Headscratchers / Casteel Series

aka: The Casteel Series

• Until Granny Casteel revealed otherwise, Heaven believed that she and Tom were blood siblings, even though Tom was only five months younger than she was. Didn't she at least suspect that they couldn't share the same mother?
  • Granted, she was only ten years old when she learned this, so it's entirely possible that even if she knew the facts of life, she might not have put two and two together until she was older.
  • There's also the fact that they were living in the hills, where illegitimate children, stepchildren, half-siblings, and adopted relatives might have been so commonplace that Heaven simply accepted that she had one/was one without realizing the full implications for herself. (In the backwoods South, particularly among folks who might be going through hard times, it was totally common for a family to raise a relative's child alongside their own children for years if not permanently. If the children were all young enough, they might be unaware that their "sibling" was really a cousin or a niece.)
• It's Heaven's dream to revitalize the village of Winnerrow by opening up a plant for Tatterton Toys and hiring locals to work there. But Tatterton toys are specifically described as being unique, one-of-a-kind, custom toys created by artists. That's not the sort of work that's done in a "plant" such as Heaven describes...and what sort of work would unskilled, untrained locals be doing there, anyway? Even packaging and shipping such specialized, made-to-order items wouldn't be enough work to require a full factory.
• How come Heaven doesn't have an accent? She's been raised by a family who all speak with a strong southern dialect and the first time she even looked at a TV or saw a movie she was in her teens! At one point she even starts trying to coach Tom into losing his accent. What was her secret?
  • Heaven states that she made a conscious effort to imitate the accent of her citified teacher, Ms. Deale. Apparently she was successful. (Heaven also states that Tom can likewise talk properly when he chooses; it's just that as a boy, the other boys beat him up if he sounds different from them.)
• Kind of a moot point, but did Luke Casteel ever get formally divorced from Sarah before he married Stacie?
  • Depending on the circumstances of Sarah's disappearance, he might have had to get the marriage annulled or even had Sarah declared legally dead if literally no one had heard from her or said otherwise.
• The Rawlings (a.k.a. the couple that adopted Keith and Our Jane) are a little suspicious if you think about it too hard:
  • They're clearly well-off, and they seem to be decent people. Why not just go through an adoption agency? Or, if they actually had their hearts set on Keith and Our Jane at first sight, why not arrange a legal adoption on the spot? (The papers Pa signs before giving up the children do not appear to be adoption papers.)
  • If they had already tried adoption, and been rejected, there would have been a damn good reason. Normally this reason regards the well-being of the child, and it wouldn't have been for financial reasons since the Rawlings were fairly wealthy. The Rawlings were also described as a slightly older couple, and they might have been rejected on the grounds that they were considered too old to raise a child to its majority...but if it wasn't their age, the only reason left is that something in their background rendered them unfit to adopt a child.
  • Mr. Rawling is a lawyer—but he appears to be a pretty shady one, if he thinks the document he made Pa sign will stand up in court. Purchasing children is itself illegal; a contract made for an illegal activity isn't valid. Heaven might not know this, and Pa might not know it, but Mr. Rawling certainly would. He knowingly drew up a phony contract to take advantage of the ignorance of an uneducated man in order to insure his compliance and silence.
  • Not to mention what kind of people would do such a thing at all—and what kind of couple would then leave the other children to extreme, obvious poverty in the hands of a man who would sell off their siblings? An anonymous call to the police after taking their new kids home might have saved Heaven, Tom, and Fanny all kinds of future grief.
• Was it ever explained just how Leigh's diary ended up in Jillian's room after the former's death? I could have sworn the P.I. Tony hired stole it and gave it to them, but apparently my mind just made that factoid up to tie up the loose end.
  • You weren't making up the P.I. Tony revealed to Heaven late in Dark Angel that he set a private investigator to search for Leigh as soon as she left Farthy, but only located her shortly after her death. If this is true, the investigator would have had to get hold of that diary very soon after Leigh's death; otherwise it would be strange that Granny Casteel didn't keep it for Heaven along with Leigh's other belongings. The most reasonable explanation is that the ghostwriter took the story in a different direction than Andrews originally intended, and made up the diary as a plot device without thinking the logics through.