by Jane Kindred
“What do you think that means? Drowning in bed?”
I jerked my head up, trying to remember how I’d gotten back in the chair. “Dr. Perry?”
The kindly old gentleman pushed his spectacles up his nose and gave me one of his patient smiles. “Did we lose you, Sebastian? Did you go somewhere just now?”
“I think… Sorry, I think I fell asleep.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“I don’t know. I—I thought the orderlies came—I was sedated.”
“It’s classic dissociation. When we touch on anything too difficult for your mind to accept, you drift off into this place that keeps you safe. Just as you’ve gone to your imaginary world, to a simpler time. Yet even in that construct, you’ve made a safer place for yourself—the asylum. A place where you lock up the parts of yourself that you don’t like. But you freed yourself from that prison, Sebastian, which is a very positive sign. Your constructed world began to include the real one, your journey through the magical portal to the seaside at Ceredigion.”
“But that was real. I came with Macsen.”
“Tell me about Macsen. You said he hated you. And then he stopped hating you. Why was that?”
I shrugged, feeling a bit flushed at the memories this conjured. “Our attraction to one another. It was mutual, and very powerful. He’d tasted my magic, and he wanted more of me.”
“So two parts of yourself—the hyper-masculine Macsen and the ‘damsel in distress’ part of August you played—began to come together and stopped fighting with one another.”
“I wasn’t a damsel in distress,” I protested. “You try fighting off an attacker when you’re wearing a corset and petticoat.”
“An attacker? Who attacked you, Sebastian?”
I scratched my head, trying to remember. “Someone I used to know. He was one of August’s suitors before she died. Siors.” Yes, that was it. “He courted me when I was dressing as August, and he attacked me after he realized I wasn’t a woman. Macsen stopped him and gave him a thrashing.”
“So Siors was a sexual aggressor against the vulnerable part of you, and then Macsen appeared as a protector, the strong side of you.”
“I guess so.” My head was fuzzy with the meds they had me on. There was something I wanted to object to, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“These are some very positive developments, Sebastian. I think you should be proud of your progress here. You’ve rejoined the real world, the material world of flesh-and-blood people. You’ve integrated parts of yourself that you once found difficult to accept. And you may not have noticed it, but a moment ago you said something quite significant. You spoke of August in the past tense.”
“I did?”
“You said ‘before she died’. You remember that she died.”
“She drowned.”
“That’s right.” Dr. Perry reached across and squeezed my hands, clasped on the table in front of me. “Really remarkable progress. A few months ago, you were catatonic. Completely unresponsive. Look at you now. Having a conversation with me, able to distinguish between what is and what you wish were real. You know that they’re two different things.”
I studied my hands as he released them. Did I know what was real? Macsen had seemed so very real. But if I had no Cousin Emrys, if there was no Cantre’r Gwaelod, then there was no Macsen. Had I invented him to feel as though I was no longer alone? To feel loved when I felt unloved and abandoned by August? Her death had been devastating. I’d been angry with her for a long time for going away and leaving me all alone. What Dr. Perry was saying made perfect sense. But I could feel him. And smell him—that musky, cedar scent that made me ache in my loins. I couldn’t accept that Macsen wasn’t real. I would have to keep this bit of delusion to myself.
* * * * *
Summer and autumn passed like a distant moving picture outside the barred window of my room. Dr. Perry felt I should remain indoors until my mind was stronger. The last time I’d been out, apparently, I’d fled to the ocean and tried to drown myself, in the grip of my delusion that I could return to Cantre’r Gwaelod if I did so. I had a vague desire to be out in nature, especially on days like this one when the rain battered steadily against the fertile earth in the patients’ garden across the quad, but my medication had dulled any feelings of restlessness.
After my evening visit to the rec room where an American program was on the television, I took my meds and went to bed. I slept well here, which was a welcome change after all the uneasy nights I’d spent at— But there had been no nights at All Fates. I kept forgetting. No nights at Llys Mawr. Those were imaginary. Maybe it was simply better sleep because I was getting better. Didn’t really matter. My mind was drifting into the place of dreams. And that was where Macsen was.
Except I was drowning.
I couldn’t move or open my eyes, but the sensation of water filling my lungs was overwhelming. I struggled to breathe, but my struggle was internal. There would be no sign to anyone observing me that I was even in distress. If this was a dream, it was the worst I’d ever had.
I tried to remember how I’d breathed when Macsen and I had shared my breath in the garden at Llys Mawr that first time, how I’d breathed beneath the surf after he’d thrown me off the promontory before I’d opened up the portal to this realm.
But those things hadn’t happened. I wasn’t magic. I repeated the phrases the doctor had encouraged me to say to myself when I began to slip. There was no Cantre’r Gwaelod. I was not a feudal lord of a sunken cantref. But I couldn’t bring myself to say even in my head that there was no Macsen.
Now I was certain I was dying. Someone was thrusting locked palms against my chest, trying to revive me, giving me the breath of life. I was hovering outside myself, watching it, unable to feel—classic dissociation, Dr. Perry would say.
