A Court For Fairies (Dark Heralds Book 1)

by Lynn S.

  His wife didn’t allow him to finish. Just moments before, she was serving a cup of wine, a nice merlot for Neil, as they usually did after dinner, and then in seconds she was taken by such fury that she smashed the carafe through the crystal table.

  “My blood! My blood, or none at all!” she screamed, as if possessed, while her husband rushed to her aid. Isabel had opened a deep gash in her arm when it slid through the table’s glass top. Neil turned the woman’s arm up to try to contain the blood that had started running freely, staining sleeve and floor in quick, thick drops.

  The sun was quickly setting behind the artificial range of skyscrapers, and whatever was left of light shone in right angles. Half of Isabel’s face was cloaked in shadows while her other half was bathed in golden, dying light. Her eyes, usually dark brown, gleamed with emerald green.

  “What the hell?” Neil let go of her arm to hold her by the shoulders, shaking her roughly. His own fear made him forget about what he thought was her distress. “What was that, Isabel? What happened to your eyes? Answer me!”

  His wife just blinked and that evil gleam was lost to her eyes, which now were opened wide, dark and fearful. Raising her hands, she showed then to be blood stained, but without a sign of an open wound.

  “What are you talking about?” Her voice rang with concern and the slight tremor of fear. “For the love of God, Neil, you have a cut in your arm!”

  O’Reilly knew something was wrong, and for precious seconds he tried to hold on to his reality, but it quickly dissipated and a new memory took its place…Isabel screamed, and so did he, and he was the one who took the carafe off her hands, violently hitting the table, pushing through the glass. It was his fault, his savage exchange…his loss of control…

  “I…I….” He noticed Isabel was okay, a little startled, but all right. It was his arm that was cut, though not as severely as one might have thought for the amount of blood on glass and floor.

  He was about to apologize, but as he turned, confused, trying to piece together what brought their argument to such a violent conclusion, he saw the green glow in his wife’s eyes once again for the briefest moment, right before it dissipated from her reflection on the terrace glass door.

  That night, he decided to sleep in the guest room. Isabel tended to his cut, which needed a couple of butterfly stitches, but she did so in silence, and he didn’t feel like bringing it up.

  He didn’t want to hear her version of what happened for fear of listening to, word by word, a description of the alternate memory that struggled to get hold of his conscious self. And for once, his wife didn’t want delve into what happened, opting for a quick forgive and forget.

  The cut on his arm burned, and though it was not deep, he woke up several times through the night to find the bandage humid as three persistent droplets kept staining through the gauze.

  It must have been close to three o’clock in the morning when Isabel opened the door. Neil was awake, but feigning a drowsy, heavy movement, he turned on his back, eyes closed.

  “I know you are awake.” And suddenly, to Neil’s perception, this was not just a lucky guess from his wife. For a moment, he had the creeping certainty that she could hear his heartbeat, make out the flutter of his eyelids and the cold sweat running from the base of his neck down his shoulders. He knew it was no use to keep silent and ignore her. She approached, no need to turn on the light, and lay beside him.

  Her delicate fingers danced, playing with his hair, breaking the cold fever that started to engulf him. All about her brought him in—the soft kisses right behind his earlobe, the coolness of her night gown against his skin, arms that found their way to his chest, caressing, finding the way to his heart.

  She continued unveiling her desire for him as he, becoming tormented, tried to wrap his head around what happened earlier that evening. The fever never altered his mindset completely, he didn’t quite forget it all. Conflicting images flashed through his memory. And though his body answered her claim involuntarily, his panicked mind tried to recall if all the decisions he had made since he met her were truly his.

  It was impossible to pretend he was asleep. Isabel asked him to turn and face her and he did. He heard her voice in the dark, interrupted enough to draw a smile between words. His wife then pronounced something that would have made him the happiest of men, had he heard it a day before.

