The Secrets Amongst the Cypress

by Cradit, Sarah M.

  “Your words make no sense,” she insisted, drawing closer. “You only just met her! Who is she to you?”

  “Who are you to me?” he answered. “Is another way to ask the same question.”

  “You speak nonsense.”

  “I speak of a truth that is not yet yours.”

  Ophélie laughed. “You speak like a man drunk on his own importance! What compels men to think no woman could ever grasp the complexity of their mind? Are we not creations of the same God?”

  “You take my words as an insult when they aren’t intended that way at all,” Victor answered. He lifted the candelabra and narrowed the space between them. “You are capable of many, many things, Mademoiselle Deschanel. Far more than you know. But you will.”

  “You know nothing of my house. Of my family,” she said carefully, lifting one bare foot and resting it behind the other, backing away slowly. “Or of our honored guests.”

  A peaceful smile settled over his face. “Ophélie, I am not your enemy.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “Someone who would see you whole were it in my power. Someone who will do the same for Amelia, if I can.”

  “One has nothing to do with the other.” Ophélie’s hand trembled. She wondered if it had done so all along.

  His smile broadened, and he tilted his head to the side. Watching her. “You say that with the conviction of one who does not believe his own words at all.”

  “Only one who is tired of odd words from a strange man!”

  He reached a hand to her cheek. Ophélie recoiled but was rooted in place, unable to move. She needed to know what would happen next and summoned the courage to find out.

  His palm cupped her cheek, and a wave of warmth passed through her. She did not know why she leaned into his touch, or why it comforted her. Why she craved it.

  “Why are you here, Victor?” After tonight, she had earned consent to use his name.

  “I am here as much for you as I am for her. But only one of you can yet be saved,” he answered, now turning away from her, toward the door, toward Amelia.

  Amelia awoke clutching Jacob’s nightshirt in her sweaty palm. He slept soundly, his face pressed into her hair. At peace, she thought with a grateful, inward smile, for she was not at all at peace herself, and after tonight, she might never be.

  No question remained in her mind… she needed to speak with Ophélie. Aside from her dreams as Cerridwen, Amelia had never, not once, dreamed as someone else and could no longer ignore the half dozen she’d had under this roof. The last one had screamed at her, but what message it sent only Ophélie knew. And if she did not…

  Well, then it was official. Amelia was going mad.

  Either way, she had to know. Tonight. For her sake and for Jacob’s.

  She managed to slip from the room without rousing Jacob, but she wasn’t alone in the hall. The other individual didn’t see her, but before she ducked back into her own room to avoid detection, she garnered a clear and shocking view.

  Jean, stumbling from Ophélie’s room. He hadn’t even bothered to buckle his trousers.

  An immediate burst of rage rendered Amelia dizzy. She clutched the doorframe. If she had the power to change the course of history, she would have killed Jean on the spot. She could have done it, too. Jacob had trained her to fight over the years, and this man-child was no more than a whiny bully, taking power from those too weak to fight back.

  Amelia was not weak. The woman who had survived the wrath of Baldur was not a victim. If she had to take Ophélie from this place tonight, rules be damned, she would.

  With the idea settled in her mind, she realized that was exactly what she intended to do. If not the plantation, then the time. Ophélie could not stay here a moment longer. Let anyone try to stop her.

  Once she heard the lock of Jean’s door click, Amelia snuck back out in the hall and toward the room he’d emerged from moments ago. Amelia sprinted over on tiptoes, and once inside, she closed and locked the door behind her.

  Ophélie lay on her side, covers pulled to her chin. Tears of shock and sadness pooled in her eyes but did not spill.

  “Ophélie,” Amelia whispered. The crushing weight of a suspicion turned to reality bore down… of not pursuing this sooner. “We have to go.”

  “We won’t be going anywhere,” Ophélie replied. She pulled the blanket back and gestured to an empty spot beside her. “I’ve been waiting for this, Amelia. For you.”

