by Raven Taylor
"Yes, he told me that too." I confirmed.
"Well, they found him this morning, or at least they found his body. They think he was murdered last night."
My mind swung back to the police tape and the white forensic tent in the alley way. The Witchery had protected Dylan all his life but now, because of me, the God's had become aware of his existence and had put an end to it.
"They got to him then," I muttered, "Bastards."
"Yes, it would seem so," you said, "It's just so upsetting, what an awful thing to happen when things where just starting to look up. Still, I suppose there's no use feeling guilty, we did what we had to do."
You rubbed you hands together in that nervous way you always do.
"Anyway, we have some news for you," as much as I felt sorry for what had happened to Dylan I didn't have the time to dwell on it.
"Oh yes, of course," you said, "come through to the living room, excuse the mess Lilly dear I haven't done the housework yet this week."
"We are getting married Caroline," I said as you fussed around trying to straighten up the already perfect room.
"What?" you stopped fluffing the cushion and froze.
"Lilly and I are going to be married."
"Well, that's rather sudden," you looked flustered but not displeased.
"We have our reasons for being so hasty," I glanced at Lilly, appealing for her permission to tell you the truth but she did not step in, I hope you understand, she wanted to be happy, she didn't want anymore tears and sadness ruining things.
"Well congratulations," you said finally finding a smile and hugging us each in turn, "that's lovely news."
"There is more," I said, "The ceremony will be next week, the 14th."
There was that look again, that slightly flustered questioning look that said you were suspicious. I wanted you on board with this, I couldn't have a wedding and not have you there.
"I know how it must look to you, but I really want you there with us, it'll make sense one day," and now Caroline, you see why it was all so rushed, if I could have I would have told you at the time but I had to respect Lilly's wishes.
"Of course I'm pleased for you," you said, "If wasn't so early I'd crack open the champagne. If you need any help with the arrangements, please let me know."
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The Witchery was to become our home in the coming days and we returned there that night and that was when he came for me, Cane, in his jealous wrath snatched me from my sleeping body just as Alexander had the previous night.
I found myself somehow in a cemetery, yet it was not one I had visited before, nor was it in Edinburgh . It was unfamiliar and wild and it terrified me to me be here in the darkness of such a strange place. The cemetery appeared vast and savage, in a sorry state of disarray; overgrown with twisting trees and teetering ivy choked monuments. A low mist shrouded the scene so that it was like something from a cheap horror movie. I did not move, I simply stood in the cold stillness of the night and listened to the noises of creatures moving about in the dense trees. But there was another presence here besides myself. I could sense it.
From ahead of me I heard singing that was haunting and alluring winding its way through the undergrowth and I was drawn to it as if in a trance. I drifted off into the shadows in the direction of the sounds, stepping over tree roots, the tall grass brushing against my legs. I fought my way deep into the foliage and the wild brambles snagged at my clothes and dry branches whipped my face. Then I saw him. There in the trees, sitting at the foot of an ancient crumbling Angel and singing softly, was Cane.
He looked up when he saw me approach and tipped his hat at me. His expression was unreadable amid the shadows.
“Cane?”
He did not answer but his singing ceased and I watched as he lit a cigarette.
“Cane, is this a dream?” I tried again.
“Yes Winter, a dream.” he chuckled and puffed smoke up into the cold air.
“Why did you bring me here tonight? Why now? Why after all of this time?”
He stood and he towered above me with his great wings flexing almost lazily. He took a few steps forward and put his hands on my face.
“Ah, if I could only just touch you for real.” he sighed and dropped his arms to his side.
He dropped the cigarette and stubbed out the embers with his boot. He seemed troubled and subdued. This was not the Cane that I knew.
“I can’t stand by and watch you do this. Since you became mortal I have found myself loving you even more. There’s so much more that can hurt you and cause you pain in the middle world and I can hardly bare it.” he kept his eye on the ground as though it was too painful even to look at me.
“Why did you bring me here?” I questioned him.
“Because I have decided it is time you knew. I cannot keep it from you for any longer.”
“Time I knew what?”
“Why you are so different from the rest of us. Winter you have to come back to me,” he cried suddenly and there was panic in his voice, it frightened me to see him like this as he dropped to his knees and clutched at my hands, “Promise me that when the time comes, when this is all over you will come back to me, I beg you.”
“Why should I?” I did not mean to sound hard hearted and ungrateful but I had to know, after so long I had to know why he was so infatuated with me.
“Because you’re mine,” he insisted and he was sobbing now which was a disturbing sight, “You are mine yet you are about to bind yourself to another. I want to tell you why you are different. Why you are not like any of the other Dark Angels.”
He rose to his feet and seemed to regain some of his composure.
“What is it Cane, why I am different?”
“You do, of course, know where Dark Angels come from do you not?”
