1. Evan Garland

1

Evan Garland

C link-clink, clink-clink, clink-clink. The train’s rhythmic sound had become monotonous several hundred miles back. I sighed and leaned back in the uncomfortable seat, trying to relieve as much pressure on my lower back as possible. At least the annoying kid who’d sat behind me on the first leg of the journey had finally got off. I was about to come apart when he kicked my seat one last time before the train stopped, and he and his mother departed.

I stared out the window, thinking about everything that happened that had led me to being on this train. Before it all started, I hadn’t even heard of Cordelia, Oregon. Hell, it was only months before my grandmother’s death that she actually admitted she’d reached out to a reporter to hopefully resurrect public interest in her mother’s case.

She and my dad were still alive back when the local TV news broke the story about how the town of Cordelia had screwed my great-grandmother out of legally inheriting the Cordelia family estate.

My grandmother disclosed to us after her cancer diagnosis that an archivist from Portland Library had contacted her when they found the last will and testament of Andre Cordelia, leaving his entire estate to Inez Garland.

Grandmother had only been a baby when her mother Inez was convicted of Andre Cordelia’s murder and died in prison shortly after. All Grandma would ever say about her childhood was that growing up in a community that largely shunned her because of her mother made for a hard life.

When my unwed grandmother became pregnant with my dad, she left Cordelia for Portland and never returned.

I closed my eyes, continuing to ponder the family ordeal that’d led me here. It seemed so surreal.

With my grandmother and dad passing within months of each other, I was the only one left in our family to take possession of the estate. Me, of all people. What would I do with a historic late Victorian manor on the Oregon coast? Live there, I guessed.

This wouldn’t be my first time in Oregon, though I hadn’t set foot in the state since I was too young to remember. After my parents divorced, Dad moved with me and Grandma to the East Coast, and there we stayed. Ever since Grandma and Dad passed, though, I’d felt adrift, like I had nowhere to be without them. Perhaps Cordelia Manor would provide the anchor I needed.

“Why don’t you just sell it?” Andy, my recent ex, had asked me.

“It feels like I need to go see the place, get to know what was so important that the town leaders happily destroyed my family just to get their hands on it,” I told him.

Of course, Andy never had much respect for me. He was ten years older and always told me how stupid I was, if not in those exact words. Of course, he was more than happy I’d suddenly come into an inheritance we could sell. I guessed I was stupid since I probably would have allowed him to control that too, had I not found out just a few days ago he was fucking our landlord.

“We have an open relationship,” he’d said, knowing damned well we didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was because I now had property that gave me a spine, or that I’d found out my family had been fucked over for nearly a century. Whatever it was, I didn’t let the asshole off the hook this time. Instead, I flipped him the bird, packed my stuff, and left. Once and for all.

The train ride from Ware, Virginia, to Portland, Oregon, took almost four days. It’d taken another few hours to get from Portland to Eugene, my final stop. I was terrified of flying and hated riding the bus, so the train was my only real option. I’d thought I could catch up on my reading and not worry about driving, especially since I’d let my license lapse and didn’t have the energy after the blow-up with Andy, to renew it.

I didn’t have a car anyway, and despite my newfound inheritance, I was still poor as a church mouse. I chuckled as I remembered that old phrase my grandmother used to use. God, I missed her. I missed both her and Dad, painfully so. They’d been my rock, and I still had to remind myself most days that I couldn’t just pick up the phone to chat with either one of them.

I checked the time and knew we were getting close to Eugene, so I began putting my stuff back in my backpack as I waited for the train to slow down. I’d spoken with the state’s representative, a man who’d been assigned when it became clear they were going to return the estate to my family. He was the attorney handling the handover.

The attorney, Mr. James, had offered to meet me at the train station; unfortunately, he’d been called into court, but said he’d send someone to pick me up. It was apparently another three or four hours to the coast from Eugene. Riding with someone, anyone, would be better than having to ride a bus.

The train lurched as it slowed. I’d gotten used to it over the past several days, and knew it signaled we had reached our destination. I strapped on my backpack and pulled the suitcase to me. “Okay, time to move forward,” I said out loud to myself, and as the train stopped, I stepped into the rush as other passengers also stood up and prepared for departure. When I finally got off, I began looking for the person the attorney said would meet me.

“He’ll have dark brown hair, is tall and stocky,” the attorney had said. So far, no one seemed to match that description. After waiting for the platform to clear and still not seeing the man, I decided to walk inside and take my chances there.

