“I did.”
My mortification could not be concealed by a mere look of surprise. “
Why
?”
She smiled a small smile, looking a lot like her granddaughter Lilith, and rose from the edge of the desk. “For generations, women have fought for equality among men. But this is not a battle modern woman alone have faced. It began before the time of humans, in a world where such injustices should not have occurred.”
“Right—the whole Adam expecting you to submit to him thing?”
“Yes.” She floated away and hovered by the window. “He was cruel and arrogant, but God was blind to this beastly side of Man.”
“Why?”
“Because He’d created him in His likeness. How could Adam possibly be anything but pure?”
“Gee, sounds like it’s still a sore spot.”
She faced me again, her smile wavering. “When I realised I was fighting a battle against Adam that I would never win, I left him and the Garden, and he sent three angels out to hunt me down and drag me back. They warned me that if I did not return and s
ubmit to Adam, a curse would befall me—to bear one hundred sons and watch each of them die.”
“What a jerk! So—” I rested my chin on my hands. “What’d you do?”
“I told them to return to Adam—tell him I would rather watch a hundred babies die than spend another second as his property.”
“So they cursed you?”
“They did. And so, in retaliation, I swore to it that I would bear one hundred sons with the impure seed of Man and slay each myself to save the River of Life the burden of a hundred reincarnations. I mated in the form of a mortal woman with mere men of impure minds, often not with consent, and took the lives of each boy as he was born.”
“And that’s how you obtained the title Goddess of Seduction—”
“And the curse to go with it.”
“Right. The Curse of Man’s Eternal Longing.”
“Yes.”
“And, the slaying of babes?” I said. “That’s how you gained the reputation as a child killer?”
“It is. But they did not die in vain.” Her sad eyes landed absently on the face of a small boy in a painting. “For each time my son died, I walked the Valley of the Dead and retrieved that one spirit until, at last, when the first son after one hundred was born to my love eternal, I named him Vampirie and I was free of Adam and his curse.”
“But not free of the forest?”
“No.”
“How long have you been the guardian of the Stone?”
“For a time that no half-life can comprehend. But I guess, in your feeble understanding, I would say it has been lifetimes.”
“Will you ever be free?”
“One day, when the Mother of Eternal Life, also known as the Guardian of Immortal Souls, awakens and sets it free.”
“Well, where is she? How can we wake her?”
“To wake, one must be asleep. But to awaken, a catalyst must present itself and evoke the knowledge of oneself.”
“When will that happen?”
“When the time is right.”
“When will it be right?”
“When it is.” She looked over her shoulder then, and I noticed small murmurs of conversation lilting in on the breeze as the people made their way back toward the manor. “I must return to my dwelling.”
“Okay
. Well, good night.”
“Good night, young queen.” She bowed her head and the light faded, leaving me in darkness.
***
I didn’t get much work done after that profound experience, so I took to the library to read a book instead and was ambushed by a very eager Emily and her baby store catalogue, a notepad and pen. Consequently, I think I read about two lines of the book I’d been waiting a year to get my hands on!
“We should go to bed, Em.” I jerked my head to the clock. “It’s nearly morning.”
“You’re right. We should.” Emily laid the long list of “essentials” down on the lamp table between us. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I often wonder … do you miss him?”
“Who?”
“David.”
The mere mention of his name flooded my mind with everything I once loved about him. I closed my eyes and pictured his face—the way his eyes changed from emerald to almost lime green when he’d smile—and that gentle half-turn his lip would take when he read something on someone’s mind that they would never have wanted him to know. I didn’t miss fighting with him. I didn’t miss his nasty side. But I missed the way things used to be. And though, for various reasons, I no longer regretted sleeping with Jason, for this one moment, I regretted ever wanting to. “Yeah. I kinda do miss him—the old him.”
“I heard he’s coming home next week.”
I nodded, still not sure I was ready for that.
“How’s things going with Jason then?” she probed, sporting a suggestive grin. “I see you two are getting pretty close.”
“We’ve always been close.”
“Yeah, but now you’re closer.”
“I guess. I mean, we’ve just been working together so much lately we…” I shrugged. “Yeah, we are closer.”
“Does David know?”
“Know what?”
“That you’re
…
with
Jason.”
“I’m not
with
him, Emily.” I sat back in the cosy armchair and cast my longing gaze to the neglected book.
“I saw you holding hands,” she teased.
My shoulders dropped.
She laughed, hopping up from Arthur’s armchair and coming to sit on the lamp table beside me. “You look happy, though—happier than I’ve ever seen you.
Both
of you, actually.”
“We are happy. But I still feel
…” My eyes wandered absently to the roaring fireplace, settling there while my mind focused hard on that empty place inside me. “There’s still a hole there where David used to be.”
Em’s delicate hand patted my knee. “There always will be.”
“I just keep thinking that, maybe, if I could've gotten through to him last time we spoke, maybe I could've changed the
way
things ended, you know?”
“Like, how?”
Good question. “I just wanted to make him understand. I mean, he hides behind his anger, but he’s gotta be hurting pretty bad, Em—for what I did to him. And then he just up and left—no previous planning. Just a ‘sudden’ need to sort things out at the Ninth Order. Who does that?”
“A new king with a lot to sort out,” she said simply.
“Yeah, okay. Fair enough. But normally people plan these things out.”
“So you think he left because he hates you?”
