by Dan Glover
"Those are but words of fear, my precious Luciana. The girls are human. They know their kind is coming to an end. Instead of rejoicing at the Emergence, they choose to swaddle their dread in hate."
"I don’t understand. Why are humans coming to an end, mother?"
"A great catastrophe befell humanity long before we were born, my lovely daughter. It had nothing to do with us yet we are blamed for it. We are those who will one day repopulate the earth and beyond so it gives those girls a thrill to chastise us while they may.
"When you grow older, your strength will be such that you may easily exact revenge. I once felt the same way. But we must remember our place and not fall into the same trap that portended the end of a once mighty race of People. Instead of hate, we must return love. Rather than seeking retribution, we must give affection.
"Your Grandmother Sileas once told me the same thing. I was too young to understand her words. For years I plotted and planned on how I could get back at my tormentors... to make them feel the same pain I felt. Once, I acted upon my desires. I made a girl think that I loved her when I did not. I only used her. I still regret my actions.
"The world is not an easy place, my darling Luciana. If you're able to find a companion, someone to walk with, hold onto them with all your might. On the other hand, do not strangle them with love."
Kirk was the best man she ever met.
She wondered if he died thinking of her and if he was in pain. He had spoken of cheating death in the past... of a wild tiger attempting to feed him to her cubs, and of the suffering caused by Lake Syndrome when he stayed away from Orchardton Hall for too long.
She thought of everyone as immortal, Kirk included. Luciana knew that any one of them could be killed in an accident but it happened so seldom the chances were virtually nil of it occurring.
"He saved my life, my precious Luciana. If not for Kirk, I would have been swarmed under too. He pushed me out of the way while absorbing the brunt of the attack himself."
"But you just left him there, Mr. Nate."
She hadn’t meant it as an accusation but that was how it came out. When Nate came to her with the news of Kirk's demise, it was all she could do to keep from slapping him. To think that she once idolized the man who had persuaded her husband to go happily to his death.
"There was nothing we could do, sweet Luciana. It was as if his body became magnetized. We could not lift him from the earth."
"You have to go back for him. He might still be alive."
"I promise I will, darling Luciana. I know right where he is. I'm not sure I'll be able to retrieve him but I'll do my best."
He had promised and she had taken him at his word. Like all the people of the Lake, however, it meant nothing to him to break a pledge. She learned long ago that the morals that bound human society together had never proliferated among those who came from under Lake Baikal.
They were animalistic, hateful, and morose. To think that her lineage contained the same blood as they had running in their veins made Luciana ashamed of not only herself but all her ancestors.
When she heard Nate had taken the Ladies to Lake Baikal rather than going back to old America to recover Kirk's body, she was furious. Now that he was back, he was dawdling again. If she had claws she would use them on his eyes.
Niall disappeared that evening. No one missed him but for Luciana... in fact, she hadn’t realized he was gone until she went to his room. Opening his door she sensed he had departed for more than just an overnight stay... his clothes were missing as were the maps of old America he'd been studying.
He was her younger brother; she had always sheltered him. What had she done by talking him into going on a desperate journey to retrieve the body of her long lost husband? If something happened to Niall she knew she could never forgive herself.
Still, she said nothing about his departure.
Chapter 84—Numb
Watching the big cat cavort with the tigresses in his pride brought a smile to Amanda's face despite the intense feeling of loss clutching at her heart.
"I'm going back to Orchardton Hall, Amanda. It isn’t what you think. Lily has nothing to do with my decision. I feel I'm missing something in my life so perhaps I'll find it in my homeland."
She told herself to expect it. She knew the Lake people were not to be trusted. They were fickle and ugly and thought nothing of human beings... treating them worse than the livestock that served to provide the compound with food.
She had so many questions running through her head that to find the first one that needed asking was impossible. Her mind was muddled as if she had drunk too much new sherry.
She felt nauseous and swallowed repeatedly to keep from vomiting.
She didn’t want to be vindictive. She knew the nature of the life they lived was far different than the prescribed morals dictated from before the Great Dying. She was brought up believing love was forever. Now, three hundred years after her birth, she had just begun to realize how wrong that old notion was in a world of immortals.
A stinging numbness enveloped her heart, as if she had slept upon it the wrong way depriving it of blood flow. She wanted to jump up and shout names at him... to shake him... to wake him up. Lily was only using him again. Didn’t he know that?
"You should go then, my darling Nate."
The words were not her own and yet they issued from her mouth, rising up from somewhere deep inside of her where she buried away all her hurt and pain. She wanted nothing more than to beg for him to stay and yet she gave her permission for him to leave.
"I'm sorry... I didn’t mean for this to happen, Amanda."
She couldn’t look at him. He disgusted her the way he wouldn’t look her in the eyes... how he ceased with the little niceties they had always lavished upon one another. All the years they had spent building a life here obviously meant nothing to him. Lily had but to waggle her body at him and he was lost.
"I can't talk to you now, my precious Nate. Just go."