  Amelia searched the room for a robe or something to throw over Ophélie. “No, we have to go. We can talk when we’re safe, but you can’t stay here anymore. Not with him.”

  “Amelia,” Ophélie said again, her tone firm and tinged with hardness. “We don’t have time, mon cher. You’re here for a reason. You’ve known that, and you know it more now, or you would not be here. You would not have dreamt of me or awakened this night to come find me. You know this, and yet you still fight.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Amelia replied, grabbing a handmade afghan from a nearby chair. “You poor thing, I know what it’s like to have… I’m sorry I didn’t do something sooner. I really am so sorry, but I’m making this right, and we’re leaving. I can take you nearby or Jacob and I—”

  “I know what Jacob can do. I know what you can do,” Ophélie answered. She appeared perfectly cool and collected in sharp contrast to Amelia’s frenzy. “I know everything now, and it’s time we talk. Can you trust me?”

  “Trust?” Amelia parroted, gawking. “I’m asking you to trust me, sweet girl. We have to go! If your mother wakes…”

  “Stop and listen to me!” Ophélie cried, throwing the blanket off the bed. “You sought answers but would not hear them. You have seen the truth, Amelia Deschanel, but have refused to acknowledge it. I am offering you a path to find it now!”

  The words pushed the air from Amelia’s lungs as her mind pulled together the sum of Ophèlie’s words. Amelia Deschanel. You have seen the truth. I am offering you a path.

  “How…” She swayed on her feet, falling into the armchair next to the bed. “My name. How?”

  Ophélie, instead of rushing to her aid, smiled a sad smile. “Allow me to show you.”

  XXX

  It seemed right, and somehow perfect that Ophélie and Amelia would come to the edge of their final realizations together. But Amelia needed that one last push, and so Ophélie slipped her hand through Amelia’s and closed her eyes.

  Ophélie’s vision went dark at the moment of connection. From Amelia’s gasp, she experienced the same thing, and Ophélie understood whatever happened next, whatever they saw, would happen together.

  A series of disconnected images flashed across the space of their minds.

  Ophélie, a young girl of five, sitting underneath the shelter of a cypress tree on the bayou bank, perched between the knobby knees. In one moment, she was trying to catch fireflies, and in the next, the wind had been knocked from her chest as if stricken. You won’t live to see your seventeenth birthday, said the voice.

  Amelia, not much older, was coloring a drawing far beyond her age and skill, of a medieval castle surrounded by a lush emerald landscape. A young woman with white, windblown hair awaited at the bottom steps for a knight far in the distance. You will find happiness, but you will endure a great struggle.

  Cerridwen, a girl of twelve, standing with her arms crossed tight over her chest, watching the figure through the inferno on the other side of the bonfire. She knew him. This was no ordinary flicker of recognition, but rather a flame rising high within her heart. Cianán, the flame said. I will always know you, as I will always know myself.

  Ophélie, fresh off her fifteenth birthday. Drunk on happiness and an abundance of sweetmeats. She swayed with joy to her bedroom, eager to pass out in the bliss of overindulgence and daydream of life with her intended, Lestan de Blanchefort. As she closed her door—hands, familiar hands—came around her waist. “It’s time,” he panted. “We have work to do for Maman.” Some e
lements of our fate we must accept. This is yours. Only you can bear this cross, and bear it you must, for there are events of importance at stake bigger and greater than you.

  Amelia, dangling from a hook in a hazy cabin. As yet uninjured, but she was no fool. If she made it out alive, she wouldn’t ever be the same. Jacob wouldn’t be either. And as the blade from Baldur’s dagger caught the light, she wondered if death might instead be a mercy. No, not death for you. What you become from this prepares you instead for so much more.

  Cerridwen, hand-in-hand with Cianán, standing before the goddess. The time will come when your memories fade, and your hearts grow weary. And it is then I shall turn my hope to you and pray my wisdom and faith holds as true as yours has.

