by Kimbra Swain
“The only one that matters, Arthur,” I said. Father lifted his eyes to me in shock. “How long did you think that would stay a secret? Why didn’t you tell me? It should have been you.”
Father cut his eyes in frustration to Astor who still bowed. Levi sat back quietly listening to the conversation.
“I need to have this argument without my child in my arms,” I said. Levi walked up taking Aydan from me who sat up in his arms watching my father move around.
“Grace, I had hoped that you would make your own decisions without the influence of the past. That was the only reason I didn’t tell you about your heritage. I failed in this world and the one below. You didn’t need that hanging over your head. I needed for you to decide to rule on your own, and you have in your own way. I am glad I didn’t tell you. I’m also glad that Percival was the one to tell you. I suppose you know about the betrothal now, too.”
“I do,” I replied. “He is a good man.”
“He is. His mother is a cold-hearted bitch,” Father said.
“Bad fit for Summer,” I said.
“Indeed,” Father said turning to Astor who continued to bow. “Rise, my brother. You have nothing to fear from me. I’m but a ghost with no power.”
“The power here is of the tree,” Astor said as he stood to full height.
“The red hair suits you,” Father said.
“Not my choice,” Astor replied.
“You can’t glamour it,” Father said.
“No, my mother prevents it,” he said.
“I like it,” I replied.
“I knew it,” Levi said.
“Shut up, Levi,” I said. Father looked at us and grinned. He already knew how tightly-knit Levi and I were. In fact, Levi had been his second, well, I guess, third choice for me. Levi laughed while he entertained Aydan.
“Dylan still in a jar?” Father asked. He’d rarely shown any decorum. I didn’t expect it from him now. Thanks to the fake jar this afternoon, his question rattled me.
“I suppose. We have no news from Winter,” I said.
“Is Tennyson taking care of it?” Father asked.
“He is, Sir,” Levi spoke up.
Levi had been in contact with Tennyson, but he always told me that there was no news which meant to me that there was no good news. It was interesting that Father knew Tennyson was taking care of it when I was only told that he was out of town.
“How did you connect this circle with the tree?” Astor persisted.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“This circle is powered by the tree. It’s connected to it somehow,” Astor said.
“When I built the circle, I tied the stone to the closest most powerful source I could find in the Otherworld. I didn’t check to see what that source was,” I said. “I suppose I’m in trouble.”
“No, because she would have come for you in the beginning,” Astor said.
“She?” Levi asked.
“Lilith. The goddess who watches over the tree,” I said.
“She is the tree,” Astor corrected.
“I suppose that explains how I’m here,” Oberon surmised.
“It’s connected to all life including the afterlife,” Astor said.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“Probably wasn’t the smartest move you ever made,” Oberon said. “She could have toasted you.” Levi laughed in my head. He was treading on very thin ice this evening.
“I think Lilith likes her,” Astor said.
“I would have liked to talk to her longer,” I said.
“I’d never seen her hold an audience as long as she had with you,” Astor said.
“She was quite fond of you as well,” I said.
“All the women were,” Oberon teased the knight. I’d never seen that side of my father, but Astor blushed again. It was easy to see why women were drawn to him. He was good to the core. Which meant he was all bad in bed. The good kind of bad.
Astor and my father talked of old times, as Father watched Aydan over his shoulder. I could tell that he wished he could hold him, but the most corporeal that I’d seen him was when he touched Tennyson.
“Gentlemen, if you don’t mind, I would like a few words alone with my daughter,” Oberon said suddenly.
“Yes, my lord,” Astor said as he turned to leave immediately.
Levi looked at me intently as if he didn’t want to leave me alone with my Father’s ghost.
“Bard, do you think after all this time I would hurt her?” Father asked.
“No, Sir, but I’m not in the habit of leaving her alone with anyone,” Levi said.
“Understandable, but you should remember that you were my third choice. My first is walking across the field as I requested,” Oberon said. Levi sneered at him.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Just feel like I shouldn’t leave you with him. I don’t care if I was the fiftieth choice. Something isn’t right,” Levi said.
“It’s okay. Just wait for me along the edge of the circle,” I said. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into Levi, but his instincts flared at my Father’s request. Levi slowly walked away with my child in his arms.
Blue light bounced off the stones as my Father exerted his will to create a privacy bubble for us. “He has changed,” Father said.
“Matured. Whatever you want to call it. Something happened in Winter,” I said.
“He hasn’t told you?” Father asked.
“He will tell me when he is ready. I trust him,” I said.
“Your complete faith in him is astonishing considering how short a time you’ve known him. Yet, you trust him with your child, in your home, but he won’t tell you the simple truth of what happened to him in Winter,” Father said.
I stared at him for a moment trying to figure out his angle. He’d always approved of Levi, so I wondered what changed. Looking over my shoulder toward Levi and Astor waiting outside the circle, I noticed that Levi had handed Aydan off to Astor. His eyes were on me and my father. Then it hit me. Astor was his first choice. Father was manipulating me again.
Without saying a word, I turned my back on him. I walked toward Levi who waited patiently, but the serious look on his face told me everything I needed to know. He didn’t want my father telling me what happened in Winter. It was his story to tell.