  “I am sorry, love. The argument was blown out of proportion. I was intransigent and you…well, you were volatile. I was hurt, thinking that you might have spoken to strangers about frustrations that are just mine to bear. I lost sense of it all, and worse, I ruined the surprise.” She kissed his face gently, knowing that he wouldn’t allow himself to turn passionate, not yet at least. And it was okay. “Neil, sweetheart. My mother is coming in a couple of days. I need her to stay with us for a while. You see…she will come in handy because…because I will have a child.”

  I will have a child. The declaration excluded him. He had been used and quickly discarded. As Isabel pressed for that second kiss, Neil was lost in her scent and kissed her as she wanted him to. Lost in the luscious invitation of her lips. His life was drained like nectar by the woman who, until that night, had pretended to be his loving wife.

  Chapter VIII

  The Rose Garden

  Marissa exhaled, frustrated. Her mother was a peculiar creature who seemed to have brought her into this world in order to cross out an event on her own journey. For years she had been keeping her away, and now it bothered her to feel like Adriana had anything to give her, even if only words to make her feel better.

  “Your mother is not that terrible,” Esteban used to tell her whenever the drama between the two bled over into their domestic life. “It is a matter of perspective. What you call vulgar and insufferable, I’d call her staple extravagance. Sure, she is territorial and slightly aggressive and you’d love to send her packing. Guess what? That’s the cross of the only child. I should know. You have been sailing against the current for twenty odd years and here I am, the dreaded boyfriend…and Adriana loves me. Why? ’Cause I get her, and leave her room to breathe.”

  Esteban used to say this while laughing at her outbursts, but it was nothing short of the truth. Her mother was partial to Esteban in a way she had never seen Adriana behave toward any other. Marissa was jealous, for all the right reasons. It was evident that her mother and Esteban’s relationship was purely on the filial side. He came to be the child Adriana wished for herself and she fixed it by merely congratulating Marissa on a great catch, as if Esteban were a rainbow trout.

  She tried to keep him away from Adriana as much as she could. Knowing all about her mother, Marissa was privy to aspects of the gregarious forty-something from Queens she’d rather keep in the dark.

  Sometimes she tried to explain it to Esteban, but it was so easy to slip into self-ridicule when one worked around metaphors about moths and flames. So she’d rather have him call her irrational at worst, silly at best. It was a lot better than delving into secrets not meant to be shared.

  Now that he was dead, Esteban was no better than a what if. Though she loved him dearly, Adriana didn’t even go to his funeral. It had nothing to do with her dislike of Isabel, whom she had met but once, and briefly. It had to do with death itself; Adriana hated when a situation had no foreseeable remedy.

  When Marissa had knocked on her door, teary-eyed and broken, her mother shook her by the shoulders and coldly asked, “Mariushka, are you completely sure that he is dead?”

  Her daughter simply nodded, and it was not until then that Adriana embraced her, kissing the top of her head like when she was but a child. Nothing much was said or done. Her mother served her a tall glass of ice water while she decanted some more red thick spirit into a glass of her own and took her time drinking it. Adriana’s face was grim. She drank to honor the drink and no more…

  The guard at the gate pulled her from recent memories.

  “Miss Salgado. How nice to see you. I feel a bit
responsible for you, so how are you doing?”

  “Much better…Hank?”

  The man nodded, touching the brim of his hat. “Nice to know, ma’am. I’ll see you upon your return to the city. Mrs. O’Reilly relieved me from my position for the rest of your stay. Just make sure all the alarms are set. The property is usually quiet and folks are nice in these parts, but you know, being secluded and all, you can’t count on all being civil.”

  “This dismissal had nothing to do with me, right?” Marissa was a little mortified, remembering how hostile she had been against both guard and doctor the night before.

  “Oh! Not at all. It is a regular thing. I usually stay around for the first night and then take my leave. Mrs. O’Reilly is quite fond of her privacy. As I said, have a good one, and I’ll see you around.”

  Marissa waved goodbye to the guard, and after parking the SUV, walked to the back of the house to meet Carla and Isabel. The sky was overcast and gray, rumbling with the promise of thunder. It had been drizzling since midday and the heavy rains of early morning were soon to make a comeback.

