“You’re a monster! You’re a monster! You’re…” With a final screech, the pig said no more.
I knew it was weird to rock myself and sob over a pig being made into ham and bacon. I wasn’t a preachy vegetarian by nature. It was the fact that I could hear them, understand their feelings, and that they could understand mine. It made the whole circle of life thing excruciating for me. I kept my sobs quiet, hiccupping into my hand until my vision clouded over with red. Then I knew my own personal brand of terror. I was in unknown territory, and I couldn’t see. I couldn’t blink away the gooey red that coated my eyes and face, and now my hands. I tried to wipe the mess away, but my tears couldn’t be reasoned with. “Link!” I wailed, ashamed that a little upset could turn south so fast. “Link, help!”
I felt around on the grass like a blind person, willing to crawl my way to him if I had to. Link’s boots pounded the earth, cursing when I turned my face toward him. “The princess is alright, mates. Go back to the fire, and leave us be. Now! No one look at her!”
I didn’t know what to do, so I curled myself into a ball and pressed my face to the earth, praying the grass would conceal my inhuman traits. Bloody tears would surely lend themselves to rumors and much speculation. “Link!” I whimpered, scared that I couldn’t see a thing in the middle of a land I didn’t know well enough to go through blind.
Link dropped to his knees and draped his heavy arm over my body, shielding me with his broad shoulders. “Shh. Make it stop, Rosie! I don’t know how to calm ye down!”
I cried into my hands, catching more blood that dripped between my fingers and sprinkled onto the grass. “I can’t make it stop! I’m a freak now!”
Link gripped my shoulders and shook me, as if that was how to calm a crying woman. Something told me it was a good thing that he and Mae had shared a strictly bedroom relationship. “Make it be over! There, there? The pig’s dead now, yeah?”
I cried harder, mourning the babies she’d had that would most likely die, now that their mother was gone. “I can’t see!” I sobbed, clutching the grass on all fours, like an animal I prayed the world would have mercy upon.
When shaking me and yelling at me didn’t make the tears go away, Link was at his wit’s end. In a hurried and quiet voice, he started singing frantically to me, rushing through the lyrics. “‘In the dark of night, my eyes can find ye. My eyes can find your heart wherever it roams. There’s nothing in all of Faîte that could separate us. ‘Cause wherever ye lay your head, I’ll find my new home.’”
My tears stopped in time with my shock, as if turning off a faucet. “D-did you just make that up? That was beautiful.” I scrubbed at the red goo that painted my face. Now that I wasn’t adding more tears by the second, I was able to wipe away enough so that I could see Link through a crimson film.
Link shushed me, and then darted his chin over his shoulder. He looked worried he’d be caught being sweet, and then swiftly ostracized by the dudes. “Shut your gob about it. I didn’t make it up. My mammy used to sing it to me every night while she tucked me in when I was a wee lad.”
“That’s such a sweet song. Thank you.”
“Is tha shutting up about it?”
“You have a gorgeous voice.”
“Rosie, I swear.”
I swallowed thickly, trying to get my head on straight. “Do we have any water? I have to wash my face. I can barely see you.”
“Aye. Hold on, ye blind, bloody beauty.” He grabbed his canteen from the provisions and wetted his palm so he could scrub my face. I braced myself on all fours, and let the water drip down my nose and chin. I was afraid of the blood staining my clothes, making me look like I’d been stabbed so early on in our journey. Link wiped down my sopping face with his dirty handkerchief until the blood was reduced to only a few droplets on my collar. He sat back on his butt with a gust of relief. “I’m glad tha’s over. Ye aren’t allowed to get emotional anymore on this trip. Not while I’m the only one here who knows your secret. Bleed all over Bastien, not me. Tha’s terrifying.”
“I’m sorry, Link. I’m cool now. Tired, though. Thanks for… Have a good night.” If Link was embarrassed he’d sung his mom’s bedtime song for me, I was equally chagrinned that I’d needed to be sang a lullaby, as if I was a child. I crawled to a spot of grass I hadn’t bled on and curled into a ball, hugging myself as I wished for a bed and a little privacy.
