by Mary Swift
She had all the answers he was looking for but Killian would never get a chance to ask another question. Maeve reached out her swollen hand and touched him. When he woke up he was in a pitch black room. He started to move and found he was lying on something hard and pointy.
“It’s coal.” someone said nearby.
“Where am I?”
“It’s a coal cellar.” the voice said.
“Nora?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Chapter 27
Finnegan got another telegram from Nora. This one began, Dear Finnegan. Since when did Nora call him Dear, or Finnegan for that matter? He read the rest of it and groaned.
Wildbush is agreeing with me. I’m enjoying small town life. I’ve seen a man who’s an enchanter with green eyes just like yours. Interesting, don’t you think? Please wire two hundred dollars to the Merchants’ Bank as soon as possible. Fondly, Nora.
“Fondly.” he muttered. “I don’t think of you fondly Nora.”
He didn’t like her order to wire money either. He wasn’t her personal servant. But there was something in the telegram that intrigued him. There was an enchanter with green eyes in Wildbush. He didn’t know much about Wildbush, but Firesea green eyes were unusual in other places. The man might be Killian.
Finnegan stared out of the window. If he wanted to get the money to Nora by tomorrow he needed to go to the bank now, or he could bring it to her himself. Wildbush was only a few hours away, he could take a look around while he was there.
He stood up and opened his office door. His secretary looked up. “Yes Mr. Murphy?”
He took a deep breath. “Cancel my appointments this week. I’m going to Wildbush.”
“Wildbush sir?”
“Yes, Mrs. Gavrashelli needs me.”
“Very well sir.”
Finnegan left before he could change his mind. Thirty years of wondering had been enough. He had to see what had become of his little brother.
Chapter 28
“How did I get here?” Killian asked Nora.
“Her wedding ring, it’s enchanted, it makes you pass out.”
“Are you all right?”
“I guess so.”
She heard him moving around in the dark. “There’s nowhere to sit.”
“Come over here, there’s room next to me.” she said.
The coal had not quite reached the very back of the cellar, there was a patch of the stone floor that was bare. She heard a scraping noise and the sound of the coal shifting. The only illumination was a slim shaft of sunlight that came down the chute. As Killian passed underneath it his red hair flashed like a beacon. Nora noticed it had been shorn off.
“She cut your hair.”
He sat next to her and stuck his elbow in her face as he touched his head. “Oh sorry. Why would she do that?”
“She’s crazy.” Nora had lost track of how many hours she had been down there. She had been living a nightmare since Maeve took her at gunpoint from Killian’s house. It had been a struggle to cross the street, the side where she had been stabbed was aching and she was forced to lean on Maeve for support. She hadn’t dared called for help, she was convinced that Maeve would have shot her if she did.
When they were at Killian’s Nora was made to search his pockets for the pen. Once they were in the back of the cafe, behind closed doors, Maeve snatched it away from her. Almost immediately her hands began to blister and swell. She threw the pen on the floor and hit Nora in the face.
Maeve brought her downstairs. She unlocked a door in the wall and shoved Nora inside, it was the coal cellar she was now trapped in. Nora had pounded on the door in vain. When her voice tired she searched for a place to sit down. She didn’t expect she would ever see daylight again.
“I’m sorry about this.” Killian said.
She could feel his arm against hers, she was glad of it, she wasn’t alone. “It’s not your fault.” Nora leaned her head against the brick wall and sighed.
“I don’t know. It seems everything is my fault.”
“Maybe someone will find us.”
“I doubt it.”
“They’ll be looking for you.”
“Who will?” Killian asked. “No one cares about me here.”
“What about your daughter?”
“Yes of course Lucy. Everyone else hates me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m from another circle.”
“What does that matter?”
“It matters to enchanters.” Killian said.
“But why?”
“Enchanters like to stick to their own kind.”
“But you’re all the same kind.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Oh, I just thought- You do look different from everyone else.”
Killian didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I have a tendency to say the wrong thing.”
“And I have a tendency to say nothing.”
“You do seem rather-“
“Shy? Bashful? Timid?” he asked.
“Lots of people are shy.”
“Yes, but I don’t know if I’m this way because it’s my nature or because of the way I grew up. I wasn’t encouraged to speak. It was preferred if I didn’t exist. It became easier not to say anything. And when I go into town everyone stares at me, like you said I don’t look like the people around here. I’m left handed too.”
“What difference does that make?” Nora suddenly realized something. “Finnegan is left handed.”
“I know I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
“Maybe you can come to Chilton someday and I’ll introduce you.”
“I’ve never been to a mortal town.”
“Just like I had never been to a circle before.”
“Yes, but you have been enchanted.”
“I still don’t understand how.”
“We’ll figure it out. I’ve always had a pretty good sense of magic despite having no education.” Killian sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m talking about myself too much aren’t I?”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re very easy to talk to Nora.”
