by Rose, M. J.
She fell, blood streaming from the wound. Her eyes were wide, looking up at her husband. “Me instead, please.”
Owain bent down to her, this woman of his soul. She lay at his feet, perhaps mortally wounded. After all these days of thinking it would happen, his heart was finally shattering. How could he do what had to be done? How could he do his job, knowing what it would do to her? To him?
One of the elders came forth and put his hand on Owain’s shoulder. “You have an anointed task to perform,” he said. “The entire tribe is depending on you.”
Owain had been trained his whole life to obey. He didn’t know any other way.
Brice was kneeling by his mother. Holding her in his arms and cradling her. Her blood staining his white robes. As grown up as he had seemed during the ceremony, he was now a boy again, crying on his mother’s shoulder.
Owain became enraged. Even though a moment before he’d silently begged her to, now he was angry at Gwenore for interfering when she knew better. At Brice for not being man enough to hold his emotions in check. At himself for the agony he would bring upon the only two people he loved in the world.
This torture was taking too long. Owain inspected Gwenore’s wound and saw it was superficial; scalp wounds bled more than seemed possible. He pulled her up by the arms and pushed her to the side of the temple. Then he grabbed his son and quickly, without giving mother or son a chance to speak to each other one last time, brought the stone down hard on his son’s head.
The young man dropped first to his knees and then fell forward so that he lay prostrate at Owain’s feet. All he could see was the top of the boy’s head and the back of his neck. The soft skin where the downy hair stopped growing. The very spot where, when Brice was a baby, Owain would put his face and smell the infant’s innocence.
No, he could not think of these things.
No, he could think of nothing else. He was doing the most horrible thing imaginable, even if it was for a higher purpose. He must feel the sacrifice. Let it destroy him too. He didn’t care. He couldn’t really live after this. He would do his duty but his life . . . his life would be worthless.
Owain pulled the garrote out of the pocket of his robe and wound it around his son’s neck. This I do for the spirits. Pull, tighten. This I do to honor the gods. Pull, tighten. This I do for the good of our tribe, for the sustenance of our people, for the future of us all. Pull, tighten.
Whose blood was on the stones now? Mother’s? Son’s? Only Owain’s had not yet been shed. The river of blood flowed toward his feet, was dyeing his toes red, was slippery, was warm. He could not allow himself to think that this was his son. This was instead his gift to the gods.
With all the strength he possessed, Owain lifted Brice, dragged him to the pool and pushed him into the ritual bath. Within seconds the water darkened with the boy’s blood. Brice was not moving, not fighting or struggling for breath. But still Owain held him under the water. Longer and longer. The ritual had prescribed steps. A threefold death had to happen in sequence and with haste. A clean death. An honorable death. That was the least he could give his son.
He did not hear Gwenore crawling toward him. Did not sense her approaching until suddenly he felt her leap upon him like a wild animal, beating on his back, spitting on him. Cursing at him.
Owain didn’t loosen his grip on Brice. Even as Gwenore bit and kicked him, Owain kept Brice submerged. He couldn’t break the sacred act now. He had to do this thing. Had to bring it to its end.
The elders came and dragged Gwenore off and Owain was left to his death watch.
When he was certain that all his son’s life force was spent, Owain lifted the boy in his arms, and whispering his name over and over, carried him out of the temple and down to the cave on the beach to his final resting place, the most sacred on the island, where only priests were buried, where one day Owain would join his son.
It was a journey meant to be undertaken by the head priest alone. But Owain no longer felt like a priest. The burden he carried was too heavy.
Owain laid his son at the entrance to the cave and lit the first candle. Using that to guide his way, he walked inside, lighting other candles along the way and then setting fire to the pyres he had organized the day before. Each was part of the ritual burial. Six fires made from dried hazel twigs, sage, mistletoe and bits of the golden rocks the tribe treasured.
Once all the fires were burning, cleansing and scenting the air, preparing the cavern for the acceptance of the sacrifice, Owain carried his son deeper inside.
In the innermost chamber, Owain laid Brice on the sacred hearth. Then he dipped his bunch of dried wheat into the candle’s flame and touched it to the hazel kindling.
The fire sizzled. More of the scent of burning wood, sage, mistletoe and the sweetness from the golden rocks filled the air.
And then, there, alone in the cell that seemed like a prison to him now, he lifted his son’s body one last time and set him up on the flames. And when the first orange tongue licked at the boy’s skin, Owain began to scream.
Owain was not required to stay, but he chose to. It was the ultimate honor. And so he stood guard, engulfed by the heat and sweet, terrible scent. Watching as the beautiful boy was consumed by the brutal god of fire.
For the second time that day, Owain did not hear Gwenore coming. Not expecting her or anyone, he was caught by surprise and had no time to react when she crept into the chamber and, without saying a word or even acknowledging that he was there, as if she were wading into the sea on a pleasant day, Gwenore walked into the fire that was consuming her son and took her baby in her arms.
Her hair, her beautiful hair, caught fire first, and the halo around her head burned brightly in the dark.