I didn’t want to think that. But my inner voice sure as hell didn’t care what I wanted. “I just think he feels really alone right now—like he has no one to turn to.”
“And you care how he feels?”
“Of course I care. I don’t want anyone feeling like shit.”
“Especially not someone you
love
, right?” she said with her voice, but her eyes asked a different question. I decided to answer the second one.
“It’s over between us,” I said with my voice, but my heart was running through the forest, screaming out for Lilith and telling her … No. Scratch that. That wasn’t an option. Jason and I were fated. David hated me. And I just had to accept that and move on.
Emily puffed her cheeks up, blowing a long breath out through tiny holes on the corners of her lips. “One day, he’ll come to you, Ara—when he’s had time to heal. And only then is it time to talk to him about it all and maybe mend some bridges. Until then, he just has to feel like shit for a while. It’s a part of the process.”
“I do know that. I just feel sad for him, is all—the fact that he had to run away to the other side of the universe to get some space.”
“Paris is the other side of the universe?” She smirked.
“It feels that far away.”
We both looked out the library window then and sat in silence for a very long time, just watching the pale blue glow on the horizon change to a lighter grey as the dawn approached. I could hear Blade in the corridor outside at his guard post, thumbing away on his phone, but the rest of the manor was in almost complete silence. Only slight murmurs of staff setting up for breakfast broke the stillness on occasion. Until a familiar and very stern, deep voice said my name.
Em and I started to attention, eyeing each other like rabbits listening for hunters, before slowly turning to look over our shoulders.
I put my book on the table beside Emily, praying for words to come. “David, I didn’t realise you were back.”
He walked in from the doorway with a stack of packages under his arm, his hands tucked into his pockets. “I just arrived.”
“Did you take care of everything in Paris?” I asked, breaking contact from those breathtaking eyes: they were so intense in this light, his lashes thick and dark, framing the vibrant emerald city like a black night, but the stern set of his jaw and his tight lips only offered that same ugly detest he’d had there when he left, and it threw me off guard in an unnerving way.
“These are for you,” he said, ignoring my question.
I took the seven or so parcels and fingered through them. “What are they?”
“Post. Mail sent to the Ninth Order. They held onto them rather than couriering them to you.”
“Why?”
“Because it was easier if I brought them back with me.”
“Oh.” I looked at the address on an envelope, then at the giant square package. “These are from Vicki and Dad. I’ve been trying to contact them.”
“It seems they’ve been trying to contact you.”
“What do they say?” I asked, sliding my finger under the lip of an envelope—the oldest one.
“I don’t know, Ara. I didn’t read them,” he said dully. “They aren’t addressed to me.”
“Yes, they are.” I showed him the envelope. “They say, To Mr and Mrs Knigh—” I stopped then, his surname falling out of my lips like an insult. I didn’t mean for it to dredge up our lost future, but I guess it just wrapped up all the hurt and the betrayal in one sentence then slapped him in the face with it.
He turned away stiffly. “I need to unpack.”
I winced at Emily, wrinkling my nose until David disappeared. “Oops.”
She pulled the same kind of face. “I’ll go see if he’s okay.”
“Okay,” I said, and slid open Vicki’s letter, shaking my head at myself. But before my eyes read the
Dear Ara and David
, they swept suddenly down the page, seeing the words
heart
and
attack
.
I sat up, shoving everything in my lap to the floor, reading the letter then almost too fast to comprehend.
Dear Ara and David,
I’ve been trying so hard to reach you. Calls, text, and I’ve had no response, so I’m afraid this letter comes with bad news. Your dad had a heart attack last night. He’s in hospital. He’s stable. But that keeps changing. Sam’s here, but we’d really like it if you could come.
The page shook so savagely I could hardly make out the date on the top, but it was clearly sent over three weeks ago.
“No. No, no, no,” I muttered, falling to my knees above the pile of mail. My hands pushed envelopes and packages aside quickly, sorting through until I found one dated two days after the first letter. I ripped it open, tearing the paper inside a little.
Dear Ara and David,
Where are you? No one has been able to reach you or Mike or even Emily. I sent six emails, but they all said the same thing: invalid address.
I checked the email address she’d written down under that and, sure enough, she missed a digit. She must have been using her own email account to send them because, if she’d gone into Dad’s, she could have simply replied to an email I’d sent.
Did you change your number?
she wrote.
Please call. Dad is okay. He made it through, but they’re keeping him in hospital for a while. He woke up last night for a few minutes and begged me not to worry you—told me he’d be okay. But I think you should come. The doctor said there’s a very high chance he could have another heart attack, Ara. I’m worried. I’ll never forgive myself if he dies and you don’t get to say goodbye.
My chest rose and fell in panic, the sobbing echoing so loudly through the room that Blade left his guard post and came in. “Ara? What is it?”
I handed him the letters as I ripped open the next, my fingers weak and moving slowly.
Dear Ara, Dad is okay. He’s home now,
the next one said, and I burst into tears again, offering the letter to Blade.
“
He’s on strict bed-rest, but we think you should come home anyway. It’s been so long since we’ve seen you,
” he read aloud. “
Please. Just come home. I know it will make Dad so happy to see you both again. He misses you terribly, Ara
.” Blade stopped reading and passed back the letter, sitting down on the floor beside me, his long, thin arms wrapping me up in a tight embrace.