She didn’t understand why he kept lingering there, as if torn between the desire to stay and the need to leave. He and Lily deserved each other. She would betray him again, of that Amanda had no doubt. When she did, Nate would come slithering back to Toulon like a child scorned.
"I haven’t told Ginger yet, Amanda... could you?"
She had picked up a glass ornament and flung it at him, not aiming to hit him, but hoping it would. It shattered into a million pieces just over his left shoulder. One of the shards struck him on the cheek causing a spot of blood to appear just above the edge of his mouth. With a confused look on his face he turned on his heels and without another word left the room.
She wished she had that old pistol that she had shot Marilyn with. It would have been easy to dispose of the body. No one would know. No one would have suspected. They all would have thought Nate had gone back to old America once more to recover Kirk's body.
She hated the way his pinkish gills fluttered while he slept. She never told him that. There were many things about the man she found disconcerting yet she kept them all to herself in the name of love. Touching her growing stomach she wondered how she could give ever birth to another monstrosity... a blend of human and fish.
Karen would help her dispose of it. Except Karen was in the Isle of Skye and she was here in the south of old France and there was no easy way to travel now that the roads were disintegrating and the bridges were crumbling. She should have stayed... she would have stayed if Nate had been honest with her before now.
Seeing Pete and Karen reunite had brought tears to her eyes and holding Nate again salved the hurt caused by his leaving. He had kept up the façade right until the end when he brought them back to Toulon dropping Amanda and Ginger right at the front door before taking off once more with nary a goodbye.
She told herself he was going to shuttle more people between the Isle of Skye and their homes throughout old Europe but in her heart she knew where he was off to: Lady Lily had sunk her vicious
fangs into him and she wasn’t going to let go.
When he returned she could smell her all over him. Oh... he acted nonchalant, like all the males of his species had a habit of doing... but she knew where he'd been and who he'd been with. It was no secret.
"I was just at Orchardton Hall, my darling mother. I saw father there."
William was their oldest son. Having grown into a fine man with his father's good looks and his mother's keen intellect he had come to her with a recalcitrant gleam in his eyes and a hitch in his voice as if he had something to say yet finding the proper words proved troubling.
"I understand he was dropping off the Ladies after their trip to the Lake, sweet William."
"Yes, I suppose that is what he was doing."
"You don’t sound too sure, precious William. Tell me what's on your mind."
"I'd rather not, my lovely mother. I may be wrong in what I thought I saw."
She didn’t want to put her son through the rigor of deception yet at the same time a gnawing need to know clawed at her psyche. Nate had made a multitude of promises of late and kept none. Suspecting his betrayal was far worse than identifying the cause and putting a stop to it one way or another.
"He was with Lady Lily. Is that right, my sweet son?"
"So you know?"
"I expected it but no, I didn’t know for sure until you walked into the door this morning. I'm sorry you had to go through this, sweet William. I should have been more forthcoming with you about my suspicions."
It wasn’t right that the family was becoming ensnared in their parents' escapades. Amanda had tried her best to shield the sons and daughters from their father's transgressions when perhaps she would have done better to embrace them, to get the misdemeanors out in the open where they could be dealt with.
Instead, they had festered in the dark growing like poison mushrooms more malignant by the minute until the sins of the father threatened to crush whatever goodwill towards him that remained within the family.
"I'm sorry, mother."
She felt guilty for having deprived her oldest son of his naïveté yet at the same time her heart was gladdened at how the boy had such courage. Most sons of the Lake would side with their own kind.
A tiny rift was developing between the People and those of the Lake and if it wasn’t mended soon she sensed it could rip apart the fabric of all they had done. Amanda longed to talk to someone about it, yet no one cared to listen. Ginger had long ago become enamored of the Ladies of the Lake and all their people. Nate could do no wrong in her eyes.
From time to time she would watch Chester drive off one of the dominant males who threatened his place in the pride. Wondering if the same priorities drove the males of the Lake, Amanda thought of Kāne and his recalcitrant memory... how Ginger was abandoned by him while she carried his child and yet had never spoken a word against him in anger.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that Nate decided to return to Orchardton Hall at the same time Kāne had come back to Toulon.
Chapter 85—Little Conveniences
She had never wished to hurt anyone.
That day long ago when Karen and Marilyn showed up at Orchardton Hall sick and dying, Lily had convinced Lauren to grant them asylum knowing that sending them away meant their deaths.
When Marilyn paid her back by locking her in that horrid cell at CDC headquarters, Lily never thought about exacting revenge against her. She only desired to know why anyone would be driven to such hate against those who loved her.
Now, she thought she might understand. Lily had caused as much heartache as Marilyn by seeking to legislate the vision she once had of a world brimming with the blended progeny of the two species.
Upon returning to her old home she noticed the vines climbing upon the outer walls of Orchardton Hall had turned brown and brittle with age. She had assumed they too were immortal like her... that they would flourish anew each spring. They were not.
