by Jes Young
Matthew shook his head in disgust. “Estella never should have been a General in the first place.Everyone knows that was a favor to Francis, when she got promoted, not something deserved. Now she’s a lady’s maid with delusions of grandeur and an army at her back.”
“She’s earned her title and the respect of the entire army,” Francis spat back. “She got promoted because she deserved to be. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Who are you kidding? She got promoted for fucking you,” Matt yelled. It wasn’t like him to get so worked up. Red-faced yelling was really more Francis’s thing. “And now for some reason she has the authority to decide the course of the entire Queen’s 1000. She must be one hell of a lay.”
“Shut up,” Francis said, his voice freezing cold.
Sensing danger, Robbin got up and moved closer to our anxious circle.
“That’s enough you two,” George said. He sat up, stretched, rubbed his eyes and tucked in his shirt. “That’s enough. Estella gets a vote just like every other General. It’s been cast and that is that. She says she wants the matter of the crown settled? Let’s settle it for her. Tabitha, do you want to know about the circumstances of your birth?”
Chapter Eighteen
“Without you, without the old Magic that is here and nowhere else,” George said, touching his fingers to the center of my chest, “the Inbetween does not exist. It’s already been weakened by your long absence.”
“I know. Alex told me. He also told me that They of the Dark have never been stronger than they are now. Maybe Estella was right to vote the way she did.” George was the only one who looked like he approved. “Bring me back to the Inbetween, right now, tonight, and let me restore everyone to their full power, then go ahead and have your war, you know, when We can win it.”
They all looked nervously around the room, carefully avoiding my eyes. I saw Francis shoot George a warning look. It was meant to stop him, but it didn’t.
“They’re afraid to bring you,” he said simply.
“George,” Matthew said, the tone of his voice was a warning.
“No. No, it’s ridiculous at this point. She has to know. You want her to be queen? Then let her be. Tell her the truth and let her rule.”
He turned to me, a look of cold determination in his eye. The laughing, charming George I knew was nowhere to be seen, this was a man possessed.
“You know that your mother was attacked, yes? But no one has ever told you the circumstances of the attack, have they?”
I knew whatever George was going to tell me would be unbearable, the stillness, the tension growing in the room promised me that much, even before Alex leaned close to me and whispered, “I’m right here.”
Without warning, Robbin broke the silence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t listen to this. I just can’t.” He stood up and left the room, shoving his shaking hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. George waited until we heard the front door open and then slam it shut before he continued.
“Anyone else?” George asked.
Francis stood and left too.
“I’m counting on you to be strong,” George said. “Are you ready?”
I wanted to know. The desire to know something about my mother, about Robbin and Alex was stronger than the impulse to run from the room. The desire to know something about myself, something true, was even more intense. I could take it, whatever it was—even if Robbin and Francis could not.
George cleared his throat, announcing the start of the story.
“You know that your mother and Alexander and Robbin were all friends before your mother reached her majority and became queen but there are things you don’t know too, about the three of them. Some of this will be hard for you to hear. And you will be mad at Bennett and at me for keeping you in the dark but you should remember that we did the best we could.” He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the long speech to come. “Many years ago, your mother and Alexander were betrothed.”
I felt strangely detached from this news. It made sense to me in some sick way.
“It was a political union,” George continued. “Decided by their families long before either was born. They didn’t choose each other but they were friends, they got along well, and they understood marriage was their duty. They resigned themselves to it, agreeing to wait as long as possible before sealing the union.
“Alexander loved your mother in the way a boy loves his sister; but he was in no rush to call her wife or to give her the child that was the reason for their union.” Alex’s face was pale and drawn, his eyes glassy. I hoped he wouldn’t cry. “And the queen was in love with someone else,” George said.
The thing about bad news is it’s like a Band-Aid – best to rip it off quick.
“With Robbin. Alexander knew, we all did, but he didn’t care, because as I said, he didn’t love her either. It was agreed between them that once the date for their marriage was announced, Gwen would break off the affair with Robbin and she and Alexander would be loyal to each other. Bennett advised against it but Gwen wouldn’t listen. She swore it would be ok, that she would find a way to make it work.
“When the time came for Gwen to end things with Robbin she realized she couldn’t. She loved him too much, more than crown or kingdom. She decided she would rather give up everything to run away with him.”
“I tried to convince her to stay with me,” Alex said, just a hint of the old anger and frustration in his voice. “I begged her to stay. I begged Robbin not to take her.”
