Taking back forever and a day

by Marcy Lynn

  “No!” Without hesitation she reached for the silver cord. The terrible sound of the Ent’s laughter faded from her ears. Through darkness she pulled until the fog of sleep and weakness ebbed within her conscience.

  She fought to open her eyes.

  ***

  “There you are. Finally had enough sleep did you?” On the table perfectly intact was the bowls and pitcher when she reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the kitchen. Derek stood near the table as though he’d just set them there.

  Could he have tricked her? After all they’d been through would he really have lied?

  “Did you send word to my father that I was with you and where we are?”

  The mounting pain of knowing she couldn’t reach Meagan now even if he’d relented and the ships on the sea overwhelmed her. She couldn’t think straight or wait for his answers. Emotion and fear twisted her insides. She didn’t want to believe he’d lied to her but the way he stood staring at her instead of answering…

  Her hands balled into fists.

  “Did you send word or not!”

  His brows raised in surprise and then lowered in a concentrated frown. “We’re back to this, now? Right now? Honestly Ela, you have sunken wells under your eyes and-”

  “Don’t! I want a real, honest answer from you. No more mockery. No more jokes. Tell me!” She watched his expressions change from one to the next. Shaking his head in the end only to rub a hands over his entire face before answering.

  “No, I did not.” He said. “And, frankly I will not. Not until-”

  “How could you do this?” She exploded. “ After everything I’ve told you! After everything that’s happened! I held up my part of the bargain, Derek!”

  “I won’t because I’m not going to let anything or anyone take you out of my life again! You’re my wife and that means something!” His fist slammed down on the counter top making King yelp and run for the next room.

  “How can you be so selfish? Do you understand what you’ve done? Do you even care!” Near hysterical she had to sit down in a chair, her legs weak.

  “Why are you asking me that? If I didn’t care I wouldn’t keep fighting so hard to keep us together!” He shouted.

  “That’s why you’re so selfish! My family has suffered so much and all you can think of is yourself!” Elanor said. “My Mother was killed, Araminta lost her baby and Maegan is….lost to us for a longer time now!”

  “Elanor it’s a repeated list of anguish you’re holding onto for dear life! It’s time for you to let it go! What happened to your Mother and sister wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t our fault. I thanked every high power I’d ever heard of that night and since, that you were with me instead of in that carriage! And I won’t feel guilty for it!”

  “How can you say that? I might have been able to help! I could have done something. And then, I had a real chance finding Meagan. A real chance! I could have found her but because I’m with you, again,” Hot tears streaked down her cheeks the words coming out chokingly. “I’ve lost that chance. It’s gone. And my family is in danger, again. They’re looking for me and they’re about to be attacked.”

  “Stop it. Stop doing this, Elanor.” He said. “You can’t be the one to save everyone, every time something goes wrong! You have to let what happened go. You weren’t even sure of where Meagan was exactly so you didn’t lose anything! Your Father isn’t going to just take a ship out and sail around all over looking for you. I would think he’s got more sense than that. You going to try and help them would only make things worse.” He moved closer reaching his hand out to touch hers on the table top. “You’re just tired from yesterday. You’re overreacting again. Go back to bed. We’ll talk about everything when you’ve had some rest.”

  “No!” She ripped her hand away from his. “ You are going to take me back to Port NewLlyn. Now. Today!”

  “Damn it!” He thundered. “We’re not going to go through this over and over again! Get back upstairs and rest, now. I’m your husband and-”

  “This is why I left.” Elanor yelled back. “This is why I didn’t stay!”

  It stopped him short. “What?”

  “After the carriage accident, I went to live with Nain, by my own choice.” He froze, not a portion of his body moved. “I told you that Father had wanted us to go… but he told me I should stay with you. I left with them because it was the right thing to do. We had already- and I knew you wouldn’t understand why I needed to do something, anything for my family. You still don’t understand!”

  “Are you saying, you left me?”

  “How could we continue on, when so many terrible things had happened because of it? I should have been with them. I should have been there to help stop that man from-” Her throat felt tight. “It wasn’t fair for me to have what I wanted when…it came with such a cost to my whole family. If I had been there with them, I could have healed Mother and I could have healed Araminta. Even if we couldn’t have stopped the accident, I would have been there to use my abilities.” Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. He didn’t say anything. Just staring at her endlessly. A look of disbelief turned to stone. Realization washed over the stone and she knew he finally understood.

  “You didn’t and still don’t know how to heal with your magic though. The woman at the market, she was the first you have ever tried to heal isn’t she?”

  She balled her hand into a fist, shaking her head. “Yes and I’ve told you. I just have to think and I don’t have a certain script of words to say. It’s my intention. I could have done something if I had been there.”

  “When you say I don’t understand, what you’re really saying is I’m not agreeing with you. So I’m wrong. All this time. All that planning. You left me, willing.” Derek said. “I thought I was reuniting us. Giving you back what we wanted. But you left willingly. We could have mourned together, Elanor. We didn’t have to lose years. We didn’t vow just a year and day. We made a sacred vow of forever and a day, remember? We were mated for life. We’ve been in love since we were old enough to understand what that is. And you left.” His voice faded and a silence fell heavily over the kitchen.

