Page 61 of Love in the Wild

“Yes.”

“I see ...” Cameron sounded disbelieving, but Thorne had been warned by Eden that this would be the case.

“And you lived with them all this time?”

“Keza rescued me. I remained with her until I was ready to be on my own.”

“But didn’t you know you were ... different?” Cameron asked.

“Yes. As I grew older, I could see I was not as they were. As I became older, some of the others were nervous around me.”

It was one of Thorne’s harshest memories—the day he had left the band and struck out on his own. He could return to visit, but he could never stay very long. He was too different.

It was then he had begun to truly hear the whispers in his head, the calling of the cave. He discovered the cave a few years after he left his family. Once he had set foot inside, visions had flooded his head. He’d fallen to his knees, his body shaking as he tried to understand what he was seeing.

Visions of homes built of wood, how to use shale rocks to cut the wood, how to create ladders, doors, and windows. He could see people much like himself, working and living in the jungle.

All his life he’d wanted to belong, and now he was here in this grand English manor house where he had been born, and he felt no more at home here than he did in the jungle.

Cameron watched him intently, but Thorne now noticed the mantel that the man was leaning against. The fine hairs on his neck and arms rose. A flash of an old memory came back to him. That of a man, his father, touching the underside of that place and ...

Thorne crossed the room and stood right in front of Cameron. He reached out toward the mantel, and Cameron moved out of his way as Thorne felt around the lip. He found a small uneven indentation and pressed on it. There was a soft hiss, and then the wall next to the fireplace creaked open, revealing a secret door.

Thorne could see it so clearly in his head, his father turning to him, smiling, and saying something to him ...

“Avalon.”

Cameron gasped, pulling Thorne out of his memories. “What did you say?”

“Avalon?” He didn’t know what it meant, only that his father had opened the secret door and said that word when he did. Cameron’s face drained of color, and he leaned on the mantel as though he needed it for support. Thorne offered a hand to help, but Cameron shook his head fiercely and waved Thorne away.

“There was only one other person who knew that secret door and the word we associated with it.” Cameron’s eyes widened as he stared at Thorne. “That man was your father. Not even Isabelle knows about the secret library this door leads to. Jacob and I called it Avalon, because we discovered it as boys while we were obsessed with stories of King Arthur.”

“King Arthur?” Thorne asked.

“That is a long story for a rainy day,” Cameron said. “The point is, there is no way an imposter could know about this door or that word. Which means ... youareThorne. My nephew.” Cameron’s once calm voice grew rough with emotion. “My boy,you’ve come home.” Cameron pulled Thorne into a fierce embrace.

Thorne felt changed somehow by this event. Like a static charge from a coming storm had been building in the air ever since he’d set foot on English soil, and now the feeling had eased. Could a person’s heart recognize his home even after all this time, even when his mind could not? For the first time since he’d left the jungle, Thorne felt a call, much like the whispering cave in Uganda. The secret room whispered to him too. Both were home to him, both welcomed him.

“My God,” Cameron said. “You don’t know what it does to a person to live so long on hope and to feel that hope dying bit by bit every day. It’s like I’ve been holding a candle in a hurricane, desperate to keep the flame burning. But you ... you’re here, you’realive.” He was smiling again, his eyes overbright. “You are a wildfire, my boy, a hope that won’t die.”

Thorne’s throat tightened. He didn’t understand all that his uncle had said, but he could understand the emotion in his uncle’s voice.

“Avalontold me more about you than any cheek swab ever could.” Cameron patted Thorne’s back. “I think we need a bit of tea. Let’s find the ladies.”

* * *

Eden wasin a lovely sitting room drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea with Isabelle when Thorne and Cameron entered.

“Did you finish the cheek swabs?” Isabelle asked.

“We did them, but I have all the proof I need already. We’ll still have to run the tests to satisfy the courts once we petition to have him declared living, but I’m convinced he is Jacob’s son.” Cameron shot Thorne a warm smile before meeting his wife’s stunned gaze.

“They weren’t needed?”

“No. Thorne provided me with clear and undeniable evidence that he is Jacob’s son.”

“That’s wonderful!” Isabelle exclaimed. She leapt out of her chair to embrace Thorne as she had on the front steps. When she released him, she looked between them curiously. “What sort of evidence?”

---