Autumn Mermaid (Mermaid Series Book 4)

by Dan Glover

  Lady Lily's voice had always held a special sort of enchantment for him, even as a boy. He sensed something flowing between him and the Lady though he had yet to recognize the love that was growing in both his hearts.

  "What happened, my wondrous Lily? Did she catch you?"

  "When Karen showed up at Orchardton Hall I ran away and hid. I was afraid she had returned for me and nothing I could do would prevent her from taking me back. I wanted to kill her but I was a coward.

  "Lauren stepped up. She told Karen and Marilyn to leave... that she wasn’t welcome. While I stood watching I noticed movement in the car that they were driving. I expected armed guards to emerge and demand that Lauren show them where I was hiding. Instead, children stepped out of the car.

  "I don't know why that softened my heart. Maybe it is because our own children are so rare and precious. Though my hearts cried no I allowed them to stay. I do not regret my decision. If I hadn’t relented and allowed the humans to stay, you would never have been born, my darling Nate. We three Ladies would have lived out the rest of our lives alone and in love with only each other."

  "Was Kirk there too?"

  "Yes, though it seems to me he was not inside the car that drove to Orchardton Hall that day, darling Nate. He walked out of a group of trees growing beside the road. But then again, I could be mistaken. I was still inside castle watching."

  "Didn’t it bother you that those women kept you as their prisoner, Grandmother Lily?"

  A strange sort of light had appeared in her eyes as she gazed at him for what seemed an hour before answering.

  "I have visions, my darling Nate. You are one of them. I think I surround myself with those I love knowing that my future holds an emptiness hard to fathom. It isn’t death I fear so much as an eternity spent alone."

  He had to find her. It was his fault that she had been transported somewhere both across space and time yet he hadn’t the slightest idea where to start looking for her. He wanted to unburden himself to Niall but he knew that would only be for his own benefit, not his grandson's.

  He kept seeing Lily's face, so happy and so alive, as if she had been waiting for him a long time never expecting he would appear and when he did she was delighted. It reminded him of the days of his youth spent admiring Lily from afar never dreaming that one day she would become his wife.

  "Marry me, darling Lily."

  "You are making fun of our relationship, my precious Nate. Marriage is a human sport, not one that those of the Lake indulge in."

  "I'd never make fun of the love I feel for you, my lovely Lily. I've read many stories of a man and a woman in love and how they celebrate those feelings by taking vows in front of their friends and their relatives... promising to stay together until death separates them."

  "But my sweet and sensitive Nate... death may never touch either of us. Will you feel the same way toward me in a thousand years... in ten thousand?"

  "I'll love you until the sun explodes in the sky, my wondrous Lily. All the stars will wink out and my love will still be strong. Marry me."

  He had gotten down on his knees... the way he saw it done in old picture books that he saw in the libraries he pillaged as a young man, reading everything that he could lay his hands upon.

  And finally, she said yes.

  Chapter 55—Kurgan Revisited

  "What the hell are you standing there thinking about, you little son of a bitch."

  The slap across his face brought him out of his reverie. Kirk had been daydreaming again. His father always had a ready remedy for that, either a swift kick in the butt or a smack in the jaw. Once he had hit Kirk a little too hard and knocked a tooth out but the old man only grinned showing the boy his naked gums and giving him a portend of the future.

  "I'm going to be someone important, and soon. And you'll be dead, you old bastard."

  He cussed the old man all the time... it was as if that was how they showed their love for one another, though Kirk knew better now. He had seen love, and this wasn’t it. He figured he'd had just about enough.

  The room smelled of ass and strong liquor. The great unwashed mass in front of him shuffled off into a sordid corner of the smoky shack to tumble into a frayed and overstuffed chair that dominated the space like an unwanted elephant.

  "Best be putting those thoughts right out of your head, sonny boy. You're going to grow up ugly and mean to be just like the rest of us. Now get your lame ass outside and pull the weeds growing beside the house before the village sends a notice again."

  Shaking his head to clear the residue of imagination, Kirk walked into the kitchen rubbing his jaw and wondering if the old man had left another mark on him. Just a few seconds ago it had seemed to him that he was a sort of god in the making. Now, he was just Kirk again.

  Mother was slouched over the wooden box that served as a kitchen table, drunk. Spittle ran down her chin coagulating upon one of the rough boards that supported her head. Kirk had the oddest sensation that the old woman should be long dead yet staring at the stillness of her form he saw she yet breathed.

  He'd been having the oddest dream, almost like a waking vision. Kirk found it strange that his mind was so clear... normally it was a muddled morass of half-thoughts cascading into one another in a nonstop frenzy of motion that made him dizzy and caused an incessant stuttering.

  He knew things he shouldn’t, like how to read and write. Though he was twelve years old he'd never gone to school more than a week at a time. Something had happened to him since he had gone to sleep drunk last night and awakened clear-eyed and level headed for the first time in his short life.

  A newfound strength washed through both his body and his mind. He had muscles he couldn’t recall having before and he thought how the next time the old man went to strike him, he would be in for a surprise.