The Eugene train station was small. Nothing much to look at. When it was clear no one was there to meet me, I sat on a bench and closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of not moving, although it almost felt like I still was. When I heard someone clear his throat, I opened my eyes and looked into the face of one of the most handsome, if not intimidating, men I’d ever set eyes on.

I stared at him for a moment too long, taking in his long angular features. Much too sharp , I thought to myself. He was dressed all in black. Maybe he was going through a goth phase? But he was definitely no teenager. Most goth people I knew gave that up long before they reached this man’s age. Stocky? Not at all. Toned and muscular, yes, that was him.

He nodded at me, and asked, “Are you Evan Garland?”

His voice held a certain authority, making me hesitant to admit who I was, so instead of answering, I asked, “Who’s asking?”

He smiled, and just like that, his face bloomed in front of me, which made me gasp in surprise. I’d had a major crush on the actor Ewan McGregor when I was younger, largely because of his magical smile. The man before me wore that same look.

“Cary Beacroft, at your service,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Mr. James hired me to pick you up.”

I nodded and shook his hand, then stood. “Yes, he told me you were coming.”

The guy, Cary, took my rolling suitcase and began pulling it behind him. “Follow me. I parked in a fifteen-minute parking spot because the rest were taken. That’s why I was so late.”

“No problem,” I said as I tossed my backpack on and rushed to keep up with his long strides. By the time we were outside the station, he was already ten feet ahead, and I was practically running to keep up. Finally, I gave up. Shit, he can just come pick me up , I thought.

Luckily, he stopped and opened the trunk of some fancy black vehicle. I never paid much attention to makes and models of cars, but even I could tell it was a significantly better vehicle than I’d ever ridden in.

He looked up, realized I wasn’t behind him, and began looking around until his gaze landed on me. He nodded and waited patiently as I rushed to catch up.

“You walk a lot faster than me,” I said, forcing myself not to apologize. I’d done way too much fucking apologizing for things that weren’t my fault. Andy’s face came to mind. I thought Cary should’ve been the one apologizing in this situation. However, he didn’t. He simply nodded to acknowledge my statement, opened the fancy car’s back door, and gestured for me to get inside.

I felt a bit put off by him opening my door, but I climbed in, nonetheless. “When in Rome,” I muttered after he shut the door behind me.

He ignored me as we drove through the busy streets. I played on my phone, although I didn’t really have much to look at. I’d gotten rid of most of my social media accounts after I’d been hit by thousands of people wanting me to buy them shit like I’d won the lottery or something.

It wasn’t like I knew that many people. I’d always been a loner, and my friends, the ones I really did connect with, were odd ducks with a million conspiracy theories about social media. So, as I’d done on the train, I opened the Sudoku app, which Andy had referred to as my old man geek app, and played as we drove along the backroads of Oregon toward our destination.

Several hours later, we turned into a secluded drive.

I watched as we entered a beautiful clearing with a small lake with swans, of all things, swimming around in it. I noticed several beautiful pergola-like buildings around the lake. There was a nice-sized cottage on the other side of the water, and when I saw it, I was pleased. It wasn’t the humongous house I’d seen when I’d done a Google search of the place, or visited the official Cordelia Manor website run by the town.

As we drew closer, Cary drove past it. So, not the cottage , I thought. Just as we passed the smaller home, a vast mansion burst into view. This one was very different from the building we’d just passed. Instead of a pretty lake with swans, there seemed to be miles of formal, heavy-on-the-concrete, hardscape gardens.

The drive circled to the front of the home, along the side gardens, and stopped at what looked like an old English manor. I even looked to see if a line of servants was waiting for me to get out of the car.

Luckily, there wasn’t. I opened my own door, although Cary looked like he was about to do that for me. But it was time to stand on my own feet, and opening the car door was certainly a first step.

I waited as he brought my suitcase up to the enormous entrance. “So, do you have keys or something?” I asked.

The man shook his head. “No, but the door should be open. Mr. James said he wasn’t sure how long he’d be in court, so it sounds like it may be tomorrow before he’s able to come by to discuss the particulars of your arrival.”

I nodded and approached the door to see if it was indeed open. The moment I touched the handle, my hand began to feel numb. Ignoring the weird sensation, I opened the door and stepped inside just as someone or something hit me square in the face, knocking me back out the door and onto the concrete steps. “Ouch,” I said as I hit my head.

I remember looking up as a worried Cary leaned over me. Then I saw him stand, do something with his hands, and say something about casting back.

“What the hell was that?” I managed to ask before the world turned fuzzy.