“We are a product of Myron’s thoughts, just as the Guardians are a product of Elias’s thoughts, the Gods simply think of us and we are there, complete, new and unique.” I said.
“Each one created by the same maker?” he questioned.
“As it has been since time began.” he was beginning to worry me.
“Well it is not entirely true.” he said reluctantly.
I watched as he strode away and sat down on a nearby tomb.
“Come and sit with me.” he invited and I accepted.
“I am the oldest of all the Angels,” he was relaying facts I was already aware of, “When the world grew too large for the Gods to manage Myron decided he would create a helper to do his work, he thought of a dark, winged being with a mean and ruthless spirit and so I came into existence. And that’s how it has been ever since. When more help is needed the Gods conjure up a new Angel. It is the way of things. Only once, it did not quite happen that way.”
He paused to light another cigarette and I noticed that his gloved hand was trembling.
“I have put off telling you this for so long, maybe I shouldn’t tell you at all.”
“Cane!” I protested, “Please continue.”
Cane took off his hat, set it down on the stone next to him and ran his fingers though his hair, pulling it back so I was able to get a rare glimpse of his scarred face in full. I had never picked up on it before but I could see centuries of pain and suffering etched in his ancient skin. How could I have missed something like that for so long?
“At heart I have always loved the beautiful and the morbid,” he confessed, “I grew tired of always being in the company of those so like myself. I was weary of looking at ugly faces and listening to ugly and barbaric speech. I must confess that there was a time that I got so bad that I was almost as lonely as you. Since that time I have shunned the company of other Angels as you know and they all just assume that it is because I consider myself above them. It is not so. I used to come here to this spot, in High Gate Cemetery where we sit now, just to be alone with my thoughts. I never knew then where my thoughts were going to take me, I was unaware that I possessed powers that no other
Angel ever can.”
The fog was retreating now and the night was becoming clear as he stared at me with his one eye that was so filled with compassion and sadness.
“So I sat and I thought,” he continued, “And I dreamed. I was suffering at the time Winter, suffering in ways I think you of all people might understand, and so I dreamed of a soul with unimaginable beauty, a soul so dark and tragic and cold that the very sight of him would make people stop and bring a tear to their eye, one that could freeze hearts and kill people with just one look. A companion for myself, one whom I could love in my own twisted way. Little did I know that such a soul would soon come into being. So I thought of him and behold I gave him existence. I became a God that day. I dreamed him and then he was; my Winter.”
He stared at me with his burning red eye. I was lost for words. So now at last I knew why I was not like all of the others. I was created by Cane and not by Myron like the rest of them. All my sadness, my self loathing and my beauty were a product of Cane’s mind. Everything I had he had given to me. I could not decide whether I should be grateful for this or whether I should hate him.
“Are you just going to sit there and say nothing?” he shouted after a few moments of silence had passed.
He got to his feet and began waving his arms around madly, he was almost hysterical.
“Have you any idea how hard this has been for me?” he screamed, “I gave you life, I made you, and you choose to follow humans around. Even then I gave you what you wanted. I sent you down to earth, gave you a physical body, and still you cause me pain. All I ask is that you come back to me when it is over, yet you seem set on another path and the cursed life preserver with his golden glow has given you the means to do it!”
This was more like the angry, possessive Cane I knew. Still I said nothing. It was difficult to watch as he stormed about the place in fury, mentally torturing himself. I wanted to say something to calm him down but I couldn’t. I had too much to think about. I was a part of this raging monster. I had been all along.
Eventually his cursing and pacing stopped and he fell on his knees at my feet again and started to cry.
“It was not my choice. I did not know that I had such a power,” he wailed, “Please forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said standing, “Go away and leave me alone Cane.”
“But you will come back?”
“Again, why I should I? Do you expect me to be grateful for this miserable existence?”
I stood up and turned to go.
"Winter, she is a human child, this will never work, trust me, I know more of these things than you think," he called after me, " Go to her, marry her, play out that death you dreamed up for her but never have those threads bound."
"You know how she dies don't you?" I asked ignoring his pleas about the threads.
"You mean you don't?"
"I gave her a brain tumour."
"That's not what kills her," his grin was sly, he was enjoying withholding information, "No Winter, what you dreamed up is something else entirely, but I won't spoil the surprise. Hers is a most beautiful death."
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
"I have some very exiting news," Gwen told as she spread the stack of papers across her tarot reading table.
"Gwen," gasped Lilly, "It's only been a day, you look like you've done the work of ten people."
"Oh, it's nothing," she said modestly, "I'll tell you my idea, but remember this is your day, so if you don't like it please tell me, I won't be offended."
Gwen pushed a photograph across the table and her countless bangles jangles musically with her movements. I was clasping Lilly's hand under the table and I felt her grip tighten as she looked at the picture. It was a picture of a hill against an orange sunset. On top of the hill was a monument silhouetted against the sky.
"Calton Hill?" I questioned.