Owain buried his head in his hands, but now he could not weep. He tried to tell himself that this was only one end. They all believed that their souls would live on, be reborn, find each other again one day, and the echo of them would pay in the next life for the mistakes they had made in this one.
The elders came for him the next day but he would not go with them. Owain remained there for the next twenty days, sitting vigil, slowly, slowly, slowly starving to death, mourning his wife and his son, his past and his present, and fearing for his future soul. And theirs.
Forty-three
Theo was the first one in the chamber. He had blood streaming down his face from a cut above his eyebrow. Ash followed, limping badly and holding his side. He was in serious pain. His nose was swollen and bleeding. Both brothers were filthy. Their clothes were ripped. Out of breath, hurting, they had exhausted each other.
“Are you all right?” Theo asked Jac.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ash shouted.
“Jac?” Theo called. And when she didn’t respond, said it again.
• • •
Owain knew that Jac wasn’t his name, but that it was the name of the body he was trapped in.
• • •
At the same time, Jac understood she was still reliving the life of the priest named Owain who had once lain here, in the innermost cave, his arms reaching out, his hands immersed in ashes, his fingers grasping bones.
• • •
Thoughts crashed into each other. Two consciousnesses struggled to make sense of the present and the past.
• • •
Theo and Ash stood watching.
• • •
Owain knew the brothers were in the future he’d dreamed of as he lay dying. The one carried Owain’s own soul. The other carried his son’s soul. And these two men were living out his and Brice’s karmic struggle. Still.
• • •
Jac tried to push off the waves of memory. Tried to find her voice. Her mind was still half in the priest’s body, half in her own. She was both Owain and herself simultaneously. She tried to form a word, any word.
“Brice,” she heard herself say.
• • •
Owain was looking at the stranger who contained his son
’s soul. He could feel Brice’s aura. Sense his presence. He said his son’s name. “Brice.”
• • •
Theo was leaning over her. “You said that before too, Jac. Who is Brice?”
Jac wasn’t sure she was supposed to come back yet. Was there still more to learn? Should she remain with the priest who had starved himself to atone for his sin of doing what had been asked of him instead of what he knew was right?
“Jac, you have to listen to me. You need to come back.”
Yes, he was right. Theo was right.
The story she had to tell Theo and his brother about Owain and Brice and Gwenore would explain. The father and son were still working out their struggles lifetimes later. The father’s sense of failure was so overwhelming, it poisoned all his future lives. The son’s sense of betrayal, and the guilt of having his mother kill herself rather than live without him, informed every incarnation he’d inhabited.
Jac had to come back. If she didn’t, these two men, Theo and Ash, would stay enemies forever. It was in her power to change that.
She was trying so hard to break through, her whole body ached. Her head throbbed and her ears rang in pain. She couldn’t do it. Not yet.
There was still something she had to understand about what had happened to Owain.
• • •
In what was left of the fire, Owain’s fingers touched a bit of metal. He felt the outline of a star. Its edges were rough. They cut his skin. The pain sent shivers up and down his arms. It was the star that Owain had made for Brice, forging it in the fire and hanging it over his crib. The star that represented the blemish that his wife and son shared on their skin and that marked them as special. Gwenore must have sewn it into the crown she had made for their son, that she had stayed up all those nights weaving with sacred herbs and amulets.
With a great effort, Owain pulled it out of the fire. He looked down at it in his hand. At the blood. He wondered how it had made a perfect circle around his wrist.
• • •
Jac realized she was staring not at blood but at the red thread that Eva had wrapped around her wrist and said would protect her. She had entered into this past holding on to the thread. Now it was time to use it to return to the present. She took a deep breath. It was like climbing.
Another breath. The burning sensation was lessening.
Jac took another breath. She tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Theo took her hands. Held on to them tightly. Too tightly. Something was pressing into her skin.
She pulled back and opened her right hand. Inside was a piece of roughly cut metal in the shape of a star. Theo was staring down at it. So was Ash.
Theo reached out and touched it. “Like the birthmark on Naomi’s neck,” he whispered. “The same strange seven-sided star.”
Jac had to tell Theo and Ash about the woman in her vision. She’d had a seven-sided star birthmark too, on her chest.
“Naomi. Gwenore. Two thousand years apart. Both branded by the same star. Souls connected. Both of you connected to both of them. To each other.”
“What are you talking about?” Theo asked.
“The star. Owain had made it for his son when Gwenore was pregnant.”
“Who is Owain? Who is Gwenore?” asked Ash.
“The three of them loved each other,” Jac was trying to explain. But there was so much to tell them. Where to start? Tell them they had been a family. But Owain had been forced to obey his gods. He couldn’t defy them and put his whole village at risk. And so he did what they asked him to do. He sacrificed his son.
They were both waiting for her to continue. She wasn’t sure if they’d understood anything she’d said. She was so tired but she had to tell them. They needed to know, so they could heal. But then she heard the loud scream of a police siren.
Forty-four
When Jac opened her eyes, she saw Robbie sitting by her bedside. Her brother Robbie was here. Her beautiful, kind and stubborn brother was here and watching her and smiling. The curtains in the pretty blue room were drawn, but golden shafts of light filtered through the slim space where they met. A big vase of dark red roses on the table perfumed the air with their sweet, voluptuous spice.
