by Scott Tracey
I barely even remembered getting up from the back lawn at all because the moment I hit my bed, I was out. It wasn’t normal sleep, as some part of me was aware the whole time. My mind was covered in blankets of shadow, each time I managed to squirm out from underneath one, there was another dozen piled on top.
Garden statues lamenting burn the witches in olive hubris under ivory chains there are no two ways to bleed them dry dark melancholy grown on a bed of dire lies told and lies hidden shadowed gold boundaries of this land where blood runs counterclockwise burn this garden with weakness rip the humanity from her heart like weeds. Everything that was ours shall always be ours.
I was already standing at the side of my bed when I woke up. Not again, I nearly whimpered. But it didn’t look like I’d been bodyjacked again. Waking up came all at once, the first shocking moments of pond-jumping in spring, the way the water stabs the body into sensation.
It took several minutes before my body started to feel like mine again. Sleep was starting to become a wild card in my life—I never knew how I would wake up. Or where. My stomach started growling while I was still trying to figure out if I was okay or not.
The house was a quiet din as I left my room and headed through the winding halls down to the kitchen. I didn’t even know what half the rooms in Jason’s house were supposed to be for, other than getting lost in. At any given time, I really only knew my way to my room, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the library.
Someone else was already in the kitchen when I walked in. Expecting the gray-haired maid that prepared most of my meals, I was surprised to find Jason standing at the counter.
“Gentry made it home okay?” he asked. There was an undercurrent of something to his question, but I didn’t have the first clue about what he was implying. Jason was still a mystery to me, especially now.
“I needed a nap,” I said slowly, “so he went home.”
“Okay.” But it was not an “I take what you’re saying at face value” okay. It was more of an “I’ll accept that this is the lie you’re going to tell me” okay.
“You don’t need to check on me,” I said sharply. “I know what I’m doing.” Which was the biggest lie of them all.
“Braden,” he started, then sighed and shook his head. Jason walked to the end of the counter and scrubbed his hands with a dish towel that had been left there. Then I noticed his outfit: the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt, the lack of a jacket and tie, the frustrated scrub that had left his hair unkempt and scattered. Jason looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him as well as more exhausted.
It was another side to a man who never showed me the same side twice. It was hard to get a read on him because the readings always changed. At first he was cold, then he was calculating, then concerned. Now, what? What was the role he was going for? Weary parent, tired of fighting the bad fight? Emotionally drained and morally bankrupt?
“Sit,” Jason said. “I’ll make you something.”
Did I get swallowed up by a tornado or dropped down a rabbit hole? Jason was offering to cook? But he paid people to do that! Wary, like this was some kind of trick, I took a seat at the table, watching him pull out ingredient after ingredient from the fridge.
His movements were quick and precise, barely any motion wasted, and he arranged each of them on the counter evenly spaced from the next. Then he opened one of the lower cabinets, pulled out a saucepan and a skillet, and set them on top of the stove.
Things were washed, chopped, and poured all in a matter of minutes. Something sizzled in the skillet while he started deftly chopping something small and white, either an onion, or garlic.
“I thought Catherine was the one with a restaurant,” I said, trying to make a joke. At the sound of my voice, Jason flinched, and then all at once grew still. I flushed, and my voice dropped considerably in both tone and enthusiasm. “Sorry.”
“I’m just not used to other people in the kitchen when I cook,” Jason said, keeping his back to me. “For a second, I forgot you were here.” It was clear he felt just as awkward about the situation as I did. “But don’t ever apologize for speaking your mind,” he said, turning his neck enough to make it clear he was addressing me, but not enough to actually look at me.
“You hate when I speak my mind,” I said, still cautious.
He made slow, even slices over something wrinkled and red, sun-dried tomatoes I guessed. He was almost finished before he answered again. “You almost died … twice. I watched my brother raise you, sneaking peeks when I could. He kept you alive for seventeen years. I could have lost you within the first month.”
There was another one of those moments of stillness, as if Jason only allowed himself a second to succumb to whatever feelings were clawing at him, and then he was in motion again. The tomatoes were poured into the saucepan, then a few other ingredients, and he started to stir.
I kept opening my mouth, intent on saying something. Anything to drown out the silence that crept through the room and made the words that hung between us all the more awful. There were times that I thought I hated Jason, when I found him reprehensible and cruel and unfeeling. But I was starting to realize that no one could ever hate him more than he hated himself.
“I thought you would be more like me,” he said finally. “I knew you’d be strong-willed, of course, but I thought … Christ, I don’t know what I thought,” he muttered. “You have to understand, for most of my life, I knew my son would be the one to end the feud. He made me think my son would be the ultimate weapon. He was the one who said you had to be hidden away, for your own safety.”
“Lucien,” I said.
Jason nodded. “In forty years, he never steered me wrong. Of course I trusted him implicitly. Why wouldn’t I?” His laugh was bitter. “And then he almost killed you.”
He poured something else into the pan and then switched focus as he carefully laid several chicken breasts into the skillet and turned up the heat. “I saw my brother with you, you know. In the hospital. He was always so calm. Maybe that’s why I didn’t understand what it was like. Sitting there, hour after hour. Waiting. Feeling like you’re hanging on the edge of a cliff, and every moment is a chance for rescue or ruin. I do not understand how he did it. Just … so calm.”