“Grace, do not discount the knight,” he said.
“Seriously, Father? Do you think I might consider doing this on my own? Do I need a man to do this? Isn’t the whole point that I’m the complete opposite of you!” I said.
“I don’t want you to repeat the mistakes I made,” he said following me into the field between the center stone and the outer ones.
“What? You botched two kingdoms. I doubt I could be that terrible at leading,” I said.
“You are not leading. You are ruling, and doing a damn good job. You’ve proven that, however, when it comes to your heart you will make the same mistakes I did,” he said.
“What mistake did you make? You trusted your best friend. He slept with your wife,” I said.
“It was more complicated than that,” he said. “Grace, I loved my wife, but I didn’t focus on her. I focused on the kingdom, and before I knew it, she found her heart with someone else. I couldn’t fault her because he was my closest friend and ally. My attempts to keep her from him tore apart the kingdom,” he said.
“How does that apply to me? The man I love is trapped in a jar in Winter,” I said.
“Is he still in the jar? I take one look at your bard, and I see that isn’t the truth. Can you not see what is right before your eyes because of the love you have for Levi? Because of the love you have for Dylan?” he said.
My eyes fell on Levi again. He leaned on the stone nearest to him, bracing himself as if he were preparing himself for the worst. I waited until his eyes met mine again. I didn’t see the same thing my father saw. I saw pain and fear.
“It doesn’
t matter. I trust him,” I said.
“Withholding the truth is the same thing as lying!” Father said.
“Okay. I’m done with you now. You go pitch your haint hissy fit somewhere else, but I’m over it,” I said stomping away from him. Taking each step closer to Levi, I thought his expression would change, but it didn’t. His anxiety cranked higher with my approach.
“You feel it now, don’t you?” Oberon asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said turning back to him. “Levi and I are solid.”
“You are with him, but he isn’t with you,” Oberon said.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Because I don’t want you to fail,” he said.
“And trusting Levi is the wrong move?” I asked.
“No, but allowing him to carry whatever burden he is carrying without pushing him is,” he said.
“That’s where we are different, Daddy. That man over there has done more for me than any person on this planet. He is there for me constantly. No matter what. And yes, he carries a burden. I know this because I feel it, too. When he gets ready to share it with me, we will both carry it,” I said.
“What if you aren’t strong enough to carry it?” he asked.
“Tell me what you want to say and just stop beating around the bush. What is it?” I asked.
“You should make him tell you. You should make him right now,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I won’t.”
“You concocted a whole basement full of absinthe to get Dylan to tell you the truth. Why won’t you push Levi the same way?” he asked. “Is it because you are afraid to lose the bard, and you felt like you had nothing to lose with Dylan?”
“I had everything to lose with Dylan and nothing to lose with Levi. Dylan and I weren’t together. Levi and I aren’t together, but I know that man over there is never going to leave me. Ever. Dylan would have. He almost did several times. He wouldn’t now, but that’s the difference between the two of them,” I said. “Levi always comes back to me. Dylan may never come home.”
“Good. You see the difference,” he said. I threw my hands in the air in frustration. “You need to understand that Dylan may never come home. He may die. He may be dead already. Then what, Gloriana? It is time you start to accept the fact that you will be doing this without him.”
“You don’t know that,” I said. It was partially a question though. He’d told me before that he didn’t have contact with the Otherworld, but he spoke as if he knew.
“It’s my gut feeling. It’s his gut feeling,” he said, pointing at Levi.
Levi’s shoulders slouched with the weight of whatever he was carrying. Anguish lined the strong features of his face. The torture of carrying it was worse than whatever Brockton had done to him. Standing there waiting on me, I saw the trepidation in his frozen stance. Ignoring my father, I rushed to Levi, splitting through the privacy barrier. It fizzled around me. Levi didn’t look away as if he was waiting for me to drop a bomb on him.
“Astor, please take Aydan home. Levi and I will be right behind you,” I said.
“Um, okay,” he hesitated.
“Please, go,” I said.
Astor walked back toward the house with a sleeping Aydan in his arms. He looked back once to check on us. I waited until he got out of sight before speaking to Levi.
Closing the gap between us, I put my hand on Levi’s neck the way he’d taken to doing with me. He shuddered with the intensity of the tingle that went through us. My father had angered me, and I was brimming with power from the circle. A cool breeze blew between us. My blonde hair flew across my face, and he brushed it away. He never shied away from my gaze. I wasn’t sure at what point I had dropped my glamour. More and more this skin felt like me as opposed to the other.
As you should be. Your true self.
I remembered those words so clearly from our motorcycle ride through the woods. I’d never felt like my glamour was really hiding anything, but I realized that I was hiding from myself. If I didn’t have to look the fairy queen in the mirror maybe it would all go away. It would take time, but Levi was right. I needed to be who I was, and I knew that no matter what happened, he would stick by me.
“There is nothing on this earth or below it that can break us apart,” I said. He winced because he thought I was going to order him to tell me his secret. “Levi, that’s why you don’t ever have to tell me what happened down there. You came home to me, you brought my little girl home, and that’s all that matters.”