  She dragged a shaking hand over her cheeks fighting the sobs that were building up in her chest. But it was no use, they stole her breath and shook her shoulders. She hated the hurt on his face and it spoiled her stomach nearly making her sick.

  “Let me ask you something, Elanor.” His gray eyes had taken on a coloring she’d never seen before. Cold rich solid pools of grey blue stared almost through her. “You would never give up being a caster. There’s danger that will always be attached to your magic- yet, you have never considered giving that up. Though the first sign of trouble you can’t handle or can’t control…you start demanding that I let you leave again.” Derek let the words fall between them like cannon fire and each one hit their mark. She could feel her body reacting to them yet her mind battled back with her own reasoning until his last point landed.

  “You gave up on us then and you’re giving up on us now.” His shoulders squared and he turned his back to her walking towards the door. “I’ll take you back to Port NewLlyn.”

  Months she’d fought for him to say that. When it finally came from him though, it didn’t give her the relief she’d been expecting. Instead, it felt as though he’d just said-

  “I give up.”

  And it devastated her. She had no right to be upset that he’d finally given into her demands but Elanor clenched her fists watching him walk towards the door. Her nails bit into the tender skin of her palms. The slow drain of realizing what had just happened left her inexplicably empty. She’d finally told him everything, down to the part why she needed to make amends to her family but he only heard that she had left him two years ago. It struck her hard that this had everything to do with him and then, nothing at all. She wanted to say something but didn’t know how.

  After another long moment of staring at her, he shook his head and left.

  On wobbly
legs she stood. Deep gulping breaths helped her take the stairs.

  Think of something else or break down right here and now…

  They had to make it there in time to help her Father and Grandmother or she’d never forgive herself. She didn’t know if she would be able to forgive herself for the pain that she’d just caused Derek either.

  How many times would be enough in making a choice between happiness and atonement?

  Chapter twenty-six

  “If the wind doesn’t change, we’re not going anywhere.”

  Elanor looked up at the sails from where she stood on the deck. Caspin and Derek were having a discussion not too far from her. The rain had slowed to a soft drizzle of misty drops and the wind a gentle breeze that blew now and then.

  But in the wrong direction.

  “If you drop the sails, I can-” Elanor started but a sharp bark from Derek cut her off.

  “No. I’m not taking you back to your Father half dead.”

  “If we don’t move faster, it’ll be my Father who is dead.” Her lips pursed. “Take down the sails and I can use waves to move us. It will be just like rowing I think.” The hood of her cloak lay heavy on her head now from the rain having time to soak it. She pushed it from her head letting it flop to her shoulders. Leaning against the rail, she gauged the water. There wasn’t much for waves but a simple lap of water that spiraled now and then against the ship’s side. Maybe it could be a blessing that the sea wasn’t tossing and turning wildly anymore. It had worn her out completely trying to make the ship go in one direction before. She’d have to be smart about this time because it wasn’t a quick fix. This would be distance.

  “You do know that it’s possible they’ve already been taken.” Derek said coming back from giving the orders.

  “No,” She insisted. “I have time. The volcano has already happened. What the vision showed me was in time.” She said pulling her wet long sleeves up towards her elbow and the twisted wood of her wand pulled from her waist. “The next thing I was showed was the ocean and my Father’s ship coming this way. The last thing…” She let the words fall between unable to speak it with her worry. “It’s the last thing. So, I have time. I just don’t know how much.” He gave a nod, making a motion to leave and then stopped. “You were able to control this vision? What makes you think you didn’t create it?” Derek didn’t wait for an answer to the bitter questions, leaving then. Her concentration ebbed for a moment; the odd disconnect between them affecting her ability to ground herself. She’d never felt a wall between them before. They’d had arguments and didn’t agree but never had she felt the true sense of disconnect before. Not even when he took her Father’s ship to drag her to the Island. And she’d never felt the hard coldness he showed her just now.

  She could do this and when she prove that, maybe he wouldn’t be so… angry at her. She had to focus and solve how to use the water to get them going.

  Elanor needed help again from higher powers. This time though- as she focused she knew instinctively that she’d needed to call onto the masculine.

  “Earth, fire, air, water, spirit…” She said each of her sister’s elements, leaving the last to be Maegan, deeply hoping her baby sister felt the connection still where ever she had gone. “I call to you dear sisters, please hear me and answer my time of need.” Deep breaths inhaled she felt the invisible lines of connection one by one. All four. All four were alive and well, even Maegan. Renewed energy tingled through her tired limbs. At least Meagan was alive somewhere and could still feel the call of her five fold sisters.

  That’s what matters. Meagan’s safe.

