“Goodbye, Mother.”
Persephone returned home to Boca Grande. Her husband was stretched out asleep on the couch, Wheel of Fortune on the TV. They’d spent all day out in the boat, fishing for tarpon. Hades had made her promise not to get involved in Ami’s life, to let their son run The Firm and his personal affairs after her first plan had so epically failed. It was too difficult for her to watch Ami’s perpetual sorrow.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And dammit, yes, she felt guilty she’d only compounded his grief.
She went to take a shower, letting the hot spray wash the salty residue, smell of bait and sunscreen off her skin. Ami should be happy now, having children.
Grandchildren.
They’d been sworn to secrecy by him, to never reveal the truth to Aidan. That pain pierced her own soul. That their grandson never had a chance to live.
She grabbed the scrubbie and body wash and lathered up. Her plan had been perfect. Once she had found and traced Chloe’s soul, she had waited for her to die again, then engineered her birth into another human. Amiago would go to the village, meet the girl, and fall in love with her immediately. How much simpler could it get?
Hades gave them the bullshit assignment. Easy. Ami would go to the village, the other two on a scouting mission.
But no. Ami had stayed with Aidan and told Arnau—Will was his name now, she reminded herself—to go in his place.
Gods, how such a stupid mistake could cause so much pain!
When Ami showed up at their home that very evening, after Will had introduced him to his new soul mate, Persephone had realized the horrific blunder and ignored her husband’s scathing glare.
And then…
She finished her shower and dried, put on a nightgown. Maybe Hades was right. Maybe she should have left well enough alone. But how was a mother supposed to ignore her child’s anguish and not get involved?
Chapter 20
Will worried about Kal after they returned to Tampa. Once the initial shock of Kenneth’s death started to wear off, Kal slipped into a deep depression Will feared might take her over. Even Kal’s mom seemed to handle losing her husband better than Kal was taking things.
Two weeks after her father’s death, Kal barely spoke, barely ate. Didn’t cry. Will tried to coax her into talking, but all she would do if they weren’t working was curl up and go to sleep. At work she wasn’t much more responsive than a zombie, and had turned a lot of her show duties over to Jeff.
One evening, after she’d once again fallen asleep, Will stepped into the living room and softly spoke.
“Ryan, appareo.”
He appeared immediately, looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”
Will nodded toward the back sliders and they stepped onto the lanai. Will motioned him to a chair. “It’s Kal.”
Ryan sighed and took a seat. “She’s not dealing with this well, is she?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”
Ryan carefully considered his answer. He didn’t wish to overstep his boundaries. After a long moment, he spoke. “What are you asking of me?”
“Is there anything you can do to help her?”
“I could talk with her, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“You don’t mind?”
Will studied the ground. “She’s in pain. I can’t seem to help her. If you can, I won’t be mad about that.” He finally met Ryan’s steady gaze. “I know the two of you are close. I already told you it’s okay. It’s…” He sighed. “It’s like you and Abby were. If you can talk to her and help her through this, I’d be very grateful.”
Ryan slowly nodded. “All right then. I didn’t want to cause friction between us.”
“I know that. I appreciate it.” He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. “I get the impression Kal knows more about what’s going on in your head than I do. Maybe about the past.”
Ryan forced his expression to stay neutral. “Do you?”
“She says I shouldn’t be mad at you for the past. That maybe you had your reasons. That maybe they were good reasons I don’t need to know.”
Ryan examined a hangnail on his finger. “Does she now?”
“She does.” Will closed his eyes. “Do I want to know why you left us?” he softly asked.
Ryan froze. “She’s correct. I had my reasons. My position in The Firm doesn’t always allow me the luxury of explanations to others. Not even to my soul brothers. I’m sorry.”
They sat in silence for a while, listening to crickets sounding off near the back fence in the yard. Will eventually spoke again.
“I hated you for a lot of years.”
“I know.”
Will’s jaw clenched. “You were our soul brother. You walked out on us.”
“I know,” Ryan softly replied.
“That’s all you can say?”
“What do you want me to say, Will?” he angrily shot back. “I was not at liberty to explain my actions. It’s not like I wanted to leave.”
“Then why did you?”
Ryan shook his head. “I’m still not at liberty to say. I’m sorry.” He stood. “Summon me when she awakens. Have her dress warmly.” He disappeared before Will could ask him more.
Ryan returned to his Atlanta condo and stared out the windows at the skyline. No, he wasn’t at liberty to say. He couldn’t explain the pain he’d suffered upon meeting Abby, seeing the unadulterated joy on his soul brother’s face as he introduced her to them.
Abby was already Will’s soul mate. There was no undoing that bond. The only way Ryan could deal with his own pain was to distance himself from Will and Aidan. Better for Will and Aidan to hate him for leaving than to spoil his soul brother’s joy.
An hour later, Ryan was sitting on his sofa, sipping a glass of merlot and staring into space. He’d already changed into jeans and a warm shirt and sweater, although the cold wasn’t as much an issue for him. Will summoned him.
