“No.” I shook my head. “I won’t change fate at their expense.”
“Then it will be at yours—or your child’s.”
I nodded once, my arms dropping in relief as the heat simmered in my core. “Then so be it. At least I can live with that.”
“With sacrificing your child?”
“No. Myself,” I said. “When the time comes, I will choose what to do. But I will do it with a clear heart and a clear conscience. I will not trade Jason’s soul for David’s, nor the same in reverse. Those boys deserve better.”
“Then you will—”
“I don’t care,” I said, cutting the air with one hand. “With all due respect, Mother, I don’t want to know my future. I will do the right thing, and let the pieces fall where they may.”
“You are changing things, Auress, even now as you speak,” she warned, glancing up at nothing, as though a story were written there in the energy around the trees. “What may come could be a change you’re not prepared for—one not even a goddess as powerful as I can predict.”
I nodded once and turned to walk away. “Then I welcome the change.”
“Then you've chosen to love the king?”
“Yes.”
“He will not choose you in the end, Auress. You
will
be alone.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I smiled as I walked onward, wrapping my hands over my belly, feeling the small life that occupied the space within. “I won’t be alone.”
“Then so be it.” Her voice changed to a low, inhuman growl, and the wind rushed up past my ankles, sweeping my hair back toward the goddess.
I spun around. “What does
that
mean?”
“It means you will bear a reminder of your choice.” Her arm straightened, a long finger aiming toward me. And a single shot of heat pierced my hand, snaking down from my heart to the very tip of my ring finger. I folded in on the pain, my knees buckling, while the flaming form of the goddess moved slowly like a ghost around me. Her hair and gown lashed in wild, snakelike forms in the volcanic wind, the cage of her teeth, set below narrow, fierce eyes, making me feel small and suddenly unsafe.
“Burn for your sins, Auress,” she snarled. “Burn for what you destroyed, for what you seek now to restore. Burn and feel this as a reminder every moment from this day forth that you have chosen a path against the wishes of Nature—against God!”
“No.” I pushed hard against the ground, sweat breaking across my brow as I fought not to crumble. “Nothing I want with all my heart will ever be wrong in the eyes of God!”
“Betrayer,” she yelled, her long, bone-white finger aiming at my soul. And the burn in my hand intensified, the wind taking the tranquility out of the forest, turning this sacred place into a fiery hell. “God does not love those who sin. You are on your own now, Auress—and you will
suffer
for that.”
I screamed as the fire wrapped the base of my ring finger, bubbling it like molten lava, charring the skin with a slick blackness. “Stop. Please.”
“Every time you look at your hand now you will not only see a Mark; you will see the wedding band that is gone—that will not cover it—and it will be an eternal reminder that
you
chose a life without love.”
“It’s not without love.” I found the strength inside to stand against the pain and look her straight in the eyes. “I will always love him—”
“And he will turn you out when you tell him that love cost you your life.”
“I’ll never tell him.”
“You won’t need to. I will.” She turned and started floating away, taking the shadows along with her while the hot wind melted into the trees around me.
I looked down at the blackened finger, and there, like a tattoo in a singular ring, was a Mark I’d have no way of explaining to David—a band fixed in place where my wedding ring once had been, now serving as a permanent reminder that he would never love me again—a fact I would one day die with heavy on my heart.
“He’ll forgive me,” I called before the wavering pink fog disappeared in the distance. “He’ll see one day that I died
because
I love him.”
“And he’ll think you a fool,” she said, and the wild wind ceased like a breath held, the trees standing suddenly and unnervingly still, all the energy leaving the circle of the Stone with the goddess of all life.
I sat down heavily on the barky floor and cupped my hand firmly, cutting the blood flow from my wrist to my fingertips. I couldn’t straighten the bone, having arched it so far into a crippled mess that even the thought of moving it caused too much agony.
Lilith was right about one thing: how would I explain a permanent wedding band to my ex-husband?
I didn’t even need to ask what he’d say about it. When I told him why I wore it—that I refused to be with Jason for the sake of saving my people—he’d call me selfish and tell me I needed to grow up. He’d hate me even more than he did now.
In the distance, the pattering of four heavy feet, or paws, caught my attention, and the familiar bark of an old friend sent a small pang of relief through my chest. I exhaled, flopping flat onto my back against the ground as Petey came charging toward me like he’d escaped a scene from a Lassie movie.
He immediately attended to my sore finger, cooling the burned skin with his wet, kind-of soothing tongue.
“I really did pick the wrong person to piss off this time,” I said, slowly easing the grip around my wrist.
Petey sat back on his haunches then and looked to all four paths around the clearing.
“She’s gone, Petey. She stormed off in a huff.”
One little muscle above his left eye moved as if he was arching a brow.
“I know. Like great great grandmother, like … well—” I sat up with a bit of a heave. “You get what I mean. Guess I inherited that from her.”
The dog whimpered a little, licking his chops again, his eyes on my finger.
“She branded me,” I explained, holding it up. “I kinda told her to go shove this Jason business up her … forest.” I studied the new Mark, turning my hand at angles, noting the intricate details of the fine scroll on closer inspection, how it formed a more solid black band from further away. “I’m not sure this one’s coming off, Petey.”
He groaned, flopping down heavily on his belly, his snout landing in my lap. I rubbed his head with my good hand, quietly contemplating ways I could hide this black band.
“That’ll be the last thing he wants to hear out of my mouth right now, don’t you think?”
Petey looked up at me with questioning blue eyes.
