Free The World Above by Cameron Dokey Page A

duchess were, even after all this time. There are still old folks who can remember your parents’ wedding. They tell the stories with tears in their eyes, not just out of sorrow, but also out of joy. Maybe your mother’s memories make her feel both things at once too.”
    “Perhaps they do,” I acknowledged quietly. Why had I not considered this possibility before?
How could you have, Gen?
I thought.
You never truly believed in the World Above
.
    “I think my mother’s always felt a little guilty,” I went on slowly, as if feeling my way along. “Guilty that she wasn’t here that night. Though if she had been, it’s likely she’d have been killed as well. And Jack and me too, of course.”
    “So you see her problem,” Shannon said with a nod.
    “I believe I do,” I said.
    “This way,” Shannon said. “It’s not much farther now.” She gestured at the space around us. “This is the old great hall.”
    I gave a quick laugh in spite of myself. “I should think so.”
    A huge vaulted stone ceiling soared above our heads. Cut-glass windows cast a pattern of rainbows onto the floor. There was a broad central stair and narrower hallways leading I-had-no-idea-where on either side.
    “It was old Bertrand, the stable master, who found this,” Shannon explained. She opened the first door along the passage and went into the room beyond. I followed.
    “He said it was buried under a pile of hay in one of the stalls. Many of the duke’s servants were still living when we first came here, and they were slow to trust us. To this day, no one has come forward to claim saving what I’m about to show you. Please wait here, by the door.”
    Obeying her instructions, I paused while Shannon entered the room. From where I stood, I could see it was filled with what I assumed were pieces of furniture swathed in muslin. Shannon walked to the far side of the room and turned an object around. Then she drew aside the piece of muslin and stepped away.
    I caught my breath. It was a painting of a man and woman.
    Mama!
I thought.
    For the young woman in the painting could be no one but my mother. There was her long, golden hair and her cornflower blue eyes. And there were the dimples in her cheeks as she smiled up at the man at her side.
    Duke Roland
, I thought as I gazed at the face of my father for the very first time.
    Duke Roland had a strong face. His chin was square and determined. He had a firm mouth, even when curved in a smile. He gazed from out of his portrait with clear gray eyes. Slowly, my feet whispering against the stone floor, I moved until I was directly before the portrait. My parents stood close together, their bodies touching. My father had one arm wrapped around my mother’s waist. Her head tilted back to rest against his shoulder.
    Oh, look!
I thought.
See how much they loved each other
.
    No wonder coming to the World Below had felt like exile to my mother. I didn’t realize I was weeping until Shannon spoke.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps I should not have shown you.”
    “No,” I said at once. I shook my head and felt the tears fly. “I’m glad you did. But I think you’re right. This would have been too much for Jack, at least right off. One glimpse of this, and he’d have set off to avenge our father.”
    Except for the color of his eyes, Jack was the image of Duke Roland.
    The shape of their faces was precisely the same. In the curve of Duke Roland’s lips, I saw the curve of Jack’s mouth when he smiled. Jack had our father’s wide, sweeping cheekbones, the almond shape of his eyes. But while Jack’s eyes were blue like our mother’s, Duke Roland’s were as gray as storm clouds.
    “This must be hard for you, too,” Shannon said softly. “You look so much like her.”
    My head turned toward her as if pulled by a string.
    “What?”
    “Surely you can see the resemblance,” she said. She moved to stand beside me. “You look as much like her as Jack looks like your father.”