Page 48 of The Knight (Endgame 2)
Keeping the king in relative safety, because that’s the point of the game.
My fingertip touches each piece on the black side—king, queen. Knight.
An unusual piece because of the way it moves. Forward and sideways. The only piece able to jump other pieces. Not the most powerful on the board, but the most dangerous in closed positions.
I pick up the king, my thumb stroking over the ridges, the cross at the top.
Once I read that Napoleon Bonaparte loved chess, though he hadn’t been an extraordinary player. He had played his generals, certain the game held some kind of tactical education. He played every day of his exile, though I don’t remember who he played with. His guards? That hits a little close to home.
And I remember something else—that an escape plan was hatched to hide instructions in a chess piece and send it to him as a gift. The piece in my hand is too small to hide anything, at least anything readable to the naked eye. But the base of the set is tall. Gabriel had it custom carved for my arrival.
I set down the king and test the set, careful not to knock over the lined-up pieces. Heavy. Some sets come with hollow compartments to store the pieces, but this one feels solid.
Unless there’s something inside.
Tipping the surface, I let the pieces slide onto the rug. The king rolls onto the hardwood near the fireplace. I lift the lid of the chessboard and look inside—a leather-bound book sits in the empty space.
My mother’s diary.
I should be happy to have found it, even a day sooner than he had promised to give it back. Instead all I feel is dread. All the demons we’ve been keeping at bay—they’re free now. Free in the form of beautiful scrolling handwriting and a lifetime of secrets.
Turning the pages past wedding plans and honeymoon, past her excited and elaborate plans for the house that Daddy builds her, a single word catches my eye.
Afraid.
My hand trembles as I flip back to find the page.
Everything I wanted has come true—a beautiful house. A kind husband. Security for my family. And yet I can’t shake the feeling that I made a terrible mistake. Even in my own room I can feel someone watching me, threatening me. I’m afraid that I’m going insane.
Was my mother insane? It sounds like paranoia. Diagnoses and treatment of mental illness wasn’t like today. They had less knowledge and far more stigma.
I remember feeling like someone watched me.
Maybe I’m going insane too.
Except someone had written WHORE over the fireplace. That’s not a figment of my imagination, an illness that needs to be treated. And someone took pictures of me.
Geoffrey insists that it’s in my head, but I’m sure it’s not. It’s like the house is alive. Breathing. Whispering. I’m never alone, even when the people have gone.
Unease moves through me. I glance at the shadows around me. I can’t see through them, but I know I’m alone. Don’t I? I remember my terror the night I saw someone outside the window. Is that how my mother felt all the time?
I thought she loved the house. And at the beginning she did.
It turned into something sinister in these pages.
The strangest thing happened tonight. I saw Jonathan at a party for the Alberts’ anniversary. We both pretended we had never met. When he asked me to dance, I said yes so we could talk. I asked him how he got an invitation. He told me he had worked with Ralph Albert, but he refused to go into details.
So the mystery man had a name. Jonathan. Not that it told me anything. I didn’t know anyone by that name, and it’s common enough that it wouldn’t help me if I did.
But Geoffrey acted strange the rest of the night. He kept asking me about my dance with Jonathan, even though we had maintained appearances. It’s almost as if he knows the truth.
He did, because he had followed my mother the night before their wedding.
Now I’m wondering if the eyes I feel inside the house have a name. Geoffrey St. James.
“Ah, you found it.”
The voice startles me, and I jump from the chair. The diary falls to the rug amid the scattered chess pieces. This is the way he found me weeks ago, at the beginning of our month. Now we’re here at the end. I know him better, but there are even more questions.
Gabriel isn’t wearing a shirt, just low-slung slacks that reveal muscled abs and a trail of dark hair. He looks unrepentant about hiding the diary, about having startled me, but then he always did like to play.Chapter Twenty-NineGabriel crosses the room to the fireplace, kneeling to reveal the bunched muscles of his back. He settles a stack of logs from the metal basket beside the fireplace and strikes a match. The roar fills the vacuum of quiet with crackles and pops of a new fire. When he faces me, the light flickers against his broad shoulders, his muscled arms, leaving his expression an enigma.
