Jasper was exasperated and pissed. “Come out, come out Mr. Fairchild. Let’s finish playing.”
I ran over to Mom and Colin. Mom was kneeling next to Colin, who was still on the ground. She tied her scarf around his arm creating a makeshift tourniquet. He looked up and met my panicked expression. “Flesh wound,” he assured me.
I nodded. “Mom?” I whispered, “What now?” She was deep in thought, extremely focused. In the moment, she had my utmost admiration and I needed her direction.
Stuart reappeared from thin air, confiscating the gun from the other thug then making it vanish. In the meantime Jasper rearmed with a small pistol.
I hadn’t noticed Andre in all the commotion, until he made a move to take off running toward the hangar. Stuart wrestled the gun from Jasper and as Andre ran, the gun fired.
Andre stopped, staggered for an instant before he collapsed face down on the concrete.
Jasper had shot his son in the back fighting with Stuart.
He had not aimed, yet Andre was hit.
Jasper, now unarmed due to Stuart’s quick moves burrowed his manic eyes into Stuart who stood motionless. “I. Will. Kill. You,” his vengeful voice seethed.
Stuart stammered, realizing someone our age had been fatally shot, and he was indirectly responsible. “I didn’t…”
“Stuart, watch out!” The scream came from me, and he was already airborne, first straight up, then sideways, three guns firing at him in unison. He disappeared, and I hoped it was not due to accurate marksmanship.
Then from the invisible distance out of the morning fog, rapid machine gun fire made everyone drop to the ground. Stuart resurfaced draping himself over me from behind.
You’re okay, I sent, smiling to myself.
The gunshots continued but no one could see where they came from. Colin waved us toward a gated dumpster area a few yards away. Mom followed and Stuart pulled me in the same direction where we hovered low behind the large cans.
The firing stopped and for an instant you could hear a pin drop. Jasper rose, signaling his thugs toward a small airplane outside one of the hangars, leaving Andre in a pool of blood, alone.
Out of the dull morning mist a figure emerged, unidentifiable, except for the large machine gun wielded.
Next to me Mom snorted, “Well, it’s about damn time!”
The figure came into focus. “Dad?” My anti-gun, peace-loving, rock and roll father was walking toward us dressed in khakis and tank top, biceps flexed, holding a large Uzi with one arm. “Dad?”
The Cessna carrying the Bane taxied away quickly and lifted off toward where the sun would be rising if the day were clear.
When I turned to where Andre had been there was only an empty space marked by a pool of blood.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was a lot to process. Dad, aka Rambo, Colin sitting up now with a bullet wound, and Mom with her usual clinical aloofness, brushing the dust from her clothes as if she had been gardening.
My life was seriously weird.
And of course, Stuart.
To see him in full fight mode, flying around knocking people to the ground was too much.
It had all been way too much.
I never wanted anyone to die, not even Andre. Not even Genevieve.
So after retching the nothing from my stomach, which I seemed to be doing more of these days, I collapsed on the ground in total and absolute exhaustion. Someone would make sure I was transported home.
*****
Everyone gathered at the Fairchild’s again, our informal headquarters and makeshift sanctuary. I slept ten hours into the evening with vague recollection of the drive back, unsure how I ended up in Stuart’s bed.
He was stretched out next to me, an unmoving statue waiting for my eyes to open. A slight sting on my neck caused my fingers to find the bandage marking the place Jasper had cut me. As I did Stuart’s jaw tightened in anger, and I heard him flash through a myriad of revenge scenarios against the Bane.
“Hello, love.” His face was ashen, a different look for him, his eye all at once smiling, worried, and loving. The events of the last three days wouldn’t take shape in my brain. Neither would the questions. And there were many.
My first coherent thought was that we were safe and alive. No lives lost. Second thought involved the delectable gorgeous nature of my boyfriend/Guardian. I returned his smile, stroking his cheek. “Hey.”
Next I remembered Andre. “Did they get away? Is Andre dead? I didn’t see his body…”
Stuart stroked my hair as he answered. “They all left in a Cessna. No one saw what happened to Andre. Too much commotion after Sam arrived and everyone scattered.”
“Oh.” That meant they would still be after us, me.
I finished waking up, remembering my demand over the holidays that there be no more secrets kept from me, to which everyone had agreed to and once again, broken.
Why the hell didn’t I know Dad was James Bond? Everyone involved, except me, came off as military field experts, and I wondered how many more of these shoot-outs they had participated in.
“How are you feeling?” He whispered as if to keep the secret of me waking up quiet for a little bit longer.
I shook my head back and forth, warm tears melting toward the pillow, unsure how to respond. My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Regardless…he read me.
“We will tell you everything.”
When?
Wake up first, love.
Don’t ‘love’ me, Fairchild. My life is not my own. Everyone lies.
Not true. We protect.
Bullshit. My Dad? My Dad, the nerdy physical therapist is the fucking Rock? What…what do I do with that? A mother who behaves like a programmed robot with a gun to her head? ”Call everyone in here…now!”
Since I didn’t call in advance, it was a huge relief when she answered the door. She could have been traveling.