  Carla and Isabel were standing at the dock that led to the fishing cabin. The water beat furiously against the trestles, white foam against wood. Trouble was brewing on the lake, echoing the skies above.

  This time, mother and daughter were dressed in different fashions, which they didn’t usually do in public. Carla kept what was expected of mourning clothes, wearing a black long-sleeved blouse and charcoal pants. Esteban’s grandmother was demure in her style. Even in the heights of summer, she’d wear those long sleeves, sealing her wrists.

  Isabel, however, shocked Marissa beyond words. Underneath the cloudy sky that made blueish-gray almost contagious, the widow O’Reilly looked radiant and youthful. Her face, makeup free, in which Marissa expected to see signs of middle age, was lacking of lines that defined expression. Dark circles under the eyes, an affliction due to lack of sleep that even Marissa had suffered from lately, were gone. Isabel spoke to her mother, amused, laughing, even, completely undisturbed. The breeze coming from the lake uncovered streaks of blue and violet in her dark hair. She wore tight jeans and a form fitting red blouse. Her hands seemed dipped in blood.

  Marissa blinked, giving herself a second to take it all in while the women, surprised by her arrival, waved and walked toward her.

  Isabel’s hands were not bleeding; she was carrying rose petals. Carla carried a bunch of stems, carefully bundled so as to avoid the thorns. There were silky crimson petals on the dock, like stains, and even more in the water, dancing along at the lake’s whim.

  “We didn’t know when you’d be back, so I decided to commemorate some of the dead.” As she grew close to Marissa and kissed her cheek, the young woman noticed Isabel’s hair, though black, was lacking of the shine she swore was there just minutes before, and the youthful appearance proved to be masterfully applied fragrant concealer and base. The festive clothes, however, were still there and the woman simply explained.

  “This day is not for Esteban, but for Neil. My husband had a unique philosophy about life, perhaps because his conditions kept him from taking part of it at the pace he would have loved. He hated funeral colors.”

  Marissa revised for the second time that day the conflicting information she kept receiving about Neil O’Reilly.

  This was a man she never knew, as he died when Esteban was merely a toddler and the subject was never brought up. Now she started wondering if it was okay to ask questions, to measure the man afflicted by several chronic diseases against the man who, though a private individual, seemed the picture of health and enjoyed fishing excursions. Both Esteban and the women insisted that Neil O’Reilly could barely make it out of a rocking chair on his best days.

  “But don’t stay there, come!” Isabel called her with a hand gesture, inviting her to trek across the garden while letting her know they were about to show her a part of the house that not all had access to.

  “We’ll show you where Esteban will be laid to rest,” Carla explained. “The house, as we explained back in Long Island, has special markings for the family.”

  They walked in a line diagonally across the outer yard that connected to the dock, where a narrow cobblestone path connected to a second garden. While the rest of the property was carefully kept with seasonal and trimmed hedges, that second garden to the east was a place of natural beauty. A wooden arch, exquisitely carved and old enough to be confused with stone in both color and consistency, marked the entrance.

  A sweet, almost fruity smell that spoke of spring clung to the air, impervious to the threat of stormy weather. Small flowers the color of wine peeked through what was left of grassy patches. To those who knew nothing about gardening, those delicate flowers might seem beautiful, but they marked the presence of a weed that eventually would grow stronger. Marissa knew that because Adriana loved to stumble upon those little crimson petal grievances, as few as they were in the city, and pull them out with gusto.

  Cobblestones soon disappeared into a dirt road. The path was uneven, broken by large, flat standing rocks they had to work their way around. There was a small pond with a few reeds sticking out, having survived the winter. Though the greenery was exuberant, there was an uncomfortable silence when it came to fauna. Not even a bird chirped or a squirrel ran about. It was as if living things ran away from there.

