by Justine Dee
Chapter Three
Gwyn sat in the park, her back resting against the trunk of a pine tree. The lunchtime sun was pleasantly warm on her skin. The ducklings by the lake were cute little balls of fluff trailing after mama duck who did not want them getting too close to the big scary human woman, even if the scary human did offer crusts of fresh bread. Gwyn could not blame the duck really; she would keep away from humans too if she could. Rotten creatures.
Gwyn sighed. The anger that festered inside her was just so unfamiliar. Lately everything was annoying her; little things that should not even register were making her turn murderous. Anger seemed an easier emotion to cling to than the others that were plaguing her during this last week or so.
She was supposed to be meeting Logan at his home in an hour. She was trying to think of reasons not to go but she had no reasons, only excuses, and as angry as Gwyn was with the world she did not want to annoy and alienate the people that did remain in her life, few as they were.
What Gwyn really wanted to do was to head off back to her father’s hill and find some measure of calm again.
Gwyn snorted a laugh.
That was exactly what Myrddin wanted.
He wanted her to work with Logan and find her inner peace, something she had completely lost for the moment. She never felt calm. She felt restless, depressed, or flat out homicidal. The closest she had come to any calm was holding her necklace while on the plane, but she was wearing it now and it did not seem to be helping much. She needed to find calm and yet she was finding excuses not to. She knew she was not the brightest crayon in the box sometimes.
The final scraps of bread from her lunch went flying towards the ducks; a few chunks landed in the lake behind them, floating in the water to be drawn into the wake of the water wheel. Gwyn watched them float caught in the ripple of the water. Gwyn felt like that sometimes, that she was a piece of bread, soaked by the water and carried by it with no control. Only the water for her was fate and she was a puppet, not a crust of bread. Less of a puppet than some though. Gwyn at least knew who she was, what she was. She knew what was playing out behind the scenes of the world, what the rest of the population was blissfully unaware of. Gwyn was a woman of power, a soul of legend and she was disgracing herself by being caught in this emotional angst against the world and everyone she loved in it.
Gwyn pushed herself to her feet and turned her back on the ducks, the bread, and the thoughts that plagued her.
She would go to Logan and let him help her. She would start facing her thoughts, her problems, and finally her exes. They were, after all, the main source of her angst. She had to face them and find some way to get over it all, get over Lance. They had duties and they had to work together. Gwyn would not be the one to let everyone down because she could not deal with her broken heart, the broken heart she had caused herself.