"Can we really have a Wedding on Calton Hill?" Lilly's voice was tinged with hope and expectation.
"Not usually, but I've pulled some strings with the council," said Gwen, "I'm part of the committee who organise the Beltane Fire Festival, we use the hill every May for the festivities, I used my contacts there and called in a few favours."
She was avoiding saying it but I guessed she had had to tell a few people about Lilly's situation. People would not have said no if they knew this was the dying wish of a terminally ill girl.
"Gwen it's perfect," Lilly was crying as she threw herself into Gwen's arms.
"I'm so happy you like it, let me show you the rest of the plans."
I was astounded by what Gwen had managed to pull together in just a day. The ceremony would take place on the steps of the national monument at sunset and there would be a party in a big marquee on top of the hill. Everything, it seemed was in place, from the band to the flowers, Gwen really had pulled out all the stops.
"I just need to organise the caterer and the flowers," she said, "but you need to get your invites out first so we can get an idea of numbers."
Lily looked radiantly happy as Gwen went over everything that still had to be done. I had stopped listening by that point, not because I wasn't interested, but because I couldn't stop looking at Lily. I tried to commit every detail of her face to my memory so that I might never forget her ever again, not matter where I ended up.
I try to look back on the days that followed but I when I do they are just a blur. A blissful haze filled with her beautiful face and her kisses and endless nights spent by the fire in The Witchery. I wanted it to last forever and never end. If I could have just held her and watched the ages slip by outside those windows I would have done. I had no idea what lay ahead for me beyond her but I took comfort in the fact that so long as the silver threads were bound together we would never truly be separated. I could go into details of everything we did in that final week, the day trips; to the zoo, to the coast, to the country. The evenings by the fire. The nights in the club dancing. But I won't Caroline, I am running out of time. So I will leave you only with this brief picture of a perfect week. If this was a film then there would be a montage here with images of us laughing, kissing, hugging, gazing out across the stormy ocean, throwing snow balls at each other with sad but not gloomy music. I see those flitting, brief images flash before my eyes. Tiny pieces of her final week in glorious technicolor. I hear the haunting music. She was happy in that final week Caroline, so happy like you would not believe. I'm glad I never told her that she only had a week. I'm glad she did not waste a single second of her time worrying or unhappy.
It snowed on the day we were bound together for all eternity. Above Calton Hill the sky was beginning to turn pink with the approaching sunset. Below us the whole city sprawled to bear whiteness to our union. At the foot of the imposing monument the small handful of guests were gathered, there where around thirty in total, friends of Lilly's mainly, and you of course, Caroline, smiling and almost ready to burst with pride as though you were seeing your long dead son getting married rather than some stray you had picked up off the street.
Gwen was at the foot of the steps, looking beautiful despite her age, in her flowing robes, like some kind of pagan princess from days gone by. The guests themselves where dressed in an odd assortment of attire, they did not look like traditional wedding guests, they reminded me more of a gathering of carnival people in their flamboyant costumes. My mind went back to the Black Cat Burlesque club. Yes, they where like the crowd that frequented there in their vintage dandy dress. Of course it made sense, most of them where friends from Lilly's dance troupe from the club. I thought they all looked wonderful as Gwen bid them all to form a circle around her. Each guest had brought, on request, no gifts but only a single red Rose each. I felt a strange sadness rising as they each laid their Rose in he snow at their feet to form a crimson ring in which the binding would take place. The gesture felt to me far too like people laying flowers at a grave. I swallowed hard and glanced back over my shoulder. More roses marked an isle in the snow tha
t led from the marquee to where we stood in our small circle. I felt sick and nervous as I waited, the eyes of all of these people I had never met where fixed on me, wondering who I was that could make Lilly rush into such a hasty marriage. Not one among them was aware that tonight Lilly was saying goodbye to them. To me also. After tonight she would be lost to me. I wouldn't cry. I held my breath and closed my eyes to fight off the tears. There would be plenty of time for that later, not now, I couldn't let the grief come, this was a happy occasion.
Then a note rang out across the cold, crisp evening. It was pure and sweet and high and it came from one of Lilly's friends who stood high on he steps above us with a silver flute in her hand. The sun was dipping now and the radiant orange beams fell in slats between the great Columns of the monument. I looked up and for a second I was convinced I saw a figure in a top hat perched way above us up in the sky on the very top of the monument but when I next looked he was no longer there.
As the music from the flute player peaked all the heads in the circle turned and I followed their gaze to see the beauty that floated, ghost like, down the isle of roses towards us. Lilly was like an ethereal mist of slender, graceful elegance as she took her place at my side. I looked down into her glowing face; the milk white skin, the cheeks turned pink from the chill in the air, the blood red lips. In many ways she was so like me. Two visions of other Worldly beauty. The kind of beings that should not exist in real life. Both of us too beautiful for the world we were soon to depart.