If she could, Lily would take all the pain and suffering in the world onto her own self... absorb it... heal it. Unfortunately, she only seemed to sow hatred and disease with every misdeed she attempted.
Nate had come home.
Though her hearts fluttered at the thought of having him with her again, something had changed. Neither of them was an innocent any longer. Nate insisted to her that leaving his family in the south of old France was the only way either of them would ever find happiness.
Lily knew it was a lie of convenience yet she went along with it. Amanda and Ginger were no doubt patiently awaiting Nate's return with no inkling that he would bring them both a pail full of bad news.
She nearly told him to go away... she didn’t need him, not like his wives back at Toulon. Lily had grown used to being alone and besides, she had the Ladies... the thought of leaving their bed for Nate's both thrilled and sickened her.
She often wished she had stayed in old America. She could have watched as a new world blossomed from the pit of hell that Micah had created, a barren wasteland filled with clinging sands and air dry as death.
Micah was insane, a megalomaniac who desired to rule the world through hate instead of love yet she had allowed him to follow her home. Even now he was doubtlessly sunning his newly youthful body on the beaches of old France plotting his revenge.
How was she any different than Micah?
She sought to remake the world with her own dream of a hybrid species spewing out love instead of hate. Either way, the natural order of things would never unfold as long as there were meddlers changing the course of what could be into what would be.
They were all guilty. The only innocent ones among the group were Lauren and Natalia. They alone had foreseen the calamity besetting the world by allowing a straggling remnant of humanity to survive.
Lily felt trapped between the love she felt for the Ladies Lauren and Natalia and the debt she owed to Nate and his descendents for making her dreams reality. She had shunned him in favor of a life bereft of companionship in order to quell the notion she was holding him back from a destiny foretold centuries ago.
"Are you prepared to make good on your promise to me, my darling Karen?"
From her time as a prisoner at CDC headquarters in England she understood Karen was an adept at aiding procreation... at creating new life commencing with the damaged remainders of the dregs left over from a ruined world.
Now, Lily was ashamed at what she had helped to bring into existence. These people were no better than the human species she despised. If left to their own devices, the galaxy itself would soon come under their livid sway.
"Why do you wish to allow these People to stay with us, my darling Lily? Isn't our love enough for you?"
Lady Lauren was aghast at having Karen, Marilyn, and the children as guests at Orchardton Hall. She had always expressed an avowed hatred for human beings even while intermingling with them.
"I suspect both our species are coming to an end, my sweet Lauren. If we do nothing, we will be alone for eternity. I love you and Natalia dearly but it seems a shame to turn these People away when we know they will perish."
"Why not go into the village and bring all the dregs of the city to Orchardton Hall? Come along, my sweet Lily... I'll help you. Soon we will fill the world with them too."
As the years mounted it had become painfully apparent that she should have listened to Lady Lauren. As the People multiplied so did the troubles of the world. Their sweet and tender days of solitude became a burnt dream of the past... times Lily thought were gone and would never come again.
After three centuries, Orchardton Hall was empty once again. Their vast estate with hundreds of acres of fertile fields and corrals full of livestock was deserted. A simple garden sufficed to feed the three of them while one butchered cow would last a year.
After their trip to the Lake, Orchardton Hall stood out like a bastion of hope and love, as if the estate knew they would return soon and so waited that day full of longing and adoration. She was happy to be home
again.
And then Nate appeared.
He had gone back to Toulon after dropping the three of them at Orchardton Hall so she hadn’t expected to see him again for another seven years, when it came time to dip their bodies into the azure waters of the Lake. Instead, he had showed up a week later. Natalia came to her while she was sunning herself in the east garden bearing news of a visitor.
"Nate is here, my darling Lily."
"Why is he here, sweet Natalia? I thought he was going back to old America to help recover Kirk's body."
"He desires to talk with you, my precious Lily. Remember, we are happy here. Please do not let his words sway you away from us again."
As soon as she saw his face, Lily knew why he was there. He had come for her. Even though she'd betrayed him, Nate was still in love with her. She knew that as well as he did—she could see it in his eyes—and she also knew she could never turn him away.
Without a word she went to him allowing him to take her into his arms... they made love for the first time in centuries as if it was their first moment all over again. As they lay together afterwards she knew Nate wouldn’t be leaving again any time soon.
"What about your family in Toulon, my darling Nate? Aren't you lonely for them?"
She hadn’t meant to put him on the spot but after two weeks she wondered when and if he would be going home again. It wasn’t that she desired for him to leave, but she felt guilty over their dalliance. Normally, such liaisons weren’t frowned upon by her kind but she supposed living among the People for so long had made her better aware of the social mores that guided their lives and perhaps influenced her now more than she cared to admit.
"I told Amanda that I was leaving, my precious Lily. They know I won't be coming back. I want to make a life here with you, if you'll have me, that is."
"What of Kirk, my sweet Nate? Aren't you returning for his body? Won't it begin to rot if you leave it there in old America?"