Chapter 7

Unforgettable

Beauty in abandoned bricks

Mysteries untold

“Why don’t you listen?” Dad grumbles over a heaping plate full of bacon. “I don’t want you going to Veseud.”

I peel the crust off my toast in one long strip. “Why? There’s nothing there.”

“I asked around. It’s too far off the main highway, close to uncharted forest. They say it’s mostly fallen into disrepair. That makes it prime real estate for gypsies.”

Typical Dad move. I delightfully find something of my own, and he’s waiting in the background to snatch it away. Not that I didn’t know he’d try.

“Veseud isn’t in the forest.” I roll my eyes. “There’s a little store and an inn.”

“Saxons built that village from the ground up for all Romanians to live as a community.” Dad bites off a piece of bacon. “It’s a shame what’s happened to it.”

“On the village sign, it says Zied under the name Veseud. Is it German?”

Dad nods. “Zied is original Saxon name. Many of its original settlers moved away. Back to Germany, or like our family, to North America.”

The rancid smell of pork finds its way into my clothes and hair. I gag.

“Moped is a privilege,” Dad growls. “Stay close to Varig, or else the privilege will be removed.”

I cough into my paper napkin. “I can’t believe you’re worried about a few harmless drifters. People choose to live off the grid all the time, but that doesn’t make them bad. Plus, I can handle myself. I don’t have any money anyway.”

“You have a phone. And a tablet, glasses, a good pair of shoes.” Dad reaches down, fidgets with something, and pulls out a short hunting dagger inside a leather sheath. He slides it over the table toward me. The hilt’s polished mahogany gleams in the morning sunlight from the window. “Wrong kind of gypsy will swindle you for everything you own. Keep this with you.”

I stare at the sheathed dagger in its leather ankle strap. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nein.” Dad taps the dagger. “Today at the property, I’ll teach you to use it.”

I let out a phony laugh. “You think I could stab someone if I were in danger?”

“No, but you can wave it around if someone bothers you, show them you mean business. You should know how to defend yourself. Stay away from Veseud, and you won’t need it.” He points at me. “A young woman should know how to protect herself. I wouldn’t give you a weapon if I thought you were too much like your mother. See?”

This is how Dad shows he believes in me. By giving me a tool designed for violence? I ball my fists beneath the table.

“Gypsies scare off easy enough,” he says. “You don’t have to be helpless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand. “And would you stop using the word gypsy? It’s kinda racist.”

“It means wanderer!” Dad says. “Like a transient—nothing to do with someone’s ethnicity.”

Aside from the fact Dad can be inconsiderate and politically incorrect, he’s blinder than an earthworm. I’ve known all along I disappoint him, but he’s missing a fundamental personality trait here. What am I doing wrong?

He lets out a heavy sigh, but it doesn’t weaken the passion of his breakfast routine. He shovels down food with even more enthusiasm, slurping his coffee between bites.

“I’ll teach you self-reliance and confidence yet.” A lanky sliver of greasy bacon dangles from his fork. “Take the dagger. It will make me feel better knowing you have it. Just in case.”

I get up with my dirty dishes. “I’m not carrying a knife with me.”

“It’s a dagger,” Dad says. “Meant for your ankle.”

At the kitchen sink, I rinse my dishes. “Dude, what color is the sky in your world? I told you, I want nothing to do with your weapons.”

“And I want you nowhere near Veseud.” Dad’s voice is stern but softens as he mutters something else in German. “Go and change, we have work to do.”

Toast and coffee slosh inside my stomach. Airborne bacon particles cake my mouth. I head for the stairs to brush my teeth, change my clothes, and psych myself into whatever outdoor misery lay ahead.

* * *


Over the next three days on the reserve, Dad and I stay busy. He meets with a new investor, repairs the perimeter fence, and takes inventory of the game — rams, deer, and boar that roam freely inside the fence. If I want Dad to ease up over Veseud, I have to keep him in the best mood possible, which is why I follow his orders without complaint as much as possible. When dime-sized flies and bees buzz in my face, I stifle my F-bombs. When a bushy weed near the shelter sets me into a fit of sneezes, I swallow my complaints. Matter of fact, it’s with impeccable self-control, that despite my discomfort, I don’t object to anything at all … until …

A huge brown bear wanders down the hill straight toward us.