“I’m afraid he’s gone.” The nurse on duty shook her head, glancing at her watch to write down the time. Beside me on the nightstand was my empty pill cup. She picked it up. “I think he swiped extra meds. Gave himself an overdose. Poor thing. I thought he was getting better.”
Chapter Thirty
I was aware of nothing after that but a colorless blankness, which seemed right by my idea of an afterlife. Remaining consciousness waiting to ebb as the last bits of the brain’s electrical impulses tried to fire.
“Sebastian.” Someone was shaking me. Was I wrong about the afterlife?
I opened my eyes, and August stared down at me. So we were both dead. She’d drowned after all.
Her face lit up in a grin. “He’s back! Thank the Fates.” She tugged at something at my chest, a zipper on a cocoon.
“Get him out of that.” This second voice, deep and masculine, sounded familiar. “No one wants to wake up in a body bag.” The speaker came into view as the casing around me came away. “Hey, there, Sly.” A ruddy, bearded face with a wide grin and piercing blue eyes topped with a shock of blond looked down at me, and a large hand rested on my head, ruffling my hair. “Thought we’d lost you for good.”
“Sven?” My voice came out in a weak rasp, and August held a glass of water to my lips. I drank gratefully. “Are you dead too?” I asked him when she took the glass away. But he hadn’t ever been alive, had he? He was another figment of my imagination.
“No one’s dead, Sebastian,” said August. “Sven and Dafydd got you out of that awful place at last. Sven gave you a dose of baclofen to slow your heart and make it seem like it had stopped beating. Then Dafydd stole you from the hearse on the way to the morgue.”
“He what?”
“Come on, let’s get you somewhere a little more comfortable.” Two sets of strong arms lifted me to my feet and guided me to a plush couch.
I glanced from Sven and the other man to August in confusion. “But…am I sick again? You’re dead, August. You died on our thirteenth birthday. I only imagi
ned you came back. I imagined it all.”
Sven sat on the edge of the cushion and patted my arm reassuringly. “I told you they had him all mixed up. Drugged him. Made him think he was crazy and Cantre’r Gwaelod never existed. Didn’t even recognize me when I gave you your medicine tonight, did you, Sly?”
“You did?”
August observed me with concern. “You remember coming here to the upper realms and discovering I hadn’t died at all, don’t you?” She hugged her elbows, and beside her, the older man who must be Dafydd put his arm around her. “You remember—you remember what I tried to do to you?”
“That happened?” I rubbed my hand against my brow as my head began to ache. “It happened. You tried to kill me.”
“I’m so sorry, Sebastian. I…” August shrugged, looking helpless, tears in her eyes as they’d been on that day when she’d taken me to the beach to shoot me.
“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Dafydd offered. “We thought it was the only way. Alis—August—didn’t want to do it. I should never have sent her to do it.”
“Because I failed, you mean.” August hunched her shoulders away from him, but he pulled her back and kissed her forehead.
“And I’m so glad you did, sweetheart. You never would have been able to live with it if you’d managed. It never occurred to me we could simply make Sebastian seem to be dead and solve the problem that way just as well. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“So you’re her priest of Mererid.” I studied his face. Distinguished but somewhat shaggy graying hair suggested he might be in his early fifties, with kind blue eyes that crinkled with smile lines at the corners when he looked at my sister. He seemed a decent sort, despite what I’d imagined. He obviously adored August.
He nodded. “I am. A concept I’m sure you’re none too fond of at the moment, but it has been my life’s work to find Mererid’s heir. And your sister has done so much more than you know. She’s rather amazing. Don’t be too hard on her.”
She’d gotten me out of that fate-forsaken sterile prison. That was for certain. “So Emrys—he’s real too. And he’ll still be after me. I’m still a dangerous weapon.”
“He won’t,” said August, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. “The death certificate has been filed legally. Dafydd found another…body…to put in your place. Sebastian Swift is no more.”
I looked up at her, afraid to ask the most important question. “And Macsen?”
She shook her head, her eyes sorrowful. “He never returned.”
“He’s been in fine form,” Sven said derisively. “The lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod has been cleaning out Thievesward, withholding water from his reservoirs until he exacts exorbitant taxes from his tenants. He’s as tight-fisted as that father of his ever was.”
My gaze shifted to him. “Was?”
“Emrys has been here in Cardiff,” said August. “Ever since he abducted you. Managing his business affairs. And stealing your magic, I assume. Were you never aware of it happening?”
I shook my head. “Never. Until tonight. They had me so sedated and confused I couldn’t even access the magic myself, so I’d begun to believe I’d imagined it. But then, tonight, I thought—I was dreaming of drowning, and I thought for a moment it was happening again like before. But then my heart stopped. Or slowed, I suppose. And I could see the whole room from above myself. There was no Emrys. No apparatus for collecting my breath.”
August’s look was skeptical and reminded me of those I’d received from doctors at the asylum. “You couldn’t have seen yourself. You weren’t dead.”
“Might’ve been,” Sven said. “For a moment. They gave him CPR. Still wasn’t enough of a pulse to measure, but maybe he was gone and they brought him back without realizing.” Sven gave me a sort of apologetic, slightly embarrassed shrug. “Might’ve given you too strong a dose.”
