Chapter 18 - The Visit to the Iron Cage and Margaret’s Final Gift
The prison was a grim,
concrete fortress that smelled of floor wax and despair.
I sat in the visiting room,
a glass partition separating me from the woman who had spent a decade trying to erase my existence.
Margaret Whitmore was wearing a jumpsuit of orange polyester,
her silver hair now dull and unkempt.
She looked at me,
and for the first time,
there was no smile,
no mask,
just a raw,
animalistic weariness.
"You look well,
Clara,"
she said,
her voice thin and metallic through the intercom.
"Motherhood suits you."
"I didn't come here for small talk,
Margaret,"
I said.
"I came to ask you about Thomas."
She let out a dry,
hacking laugh.
"So,
the ghost has finally come out of the attic,
has he?"
"Why did you do it?"
I asked.
"Why did you help him fike his death?"
Margaret leaned forward,
her eyes narrowing.
"Because he had something I wanted,"
she whispered.
"He had the land rights to the Bar Harbor docks,
and he had a daughter who was the perfect match for my son."
"He wanted out,
and I wanted in.
It was a simple transaction."
"He told me he loved me,"
I said,
feeling the ghost of a little girl’s heartbreak.
"He loved the money he got for you more,"
she countered.
"But you should know something,
Clara.
Something he doesn't even know."
She looked around to ensure the guards weren't listening,
her voice dropping to a low hiss.
"The deed he gave Arthur?
The one you think is the key to the Sterling fortune?"
"It’s a forgery."
"The real deed was never in Bar Harbor."
"It was hidden in the one place he never thought to look because he hated it so much."
"Where?"
I asked,
my heart hammering.
"In your mother’s wedding ring,"
Margaret said.
"The one you’ve been wearing since the day you turned eighteen."
I looked down at the simple gold band on my right hand,
the one piece of jewelry I had never taken off,
even when the Whitmores tried to replace it with diamonds.
"There’s a micro-film hidden behind the stone setting,"
she continued.
"It contains the original land grants and the proof of the Whitmore’s illegal acquisition."
"Why are you telling me this?"
I asked,
suspicious of her sudden generosity.
"Because I hate him more than I hate you,"
she said,
a dark spark of the old Margaret returning to her eyes.
"He got to walk away and be free while I’m rotting in here."
"Destroy him,
Clara.
Tear his world down until there’s nothing left but salt and ash."
"And then,
maybe,
tell my son I’m sorry."
I stood up,
not saying a word,
and walked out of the prison.
I went to a jeweler in the city,
a man who didn't ask questions,
and had him pry the small sapphire from my mother’s ring.
There,
tucked into a microscopic cavity,
was a tiny,
translucent strip of film.
The truth.
The real truth.
As I held it up to the light,
I realized that I now held the power to destroy not just the Whitmores,
not just the Sterlings,
but the man who had given me life.
I drove back to the coast,
the sun setting in a blaze of red and orange.
May you like
The war was reaching its final movement,
and the stage was set for a reckoning that would change the history of the New England coast forever.
