Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“You’ve been a huge help, Taylor. We really appreciate your time.”
“What are you looking for?” she asked me, glanced at Lorne, then returned her attention to me. “Do you think the girl who was killed has something to do with the Phoenix Farm and what went on there? Do we have a new doomsday cult on our hands?”
“No,” I said honestly. The events were connected, but not how she thought. Rulaine, whom we couldn’t tell her about, was the common denominator. She had done something, long ago, at the farm, and was the one who also, just recently, killed Megan Gallagher. She had committed the crimes for very different reasons, but her agenda had not changed. She needed to get her master from wherever he was to Osprey. That was her endgame.
“There’s no new cult here in Osprey,” Lorne assured her. “The girl’s death was an isolated incident.”
She nodded and then took hold of my hand. “I would love to come to your house at some point and go through your family’s journals.”
She was just like Dominic. “Of course.”
Taylor said, “Corvus is absent from all the maps of Osprey. Do you know why that is?”
“No,” I lied. “How funny.”
“I mean to say, of course it’s marked, but only as farmland. And the designation to the west, especially, shows so strangely. As though your property extends to the ocean shoreline. But that’s not possible, is it?”
“You’re asking how it can be a public beach when it belongs to my family?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“I don’t know,” I said, though I did. “But that’s certainly strange.”
She nodded. “There’s also an odd notation from one of the first town clerks in Osprey that shows the edge of Corvus to the north as being marked off by someone named Morgan.”
“And?”
“No one with the surname Morgan has ever lived in Osprey.”
“Maybe it’s a first name?”
“Some random person by the name of Morgan marked off your land? This is what you’re saying to me?”
“What else could it be?” I shrugged. “But I agree, it seems weird.”
Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me. “I can see records of when each parcel of property came into a family, when the first deed was recorded. All of them are accessible except the one for Corvus.”
“Yes, but you know Corvus was here before the town.”
“I do know that, but the question is, how and when was Corvus deeded to your family? There’s no record before Bryan Corey in 1691, way before Osprey was even Osprey and before New York was even a state.”
“Are you wondering if I actually own Corvus?”
“No. Not at all. I know you do, because even if your family hadn’t before 1691, in 1823, I can see the deed filed with the town clerk in Westfield.”
“What’s your question, then?” Lorne asked her.
“I just wonder why, with all the land available, the Coreys only took twenty-two acres. That makes no sense to me. And why so far out of town, next to what would become a preserve.”
It was like someone knew that a preserve was coming. How crazy was that? “What is it you’re wanting to know?” I pressed her.
She huffed out a breath. “It just doesn’t make any sense. The Coreys could have been rich. The entire town could have been yours, but instead, you just took a tiny area. And it’s not a farm or an apiary. I just don’t get your ancestors at all. Land was the first great wealth—still is, for heaven’s sake—and yet your family took only so much.”
“No idea, but it worked out well for the rest of the town.”
“It certainly did,” she agreed. “Perhaps when I finally find this Morgan in the archives, the one who marked off the land, we’ll have an answer about the why.”
“Maybe. In the meantime, call me, and we’ll set a time for you to go through the journals.”
“Thank you so much, Xan. You know, I’ve been working with Dom Aoki on my thesis, and he’s been a huge help.”
“I heard, yes.”
Once Lorne and I were on the road, driving toward Parker’s Ferry, he cleared his throat.
“Yes, Chief MacBain? Do you have a question?”
“Only about a million. Tell me everything right now.”
“Everything?” I teased him. “Won’t that take longer than we have?”
“Now,” he insisted.
Taking a deep breath, I explained how my family was originally Norse, descended from one of the Vikings who’d remained behind in the New World instead of heading back home.
“Your ancestor was a deserter?”
“I think of him more as running toward his destiny and away from a life he didn’t believe in—all the raiding and the enslavement of others.”
“Okay, I get that. So you’re saying he got here with all the other guys, looked around, and said, Yep, I’m staying, then abandoned his ship and didn’t go back.”
“Correct.”
“And that’s documented?”
“How do you mean, documented? It’s a story passed down in my family, pieces of ancestral lore I’m sure you have in yours as well. We all know stories about someone in our family we never met that have been exaggerated over the years.”