  There was someone he needed to see... his name was Micah and he lived on another continent but that was no obstacle. Kirk reckoned the boy would be about twelve years old now and if he wasn’t at Cornell University now he would be there soon.

  According to the calendar hanging haphazardly upon the wretched wall next to his mother, he had roughly six months before the Great Dying occurred. He mused a bit about warning someone over what was coming but who would believe him?

  All he had to do was wait to catch up to the time where he belonged... that and contact the boy in America... it was important... they had been waylaid this time but another chance would come around soon and they both had to be ready for it if they were to succeed.

  An image of Luciana burned in his memory, a nearly intolerable pain. He soothed his guilt by assuring himself he would see the girl again though in truth he realized the odds were against that.

  "What the hell are you doing in here, boy? Didn't I tell you to get outside and mind the yard?"

  The old man loomed over him like a fallen mountain swaying drunkenly to and fro as he lifted a heavy hand. But before he could land the blow, Kirk aimed a kick to the old man's groin.

  With eyes wide, his father staggered backward before grabbing his balls and collapsing on the floor in a fetal position. Kirk picked up one of the hard metal chairs sitting by the table and raising it high into the air he hesitated for just a second, soaking in the joy of the moment.

  "What are you doing to father? Stop it, boy! You'll kill him!"

  His mother had jerked awake at the sound of the old man falling and cussing. Staggering to her feet she made two futile steps toward the prone figure on the floor before Kirk slammed the chair into the middle of her crooked spine.

  There was a satisfying snapping sound as she grunted something unintelligible and fell next to her husband who was blinking his eyes as if attempting to wake up from some horrible nightmare in which he was trapped inside.

  As they both lay twitched on the floor, Kirk sauntered over to the rotting counter where mother kept her carving knife. Taking the whet stone in hand, he sat down at the kitchen table to sharpen the blade while surveying the sc
ene in front of him.

  Mother had vomited the liquor she drank for breakfast. Her face was lying in the foul-smelling green puddle as her eyes blinked spasmodically and grunting sounds emerged from deep inside her throat. Father was attempting to struggle to his knees while muttering oaths of what he was going to do to Kirk.

  Testing the blade by shaving the hair on his arm, Kirk was sure the knife was sharp enough for the business at hand. The old man got drunk, clobbered his wife, and she grabbed the first thing her hand settled on to gouge out her husband's heart before succumbing to her injuries. It was bound to happen sooner or later... everyone knew it. And besides... they were both already dead to him and had been for a thousand years.

  The old man had a little inheritance money left over from when his mother died... enough to keep them in house and food for several years from what his father claimed. The old bastard liked to brag about it to what few friends he had when they came over on Friday nights to drink and play poker.

  It would be enough to buy a plane ticket to New York City. Once he finished the business in front of him, Kirk went into the bedroom to locate the shoebox hidden way in the back of the closet. His father had never trusted banks.

  He wondered if they had come back with him... the nanobots. If so, he would be protected when the Great Dying broke out but he didn’t want to chance it. Leaving the house and carefully locking the door behind him, he went to the corner liquor store to purchase a pre-paid credit card.

  Going to the library next he logged onto the internet to reserve a round trip plane ticket from London to New York paying for it using the card he just bought. His flight would be leaving in three days.

  When he returned home he noticed mother was still alive. She lay on the floor where she had fallen blinking and blinking as if she had a bug in her eye. Father lay next to her with a knife lodged in his chest which was not moving.

  He figured she'd be dead too by the time for his trip came due.

  Chapter 56—The Visitor

  "I don't want to leave my home, Grandfather."

  She didn’t understand why the man had come if all he was going to do was harangue her into abandoning her home. She belonged here. It didn’t matter that she was alone... soon Kirk would come for her and everyone would understand why she stayed for so long.

  "Your mother is worried about you, darling Luciana. Your home here is no longer fit to live in. At least allow me to help you find a more suitable habitat. Perhaps if we go inland we'll find a dwelling that isn’t as ravaged by the salt water mists as this one."

  It was a conspiracy. She realized that now. They all desired to force her away from the Isle of Skye so Kirk would never find her again. She wondered how they could live with themselves knowing they were driving a wedge between two lovers who were meant to be together until the end of time.

  "If I leave the sea side I'll be lost to him, Grandfather."

  She wanted to make her grandfather understand. That was why she put forth all her willpower... to show him his own great loves that he had long ago abandoned to the ravages of time. She was her mother's daughter, after all. Though Ena had the gift of prescience, Luciana had learned she was endowed with the gift of giving back the old memories to those who had forgotten who they were and where they were going.

  "Then please allow me to repair your villa. The roof needs mending. I can use the long grass growing by the shores of the ocean to twist together in order to make a thatched covering that will repel rain and last a hundred years or more."

  She had seen thatched roofs in the village some five centuries ago dotting the roofs of all those old houses that had rotted away along with the rest of the old civilization that must have once flourished on the Isle of Skye.

  "You would do that for me, Grandfather?"