Link took the hint, the smarty, and got himself some dinner. He had the decency to eat it near the fire, so I didn’t have to hear him slurping on the bacon. I tried not to let my mind wander to Lane, who was probably scared, and trying not to be. We had a way of ignoring the emotions we didn’t want to feel until they drifted away. It wasn’t working for me tonight, though, but I prayed it was working for her. I could only imagine what hole Morgan had thrown Lane down.
When my mind drifted to Judah, I had to invoke deep yoga breathing to keep myself from crying again. I could picture him in a dark hole somewhere, clinging to the hope that somehow Gandalf would find him. I could practically hear him calling for me, begging me to rescue him. On nights we were scared, we clung to each other in sleep. Judah was afraid of tornadoes, so on the nights it rained without mercy, I would wake to him holding me tight, as if he expected I could make Mother Nature’s wrath go away.
Would that I could. I would do anything to give Judah a better life.
When Link settled in behind me inside the ring of dozing horses, I expected him to sit and keep watch. Instead, he lowered himself to the grass. He gave up time he could’ve been shooting the breeze with the cool kids, and spent it holding me instead. “Ye alright, wee Rose?” he whispered.
“Not really.”
“Miss me tha badly, did ye?”
I snorted. “It’s the only thing on my mind. I need more Link in my life, for sure.”
“Tha’s what all the fair lasses say.”
“I’m fine. I’m just scared for Judah.”
Link was quiet a few beats to be respectful of my very real fear. “So, this Judah fella. He’s a good lad?”
“The best Common has to offer.”
“And what would he say about a sky like Avalon’s?” Link rolled me over so my back was pressed to the grass. He twined his fat fingers through mine, making it feel like we were camping, instead of going on a mission.
“He’d freak out over how many stars there are here. Then he’d start naming all the constellations.” I took our joined fingers and aimed both our index fingers at the sky, pointing out a design that was nothing like the stars on earth. “We could call that one fat man on a bucket, because that’s what it looks like. I wonder what his story is.”
Link chuckled, seeing the design I pointed out. “Maybe he sat down one day to have a good think, and he sat so long that his arse got stuck.”
“No way. It’s gotta be crazier than that. I mean, Fat Man on a Bucket’s got a history, a story to tell. I think he used to be skinny, but he broke his leg when he was trying to learn to dance for the queen. He wanted to be Fred Astaire with a beautiful, talented partner, but no one could keep up. So he danced with a bucket, since no one had footwork fancy enough for him. Then, during his big performance for the queen, he got nervous and tripped over his bucket. He broke his foot, his pride and his dreams of impressing the throne all in one shot. He got so depressed that he locked himself in his home with his bucket, eating himself sick through his misery. He would eat so much that he’d throw up into the bucket. But she never complains, only carries his shame with a quiet grace. On bad days, he yells at his bucket for getting the dance wrong, and ruining his life. But the bucket just sits there, saying nothing, because at the end of the day, she’s just a bucket, and nothing more.”
Link was quiet as he looked up at the sky. “I don’t know why tha story makes me sad.”
“I think the sad kind’s all I’ve got tonight, chief.” We were quiet, giving me too much time to think. “Link, how come my cuts are already healed from all those ravens a
ttacking, but yours aren’t? I mean, my arms look like they never even had a scratch on them.”
Link squeezed my fingers, and I could tell he’d been worried about the same thing. “I don’t know. Perhaps we don’t need to sneeze at the magic tha heals ye, aye?”
“Okay. I was just wondering. Do you think Kerdik really did something bonkers to my genetic makeup? Like, am I different now?”
“Ye look like my Rose to me.”
I smirked at his cuteness. “Thanks.”
“Will ye sing me one of your Commoner songs? I like those much better than the serious talks about things tha worry me.”
I leaned my cheek to his shoulder and smiled sleepily as my eyes closed. “‘I see some ladies tonight that should be having my baby.’”
