Like my mother before me I am a woman of solitary disposition. Resemblingthe women in this family runs true, grandmother to daughter to granddaughter.The only visible sign that I am my father's daughter, a tiny mole undermy right eye. I am her only child, so it was only natural that she spoiledme to a degree. I was her darling, her heir, so when on her deathbed itwas I s he called into her room, before the lawyers, and gave into my handsa red notebook in which she said my father had written the strange storyof the events that had befallen them in their younger days, it didn't surpriseme.

My father, a figure shrouded in mystery and whispers passed betweenmy mother and her two closest friends. This notebook written by my fatherheld my gaze while I listened.

My mother murmured to me that the story I would read had haunted herall of her life, and that she had always wished to go back and change things,to find closure. She was entrusting me with the task of going back, knowingI would feel the same way once I read the notebook.

It was a strange request and one which I had no time for until aftershe was dead and buried. As the only survivng relative and residing inEngland with her when she died, I was given the major tasks of settlingthe estate. It was then that I learned that she owned some major companiesand land in
the states. Mother didn't work once she had learned that I was on theway, she left her country and headed for this desolate place of moor, withits perpetually fog or torrential rain and gale winds. I use to ask herwhy, and she told me it was how she had felt after leavng of my father.You see, I never knew my father but he knew about me and begged my motherto get away before it was too late. How he died still remains a secret.One that my mother took with her to her grave.

So here I am this night, unable to sleep and rather tired, idly flickingopen the pages of the notebook which my mother had protected, each pagewhite and crisp, the lines of my father's handwriting flowing easily acrossthe pages uninterrupted by marks or corrections.  I realized thanthat my mother had loved him dearly and preserved this material bit ofhim as much as she nurtured me. I turned the first page and read what hehad committed to paper and what my mother had kept from me during my childhood,knowing full well that it would have fueled a deep desire in me to go back.Back to where it all started. Blue Cove, Delaware.

And so here I am in this strange town which there stands a mysteriousbuilding, owned now by me, a sunny climate I am not use to and yet thereis a darkness that shrouds it.

Yes, the notebook did excite and intrigue me. My mother knew me well,the imaginative one, the dreamer --I was captivated by the love-hate relationshipbetween Jarod, my father, and the enchanting, tempestuous, wayward M. Parker,my mother, and its curious and bitter end. I grew impatient with the lawyer,Mr. Worth, and longed to see with my own eyes the cottage house, and theplace my father called Hell, better known as the Centre.

They still stood. No one lived in the house. The building known as theCentre stands empty and has been for the last 10 years. I finally managed to receive the key and directions to the cottage and drove to it, inthe rental car that Mr. Worth had arranged for me to use during my stay.The excitement was mounting, when I turned on to the road and saw the housenestled in the woods, my breath caught in my throat.

My father had a gift for evoking the mood and situations as well asportraying his characters in his journal.  I knew the house from hisdescription, how it lay nestled in the woods, yet nothing he wrote preparedme for the beauty and remoteness of it that was so my mother. The weatherwas balmy and the sky blue, one could almost see the beginnings of springalthough it was early February and traces of snow lingered on the ground.

I moved closer to the house, no longer tired or weary, but upliftedknowing that part of my prize was in sight. There was something tough andenduring about this house, now I know why my father called it Refuge.

The windows were tiny and latticed and, yes there was a fir tree standingslightly apart from the house from which my father would occasionally standwhen he watched over my mother. Taking the key in shaking hands, I putit in the lock and turned it. With what was a quickening of my pulse Istepped inside. I had journeyed all the way from England, for this moment.The in side was as I knew it would be. There was no corridor and I steppedstraight into the living room; there was the huge fireplace with the oakmantle above it, just as my father had described it.

Half of me wished to stay still; the other, and strong half, had mestanding in front of the door. The door that lead to the room, grandmother'sstudio. Upon opening it, there was muted moonlight filtering in througha stained-glass window, the red heart clearly defined on the floor. I stood
still and the blood seemed to rush through my body; there was a prenaturalsilence in which even the wind ceased its moaning and I glanced aroundexpecting to see. . .  what? My parents. It was in this very roomthat my mother told my father that she was pregnant and of his urgent pleafor her to flee. With the notebook in my hands, I turned to the page thatdescribed how he felt when he learned that he was going to be a father,his joy and his anguish.

It was his anguished words which invoked such feelings of fear and dread,as such I never experienced before, and they overtook me. I felt the wetnesson my cheeks, he was going to protect my mother and his unborn child even if it meant he had to sacrifice himself to do it. He knew that my mother'slife would end as grandmother's did. I would become property in the pitof hell.

It was then that darkness engulfed me and I fell, inert, to the woodenfloor.

It was Broots that found me lying crumpled on the floor, at first hethought I was dead, and told me that my pulse was weak. Swiftly he tookm e to the bedroom that belonged to my mother and brought me a glass ofwater as there was nothing stronger in the house. Broots was clearly besidehimself with worry and fussed like a mother hen would with her chicks. I was in  such a state of excitement that after dinner, I bid Brootsgoodbye. With father's journal, I sank down on the sofa in front of a roaringfire in the stone fireplace. I sat through the night, reading and dreaminguntil the journal became the dream and the dream the journal. I knew notwhich was which.

The younger form of whom could only be my father, appeared at the window,arms at his side, a forlorn look upon his features, that I woke with ajolt. Making  my way to the bedroom, I crawled into the bed and itwas only the n that I fell into a heavy slumber.

When I woke the sun was streaming through the windows, and I was filledwith a firm sense of purpose, and knew what I had to do. Mother had leftinstructions that I not pester Broots or Sydney until I had uncovered allthat I could on my own, and only then would they be allowed to divulgethe rest. In my father's journal, he made mention of a sweeper that helpedhim, after mother disappeared.

Sam. Could he be still alive after thirty years? He would be close toseventy-five if he were.  Only Sam or someone like him could bringthe story up to date for me; someone must be able to fill in those missingpieces once my mother left for England. I knew what had happened to mymother. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl, and lived a leisurely comfortablelife dividing her time between her home  in Yorkshire and her townhousein London. She wrote, painted, very well, I might add, and loved to fence.She even taught me.

There had been visits from her two closest friends, Sydney and Broots,from time to time. In fact, Broots's daughter, Debbie, was sent to London to go to school and was the closest person I had to a sibling.

Yet I needed to know what happened to my father.
 
 
 

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Part 2