“Right. You’re not a mind-reader,” I reminded myself out loud. “I was just thinking that David won’t take too kindly to the idea that I’ll never stop loving him. But I’ll be damned if I really care what anyone else thinks about that—even him.”
I studied the dog to see what he thought, but he just sat up, his tongue hanging out over his wet white fur.
“Come on then, Petey.” I stood up stiffly and clumsily, stumbling a bit with the uneven weight in my midsection, and patted my leg. “I’m going inside for a hot bath and some time outside my own head. Let’s see if I can’t soak this ring off.”
He followed, brushing up against my leg as he passed, nearly knocking me off the path.
***
By the time I reached my bathroom, turned on the faucet and stood back, waiting for the tub to fill, I didn’t feel like soaking in all my worries. Besides, Petey kept scratching at the door outside, whimpering, so I flicked the water off and left the bathroom behind.
“I need to find a way to cover this.” I showed him my finger again. “Any ideas?”
His inquisitive blue eyes looked through mine, not so much at them, and I wished I could just read his mind. He didn’t move to show me what I should do, didn’t even follow me when I walked over to the jewellery box on the pretty white dresser and took a seat on the stool. He just sat there, watching me.
I combed through trinkets and jewels, searching for something that wouldn't look either like an engagement ring or a wedding band. “Too sparkly. Too big. Too wedding-ish. Ooh!” I held up a small silverish band with an oval stone on it. “Mood ring. I mean, it’s cheap and silly, but no one will think anything of it—or they’ll just think I’m wearing it as a warning when I’m about to erupt.”
Petey just groaned and turned away.
“What?” I said, slipping it on. It covered the blackness nicely, but the skin was still quite raw and tender. “Do you have a problem with me hiding this?”
He sat by my door and lifted his heavy paw to make his request known.
“You wanna go out?”
No response.
“So now you’re not talking to me?”
No response.
“Fine.” I stood up, closing my jewellery box. “But if this is your way of saying I should show David what Lilith did to me, then I have to say I disagree.”
Petey’s nostrils flared with a puff of air.
“Just go.” I opened the door for him. “I don’t need
your
opinion.”
He looked at me as if to say, “Then you shouldn’t have asked” and trotted off down the corridor. But when he got to the end, he stopped and turned around, barking once loudly.
“What?” I said, tucking my hand behind my back. “You want me to come now?”
He started off again. So I shut my door behind me and followed the moody white beast down the halls.
Sheets of rain came down outside the window, blackening the halls and swathing the lands in a grey cloud. I couldn’t see the driveway or the statue of Lilith in the front yard below, nor did I notice the steps at the end of the hall as they came upon me. Petey darted in front of my legs quickly.
“Sorry,” I said, grabbing the handrail. “I was off with the fairies.”
Petey groaned.
I followed his sweeping tail down to the second floor then, taking a right, watched him curve the corner into the library.
“Why are you taking me in here, Petey?”
My eyes darted over the shelves from the floor to the roof, scanning the tables, chairs and finally landing on the white dog coming out from a small cleft in the wall, carrying a book between his teeth.
I squatted down, the eerie chill in here more prominent closer to the ground, taking a quick glance over my shoulder for Eve; but she wasn’t here—or wasn’t to be seen. “What you got there, boy?”
The dog dropped his small, leather-bound book into my open palm and sat down.
On the cover, embossed rather than written, were symbols in the ancient language. I knew enough words now to make out that it had something to do with Marks, but the word used resembled the English translation of ‘brands’. “Brands?” I asked the dog. “As in buying the best quality shoes, or like what you do to a cow?”
His mouth seemed to move up into a smile, his pink gums revealing themselves.
“Right.” I nodded. “Cow.”
We settled down together in a snuggle on the two-seat sofa beneath the curling stairwell to the upper library floor, and I flipped the book open to the first page. It was old, soft, with yellowing pages and that ancient smell that books printed before the eighteen hundreds seemed to have. I could remember at least six times in my childhood when I’d been upset or angry about something, and my dad would tuck me in and kiss me goodnight, but before he’d leave the room he’d turn around with a huge smile and hold up a copy of a book that smelled just like this. I didn’t understand the words or phrases, being that it was written so long ago, but I liked the sound of his voice, its rhythm and the deep undertone of calm as he’d read me into the lowest level of consciousness.
“Okay,” I said, wrapping my arm around Petey. “Let’s see what these pages have to say about cows.”
***
The book slipped from my hand and hit the ground before I realised I’d drifted off. I sat upright on the leather seat and looked over to the roaring fire between the giant windows. Petey was there, sound asleep in the orange glow, while the rain outside blasted against the glass window panes.
“Must not be a very interesting book.”
I looked around me, up, then down, and finally over to the squeak of leather across the room. Arthur leaned forward in the big armchair so I could see him—his feet propped up on the stool, a book in his hands.
“Actually, it was,” I said, bending to pick up the book. “I’m just tired.”
“It’s barely dinner time.” He looked at his watch.
“I know.” I walked over and slumped into the armchair opposite him, kicking off my shoes to rest my bare foot on Petey. He groaned, but didn’t move. “What you reading?”
He showed me the cover. “A journal of mine—from a long time ago.”
“Oh. Wow.” I considered the book more carefully then. “Why you reading that?”
“Looking for something.”
“What?”
“A memory.”
“What memory?”
“I seem to remember something about a scar. Ah-ha,” he said, tapping the page. “Here it is.
Vampirie
,” he read, “
tossed his shirt into the fire, and I noticed then, for the first time, something I’d never seen on an immortal before—a scar. Shaped like a moon, just under his breastbone
.”