  Cerridwen, praying beneath the crann bethadh for strength. She had been through many, many cycles, always searching for a sign the end was near. The goddess did not often reply directly. She was more likely to write the answer upon Cerridwen’s heart. But, when she did, the gift was beyond her comprehension. You and Cianán near the conclusion of the endlessness of your journey. No matter the words I give you now, they will not prepare you for the next stage. You were born knowing, but you will cease to do so. Your knowledge must come from within, from yourselves, and from your shared faith.

  Ophélie, running through her mother’s garden, flying as far away from the plantation as her feet would carry her. Cerridwen. The name bounced off the corners of her mind. Of her heart. Cianán. Ophélie thought she could accept her fate, but she could not! She was meant for so much more. And her Victor… her Cianán. You have served the goddess better than any before you. What is asked of you is unthinkable, yet inescapable. To serve me, you must serve Amelia, and assist her to her own purpose. Nothing will be in vain, Ophélie. You come to me in love.

  I await you, as I awaited you in many other lifetimes, with the loving arms of the eternal mother.

  Amelia fell back against the bedpost. She withdrew her hand, but it dangled midair, lost for purpose. Her mouth hung slack; her cheeks were as white as her hair.

  “Please say something, Amelia,” Ophélie pleaded, breathless. She had known the truth before the visions, but the brutal clarity had rendered her equally wowed.

  “I…” Amelia closed her eyes. Her breaths came short and painfully measured, the way Fitz struggled after any exertion.

  “Would it be helpful if I told you what I know?” Ophélie steadied herself against the other end of the bed. This was her task. Her test. If she failed it, her entire life, all her struggles, would have been for naught.

  Amelia closed her eyes, her breathing coming heavier now. She nodded.

  “Cerridwen,” Ophélie whispered. Their eyes met. “Lifetimes we’ve shared as one and the same, and yet now we sit before one another, two bodies, one soul. Do you remember being me?

  “No,” Amelia said quietly.

  “No great shock,” Ophélie said. “To get here, your intentions needed to be unfettered. I hope you never do find your recollections of life as me. You’ll find little joy and much pain.”

  Amelia’s eyes fluttered open. She watched Ophélie with a millennia of sadness. “I wish it were different.”

  “Your dreams… I didn’t send them to you, but I know of them, for I had them too. Except in my dreams, I was you,” Ophélie began. “I do not know who sent them. The goddess, perchance, or our own minds, bloated with the knowledge of who we were and always have been, struggling to breach the surface.”

  “In front of me… all along,” Amelia mumbled. She crossed her arms and pulled them in, drawing them across her like a straightjacket. “How did I not see it?”

  “Papa says we are incapable of witnessing simple reality because our minds are always searching for the complex.” Ophélie looked down. “It took me years to assemble my own truth. Once you arrived, I couldn’t stop the flood. I knew you were not a lady from England, and I also knew it was I who was responsible for your arrival.”

  “How?”

  Ophélie smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know. All I can tell you is what I do, and it is not a cheerful story, I’m afraid, but it is mine to tell, and now it is yours if you will hear me.”

  “Please, tell me,” Amelia said. “Whatever it is… maybe we can change it.”

  They could not change it. This was the message Ophélie had been sent all the years of her life, since the morning in the swamp when she had been given a glimpse of her own fate. The goddess had, in recent hours, confirmed her worst fears but had also given her the strength to face them.

  “I believe,” she started, “that all our lives as Cerridwen have been surrounded with purpose. But as we have neared the end, where the heirs of the four tribes are to come together and provide the means for our salvation, that purpose grows more prevalent. In my life, more savage. All have been united by the purpose of seeing you born. Only you can satisfy your part of the prophecy. Not I, nor any of the Cerridwens before us. Do you remember the words of the goddess?”

  “Vaguely. I know the meaning.”