  It was not really a cemetery, but there were markers in designated spaces arranged in a circle, and Marissa could easily make out the already familiar pattern. North, south, east, and west, points in a spherical plane. Each marker had its own rose bush: red for Neil, white for Nathan and Daniel, whose ashes had been brought to a final rest on the property, an open space, no roses yet, marked the designated spot for Esteban’s ashes, while at the southernmost point, the furthest marker, sheltered by yellow button roses, an inscription in cursive read Evelyn.

  Isabel kneeled in front of the marker, tracing each letter with her perfectly manicured nails. She recited a prayer that escaped Marissa. Carla also repeated the words in a tongue that sounded ancient and melodic. A breeze from the south cleared the last of stray leaves, clearing the garden from whatever natural debris the early rains left behind. The amulet burned against Marissa’s thigh, making her react in surprise to the sudden change of temperature. Sneaking her hand into her pocket, she looked for the trinket Malachi had given her, finding it cool to the touch again.

  “I guess Esteban never mentioned it. Evelyn was just another name to him, an unknown relative brought here to her final rest, but you see…this is the second child of mine I consecrate onto the earth. It is more than a mother can bear.” Isabel looked directly at Marissa. Her voice faltered.

  The young woman was at a loss for words. Her eyes strayed to the marble marker, gray veins ran across the smooth surface. Chiseled in silver, right above the name, an image of a little girl adorned the marker. As if captured in motion, the girl hugged her legs restrictively and rested her head against her knees. Two delicate wings sprouted from her back, brittle butterfly wings with tones of lilac growing into indigo. It was a devastating art concept, a winged creature that had given up, finding herself bound to Earth for eternity.

  “How come he never knew?” Marissa found the idea of not knowing about a sibling inconceivable.

  “Isabel was nothing short of practical.” Carla saw fit to answer. “When Evelyn died it was so traumatic for Neil that he suppressed it all, and the girl was never mentioned again. Those were hard times. It all happened before Esteban was born.”

  Marissa felt terrible, for once she didn’t know what to do. It was either stay there awkwardly, sharing something that felt like Carla and Isabel’s affair, or leave and seem uninterested and cold. She felt pulled to extremes by these women who opened doors into their lives and then closed them in her face with their heavy silences. She waited for them to say something, eyes on the ground. The longest five minutes went by, and since the women decided not to let her in, Marissa gently touched
Carla’s sleeve, letting her know without words that she planned to return to the house. Carla nodded in approval and Marissa just placed her hand on Isabel’s shoulder to let her know as well. The widow O’Reilly never lifted her eyes from the marker.

  The young woman went back through the trail. In the distance, the promise of heavy rains had been fulfilled and soon it would be upon Innisfree. On the other side of the fence that marked the properties, a couple of horses ran wildly, while two men, also on horseback, tried to round them up. She recognized one of the men as Doctor Roberts, who had seen after her the night before. The doctor caught her looking and, motioning her to stop, trotted his horse to the fence while the other man guided the strays to the stables.

  “Hi there! I came by this morning to check on you and Mrs. O’Reilly told me you were feeling up to par, even went exploring downtown. Nice to know my prescription served you well. Sometimes giving the mind a rest from stress does wonders for the body.”

  “Leaving all stress behind in a time like this is a difficult thing to ask for, doctor. But at least your remedy didn’t pump me full of medications. Better to walk it off than to sleep it off. But let’s talk about you. The cowboy look suits you.”

  Marissa smiled widely. The doctor was warm and kind, and old enough not to trick himself into thinking she might be flirting, so he just smiled back, pointing at his clothes.

  “One of these days you’ll be fortunate to see me in practice clothes. Ha! You like horses? Then you must come by before you leave for the city.” He pointed to a huge house northeast from where they were standing and Marissa realized the doctor held at least double the land as the family with the house on the hill. “Though I can’t promise you they will be docile enough to ride. Those two have been acting weird for the last couple of days. Not even half an hour ago, they broke out of the stables. Usually, when there is a storm, they look for shelter, but it seems this time around they want to cut lose. Fortunately, Candy here is a no-nonsense girl,” he said, caressing the neck of his mare.