It doesn’t seem to notice us.

My body quakes like jelly inside my Gore-Tex boots. Dad spots it immediately and motions to get in his truck.

I’m about to pee myself.

“On three,” Dad whispers. He counts with his fingers … 1, 2, 3 …

Breath held, I inch backward alongside him, climb inside the truck, and shut the doors as quietly as possible.

Click.

Doors lock.

Phew.

Exhale. My entire body trembles in release.

Several yards ahead, the bear noses around the grass. It’s a behemoth but calm and carefree.

“Did it see us?” I ask.

“It knows we’re here,” Dad says. “It smelled us before we ever saw it. He readies his rifle. “That’s a problem because it’s no longer scared of humans. An animal like this doesn’t belong here. We’re lucky it didn’t ambush us.”

“Please don’t shoot it!” I whisper, my pulse bounding from one temple to the other.

Dad clicks the safety and repositions the barrel out the driver-side window. “This bear steals my game. If it kills here once, it will stay for more.”

I cringe. In a world full of human hate and violence, animals are the only things incapable of judgment or betrayal, and the fact hunters refer to them as game says everything it needs to about human atrocities.

“But really, this is its territory.” My voice shakes. “It doesn’t know what a fence is. It has a right to exist.” I angle toward him, wincing. “Please don’t kill it.”

“Wake up, Morgan,” Dad says quietly. “You’re not a child. This is how nature works—survival of the fittest. You think this bear cares about its right to exist?” Dad closes an eye and peers through the sight. “Its hide will make a nice rug for the cabin. Its meat will make dog chow for the landlord’s dog. Or, maybe we can sell it. Bear this size makes a nice trophy for someone. A store in town, maybe.”

I shake my head. Another trophy. Another pawn in his sadistic sport.

Unaware, the bear paws at a patch of long weeds. Its head lifts, and it yawns, big and wide. It’s beautifully dangerous.

My lower lip quivers. Any second now, it will fall.

Dad glances at me, lowers his rifle, and searches my face. “It’s just a bear, Morgan. What’s wrong with you?”

My problem. Always my problem.

“All you see is a bear.” My voice is weak, and I hate the sound of it.

“What else is there?” Dad lets out a small laugh.

I open my mouth to answer … then clench my jaw shut. It doesn’t matter. Nothing will change. He’ll only ever see me as defective, fragile. Maybe I am.

His perpetual disappointment.

The bear moves closer to the truck. My heart pounds in my ears. I’ve never been so close to a predator this size. How easily my skull would crush between its massive jaws.

Would I become a trophy then, too?

The engine starts. Dad stashes his rifle in the backseat.

The bear sees us now, freezing in its tracks.

Slowly, Dad backs up, our gazes locked with the bear’s. Dad pushes into drive, turns, and speeds off over the rugged terrain back to the main road.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“I’m taking you home.”

“To Atlanta?”

“Nein, home here.” Dad stares out the windshield. “Romania can be your home, too, if you let it. You don’t have to be afraid.”

I don’t know how to respond. So I don’t.

Dad drops me off at the cabin and speeds off when I leave the truck.

I don’t need to ask where he’s going. At least I don’t have to see it die.

* * *


By nightfall, I’m in bed with my drawing tablet opened and music playing when Dad knocks at my door.

“What?” I ask, uninterested.

I don’t want to know about the bear. I don’t want to talk about any of it. I want to draw. Recreating the scene of Varujan in the clock tower window beside the rook hasn’t worked out as smoothly as I envisioned, but it somehow lets me feel closer to him. The photos I took capture the eeriily electric mood of that day.

My drawing doesn’t.

How do I give it a piece of myself—a piece of my soul—like Carrick and Marguerite mentioned? What do they know that I don’t?

Maybe I’m trying too hard.

Dad cracks open the door and hovers, his hand on the doorknob. “Still upset?”

I meet his steely blue eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” He widens the door. “Another investor’s coming tomorrow. Good news, eh? We’ll show them the new area. Maybe we buy more property by end of summer. I need you to come along and create some documents for us.”

My head falls back on my neck. “Seriously? It’s my day off.”

I’ve been compliant with everything up until now.