“What did he say to you?” Levi asked.
“He’s just pushing me to be better. He’s being an asshat in the process, but he means well,” I said. “He doesn’t want me to fail.”
“Does he think you will fail because of me?” Levi asked.
“No. He thinks I will fail because I don’t push you,” I said. “I don’t operate like that. You know me.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Levi said.
“I don’t care. If I’m going to do this, I have to do it being me. No compromises,” I said.
“What if you fail?” he asked.
“Then we fail together, and I’m okay with that,” I said, trying to smile at him.
He shifted his feet. I felt his confidence solidify. “Together is all I want. In whatever way you will have me, I’m yours,” he said. I kissed him on the cheek, and he leaned hard into me. His arms snaked around my waist. “Let’s go home.”
Levi placed his hand over my tattoo, pulled power, then jumped us home. I barely felt the movement of magic. It was so subtle and precise. Proof that Levi was the most powerful tool in my shed. We stood locked together on the porch. I could hear little footsteps rushing across the room inside.
“Momma’s home!” Winnie said. Levi let go and stepped back with a grin as she burst through the door. “I finished all my homework. Can I go to Mark’s house tomorrow?”
“We will see. Time to get ready for bed,” I said.
“Okay,” she said sounding defeated, but I reached down and hugged her.
“I love you, Winnie,” I said.
“I love you too, Momma,” she said. Then, I tickled her until she couldn’t breathe.
The house smelled like death. Dusty, dark, and stale. The boards creaked under my feet as Kady led me to the back bedroom. The farmhouse had to be over fifty years old. The short hallway was filled with pictures of Kadence from a very small babe up to her high school graduation. There were no pictures of her real mother. She’d told me once before that her father grieved so hard for his wife that he couldn’t pass by a photo of her without crying. So, together, they packed the photos away until the day he was ready to look at her again.
Kady had shown up with Caleb at my office several hours ago, begging me to visit her father. She believed he was on the brink of death. Matthew Rayburn had fallen under the spell of Robin, Rhiannon’s granddaughter. The very woman who took Dylan away from me.
When we entered the room, Matthew stared at the ceiling from the antique iron bed. A woman seated by his side rose to meet me.
“Grace, this is Sandy. She’s father’s nurse. Tabitha recommended her, and she’s been caring for daddy,” Kady said. Caleb had come to the house with us, but he stayed in the hallway. Levi had stayed on the porch out of respect for Kady. Aydan was strapped to me in a wrapped blanket. He slept soundly. I could feel his warm breath brushing over my collarbone. His blonde hair poked out of the wrap wildly.
For a moment, I was transported to an incident where Dylan and I had to go remove a cat from a barn. Of course, when I got there, it was more than just a cat. It was a wampus cat. The wampus usually kept to the higher regions of Tennessee, but this one had become pregnant and decided to have her kittens in the loft of an old barn. She wasn’t like any wampus I’d ever seen. Most were three feet tall when they stood on their hind legs. They favored a mountain lion. This wampus was jet black favoring a panther, reaching almost five foot tall. After speaking to her about her predic
ament, we agreed to help her out.
She delivered four healthy felines, and we promptly left the mother to feed her new babes with her promise that she would move on as soon as possible. As we crawled out of the loft, the ladder began to buckle. I jumped off of it, but Dylan crashed down into a pile of hay. When he sat up, I couldn’t tell what was his hair, and what was hay. I spent fifteen minutes picking through his hair like an ape. He was disgruntled, but I laughed at it. Mostly at him for being so silly. Poor lawman hurt his pride. Eventually, he laughed too.
I missed that man something terrible.
Kady walked up to her father, bent over him, and whispered in his ear. He didn’t move or blink. Looking through my sight, I could see the enthrallment bindings choking him to death. I feared that even if I removed the bindings which were similar to the ones that Riley had once put on Levi, his mind was already gone.
“Kady, I can try to remove these bindings, but I would be stronger with Levi here. Do you mind if he comes inside?” I asked.
“If you think that you can help him, I am willing to do it,” she said.
“I’ll get him,” Caleb said, then rushed quietly back toward the front door.
“Do you still have the pictures of your mother?” I asked.
“Why?” she asked.
“I thought maybe something jarring would help trigger his mind. Even if I remove these bindings, I can’t guarantee that his mind will be sound. Even a strong emotion like grief can jump-start a brain. I won’t use it unless I think there is no other choice,” I said.
“Okay. I’ll be right back,” she said. I sat down on the chair next to Matthew. His dead stare into the ceiling bothered me. I wanted this to be a happy ending, but I’d learned a long time ago, that this life wasn’t a fairy tale. It was a life which included hurt, pain, and death. We may be fairies, but as exiled fairies, a happy ending wasn’t guaranteed.
“Matthew, this is Aydan. He’s my son. He’s Dylan’s son. I’d love for you to bless him at services on Sunday, but I need you to come back to us. Kady is here, and she wants you to come home, too,” I said. As I spoke to him, I watched the bindings. They pulsed with power when I spoke providing a barrier to prevent my voice from reaching him. The pictures wouldn’t work if I couldn’t break that barrier. It was almost as if someone was watching us.