the farthest chair, displacing a cat when he did so.Hate,it spat.Hate.

Merritt stared after the feline, wondering if he should apologize, but the cat continued on its way, disappearing down the hall. “Your children,” he managed.

The smile returned. “All boys. Newton, Thaddeus, Hiram.”

The names were familiar. One of them had been in his year at school. Merritt could recall where the boy had sat—behind him and to the left—but had it been Newton or Thad?

“No portraits in here, but ...”

“But I can’t talk to them, anyway, right?” Merritt’s voice wasn’t bitter, just ... dead.

Sutcliffe leaned his elbows on his knees. “They don’t know. Mary doesn’t know, either.”

So Merritt couldn’t even approach them. Say,We’re brothers, and cobble together a part of his family he hadn’t known he’d lost.

Sutcliffe broke the silence. “I’m surprised you sorted it out. How—”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Merritt spoke around a growing lump in his throat.

The smile fell. “No.” A deep breath. “Rose”—Merritt’s mother—“asked for my silence. I respected her wish to let Peter raise you as his own ... I hoped he would accept you.”

“You didn’t fool him” was all Merritt could say. While Merritt’s father—stepfather?—had never outright beaten him, he’d been dissatisfied with Merritt from the start. Merritt had always figured it was because he was a son and his father preferred daughters. Like that somehow made sense.

Peter Fernsby had always been kind to his sisters.

“Didn’t think I did.” Sutcliffe made a fist under his chin. “Peter never liked me. Wasn’t meant to be.”

Merritt scoffed. Silence returned for several seconds. His stomach was lead and his bones were glass. “Care to tell me what happenedwith Anita?” Seeing Sutcliffe’s blank expression, he added, “My grandmother?”

“Oh. Yes. That house out in the bay.” He nodded. “It’s been in my line for ages. No one ever did anything about it. It was out of the way and”—he chuckled—“haunted.”

An image of Whimbrel House came to Merritt’s mind unbidden. The yellow-hued structure sat in late-morning sunlight, which accentuated its even blue shingles and bright, mismatched windows. Wild grasses and flowers surrounded its foundation, and the white railing stretching across its porch guarded its four-paneled cherrywood door. In truth, despite all that led to his receiving it, that house had been and was a blessing in his life. It was his safe haven. It had led him to Hulda or, rather, led Hulda to him. It had opened his eyes to magic and given him a place to think and recover and simplybe.

“But I wanted to contribute somehow,” Sutcliffe was saying. “I was ... I still had a responsibility toward you. Thought if nothing else, the land had to be worth something. Rose didn’t want it tied to her, so I gave it to her mother. Nice woman.”

“She’s dead,” Merritt quipped.

“Ah.” Sutcliffe adjusted on the sofa. “We used the guise of gambling, like I lost it in a game of cards, you know? To hide it from your father.”

Merritt stared at the old carpet under his feet, tracing patterns in its worn threads.

“How is it?” Sutcliffe asked.

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