I didn’t care my eyes were noticeably red and nearly swollen shut from sobbing, or that I presented like the walking dead. “Hi, Abbey,” I sniffled, nearly collapsing in her arms.
“Layla! What a surprise!” She caught me easily, and pulled me into her without hesitation.
Wiping my nose with my sleeve, I smiled shyly hoping she wasn’t upset about the unannounced drop by. “I’m sorry to come without calling. Do you have a minute?”
She sang a laugh. “A minute? Don’t be silly and get inside.”
She herded me to the sitting room where we stayed up all night talking. Well, initially I talked and she listened. There would be no interruptions, no calls or fly by’s. I needed peace and stillness.
After making demands for Dad’s credit card for a ‘give me some freaking space’ trip and privacy without anyone trying to find me, I fled to the only person I knew who would understand my existence and offer comfort, and possibly answers. Sienna drove me to the airport, the only person I could tolerate looking at. I found profound satisfaction looking at their faces while they freaked out about me 20 raveling alone.
“I thought they had told me everything. I thought all the secrets were on the table. I thought nothing went left unsaid. Sure I was over the moon about our survival, and Colin was fine after being treated for his wound, so I listened while they filled in the blanks, answering some of my questions, and then I left. I couldn’t stand to be in the room with them any longer. Oh, and my Dad is Rambo – my geeky, Clark Kent meets Bruce Springsteen Dad is a part-time Bane assassin. He managed to keep that blocked from me. Mom probably showed him.” I blew into another tissue.
Processing aloud to Abbey wasn’t lessening the mythical absurdity of my words. I thought it would help, but instead felt like I was reading to her from some sort of bizarre yet to be published fairytale.
Abbey reminded me I was a Clear. I know truths and can read people. And no one had lied as much as withheld.
Then she just blinked and remained quiet.
“Do bean sidhe have the same emotions
as regular people? Do you get, like, astonished?” I finally asked. “I’m not being sarcastic, but you don’t seem fazed by much.”
She finally spoke. “Dear, tell me, would you have believed any of this had they simply dumped it all on you at once?”
Uh, okay Miss Smarty-pants. But I did pause for a moment to ponder the question. “Um, probably…not.”
She smiled, “Of course not. Everything is revealed in due time. I mean, I barely sold you on the idea of bean sidhe.” She patted my hand. “Is your life really all that bad?”
Abbey filled in more blanks, telling how George had been stabbed through the heart with a special silver dagger by Bane, the only way to end of the life of a soul herder, and how her mortal children died long ago. Hearing her story helped me to stop feeling so sorry for myself. I cried for Abbey. She told me not to because she loved her life.
When the sun came up I walked outside alone to flush out my head. The day was bright and cold and perfect. White, puffy clouds tumbled in synch with the wind. The sea was mellow and quiet and I recalled how dramatic the waves could be when they crashed against the rocks below. I sat on a grass-covered mound, absorbing the stillness, the peace of being alone free of head chatter. I breathed in the fresh, cool air, letting it fill my lungs and clear the webs. My ancestors had lived here, still live here. Abbey was some sort of distant cousin, and really more than that now. She told me she could never leave here, even after everything that happened. For her this was still a place of enchantment, and spirits, and vivid memories – a place where she still felt the strong presence of family.
And yes, I knew everything had come easy to me. Grades, opportunities, awards – even mind reading required no effort. Having the chance to go to England to study had been the icing on the cake, something rare for a high school student from Portland. All the events had lined up perfectly, my whole life, to lead me to this place. I remembered being compelled to search for exchange programs just to get out of the house, and finding Sixth online accepting applications for international students.
Yes, something pulled me here, to this, to Stuart.
And it was then the floodgate opened to the hidden memories of my past.
Sarah’s soul lived in me. This island, Abbey’s house had once been home.
I had been a healer, using plants and herbs to cure people. I would read their minds and bodies to determine exactly their ailment. I helped young mothers deliver their children and nursed those same children through illness.
Aloe, lemon balm, lavender, valerian, juniper, eucalyptus, and hawthorn berry – I grew them, remembered their uses, the mixtures I made, the cures they gave to those I served. I did know botany, and remembered thinking I heard Stuart send something about how I should have this knowledge when we first strolled the Botanical Gardens. You used to know all this, too, long ago.
I remembered gossiping and laughing with Abbey, her long flaming red hair and bright blue eyes bent over washing. She hadn’t changed much. I remembered comforting her as the screams climbed her throat begging for release, stroking her hair, and reassuring that she had a gift and not a curse. I remembered her dashing husband George with his golden hair and hazel eyes.
And there was Wilbur. Hate rose up at his memory. He followed me around, begging for my love when he found me alone, like Andre. Even though we were both married, me madly in love, he persisted. He persisted until I was dead – burned and dead, taking my child.
I remembered making love with Jonathan, cooking meals with him, bottling medicine with him, and his ecstatic reaction to the news of our baby. Our love was so crystal clear that tears formed in my eyes. Perfect, unconditional love. Even through the memory I could feel the pull toward him.
The same pull and same love I now had for Stuart.