  Her arms still raised she opened her eyes to look to the soft gray clouds. “Hail, Nodens, God of the sea! Please grant the strength and ability to work with the water this day!” Elanor continued to speak the words over and over so that the message would reach the God and if it be his will, might grant the plea. Warmth and a feeling of comfortable embrace made her eyes close, needing the blanket of warmth and healing that the God had given her just then. When she opened her eyes, a soft whisper of thanks feather light passed her lips. Going to the rail she called down the side of the ship, “Water, my friend, the only thing I ask of you is to allow me to change the direction of your flow. Let me control where you begin and you can move in wild abandon after!” From behind the ship a wave started to swell upward lifting the vessel with a steady drop it pushed the ship forward. With increase came larger drops down the waves.

  Elanor felt the tickle of her belly with each time they rose and fell.

  “I don’t know if I can take moving like this!” Stepp had both hands crossed over his stomach looking a bit green.

  “Don’t you think about getting sick up here.” Caspin said pointing to the rail. “Over there.” Derek didn’t speak; his eyes tranced forward. He didn’t have anything funny to say which wasn’t like him. The stone expression did worse things to her stomach than the ship dropping fast now and then. She couldn’t let it go. She wanted to convince him that she had been right and why. But again the words failed to come and she stayed silent as well.

  Caspin and Stepp passed her on the stair, the cabin boy still looking queazy and green. She gave a compassionate small smile. The few steps it took to make it to the wheel felt like a mile.

  “I’ll have to do this every few hours but we should be alright for now.” She started with small talk, unable to draw the bravery up inside her to actually talk to him about what they were both thinking.

  “It’s possible the wind will shift as well.” His answer short, to the point. He didn’t look at her and the grip he had on the wheel said more than any words exchanged would. She couldn’t stand it.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you that to hurt you.”

  “This whole time I’ve been telling your Father, no, I would never work for him. All these years I held a grudge against someone who didn’t do a damn thing to me.” His gray eyes finally looked at her, piercing. “I thought if we got a legal licensed marriage it would show him. And remind you that we lived in this realm for years without trouble. If I could just show you both… I shunned my whole life in Inglid because I thought your Father and Grandmother had destroyed everything I had wanted out of life. Taken you out of grief. I thought of him as a second Father, Elanor. Your family, was my family too remember? And I abandoned him when he lost everything.”

  Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. “I didn’t know what to do. I knew that you wouldn’t understand why I was going so I thought if I said Father had told me to go…” Her hands went to her cheeks cupping the flushed skin. “I thought you would accept it because it was my Father’s wishes. That’s what women do after all….”

  “I would never would have accepted that being away from me was right.” He said tightly. Derek took a deep breath and blew it out, staring at her with the intensity of the sun.

  “I’ve always fought for you. And you gave up on me. On us.”

  “I didn’t… when I left for the country side, I thought I was protecting you from the trouble I have. Just look at what’s happened now that we’ve been together again!” Elanor said dropping her hands from her face. “Pirates, dragons, bounty hunters, and wild magic! All of it could have killed one of us!”

  “Trouble? There will always be trouble!” He shouted.

  “But not my kind of trouble! I’m to be one of these great elemental casters and I barely am able to do any of it! I know nothing! But trouble is attracted to me!”

  He gave her a screwed expression of his right cheek and eye. “We’ve helped countless people who will live out their lives on that Island without fear of being discovered. We’ve met every trouble head on and made it through. I don’t know what you expect from your powers, Elanor. It’s not saving the world but it means the world to them.” He pointed to his men moving about their stations. “If you weren’t there when the dragon came on board, we’d be a sea tale. If you weren’t there for the bounty hunters, Caspin would likely be
dead from stabbing and the Island would be discovered and all of our friends living peacefully there would be dragged back to hell.”

  “But none of it would have happened in the first place, I-”

  “What the hell are you talking about? The dragon was getting ready long before you were on the ship to defend it’s food source. The bounty hunters have been trying to take half the people on the Island for the entire two years I’ve lived there.” He slammed his hand down on the wheel; frustration making his body rigid. “How can you not see you are blessed and not cursed!” He glared at her with a deep frown. “What happened to the girl I knew? I saw her a little here and there on the Island but the woman you’ve become- she’s suffocating her.” Her chin started to quiver, large tears started down her cheeks. He was tugging so hard on her heart strings she thought it would rip from her chest.

  “I’m afraid. I’m afraid all the time because every single moment I find true happiness- something horrific happens around me!” Saying it out loud even scared her as though saying it too loud would bring more terrible things upon her head. She forced the emotions down again, straightening her own body to turn on a heel back to the rail. “We have to keep on course. I have to reach them in time.”

  “You can’t save everyone every time life goes wrong.”

  “This time, I have to. I shouldn’t have left Port like I did. Alone and without any plan what I was going to do.” She admitted. “It was careless and I should have listened to Araminta and Teagan. That it would be pointless to try to get there before it did.” Earth and fire knew better than water about such things but she wanted to be the one who found Maegan, to redeem herself for not being there. And that was the truth of it. Why she had been so determined to go on a trip out of the safety of the country side.

  “My Father and Grandmother wouldn’t be searching for me now, if…” The tears had dried on her cheeks, tight and itchy. Her insides felt raw and her limbs were so tired she just wanted to sleep for a few days. But it wasn’t the physical that bothered her most. The mental anguish that always seemed to take over; she didn’t want to feel like that anymore.