Free The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel by Daniel Wallace

mother’s. She was close to fifty years old, the age their mother would have been. Mrs. Samuels did things like put a kettle on the stove to boil water for her coffee each morning, and work in her garden, and make pies for charity auctions and the like (back when they had charity auctions in Roam), while her husband carved walking sticks from tree branches. It seemed so strange to Helen that they were still able to do all this while her own parents had melted away into the soil.
    “I’m very well, thank you, Rachel,” she said. “Older than I’ve been.” She held out her hand and Rachel took it in both of hers, and Rachel ran her fingers across them as though she were reading the topography of a map. Rachel sighed, her face tilting toward her sister. Mrs. Samuels was nice.
    “What can we do for you, Mrs. Samuels?” Helen said. “We have a number of new items today.”
    “So I see.” Mrs. Samuels’s voice was tinged with sadness and—Helen heard it—the sharp edge of disapproval. “So I see.”
    She let her eyes wander across the card table—past the deck of cards, the set of three blue pens from different stays at the Concorde Hotel, the chipped, stained coffee mug—until they stopped on something, transfixed.
    “Your mother’s brooch.”
    “Yes,” Helen said.
    Now Mrs. Samuels was able to look at Helen, and Helen back at her, each woman filling her own space in the world and each of themunwilling, or unable, to move from it. At moments like this you could see Rachel suspecting something but unsure enough even to say what it was she thought.
    “Helen?” Rachel said. “What’s happening?”
    “Nothing, Rachel.” Helen was still looking at Mrs. Samuels. “Mrs. Samuels is interested in Mother’s brooch.”
    “May I see it?” Mrs. Samuels asked.
    Rachel’s hands, eager to be a part of whatever was going on, clumsily moved among all the objects until she came to it. She clasped it in both hands, to make sure, and then held it out for Mrs. Samuels to take.
    “Thank you, Rachel,” she said.
    She took it, looked at it: it was a beautiful Chinese flower. Or at least it had the feeling of something foreign, of something faraway, of something magical. The way the jewels and stones glowed, even in darkness. Someone said they were just garnets and orange jasper—but there was definitely something about them. Rachel swore the flower had an aroma. To her it smelled like a camellia.
    “It’s beautiful,” Rachel said, “isn’t it?”
    “It is,” Mrs. Samuels said.
    “You must have seen her wear it many times.”
    “More than that,” Dorothy said. “I gave it to her.”
    “Oh.”
    Dorothy looked at Helen. “Your sister knew that, I’m sure,” she said. “Didn’t you?”
    Slowly, Helen nodded. “I think I did know that.”
    Dorothy held the brooch with both of her hands, just as Rachel had. “How much?”
    Rachel was flustered. “We couldn’t sell it,” she said. “Not to you, Mrs. Samuels. Just take it. Please.”
    “Don’t be silly,” Dorothy said. “I insist. How much for this lovely brooch? Helen?”
    Again their eyes locked in wordless battle. “Five dollars,” Helen said.
    “That’s much less than it cost me, even all those years ago. Are you sure?”
    “Fine. Ten.”
    “ Helen, ” Rachel said.
    “Ten it is,” Dorothy said, opening the tarnished golden clasp of her small black purse and gingerly removing a weathered bill. Helen quickly snatched it from her and dropped it into the cigar box.
    Dorothy held the brooch for only a moment more. Then she said, “Here you are, Rachel. A little present.”
    She crossed to the other side of the card table and carefully pinned the brooch on Rachel’s dress. Then she hugged her. “It looks beautiful. You look like a queen.”
    “Like a queen? Really?” Rachel said, unable to stop herself.
    Dorothy was crying now, softly. “Remember her,” she said. “Remember your mother. If she were here she would tell you to stay