“I know,” I said, reaching up to touch his face. I remembered him asking her not to go that night he was delirious with fever. His voice had been so sad, so desperate. It didn’t sound much better right then.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“No. I understand why you didn’t.”
“I could never find the right time to bring it up.”
“It’s all right. Why don’t you find Francis and Robbin and make sure they’re OK? I’ll be fine here.”
He shook his head. “I should stay with you.”
“I love that you’re willing to stay, but as your Queen, I’m asking you to go,” I said, putting an end to the argument with a request he could not refuse. He looked thankful as he kissed my cheek and left the room.
With just the three of us left, George continued his story. “It was just the two of them on foot when they were set upon by a large group of They on the High Cross road. Robbin tried to protect her but he was just one man against many and eventually he was overpowered and beaten. They tied him up and left him lying within sight while Gwen was raped. When the attack was over Robbin and your mother were left for dead on the road. Somehow Turnbough managed to get free from the ropes that bound him. He picked up the Queen and started walking back to the Center with her in his arms. By the time Alex found them…”
Matt was staring at me when I turned back to face them. I couldn’t quite make out the meaning of his expression.
“She was never herself again…after. The spark went out in her. The Council of Our Mothers and the Winged Circle worried and fussed around her, trying to make her better, to make her whole again but she was resolute in her sadness. She wouldn’t be reached.”
Matt handed me a tissue and George paused while I wiped my eyes.
“Alexander was released from the engagement,” George said.
“He was going to marry her anyway though,” Matt added. “You should know that. He was loyal to her. But her Lightness only wanted to be left alone.”
George nodded. “Alexander went to the sea, hoping that space and time would help her to mend. Robbin left the Inbetween and came to the World to live as a human. He blamed himself for what happened to her even though no one could have protected her from it. I suppose he couldn’t bear to see her, to be reminded of it. He built the little house where he lives now and tried to forget he was anything other than a man.”
“Is Robbin my…” I couldn’t finish the sentenc
e. I knew I would throw up if I did.
“No Tab, come on. Give us some credit. Robbin swears he couldn’t be your father. He’s not your father,” Matt said.
George nodded, confirming his statement. “The Queen’s last official act was to bind you to Alexander and have the enchantments you’ve found so chafing placed upon you both. Then one night while everyone slept, she climbed the High Tower and jumped to her death.”
All the air rushed out of my lungs, leaving me dizzy. I pictured her falling, wind rushing through the useless parachute of her golden hair.
“Robbin was beaten badly, so he’s not the most reliable witness but he swears he saw King Daniel with your mother…hurting her and promising her a child. A girl who would turn the Inbetween over to him. Then you were born with purple eyes, melding the red of their eyes with our blue, and that dark, dark hair and We started to worry. There were those who wanted to kill you right then, before you had the chance to grow into your Gifts. Bennett convinced them you should be given the chance to prove yourself, to show those who doubted you that you are of the Light. Technically, you have until your twenty-sixth birthday to do it but I guess Estella is tired of waiting.”
******
I know four a.m. is technically morning, but it felt like the middle of the night as I tiptoed down the hall, passed the bedrooms where everyone else was asleep, cursing myself for not being one of the levitating Elvish. The last thing I wanted to do was wake anyone. I knew if one of my cousins got up, then they’d all get up and then everyone would have to gather around so they could all look at me while I cried for my mother and my first love and my…whatever Alex was. And I really, really wanted to avoid that if I could.
When I got downstairs, the light was on in the kitchen and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air. I would have turned around and run back upstairs but it was Alex sitting at the kitchen table.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” It was obvious he’d only been up a short while; he was dressed in a pair of old, soft looking jeans and a red t-shirt but his hair was still bed head rumpled and his feet were bare. There was a book and a cup of coffee on the table but it didn’t look like he was interested in either one. His long legs were stretched out in front of him.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“I guess it’s going around, huh?”
His voice was husky and warm when he said, “It would seem so.”
I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, thankful for the space between us. I took a long stalling sip as I tried to think of something neutral to say, hoping we could both ignore the elephant of tragedy sitting between us – sitting on my foot – for a minute. At least until the caffeine kicked in.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He picked up the book and looked at it.
It was an old copy of Tolkien’s Return of the King. There was a joke to be made there, about an Elf reading a book about Hobbits or something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “I was hoping you’d come downstairs but I didn’t want to look like I was sitting here waiting for you if you did. I brought this down so I’d have something to do.”