“Some people think I’m nosy. I’m kind of a curious person. Finnegan can’t stand me because I’m always asking him questions.”
“I don’t think you’re nosy. I don’t usually find people easy to talk to, but you’re different. I guess that’s why I keep rambling on.”
“You’re not rambling.” She ventured to touch his sleeve. He didn’t pull his arm away. “Can I ask you why you left the circle?”
“I cast a spell that they didn’t like. It should have gotten me exiled. Luckily I’ve rewritten the council rules so that’s not possible. You probably know in our society the marriage age is sixteen. All marriages are arranged by the elders, usually parents or grandparents. My daughter is almost sixteen, her grandfather arranged an engagement. She begged me to do something about it.”
“But you’re her father. Don’t you have any say in whether she marries?”
“No. Enchanters are expected to obey the Founders’ Code, no matter what. Lucy is an independent girl. I’m afraid being with me all the time means she’s not been expected to do the same things as other girls her age. She doesn’t want to marry some boy she hardly knows and frankly the thought of her marrying at all, at her age, turns my stomach. So I picked up my pen and I wrote a spell. She can only marry someone that she loves.”
“That must have angered her grandfather.”
“Yes. It’s not first time I’ve used the pen to suit my purposes.” Killian hesitated. “I’m sure you’ve heard this already, I divorced my wife when I was eighteen. I wrote it down in the notebook and the next day we received a certificate of divorce from the council.”
“Were you allowed to do that?”
“Once I rewrote the council rules I was.”
“Your former wife is very pretty, Lucy looks like her.”
Beside her Killian laughed. “Yes Talia’s very pretty, but she’s also very angry. We grew up together. I lived with her family but they never treated me like one of their own. It was as though I had walked in the front door one day and refused to leave, like I was some kind of squatter they couldn’t get rid of.
“Talia was the cruelest of all of them, to this day I don’t fully understand why. I think she enjoys hurting people. When I found out we were to be married I actually considered killing myself. I thought when I got married it would take me away from her, instead I found out I was to spend my life with her.”
“I don’t suppose you could have refused to marry her?”
“No, it’s the same way it was in Lucy’s case. You don’t refuse, in the circle you do as you’re told. We married and I lived through two years of misery.” He sighed. “When I grew up Talia and her brothers, and her father sometimes, used to hit me.”
“As in beat you?”
“Yes, any chance they got, and it continued right into my marriage. I know I’m a man and I’m supposed to fight back but-“
“Would you really have hit your own wife?”
“No. Not only is it wrong but her brothers and father would have killed me, literally. And we had Lucy very early on, I didn’t want her to see me hitting her mother. Lucy saved my life. If she hadn’t come along I wouldn’t be here.”
“You were very young when she was born.”
“The mortals tell me that but I never felt like I gave something up when she came into the world. I didn’t have a childhood, I just existed. When Lucy was born I had a purpose, I had a reason to be on this earth.”
Nora smiled in the dark. “You couldn’t let her go through with that arranged marriage.”
“No I couldn’t. When the council found out they asked me to leave the circle and I agreed. I had had enough of them. The mortals are very curious about us and they like to know everything we do, and some of them are looking for weaknesses in our solidarity. I delayed their knowledge of me leaving the circle and moving my house. The spell will wear off in a few weeks, I don’t want to permanently change their memories.”
“Could you permanently change their memories?”
“Yes.”
Nora swallowed. She hadn’t realized how much power he had. “Do the mortals know you’re from somewhere else?”
“Yes, they know I’m from another circle, they know I don’t belong here. I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.”
Nora touched his arm again. “I’m sure your daughter doesn’t feel that way about you.” As she moved she felt a pinch in her side. “Ouch.”
“How are you feeling?”
“A little better. I think listening to you helped.”
“Oh I’m sure hearing about the unhappy childhood and failed marriage of someone you hardly know is really entertaining.”
“Why not? These are probably the last things we’ll ever say.” She started to cry.
“Don’t say that. Lucy knows I’m here. She’ll send for help. You’ll see.”
“Do you think she’s called the police?”
“No.” Killian said. “Enchanters never call the mortal police.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t. We take care of things ourselves, in our own way.”
“Oh, I see.”
He put his arm around her shoulder and without thinking she rested her head against him. She was so tired. It felt as though the day would never end. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself that would surprise me. It will help pass the time until we’re rescued.” he said.
Nora wiped her face, her hands felt dirty and gritty. “I’m a good darts player.” she said thinking back to the many Sunday afternoons she spent with Dante. They had so little money they would amuse themselves by drawing a dartboard on the wall and throwing anything that would stick to it.
“Darts? Not what I was expecting but interesting.”
She laughed a little. “Dante, that was my husband, he taught me to play. He was an interesting man.”
“You must miss him terribly.”