  "I used grass to build my shelter in old Africa. It took me a little while to get the hang of it but I'm sure I can replicate a thatched roof here too. Do I have your permission to start on it?"

  Luciana wondered if she was moving down a path toward accommodating her fate in leaving the Isle of Skye by accepting Grandfather's help but she did have to admit she needed a new roof. Lately she had taken to living in one room, the only one that didn’t leak when the rains came, or at least not nearly as bad as the rest of the house.

  She had grown used to the sneeze-inducing odor of mildew and the stench of fungus that permeated the house but she could tell it bothered Grandfather by the way he hurried through his breakfast in order to go back outside.

  "Yes, my precious Grandfather. Thank you for looking out for me."

  She decided it was best to placate the man for now. If he wished to help rebuild the old villa, she could see nothing wrong in allowing him to do so. If she had more ambition she would have tackled the repairs ages ago but nothing seemed to matter much any more.

  She often wished she didn’t have to live so long. Watching the landscape around her change with the seasons Luciana found herself desiring to wither away when autumn arrived too, just as all the plants were in the habit of doing. Perhaps she too could awaken new and vibrant in the flowering of the new spring.

  She felt cheated. Having to continue living when all she wanted was to die seemed a cruel and unusual circumstance in the otherwise continual reordering of nature. Nothing else lived so long. Luciana knew the others feared death and the forgetfulness it must bring but she relished the thought of winking out.

  It was the pain that frightened her. Watching the trees shed their leaves Luciana wondered if it hurt to lose the vivaciousness of life while slowly succumbing to the rot of death. If she was totally alone in the world she thought it might be easier to give herself over to the secret longings that pervaded her heart and sank deep into her dreams each night.

  To sleep and never wake... that was the perfect scenario... to float off into the never land of death without ever knowing. Only one thing prevented her from dosing her body with a highly toxic brew of water hemlock: she wasn’t completely certain it would kill her quickly enough. She toyed with the idea of testing her potion on Grandfather but since he wasn’t partly human like she was she couldn’t be sure the poison would affect him in the same way.

  "Kirk is dead, darling Luciana."

  She had heard those words ten thousand times over the centuries. Her family seemed to feel the need to remind her of that which she was on intimate terms with... the demise of her husband, the only man she would ever love.

  "Even if he's alive, how will he know to find you here at the Isle of Skye, my darling mother?"

  She wanted to explain all the reasons to her daughter but Candice was but a sprout of a girl who if she was fortunate would never know the immense pain of loss that accompanied the death of someone so close they were like part of her being. The girl had long ago tired of living in the decrepit villa and moved south first to Orchardton Hall and later to Edinburgh to live in the castle that Grandfather once called home.

  Luciana couldn’t explain it. She just knew Kirk would one day come home to her wading across vast oceans of time and once again they would find happiness in each other's arms.

  She had disowned Nate centuries ago. The man meant nothing to her and though he had once taken time to stop by the villa and inquire as to how she was getting on, he hadn’t showed his face there in centuries. He knew how she felt. If he hadn’t convinced Kirk to go along with him on that ill-fated trip he would still be here with her.

  "Kirk saved my life, sweet Luciana. If not for him I would have been swarmed under by those nanobots. He pushed me away and took the brunt of attack meant for me. Your husband is a hero."

  She wanted to ask him if Kirk was such a hero why was he abandoned in old New York... left in the dark, sequestered beneath the earth in a dreary tunnel that would doubtlessly decay around him and collapse with the load of centuries piled upon it.

  Nate's inconsiderate actions had cost her more than just a husband... he had taken a father from his child... he had deprived the wo
rld of a man who might well have been a savior to the human race.

  Luciana knew everyone considered Kirk a dullard. She was perhaps the only person on earth who realized the truth... that her husband was not only highly intelligent but he was filled with a compassion sorely lacking in the new world blossoming black and fetid like a malignant tumor.

  Walking outside to watch as Grandfather worked his magic in weaving together the tall marsh grasses he had gathered, she chanced to look upon the hill overlooking the villa. A figure stood there watching her. She couldn’t be sure who it was or why they didn’t come closer until she recognized how he touched the back of his hand just so to his lips and then to the tip of his nose.

  Her father had always made that same motion. But he had been away for centuries... so long in fact that Luciana had given the man up for dead, or possibly feral. Why had he returned now?

  There was trouble about.

  The thought arose in her head like a voice speaking to her... the men always came home when danger arose. They seemed to be pulled by it... like the time when Grandfather Nate had talked Kirk into going to old America with him to save Lily.

  She had a sudden insight that these good men, her father and her grandfather, were walking right into a storm for which neither of them were prepared... or were they? Perhaps they had lived their entire lives for the coming moments of doubt and pain.

  Chapter 57—Hoax

  She dreamed of Natalia.

  They were on the train again. She knew it by the motion of the rails beneath her feet. She had clamored aboard just as the train whistle was blowing and the conductor was raising the steps upon which the passengers were able to climb to reach the cars.

  He said something to her in French but she didn’t understand. She smiled at him the way she knew humans enjoyed and the old man waved her along even though he seemed gruff at having to wait for her.