“Whew,” Robbie said. “I’ve been worried. We all have been. You’ve been sleeping for a very long time.”
“How long?” Her voice sounded hoarse.
“Two days, Jac. Two whole days.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead and kissed her. He smelled of so many wonderful scents: sandalwood and vetiver, ambergris and oakmoss and smoke. Robbie’s smell. Robbie’s smell that was comforting for its familiarity despite its mystery.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s six o’clock.”
“In the morning?”
“At night.”
“How did you get here?” Everything seemed a wonder to her.
“When Theo and Ash brought you back, Minerva called Malachai, who called me. He wanted to be the one to come, but I was closer and could get here faster. Last time I talked to him he was threatening to come if you didn’t wake up by tomorrow morning.”
She thought about that for a second. Why would anyone have to come? Then she started to remember. At first slowly and then in great gulps. Finding the second journal. Reading it. Ash’s being affected by the drug and his strange attack on her. The brothers’ fight. Her going deep into the past to find the memories of who they had been to each other. Finding the clues she needed to unravel their tragic past that informed their conflicted present. The human bones in the funeral pyre. And the strange-shaped star. The same shape as Gwenore’s birthmark. And the same shape as Naomi’s, Theo had said.
“I need to tell you what happened. And tell Theo and Ash who they are and what—”
“You can do all that,” Robbie said. “But first you need to have something to eat and get some of your strength back. You haven’t had anything in forty-eight hours.”
• • •
Eva brought Jac tea and toast with strawberry jam that Jac thought tasted better than anything she’d ever eaten. The sweet fruit studded the bread like little jewels and burst in her mouth. The fragrant tea was hot and bracing and she could smell the jasmine and green leaves as if she were standing in a field of them. All her senses were exaggerated. The sheets were silky against her feet and the pillows embracing. She could hear deep, luscious music coming from beyond the bedroom, full of inspiration and magnificence.
“I don’t feel the same,” Jac said.
“What do you mean?” Robbie asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Is it better or worse?”
She thought for a moment. “Better.”
He smiled.
• • •
Once she’d finished eating, Jac took a long hot shower, dressed and then went downstairs to find everyone.
Eva, Minerva, Theo and Robbie were in the great room waiting for her. Eva had made coffee and put out a platter of biscuits. There was a fire in the hearth and the room glowed with the firelight and soft lamplight and smelled of the burning wood.
Minerva looked concerned but glad to see her. Theo seemed very worried and nervous. Jac knew he was blaming himself for what had happened to her. But nothing really had happened to her, had it? She thought she’d remembered most of the experience by now. Were there gaps?
“Where’s Ash?” Jac asked as she sat.
“In the hospital.” Theo said, his voice riddled with disgust. “He broke a few ribs. He’s under custody.”
“Under custody. Why?” she asked.
“Why? You really don’t remember? He attacked you.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“Of course it was,” Theo said.
More and more of the scene was coming back to her. “No, it wasn’t,” Jac argued.
“Jac, he could have killed you,” Theo insisted.
“He was drugged. The same way I was. He must
have been standing there listening to us read the journal for a long time. He was seduced by the Shadow’s offer the same way Hugo had been. Ash thought he could bring Naomi back. Or maybe it was Gwenore he thought he could bring back.”
“Gwenore?” Eva asked.
Jac nodded. “She was his mother . . . Brice’s mother. I’ll explain it all when Ash is here.” She looked from Theo to Eva and then to Minerva. “When can he come home?”
“They’re ready to release him to us,” Minerva said. “They just need to be sure you don’t want to press charges—”
Jac interrupted. “No, goodness, no. I don’t want to press charges. It was the scent. I know it was.”
• • •
An hour and a half later everyone was together. Robbie sat next to Jac on the couch. Minerva was opposite them, and Ash and Theo had taken chairs on either side of the fireplace.
Ash was paler and more bruised than Theo. He moved stiffly because of his ribs. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Jac.
Eva busied herself offering everyone refreshments. “Do you want some coffee, dear?” Eva asked when she got to Jac. “Or wine?”
Jac asked for wine. Eva handed her a long-stemmed crystal glass filled with a fine, dry vintage. Jac inhaled its bouquet and thought about how she was going to start explaining and what she was going to say.
Eva took a seat next to her sister. Everyone was waiting, looking at Jac expectantly. All except Ash. He still couldn’t face her.
Jac cleared her throat. Would they believe her story? Would they think she was insane? She’d spent her whole life worrying about that, hadn’t she? And where had it gotten her? She cleared her throat once more. The time for caring what people thought was past. She had a chance to heal the rift between these two men and avert further disaster and she was going to take it.
Jac shuddered, then looked at Theo. “I think in a past life you were a Celtic priest named Owain.” She turned to Ash. “You were Brice, his son. I think Naomi was Owain’s wife, Brice’s mother. Her name was Gwenore. If it works the way Malachai says, the way Hindus and Buddhists believe, we all come back in the same soul circles and get a second chance to get it right. Life after life, over and over until we finally manage it. You two are acting out a tragedy that happened thousands of years ago.”