“‘Baby.’” Link didn’t miss a beat with his line, making us both giggle.
“Goodnight, Link.”
He frowned. “Ye didn’t say, ‘I love ye, Link.’ It’s not a good night until I know ye love me.”
The sweetness that swept over me started at my toes and warmed my entire body, my form curling at the cuteness. “I love you, Link, you old softy.”
“I love ye, too. Goodnight, wee Rose.”
15
A Love for the Fight
The next two days were the same, minus the bloody tears. Link had the decency to ask the guys to murder their dinner away from where I slept, so I didn’t have to hear the animal suffer and cry for help before the inevitable blow. On the third morning, I expected to wake to Link’s goofy antics. He liked to rouse me by blowing a sloppy raspberry into my neck. I’d promised to retaliate by farting on him one of these days, but we both knew I was too chicken to pull that off. Instead, a smooth hand ran down the length of my face, gently lulling me to wakefulness. I rolled over and opened my eyes, blinking a few times before a smile spread over my face. “You! What are you doing here? Dad said you had to go away for a while.”
Kerdik gazed down on me with a sweet expression that looked tender and protective. “I did, but I thought I’d pop in for a visit between errands and being banished.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Did you miss me?”
“Only every day. You alright?”
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
I decided there was no time like the present to come clean with my eavesdropping. Link was with the guys a stone’s throw away. He was watching me with a cautious expression, and I guessed that Kerdik had made him leave so we could chat. “I sort of overheard your conversation with Brìghde.”
A tree nearby suddenly quaked, and then splintered at the base of the trunk before it fell clean over. “No, you didn’t. That’s not possible.”
I sat up and rubbed his arm to soothe his disquiet. “It’s alright. You have to stop making trees die when you get upset, though. That can’t be good. This place needs more life, not less. We’ll have no forest left at all when I tell you I know about the lost magic you gave me, along with my third birth blessing.”
I shrieked when a circle of trees sprouted up around us, spooking the horses enough for them to jump up and bolt, so they didn’t spontaneously find themselves in a treehouse. Kerdik’s eyes never left me, but his smile had deserted our impromptu fort. The trees sprouted branches that twined outwards, winding around each other so we were encased in a circle of Kerdik’s making. “Who did Brìghde send to tell you this? How did you find out?”
I could hear the men on the outside shouting frantically. “I’m alright, guys. Link?”
His voice was muffled when it reached me through the foliage. “Rosie, what’s going on in there?”
“Nothing. Kerdik doesn’t know how to ask for privacy. I’ll be out in a few.” I stood, arms akimbo as I squared off with Kerdik. “You should really work on that whole temper thing.”
“Talk,” he demanded, his finger jabbed in my direction.
I kept my voice low, so the others couldn’t hear us through the thick tree fort. Their voices were muffled now, the trees keeping our conversation confidential. “I don’t know how, but I saw the whole back-and-forth through your eyes. You were super worked up, and I heard it all. I was saying the words you spoke to Brìghde, and I heard what your ears did. I saw the same thing your eyes did. For that span of a conversation, I was you. I even felt it when you got worked up.”
Kerdik’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s not possible.”
I shrugged. “Neither are bloody tears, but I’ve got those in spades. That’s not a thing that happens in Avalon, then? My magic’s gotten so bonkers that it’s starting to freak even you out? That’s where we’re at?”
“It appears so.” His eyes were wide as saucers, his fingers covering his mouth. “Are you well?”
“I’m a beast,” I said proudly, slapping my bicep. “I killed the Sluagh, in case you were wondering.”
Kerdik nodded. “Urien told me. Very impressive. Are you healing alright from the fight?”
“Better than alright,” I began, wondering how to ask him what he’d done to me without sounding accusatory. “I got scraped up pretty good when the ravens attacked, but the cuts vanished the next night.”
“Is that so?”
I nodded. “Kerdik? Is something…” I bit down on my lower lip, searching for the right words. “Is something wrong with me?”