“It just came up.” Dad steps into my room and glances out the glass door. “No more strangers with birds stopping by?”

I shoot him a dirty look. Suddenly, I want him to know nothing about Varujan.

Dad lingers beside my bed. “I know tomorrow’s your day to relax, but work comes first. Maybe we’ll finish early.”

Why does everything have to be a tug-o-war with him?

“I need some personal time to focus on my art.”

Dad motions to the tablet. “Looks like you’re doing it now. Your nights are free for drawing.”

“It’s not enough!” A burst of fury rises from my core and presses onto my lungs. I’ve yet to show him my portfolio.

“Help me tomorrow, and then you take the next day off,” he says. “Tomorrow’s important. See? I can be flexible. Just one more day, then you have time for your hobby.”

I grab my forehead with both hands.

Unbelievable.

“What if someone told you hunting was only a hobby?” I snap. “Or that it had to come second to something else?”

Like family.

“It’s different.” Dad waves a hand to pass off the notion. “I support myself with hunting.”

I want to yell a whole bunch of things that have to do with the fact I just graduated and don’t have a job yet. But instead, I clutch my hands at my chest and concentrate. “I’ll get rusty if I don’t keep a regular drawing routine. This is important to me. Art school is all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t get why you can’t see that.”

Dad grimaces. “I see that your focus meanders like a dragonfly’s path—one day here, one day there. You change your mind too easily when something doesn’t work out for you.”

Fuchsia. Magenta. Gaudy shades of spite.

“It’s my job to guide you in a better direction,” he continues. “That’s why you’re moving to Nashville to work for me when we return stateside. You need stability and strength. I need another full-time employee. You don’t want to end up like your mother—working at markets and restaurants to make ends meet. I can help you lead a productive, prosperous life.”

I get to my feet to march him right out of my room. “This can lead to something productive. Look at Pixar or Marvel. Where would they be without the artists? Even Walt Disney was an artist—committed to his vision when no one would finance him or believed in the idea of full-length feature animation films.”

Although I despise Disney the corporation and its virtue-signaling and appropriation of other artists’ work, the man who founded it all remains a huge inspiration.

Dad scuffs the top of his short chestnut hair, his expression tart. He seems to marinate on my response for a moment. With a faint nod, he motions to my tablet. “Who is that anyway?”

The question catches me off guard. My gaze flickers from him to my tablet to the halfway-done piece of Varujan in the window. “Just an idea for an album.”

“You drew that from your head?” Dad studies the screen.

I pick up my tablet. “I incorporated photography into digital art.”

“Where is that?”

Yikes. I’m not ready for him to know about Varujan or the clock tower yet. “It’s just a building I stumbled onto.”

“I … don’t know how you make it all happen on the iPad.” Dad runs his fingers through the top of his hair again.

He’s inquiring about my art.

I try to hand him the tablet. “This is different than the iPad. This one was designed specifically for art that transfers to the computer.”

My extended arm hovers in the air.

Dad stares at my device. “I can check my email and do Google searches.” He shrugs and steps toward the door like I’m handing him a snake. “I don’t want to mess up your work.”

I pull my tablet in and cradle it in my arms.

Why is he so uncomfortable discussing my art? The question falls through my chest, heavy and deep, with a hollow thud. It’s almost like he’s …

“Gute nacht,” Dad calls, his footsteps moving down the hallway.

“Dad …” I go to the doorway and hang halfway out of it.

He casts me a backward glance.

My chest squeezes. “I can be ready tomorrow morning.”

He forces a tight smile and nods.

Somehow, he feels a smidge less intimidating as he slogs through his crushed shades of coffee-browns and plum-purples and disappears inside his room.

A crazy foreign urge surges through me. For a nanosecond, I want to hug him—the man who used to scare the monsters away. But …

Something else inside me resists.

I settle for “Goodnight.”

And I shut my door. On the other side of it, I press my back against the wood and let out a slow, weighted sigh. Long shadows emerge from beneath the door, over the hardwood of my floor.

Dad. I sense his presence. Hovering. Right behind me, yet divided by an ocean of mixed emotions.

I wait for him to knock or try the knob.

He doesn’t. But the whisper of his voice filters through the cracks. “Mein Liebling.”