Perception

XCIII

"When... when your mother died, I found a message waiting for me when I got home. It was suddenly there, out of the blue, with that little box I gave you."
Mrs. Peterson's voice was soft and brittle, full of the tears shed long ago. She was in front of the old cupboard that she had produced the beads from, her back to Anna, who had become like a marble statue in the door opening. Eli had still been asleep when she had woken out of fitful dreams, so she had tiptoed down the stairs to see her landlady, who had given her an ashen look just like the one she had given her that day when she gave her the beads, and staggered back to where she was now.
"The note said to hold onto them in case you ever needed them, and that I would know when. Those beads, that she always wore... I think I knew even then how important they were."
Suddenly she turned around and looked right at Anna. She was ghostly pale and she looked older than she ever had before.
"She was my friend, you know, young as she was. She was such light, such power. I have a few powers of my own, but none come close to what she could do."
"Did you know what had happened?"
Mrs. Peterson shook her head. "I only knew that there had been a car crash, and that the three sisters were gone. I don't know how she managed to get box and note to me, all the way back in London."
Anna's legs weren't feeling so stable all of a sudden, so she stepped forward, sat down on one of the chairs at the dinner table next to the French doors to the garden and held her face in her hands. She opened her mouth to tell her landlady about her aunt, to tell her about her darkness, to tell her that she had killed her sisters and got away, that she had managed to find and kidnap her daughter... but something inside her made her hold her tongue. So instead she looked up from her hands and spoke softly.
"So... you knew who I was all along."
Mrs. Peterson nodded, a world of pain washing over her face.
"Like I said, I was living back in London, working in an office, when it all happened. By the time I heard and came north for the funeral you and Rose had already been adopted. I was told it was the best thing for you, and I believed them. I.... oh Anna, I was so very happy when you came to live with me, you've felt to me like a family I never had. I knew.... I knew it wasn't right to tell you all of this then. What could I even say? I don't know anybody from there any more. I was in London for a while after it all happened, and then I got sent here by the company I worked for and I've never left again."
She looked right at Anna now, her eyes moist and hazy.
"You've never told me much, but I gathered how tough life was for you. I... I wish I could have taken you instead."
Anna got up abruptly, the chair scraping over the floor. She walked over to her landlady and hugged her tight. The tiny old woman sniffled slightly.
"It's okay, Mrs. Peterson. I think.... I think everything probably worked out the way it had to. Don't feel guilty. And you kept me safe, you gave me a place to live, you gave me the beads. I owe you a lot."

She stepped back and started making her way upstairs. There was a quiet in her now, a calm. She knew that her landlady had told her what she knew, and she also knew that she couldn't have told her, before. There was a peace, spreading softly despite the pain of what she'd seen, that she'd never known before. Suddenly though, she turned around once more.
"Mrs. Peterson? I just have one more question. Where... where am I from?"
The weight of the moment hung over her like Damocles' sword.
I'll know... I'll finally know where I'm from.
Mrs. Peterson's voice was steady.
"Drumnadrochit." she said. "It's a tiny village in the Scottish highlands. I lodged there for a while when I was dating a very nice young Scotsman. It's where I met your mother."