His voice turned sharp. “Who told you there was anything wrong with you? You’re perfect.”
His words, much like his love, were always grander than I expected. He held his arms out to me, and I sank into his embrace, making myself at home in his arms for the moment. “What does it mean when you give your blood to someone? What happens to them?”
I could tell Kerdik was debating between the truth and a blatant “Of course Santa’s real” type of lie. “It means that I love you very much. I love you enough to protect you, and gamble on Avalon being a better place because you’re in it.”
“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Remember that you were dying. Remember that I gave up my blood to save you. Remember that I love you.”
I felt doomed even before the words tumbled out of his mouth. “Tell me,” I demanded, my words muffled in his crisp, white shirt.
“I don’t know what’s happening to you,” he admitted. Beyond something terrible, Kerdik confessing that he didn’t know how it all might go down scared me even more. “I know that I healed you, and kept you from death. I know that you cry blood now, but I don’t know how to make it stop. Would that I could make all your worries disappear.”
“Kerdik, if you know more about what’s going on in my body, I need you to tell me. Any details at all would be helpful.”
Kerdik lowered his chin, caught in his attempt to omit bits of the truth. “You… your lifespan will be…”
He seemed to be choking on the truth, so I tried to pry it out of him with a guess. “Can I die?”
His eyes turned guilty. “You can’t die at the hand of a person or an immortal, other than the Daughters of Avalon. You can die of natural causes, like an animal attack or something. But you already knew that.”
I nodded, confirming this information in my mind under the “facts” section. Still, Kerdik looked scared of my reaction, as if he knew more than he was letting on, but was holding back so I didn’t tear him a new one. “Kerdik, what aren’t you telling me?”
He swallowed hard, finally meeting my eyes with sorrow. “You would have aged beautifully, I’m sure. But after my blood…” He shook his head as he fingered one of my curls. I’d been sleeping in the dirt and traveling without a shower for days, yet he still looked on me as if I was something precious and fragile. I felt like an ox – expected to be useful and rode hard until her last breath, but under Kerdik’s gaze I was a ballerina. “You’ve been granted a second life. You’ll have one entire lifespan of an Avalonian – typically eighty years, plus another eighty on top of that. Then you’ll pass on.”
My mouth
dropped open, my brain stuttering as it failed to compute the unreal information. “So I’m going to live to be one hundred sixty years old, but look like I’m twenty-two?”
Kerdik nodded. “Yes, my love. You were inches from death. It was either cut your years impossibly short, or give you double what you were expecting. Given my choices, I think I picked wisely.” He studied my shock and concern, his lips pursed as he pushed forward. “It’s my turn for the questions, now. When will I get to be with you?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other uncertainly. “I hope we’re always close. I love you, but I’m with Bastien now.”
He stepped forward and lifted my chin so he could look into my eyes. Burning in his heated gaze I saw the passion of a man I couldn’t brush off. “Bastien can have you in this life, but when he passes into the mist, I want you to be mine until your last breath.” His lips inched closer to mine. “That’s as long as my patience can be expected to last.”
I stared up at him in shock. “Um, maybe all of this is something you should’ve told me the second I came to. You should’ve asked me if a double-long life is what I wanted.”
“You were nearly dead! There wasn’t exactly time for a conversation.”
I pursed my lips, miffed at his very valid point. “Still. I shouldn’t have had to accidentally eavesdrop to know what was going on in my own body.”
“I wanted you to live your life and make your choices. I didn’t want you to choose me because I made the most sense with your lifeline.” His lips tightened, but he remained composed. “And you chose him.”
“I did.” I was unapologetic in my confirmation.
“And you’ll choose me when he’s dead.”
“Jeez! Don’t act so sure of yourself. I don’t like that you’re keeping huge things from me, Kerdik. We’re supposed to be friends, which means we’re in this together. Stop acting like I’m five, and you have to shield me from the world.”
Untouchable Girl_A Fantasy Adventure Page 9