Nora hesitated. There was something about Killian that made the truth so easy to admit. “I do miss Dante and I did love him, but we had reached a point in our marriage where I had changed. When I met Dante I was eighteen. My parents had been gone for only a few years, I was poor and tired and hungry and then came this handsome poet who said all the right things and I fell hard.
“What I didn’t know was that I’m not the whimsical person he was. I live in the real world. I want to know how I’m going to pay my rent, pay for food, how I’m going to survive. Dante didn’t care about any of that. He was impossible and impractical and foolhardy and sometimes that drove me crazy.”
“I’m sure that happens when you’ve been married for a long time.” he said. “You’re both bound to change.”
“Dante never changed. That’s what drove me nuts. I’m not glad he’s dead, please don’t think that.”
“I don’t think that.”
“I honestly don’t know if I could have stayed with him for another fourteen years.” Nora couldn’t believe she had said that aloud.
“Would you have divorced him?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t cruel like your wife. He was just himself, but I’m not that impressionable eighteen year old girl anymore. And there was the issue with my memory.”
“What about your memory?”
“Before I married Dante I never forgot things. I mean I did occasionally, but after I married I began forgetting huge blocks of time. There are ten months of my life that are completely unaccounted for.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Yes.” Nora said. “Dante said it was all in my head, but I know it’s not. I started keeping a journal of everything I did and saw. When I came to Wildbush I drew a sketch of the view out of my bedroom window so I wouldn’t forget.”
“No wonder you knew that my house hadn’t been there before.”
“That’s how I knew for sure.”
“Was Dante an enchanter?”
“I don’t know. A week ago I would have said no, but now I’m not so sure. I haven’t forgotten anything since he died. I know that something important happened in those ten months. I know it in my gut.”
“Is there someone you can ask?”
“I have a brother and some friends, they think it’s all in my head. Maybe I’m crazy.” Nora chuckled. “I’m confessing all sorts of things in here. Maybe this place is enchanted to make you tell the truth.”
“It’s not.”
“I suppose you would know.” Nora said. “Is there any way you could use the pen to find out where you came from?”
“Not that I know of, but wherever I come from I wasn’t wanted. What’s the point of looking?”
“Do you really know you weren’t wanted? There might be more to it.”
“I suppose. I’ve always just assumed- It’s hard when you’re not like anyone else. And when you’ve heard all of your life that you were given away because no one wanted you. It’s hard not to believe it. But Maeve said something just now. She said that I’m just like my father.”
“Really? Maybe that is why Maeve is doing this to you.”
“She said she wished I had never been born. Of course a lot of people feel that way.”
“Or maybe she knew your father.” Nora said.
“Maybe. I don’t know what to think.”
Nora yawned despite being cold and hungry. The light coming through the coal chute was beginning to fade. She allowed herself to close her eyes. His jacket smelled fresh, like it had just been taken off a clothesline. She wasn’t sure when she fell asleep; when she opened her eyes the cellar was pitch black and much colder. Next to her Killian was shivering. “How long was I asleep?”
“I’m not sure, maybe a couple of hours.”
Nora’s stomach growled. A thin slice of silver light penetrated the coal chute. Moonlight. She sn
uggled closer to him.
Chapter 29
Lucy was terrified. Her father still hadn’t come home. She looked out of the window; the lights in the cafe across the street were on. She knew her father would want her to stay put but as the hours crept by she had become more and more afraid.
The clock in the hallway struck eleven. She couldn’t wait any longer. She put on her coat and hurried outside. There were only a few mortals about. Danger seemed to be lurking in every shadow as she ran towards the circle.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the tall wooden wall, for a brief second she wished they still lived behind it. She ran to her mother’s house and pounded on the door. “Mother, I need you!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. There was no answer. “Please open the door!”
“What’s the matter Lucy?” a voice said behind her. Her grandfather Henry was taking his evening walk.
“My father hasn’t come home, something’s wrong.”
Henry leaned on his cane. “My dear, your father has never been able to conform to our ways. It was only a matter of time before he got himself into trouble.”
“You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what to do.” she said desperately.
“I’m sure he’ll turn up.”
“No he won’t, you don’t understand.” She started pounding on the door again. “Mother!” she screamed. “I need your help!”
Finally the door opened. Talia was holding a glass of wine in her hand. “Lucy, they can hear you in the next three circles.”
“Daddy never came home, something has happened to him.”
Lucy noticed a look of pleasure cross her mother’s face. “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”
“You have to help him.”
“Does this have something to do with that woman that was in your house this morning?” Talia asked.
Lucy looked at her grandfather who was watching with interest, she didn’t trust him or her mother. “Can Logan help me look for Daddy?”
“You’re not part of the circle anymore Lucy, we don’t have to do anything for you.”
“If you don’t help me and something happens to Daddy I’ll have to come and live with you.”