“He got used to it,” I said slowly. “A trip to the ER probably never gets easier, but he had a lot of practice keeping himself together. That’s probably a Thorpe thing, how you never let people see you sweat.”
Another silence crept up between us, but this time the tension from a few minutes ago had diffused. There was a bridge building between the two of us—a shaky, tenuous bridge that could collapse into chaos at any moment, but it was a start.
“I never should have let him bring you back here,” Jason said. “But that’s no worse a crime than the rest of my behavior since your return. I should have seen the boy, not the magic. If I’d known that this was where we’d end up, I would have made different choices. Maybe. At least I’d like to think so.”
“I don’t know if it would have changed anything,” I said, thinking it over. “Lucien had all this planned. He would have brought me back, regardless of whether or not he had your blessing. And everything that’s happened since … I’m just as much to blame.” I thought about John, and the way he’d come back trying to protect me. Knowing there was something wrong before anyone else. Knowing me. Knowing the right thing to say when everything was going to hell.
It wasn’t Jason’s fault that he couldn’t be the replacement either of us needed. “You’ve done the best you could under the worst of circumstances,” Jason said. “John raised you well.”
“He did,” I nodded. “He was the best.”
“When … when John came home, I put out feelers. I had people looking for him. But he wasn’t trying that hard to hide,” Jason said with an exasperated laugh. “My brother, always making things harder than they needed to be.” Jason flipped over the chicken over and stirred the sauce in the other pan. “I told him
everything would be forgiven, I would do anything he wanted, if only he’d tell me how to help you. I’d give you back to him, I’d leave him everything. Anything. But he had to help you.”
“He told you he would, didn’t he?” Jason didn’t have to admit it, I already knew. “And then he sent you after my mom’s family.” Maybe to get him out of the way, or maybe just so he wasn’t around to get underfoot. Because John knew that if he ever came back to Belle Dam, there would be a price on his head. He’d come after me, knowing it would probably be the last thing that he’d ever do.
I couldn’t say anything after that. There was a single moment where I thought it was going to be too much, where I was going to crack and break down and nothing would ever be okay again. And then there was John’s voice in my head, calm and placid the way he could get sometimes on summer nights. “You’re the strongest boy I know. You’ll be capable of such great things someday.”
Jason put down the spatula and turned to look at me. His face was gray and tired, and he checked his watch. “The last ferry leaves in about an hour. Your aunt and uncle … they’ll meet you on the other side.” And it was clear he wanted to say more, but the words caught before he could get them out.
“Do you think they’d be able to protect me?”
“Yes.” I could tell it cost Jason to admit that. That someone could do something he could not. “They take family seriously. More seriously than anything else. They’ll protect one of their own with everything they have.”
Neither one of us said much after that, not until Jason portioned out the meal he’d cooked onto a plate and set it down in front of me. Bow-tie pasta, some sort of brown sauce, and a chicken breast. As soon as the food was put down, Jason went immediately back to cleaning the mess he’d made.
“It looks good,” I said, but it smelled even better.
Jason responded to my surprise with a wry, “I can cook, Braden. There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” He paused. “And I about you, I suppose.”
Another silence eased up between us, but this one lacked any of the previous tension. It snuck up on me, I’d started tucking into the food as soon as the plate was in front of me, and it was only after I started eating that I realized how hungry I actually was. I’d scraped the plate clean and gotten up for seconds before I realized that Jason had been watching me for several minutes, all the mess already cleaned up. He’d combined the rest of the chicken and the pasta into the saucepan, and it was the only evidence left of the meal.
“What would you do, if you were me?” I asked, hungry for something other than food now.
Jason spread his hands in front of him. “I … don’t know.”
“But what do you want me to do?” I pressed.
It took a lot longer for this answer. “I want to know that you’re safe. What happens to me, or this town, that’s not your fault. It’s not your responsibility. I think I understand that, now.”
“So you want me to leave with them.”
“I … yes.”
Jason wanted me to leave. Lucien wanted me to stay. Grace wanted me for … I still wasn’t sure. No matter which way I turned, there were strings. People manipulating me. Even Jason. He might have been sincere, I wanted to believe he was, but he would use that against me in a heartbeat. Everyone wanted to make my choice for me, decide the path I was going to take.
“Just … be safe, Braden,” Jason said, before he got up and walked from the room.
Safe was just a word, though, and words could only get me so far.
thirteen
One of the drivers was waiting out in front of the house when I was done. I’d tried to find Jason before I left—unsure about what I would even say—but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I let it go. If Jason wanted to hide, then who was I to judge him for it? He’d already done more than enough for me.
The ferry was on the south side of the marina, almost at the edge of the city. I hadn’t spent much time around there other than the visits to the Harbor Club. Matthias’s club was a few blocks away, tucked away in the middle of an industrial zone.
There was no time for me to second-guess anything, because as we pulled up in the parking lot, the dock workers were hustling the last few people on board. I bolted out of the car, worried about what would happen if I ended up getting left behind. Would they wait for me? Or would they take it as a sign of bad faith and take off?