Ryan set down his glass and appeared in Will’s living room. Kal sat next to Will on their couch. He hadn’t seen her since the funeral and her appearance shocked him. She looked nearly dead herself, deep hollows under sunken eyes. He imagined she’d lost at least ten pounds, if not more.
His heart ached, pain blooming in his soul.
She looked up at him. As instructed, she’d donned jeans and a sweatshirt.
“Go with him, okay?” Will said. “As long as you need. Listen to him, let him help you. Please?” Ryan watched as Will brushed the hair out of her face, tenderly tucked a stray strand behind her ear. “It’s okay. I don’t mind, seriously. I love you.” He leaned in and kissed her.
She nodded. Ryan extended his hand to her. When she took it, he gently nudged her to her feet. He waited until she looked into his eyes to transport them to their destination.
Kal didn’t speak. He watched her stare at their surroundings, looking around the hillside clearing. Ryan retrieved a blanket and spread it on the ground, sat, and held out his hand to her.
Still without speaking, Kal took his hand and let him nestle her against his chest, his arms wrapped around her as they stared out at the valley below them. It was nearly dark, twilight descending and the sky shifting to purple. He watched as her breath frosted in the chilly air.
He waited to speak until he felt her marginally relax in his arms. “The world, from time before time, has been filled with man trying to make sense of everything he didn’t understand. Even to this day. Ideas and stories created to comfort the mind and ease wounded souls.
“Life and death is an endless cycle. Regardless of how much power I have, there are some things I cannot control, love. You know that.”
He let that sink in for awhile. Darkness descended. With it, the show began.
Curtains of color swept across the sky before them in slow, graceful waves. He heard her sharp intake of breath.
“The northern lights,” he whispered.
Opening up to him.
“Depending on who you talk to,” he continued, “these beautiful lights are ancient ancestors, sea monsters, fire-breathing dragons, or simply scientific phenomenon. Regardless of the explanation, I am no more able to influence the display you see before us than I am the tide.”
“He wasted his life,” she whispered. “Then he wasted any chance of staying alive longer on his useless faith. He could have gotten treatment. It would have bought him some time.”
Ryan closed his eyes and fought the urge to kiss the back of Kal’s neck. Instead, he cuddled her closer. “I’m sure he didn’t see it that way, love.”
“But it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? He wasted his life lying to himself and his parishioners about what comes next.”
He felt her anger, knew that was part of her grief, tangled so tightly together she couldn’t deal with it all. “Just because there is no Heaven and Hell as he believed doesn’t mean it was a waste of time. Giving comfort to someone is never a waste of time,” he gently said.
“Look at all the crap. All the hateful things he preached that were couched in Biblical justification. All the years he badgered poor Jeff.”
“Are you upset for Jeff or yourself? I get the impression Jeff is rather pleased with how this all worked out.”
She silently shrugged.
“He brought happiness to others in his own way,” Ryan said.
“He doesn’t even get his happily ever after, though. No heavenly choir. No angelic greeting at the pearly gates.”
“His soul will live forever. They all do. There’s no eternal lake of fire to torture people either, so that’s something, right?”
They watched the lights play across the sky.
When she shivered in his arms, he willed another blanket from his condo and wrapped it around them both.
“How did you survive when Chloe died?” Kal asked.
Ryan hoped she didn’t sense his thoughts. “Will and Aidan pulled me through. If it hadn’t been for them, I would have died. That’s why my father bound us as soul brothers.”
“That’s how Will survived Abby dying?”
“Yes. He wasn’t physically injured like I’d been. Still bound to myself and Aidan, he survived, albeit in pain.”
“Even though he wanted to die?”
Ryan closed his eyes again. “I couldn’t let him die,” he finally replied. “I love him far too much to allow that to happen. I would do anything to keep him alive.”
“What about the pain? Your pain? From losing Chloe?”
“We all deal in the way we deal.”
More silence between them.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” she asked.
“I’m so sorry, love.”
“Was he reincarnated? Like Chloe and Abby?”
“At some point, I’m sure that will happen. I don’t know if it’s already happened or not. Please don’t ask me to look into that. It’s best you don’t know.”
“New life, new start?”
“Exactly.”
“Will he be happy?”
“Let’s hope so, love. Every soul experiences at least a little joy.”
After another few minutes she shuddered as sobs wracked her body. He held her and softly murmured to her, comforting her. He desperately wanted to ease her suffering but knew she had to go through this, experience it, feel it, put it past her or she’d never truly heal. She cried for the better part of an hour as he softly hummed to her, trying to soothe her. When she settled in his arms she stared at the lights, still sniffling.
“I miss him. As much as I sometimes hated the things he did, I miss him. I miss my Daddy.”
“I know.”
“I had dreams on my honeymoon.”
Ryan silently swore. “Did you now?”
“I dreamed of you and Aidan. They didn’t feel like dreams.”
“Dreams can be very deceptive things.”
She fell silent for a moment. “Could they have been memories? From a past life?”
She was far more perceptive than he ever imagined. “What do you think they were?”
“Please don’t give me the ‘sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’ line.”
He smiled. Some of her spunky nature was returning. That was a very good sign. “I didn’t have the dreams, so I can’t be the one to tell you what they were. What gives you most comfort to believe?”
Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “It gives me the most comfort to believe they were dreams.” Her next statement shocked him. “But there’s part of me that wishes at least some of them were memories.”
He damn well knew what her dreams were, because lying in his bed, he’d felt them as his own amulet grew hot in his hand while she’d had them.
Memories of their past life together.
“Dreams are just that, love. Dreams. The mind copes the way it copes.”
The aurora swirled across the sky. “Where are we?” she softly asked, apparently willing to change the subject, much to Ryan’s relief.
“Alaska.”
“They’re pretty. I’ve never seen them before.” He sensed the shift in her mood. The hard shell around her emotions had cracked. She would heal. Slowly, over time, but she’d turned the corner. Will could now take over and ease her through her grief, as it should be. “Tell me about the myths. Please?”
He shifted position slightly to make sure she was comfortable. He relaxed with her and told her about the Vikings, the Scots, the Inuit. From the Aborigines to the Mauri, the Chuvash and others. He softly spoke the old tales, and sometimes she cried. By the time he ran out of stories it was an hour before dawn and they were now lying on the blanket, Kal safely tucked in his arms.
Nearly cried out.
He let the silence lay between them. Then she gently squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”
He did kiss her then, gently, chastely, his lips pressed to her temple. “I told you before, no matter what, you call me. Including matters such as this. Never again let yourself feel such torture. Please. I want you to be happy.”
The irony was, despite his own pain, that’s exactly what he wanted. Her happiness.
“I will.”
“Why didn’t you talk to Will? Why did you shut yourself off from him?”
She shrugged. At first he thought she wouldn’t answer him. He didn’t want to pry and try to read her thoughts. “I felt really stupid because here he’d suffered losing Abby. I just felt like if he could deal with something as bad as that, why couldn’t I deal with this?”
“Then why didn’t you call out to me?”
“Duh.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “You’ve survived even longer. I didn’t want to look like a cry baby.”
“Never, love. I would never think that of you.”
“Did it hurt you too when Abby died?” she asked.
He didn’t want to talk about this, but if it helped Kal, he certainly would. “Yes. Nothing like the agony I experienced losing Chloe. And nothing comparable to the agony Will felt. My pain was more emotional than physical, in that case.” Not that any pain could compare to what he lived with on a daily basis.
“Why did you say you didn’t get to Abby in time. What happened?”
He took a deep breath to hopefully disguise his sharp intake of pain at the memory. “I was driving. I had to pull the car over before I could get to her. By the time I arrived, I couldn’t stop the creatures who killed her.” He sat up and squeezed Kal’s hands, offered her a smile. “Feeling better?”
She shrugged. “Relatively speaking.”
Ryan closed his eyes and found Will. He wasn’t indisposed. He opened his eyes again. “Stay here for a moment, all right?”
“Okay.”
He appeared in Will’s living room. Will looked up from where he’d been lying on the sofa. “Where is she?”
Ryan didn’t want to get too c
lose to him. It would be bad enough Will would smell his scent on Kal. He didn’t need Will smelling her on him, regardless of how okay Will was with this. “Close your eyes.”
Will did. Ryan muttered the incantation and Will disappeared. Ryan checked, knew Will was safely with her.
Ryan then took a deep breath and returned to his Atlanta condo. He cast a barrier to remain undisturbed before crawling into bed without bothering to remove his clothes.
With Kal’s scent a melancholy comfort, he curled around a pillow and drifted to sleep.
* * * *
Late that afternoon, Ryan had cooked himself eggs for dinner and was reading the newspaper when he heard the call. He removed the barrier he’d erected around his condo.
Will appeared.
Ryan put the paper down. “And?”
Will nodded. “She’s still asleep. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He studied Will. “We’re okay, you and I?”
“Yeah. We’re okay.” Will looked at the floor. “I told you, I’m not jealous, okay?”
“I know.”
“I understand there’s going to be times she needs to talk to you. I’m okay with that. If it helps her, then yeah, it’s fine.” Will met Ryan’s gaze. “I was never jealous of the time you spent with Abby. Didn’t understand it, and I didn’t always like it, but I wasn’t jealous. I knew she loved me and was true to me. I never doubted her. I don’t doubt Kal.” Will sighed. “I don’t doubt you, either. Can’t say you’ve always been my favorite person though.”
Ryan didn’t speak, just nodded. He suspected Will had a lot on his mind and didn’t want to interrupt him.
“Let me get this all out while I can. While I’m in the mood to say it, because the gods know you’ll do or say something to piss me off again and I won’t want to. Thank you for taking care of Abby. For trying to save her and for…for what you did after. I know that wasn’t easy for you, because I know you loved her in a way, too.” He took a deep breath. “As much as I hated you for it at the time, thank you for not letting me die.”
Ryan nodded again.
Will scrubbed his eyes with his hands. Ryan pretended not to see his old friend’s tears. “You’re right. I don’t know the big picture. I don’t fucking envy you. I never understood how bad you were hurting before, until I lost Abby. I’m sorry there were times I busted your balls and I had no clue how you felt before.”
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