  “They are embossed upon my heart. It is only with my recent gift of clarity that I see them as clearly as I should,” Ophélie said, smiling. “Two millennia of wars and strife, which cannot be avoided, but can be stopped. One descendant from each of the four to emerge. Four become two, their offspring the peace that unites the two races again.

  “From Falias, a male, draoi, pure of heart and an affinity for creatures.

  “From Murias, a female, born of fire and darkness.

  “From Findias, a female reincarnated over the many moons.

  “From Gorias, a male, draoi. The lover of the Findias heir.

  “A son shall spring from Falias and Murias. Findias and Gorias join after many reincarnations, bringing forth a daughter. This son and this daughter will join together, in peace, uniting the Quinlans and Empyreans once more, thus ending the long days of war.

  “You, Amelia, are the heir of Findias. You perhaps have heard those words, but in your heart, you have never fully accepted this fact,” Ophélie continued, patiently. “I am as well, but my life has only ever been to serve the goddess in delivering you toward your intended fate.”

  “I know who I am,” Amelia defended, pulling herself straighter on the bed. “But there’s a difference between knowing and accepting.”

  “Oh, I believe I know all about that. You see, I have known for more than a decade that I was destined to die before I was ever to be wed. I have understood that I would know no man’s arms except my brother and the soldiers who would take Ophélie for their own during the Great War. I have known a child will be conceived of these horrors, another child, and who the father is, no one can say. My father will take my life to spare me further injustice, an act of both love and treason. He will know I can never be given as a bride to anyone after all the abuse. And my mother will loathe him to the point of taking her own life, though not out of grief for me but for the death of her own designs.

  “It took the span of many years to pull these truths together, but that knowledge is mine. I have known these things, but they are not so easily accepted. I take faith in the story of our Lord, Jesus Christ, as He moved through his own human incarnation with grace and faith, knowing the torture He would be subjected to by following his path.” Ophélie blinked away the threatening tears. There was no place for them here, or anywhere. Not anymore. “Yet I believe my origins are not with Christ, but with the goddess. And, like Christ, the goddess never asks more than what we can handle.”

  “What kind of goddess would ask that of you?” Amelia cried, pitching forward. “How could anyone claiming to love you ask you to endure so much?”

  “For you,” Ophélie said. “For our salvation.”

  “That makes no sense.” Amelia shook her head. Her color had returned. “You do not need to suffer for me to thrive. That’s completely ludicrous!”

  “Not when you see it through the eyes of the goddess. It was foretold you would endure a great test b
efore achieving your fate. This trial the goddess could not prevent… she has not that power… but instead, she sent you to bear witness to my own.” Ophélie inched forward on the bed, pressing closer to Amelia. “I, too, know what it is to have everything taken from me. I have been stripped of my joy and my self-possession and have been given nothing to replace it. I am a void of what I could be.”

  “Then let me take you away from here. We can still change this!”

  “You still don’t understand,” Ophélie said with a sigh. “I have not agonized in vain, sister. I have suffered so yours may end. And given a chance, I would do it again, and again, as your prosperity is also mine. I am not meant for joy in this life, but it is mine in the next, as it is yours. If I do not sacrifice myself, I cannot pass forward my strength in experience to you now. Amelia, I was with you in that cabin. Do you not know where your grit comes from? I can endure. I have. As have you. But it is not enough for you to endure. You must also flourish.”

  Amelia’s thoughts, even to Ophélie who understood her heart better than anyone, were a mystery. But something within her seemed to shift as if shrugging off the burden of doubt. The effect was both visible and breathtaking to behold. “Why fate decided it should be me to survive this, I don’t know,” she said. “It seems so unfair that any of us should suffer this much as a means to an end.”

  “We all suffer. Not all of us make it through,” Ophélie replied. She felt now as if she was truly speaking through the soul of Cerridwen, and no longer from the lips of a young woman. “If you don’t persevere, all we have survived will have been for nothing. We will have all given everything, only to fail in the end. You say I have carried a burden, but I cannot imagine yours.”