I could see notes Molly had written in the margins as he flipped idly through the pages. “Then why are you telling me?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed. “I can’t plan how I will act around you. When I try, I don’t always end up doing what I mean to do. I make a fool of myself one way or another every time we’re alone together. I say and do things I shouldn’t say or do and I am powerless to stop myself. I’m not used to being so clumsy around women.”
“I’m super intimidating,” I said. “I’m sure you’re still very smooth with girls of less impressive parentage.”
See how I walked right into that?
“I wanted to tell you so many times but Bennett…. Well, he keeps his secrets, doesn’t he?” He sat leaning forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees.
“He’s certainly tight-fisted with mine.” I laughed but there was no humor in it.
I looked at Alex over the top of my mug as I took a sip of coffee, aware that under slightly different circumstances, he would have been my father. Even though I had been assured that he wasn’t, part of me had worried that I’d feel weird around him in light of that information, but I didn’t. I was happy to discover that I felt the same complicated mix of emotions I always felt when he and I were alone.
“Did you love my mother?” I asked suddenly, surprising us both.
I heard him think, ‘not the way I’ before the connection between us went dead.
“Only as a friend,” he said. “I cared for her deeply but I was never in love with her.”
“Did you ever have sex with her?”
“No. With Gwen?” His eyes were wide with shock. “No. No.”
“Did you ever kiss her?”
He thought about it. “Maybe once or twice when we were first engaged. Just to see what it would be like.”
I swallowed hard and made myself ask, “What was it like?”
“Have you ever kissed someone who was wishing you were someone else?”
I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to kiss him. I couldn’t believe anyone could be in his arms and not feel completely swept away.
I sighed. “You said you were waiting for me. Why did you want to see me?”
“I always want to see you,” he said simply.
The long pause that followed made me nervous. It was a decision-making silence, full of the sound of the wheels turning in his head, not the idle, too-early-in-the-morning kind you’d expect from someone who’d been awake all night. I tried to read his thoughts as he stood and walked toward me but my on again off again ability was definitely off; the only thoughts in my head were mine.
“If you ask me to I will relinquish my claim on you and your kingdom, I will give you my best wishes for a happy future with Turnbough at your side, and then I will leave Witchwood Manor and never return.
“Tonight, listening to George talk about Gwen, I realized I am about to make the worst mistake I have ever made for a second time.” He smiled, shaking his head in disbelief of his own foolishness. “I knew Gwen was in love with Turnbough; I should have ridden out with them and stood up as their witness when their union was sealed. I was selfish and your mother paid the price for my folly. I won’t risk it with you.”
“What brought this on?” I asked, laughing nervously.
“Answer the question, Princess.”
“What was the question?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said, “because I don’t want to go.”
I shrugged, like it was all so easy. “So stay.”
“To be with you?”
“Yes, to be with me.”
The smile that lit up his face was blinding; I’ve hardly ever seen anything so beautiful in all my life. His eyes were a swirl of sky blue, sea blue and the deep gray of pebbles at the bottom of a stream.
“There’s something I want to tell you too,” I said. “The enchantment is gone. It burned off when my Gifts tried to turn me into a cinder yesterday. I thought I would feel different once it was lifted, that things would go back to the way they were before I met you. But I still feel it every time I look at you.”
“Feel what?”
My knees felt weak. I was terrified of, and absolutely ready for, whatever came next. He pulled me against him and tangled his hand in the hair at the nape of my neck, gently turning my face up to his.
“The pull between us. The thing that makes me want to touch you, taste you, all the time.” My whole body trembled while he brushed his lips softly over mine, teasing me, trembled while he gently bit my lower lip. He leaned in, pulling me close and pressing himself against me at the place where the pull originated. I moaned without meaning to, responding to his touch, the electricity of it.
“Do you have any idea what you
do to me?” he asked. He reached out and pulled the rubber band from my hair; freeing the dark waves to fall around my face.
I shook my head, whispering, “Is it like what you do to me?”
“I hope so.”
Then his mouth was on mine. His hands were sliding under my shirt. His impatient fingers sliding across my stomach, then lower. And I was just as bad. Worse maybe. I rubbed against the hard length of him. I opened his zipper and slipped my hand into his jeans, caressing him and delighting in every little noise of pleasure he made. I loved knowing my hands and body had such power over his. That was the only power I really wanted.