I felt the overwhelming grief the night I burned, running to the sea to end my life, not grief over death itself, but over leaving Jonathan. It was only ever about Jonathan, our family.
I gazed out from where I sat, the colors sharpening in the bright light of mid-winter, the focus of objects intensifying in clarity. Blues were bluer, greens were greener and the sky was deep lavender, the puffy clouds so white they would hurt a mortals eyes. The smells were vivid too. Salt water, kelp just below the surface, the lime and moss deposits on the sea rocks. The individual plants and trees popped with their own fragrant sweetness, each unique and alive.
Had everything always looked this way but I saw through dulled senses, or was this new vision? Whatever it was, it stayed with me when I ran full speed to the house and found Abbey still in the kitchen. She turned to me and smiled showing a dazzling rack of snowy teeth, a young woman again and always.
“What am I seeing?” I asked, because I knew she knew.
She threw her head back in delight, laughing the words, “The truth of your life.”
I nodded so hard my neck nearly snapped. I kissed Abbey’s cheek quickly, embracing her before leaping toward the front door. She was stirring a pot at the stove when I turned around to explain where I was going. Go to him, she sent.
The vivid luminous colors, smells and shapes had not diminished when I stepped back outside. I was thrilled to think this was my new perception of the world.
All around me the wall, the skin that had formed on me for sixteen years began to shed, dropping and crumbling as I walked. I had to get home, to Cambridge, and hoped to catch the next flight out of Glasgow later in the day. In my rush to leave Cambridge I only purchased a one-way ticket.
He stood at the end of the driveway, smiling the crooked grin that has buckled my knees for hundreds of years, suddenly feeling the heavy loss of time apart while my soul wandered, and knowing eternity would not be enough time to spend in his arms.
I’m not sure who moved first, or if it was simultaneous motion, a natural gravitational pull to home, but I was shaking by the time I jumped into his arms, linking my legs around his hips. Crazy kissing reunited us with such tenderness and passion our tears blended together. He smelled of heaven and earth and all things in between.
He laughed joyfully, the familiar sound imbedded in my memory.
We had always been.
Existing for a time apart, but really only separated by small gaps of eternity.
And now we were home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
We traveled back to Cambridge old school. Stuart charted a small, private plane. I asked him how a “seventeen” year old could afford so much, to which he replied, “Stock market.”
Are you done running from the truth, love? He shook his head and looked at me; his expression so possessing and consuming that warmth stirred deep inside. Are you done running from me?
I love you, Fairchild.
He let out a deep breath, his fingers sliding through my hair, his lips grazing my face. “I’ve waited so long.”
He scooped me up and carried me inside his small house. After sliding me onto the sofa, we stared at each other until the light shifted, touching and caressing until it was too much to physically bear without crossing lines we weren’t ready to cross, which sent me into a hysterical fit of laughter.
Stuart was in on the joke, reading my thoughts. “I know, right? Our souls have done that thousands of times in a previous life, I’m bloody ancient, yet we still check ourselves as if we should wait.”
I nudged him hard with my elbow. “Don’t worry Fairchild. You’ll get the ‘v’ card…again.”
We stayed up all night lying next to each other talking and not talking and pulling back only to giggle about our unique situation.
It would take time to learn what he had been doing the past two hundred eighty years without me, but we had eternity to talk, and it was probably best to digest slowly.
Eternity.
A gift from George MacDonald, the unsung hero whose mission it was to join our souls back together after the murders of 1731. There would be no way to thank him except to stay close to Abbey, his bean sidhe widow who continues to silently g
rieve, damned to a long life without her partner.
The thought made me shiver. Thinking about life without Stuart now was unbearable, impossible, and that made me want to kiss him even more – a vicious, delectable cycle.
A short but formal leave of absence from school had been arranged on my behalf by Mom and the Brown’s who vouched for my guaranteed return, while Sienna collected homework assignments. Relieved I would not be viewed as a defector, I could at least finish the term and complete my year. Leaving things unfinished always bothered me.
At some point we slept but didn’t shift position all night, clinging to each other, making sure neither of us fell off the face of the earth. Two hundred eighty years was a long time, and when morning came I couldn’t refrain any longer.
“Fairchild…”
“Layla, we have been through so much, waited so long…can we solve the worlds problems tomorrow? I just want to…mmmm.” He grumbled softly, a low moan that sent my pulse racing and my heart pounding while he expertly nuzzled my neck.
What have you been doing for the last nearly three centuries? I sent him when his eyes opened.
Oh, a little of this, a little of that, love.
His vague answer made me pounce him like a tiger, playfully holding his arms down, pretending in that moment he couldn’t take me.
Answer Fairchild, or prepare to meet your doom.
He thought for a moment, reliving years and years of solitude, waking up alone, trying to fill the days.
I learned lots of languages…
So you said. Like Croatian? And piloting…?
That too. I make no apologies. Eternity is a long time and I missed you terribly. I mastered several instruments…
Like?
Violin, guitar, piano…
You need to teach me piano. Are you good?
The question made him pause, and I guessed the answer. He was good.
Uh…I was a fairly well known concert pianist at the turn of the century.
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