“You were there? When they revived me?”
“In the hallway. Scared me out of my wits, to tell you the truth. I’m damn glad I didn’t kill you, Sly.”
I laughed to cover the shaking in my limbs at how close I’d come to dying. “So am I, Sven. So am I. Though I’m still not sure how you got here.”
Sven nodded at August. “Your sister’s doing.”
August looked chagrined. “I should have told you, Sebastian. It’s one of the things I kept from you. That night when I took you from All Fates and left you at Sven’s doorstep—it wasn’t an accident. I told you I was in communication with our operatives in Cantre’r Gwaelod.”
I stared at her a moment, slow on the uptake, and then my head swung toward Sven in disbelief, my mouth hanging open.
Sven shrugged. “The Priestess of Mererid asks you to take the lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod under your wing, you don’t argue.” He grinned sheepishly. “Maybe I did it a little too enthusiastic.”
“You knew who I was the whole time.”
“When you didn’t reveal your true identity,” said August, “Sven played along, leading you in the idea I’d come up with myself—to impersonate me, as part of a rook to take ‘Sebastian’s’ money, complete with my ring to entice you to take the bait. What I didn’t tell him was that you shared the Cantre’r Gwaelod magic, since you remained unaware of it yourself. As a follower of Mererid, Sven knew only that I was her descendent and possessed power over Cantre’r Gwaelod’s water in order to protect its source. I thought it best to keep it that way. The more people who knew you were dangerous, the more danger you would be in.”
I studied Sven’s face. “Then that story you told me about stumbling into Cantre’r Gwaelod accidentally—”
“Fates’ honest truth.” Sven crossed his heart to underscore the oath. “I only learned about Mererid and the priestess here from others who’d come across.”
“I’d never met Sven in the flesh,” said August. “When I came to you in Cantre’r Gwaelod, though it was our connection that let me find you, it was water magic that allowed us to see each other. A connection could only be opened through that medium. And it was how I’d been able to communicate with our operatives, bending the water of Cantre’r Gwaelod to bend light across the realms. You weren’t the only one who could see me, even though it was your connection to me that formed the image of me you envisioned.”
I thought back to all the times she’d appeared to me as her “ghost”. Something didn’t quite ring true. “But it wasn’t always through water. Those times in my room at Llys Mawr…” My words trailed off as I remembered how her appearance had changed on those occasions. How much more solid she’d seemed. “You were actually there.”
August nodded. “You were in danger. I could feel what was happening to you, so I crossed over. Sven got me inside, and Abigail helped with my wardrobe.”
“Abigail?” I gaped at my sister, turning in disbelief to Sven. “She knew too?”
“She didn’t know about the upper realms,” said Sven. “She just knew we were…” Sven’s voice trailed off as his cheeks went pink.
“Pulling a rook on me,” I finished, and Sven lifted his shoulders, palms out, as if to say, Guess the jig is up.
I shook my head, feeling foolish at having fallen for the game I’d thought I was part of—even the ruse I’d thought I was pulling on Sven, he’d been fully aware of—and amazed at the intricacies of August’s plan.
“I didn’t know what you could handle,” said August quietly. “I didn’t know exactly what Emrys had been doing to you. And then when I did, I wasn’t sure how it might have affected your mind.”
“I suppose I can’t blame you for that.” I sighed. “And you think he continued it here. That’s why they kept me drugged, just like before. He kept—‘harvesting’ me.”
August nodded. “Why wouldn’t he? Why else take you?”
“But he had so much already. Why would he need more?”
She folded her arms with an indelicat
e snort. “Greed, of course. Or perhaps…” She glanced at Dafydd with some silent communication.
“Perhaps what?” I demanded.
“Perhaps Macsen did what he promised after all.”
* * * * *
I pondered the possibility as I lay staring at the ceiling in Dafydd’s guest room later that night. Sleeping on my own after having medication to ease me into it for more than half a year had left me unable to remember how one put oneself to sleep.
If Macsen had destroyed the vials as he’d intended but never returned, what did that mean? He could so easily have kept a vial or two for himself before carrying out the destruction of Emrys’s stores. If he hadn’t…then he hadn’t meant to return, just as August had warned me.
I laughed at myself as I watched the shadows thrown on the ceiling by the lights of passing automobiles. Of course he hadn’t. In Cantre’r Gwaelod, he was a king. He had power and respect and great wealth, all the things he’d so bitterly envied of August and me as a boy. And without me there, he never had to fear exposure again, nor fear his father. Not after the initial repercussions, anyway.
If he’d destroyed the vials, Emrys would have almost certainly had him beaten or whipped. Or worse. I didn’t want to imagine worse. But even after such a betrayal, Emrys would still have needed him. The title and the land were everything to Emrys. So whatever “worse” Emrys might have done to him, it would not have been fatal. And yet Macsen hadn’t come back to me. Even Emrys’s worst wasn’t enough to make it worth leaving all he’d acquired in donning my name—my life—to be with me.
I started violently at a quiet knock on my door. The asylum—not the one in Cardiff, but All Fates—hadn’t quite left me.
“Sly? You awake?”