I couldn’t risk it. I ran for the ferry, even as I was remembering the bus I’d gotten on that had ultimately led me to Belle Dam in the first place. Back then, all I’d cared about was trying to keep Uncle John safe, and maybe figuring out where I’d come from and why I was born with the powers I had.
The strange feeling in my chest returned the moment I set foot onto the ferry. I was one of the last ones on, making it just under the wire. Guys in plastic ponchos hustled me forward, and I ended up speed-walking towards the cabin. The sky was a thick sea of clouds, and the rain started even before we pulled away from the harbor.
The fluttering in my chest, the strange sensations that had been bothering me for days now, intensified and reminded me of the visions. But the visions always came from the outside in—seeing things that had happened in the rest of the world. But this was like something from the inside, coming from the void in my chest where my power had once been. This time, though, it wasn’t an aviary. It was a hurricane of feathers, tracing lines up and down the emptiness, marking its vastness.
It had been the worst when I was with Grace. And she’d stared at me while it happened, like she was waiting to see something. Were we connected now? When she stole my power, did something else get created in its place? I’d attacked Lucien once and tapped into his ability to read futures. Maybe this was something like that?
Although I didn’t know how the echolike feelings that coursed through me could do any good. They were just reminders of what wasn’t there anymore. That Grace could do whatever she wanted with my power, and I was helpless to stop her.
I sank down on one of the benches and watched the sky open up all around us, blanketing the ferry in a curtain of water. “Great,” I muttered. I was going to get drenched when I got off later.
“What are you?” I don’t know why I thought to question it out loud, but there was predictably no response. When the winter voice had been a part of me, it would answer my questions. Maybe I expected this new feeling to work the same way.
The feeling kept strengthening, more and more invisible birds added to the process, until I thought it couldn’t possibly get any more distracting. It felt like actual butterflies in my chest, except that there were thousands more than should have actually been able to fit. I knew I’d put on some weight and all, but I was fairly certain I hadn’t swallowed a quarter of a million overgrown bugs.
Like the crescendo in a song, the feeling built to a fever pitch, and was suddenly silenced as quickly as it had started. For a moment, just a fraction in time, the hole in my chest stopped aching. I felt connected. Like it wasn’t a hole, but a rope, and hanging on the other end was something familiar.
I smelled vanilla perfume and fresh-cut flowers. Earthy smells, but ordered. A garden, not the forest. A hint of rust and iron and the smell of the sky right after a lightning strike.
“I’m sorry, mistress,” a girl said. Elle. I heard her voice as clear as if it had come from my own mouth and felt the rumble of my own chest.
“It is the price and the balance,” another voice responded, but this one had no sound. It was like hearing without ears, thoughts given a form that was not audible nor visual. “It seems your counsel was wise, and the boy retains a purpose.”
The connection snapped closed.
Grace. And Elle. I should have figured that out already. Elle had started moving around town about the time that Grace started to get more active. She’d showed up right around the time that I’d needed saving from the psychotic little girl in a princess dress, and banished her back wherever ghosts came from. She’d be
en tall and gorgeous, and liked flirting with me too much.
Elle had also been the first one to see that there had been something wrong with me. The infection of Lucien’s power that had started to cloud my judgment. That must have been how Grace found out about me—Elle had been telling her everything.
Was she a ghost like the others? I’d seen her use magic, but that didn’t mean anything. Ben was a ghost, but he was able to use my blood to control me.
The wave of dizziness caught me off guard, and it was a good thing I was already seated. I leaned over, pressing my fingertips against my forehead. I couldn’t tell if it was being on the ferry or from what I’d just seen, but the way dinner was roiling in my stomach, I knew this wasn’t going to end well. What a cliché. First time on a ferry, or a boat of any kind, and I was going to have to drop my dinner over the side.
No. I refuse. I lowered my head down to my knees and spent the next forty minutes breathing slowly and surely, forcing myself to keep everything in my stomach where it belonged. It was a slow battle, and for some reason when the ferry docked on the other side of the bay, I felt like it was the best kind of victory. I was immeasurably proud of myself all for doing nothing more than keeping myself from throwing up.
The pier on the other side looked identical to the one I’d just left, but now I wasn’t in a rush, so I could actually notice all the details. The railings were red-painted metal, thicker than my arm. I was the only one who got off. I walked down the dock, noticing the nearly empty parking lot. That’s not creepy or anything. I had a healthy appreciation for what could be hiding in the dark. This close to midnight, there was no telling what could be waiting for me.
The couple standing under one of the corner lot lights didn’t exactly fit the mold as far as supernatural terrors went, though. I wondered if they planned it like that, standing under the light like some sort of message. Or maybe they just wanted me to see them.
They didn’t look like witches. Not that witches looked like anything in particular, but Jason seemed to think they could protect me. I didn’t see it. The man, my mother’s brother, looked world-weary in his black pea coat and days of scruff. He had dirty blond hair, but maybe that was a trick of the light. His hands were tucked inside the coat pockets, the expression on his face pensive. Sad.