by Scott Duff
The room was an odd tableau. It was cut into two parts. The front half of the room consisted of two tables and two cabinets. One table contained food and drinks for the doctors and nurses. The other table, a round oak table, was covered in large, oversized tomes of medical, magical history. There were three people there, searching through the books when we came in.
The back half contained a bed about three feet off the floor with a gauzy screen of cool blue but lit from the ceiling with warm red, purple, and lilac. My mother lay in the center of the bed, incredibly small, covered with a thin, white sheet. I tried not to look at first, but really there was no stopping it. I knew Cahill was talking quietly, saying something I should be hearing, but my whole world just collapsed into that bed right then. I didn’t want to think about what the worm had done to her—I just wanted her back and safe. If Ethan hadn’t grabbed me by the shoulders and guided me through the gauzy material of the screen, I would have been a bag of marshmallows on the floor.
Ethan took a step back once he put me at her bedside. I did what any normal kid would do in this situation—I cried. I just let go. I’d been holding my emotions in check for a long time and I needed the outlet and I was safe here. And damn it, I had reason. Then just like every time my emotions ran high, my powers reacted and I dove into my mother’s body.
The first thing I noticed was that the three at the table were doing more than leafing through books. They had been softly coaxing my mother’s body into healing the smaller cuts and contusions she had suffered. The larger issues had been dealt with already but they needed her body to start working normally again. I understood that. Massive healing can cause the body to shut down, just like the trauma that made the need in the first place. That’s why Kieran made Peter move earlier tonight, just a little, even though he was exhausted. There wasn’t anything left to do at that level. She would need time to recuperate.
I moved up to look at the joining of her body and soul and stopped. I stopped crying and froze solid, staring at it. The spell that Cahill and all of his doctors and healers couldn’t see was totally and completely visible to me. It didn’t surprise me that they couldn’t break it. That spell had been hiding from them in plain sight for centuries. Even the Queens of Faery had tried to break through it and failed, or so I’d heard from Kieran.
My mother was trapped behind the Pact.
Chapter 24
I stared down at the knot tied to my mother, binding her mind too tightly together. That’s all it really was, a big magical knot looped back and forth between her mind, body and soul. Here it was woven more strongly between her mind and soul. And regardless of the metaphor you chose to use—written, spoken, sung, bent, twisted reality, coiling energy, whatever—the Pact is succinct and powerful. It was no wonder the healers were so confused by what they were seeing. The Pact would be invisible to them. I was seeing it because of the resonance with my own.
“Ethan,” I whispered, jerking my head toward me. “Can you see this?”
He stepped up beside me, looking down at the bed. “Oh, wow,” he said as he leaned in over Mom to examine the Pact closely. “There are some subtle differences.”
“You know what this is?” asked a new voice from behind us. A woman, somewhere between fifty and a hundred, roughly, stood just outside the veils staring at us. She wore what I consider standard for hospital staff, you know, the green almost sleeveless shirt and pants with the white lab coat and four different color pens in the breast pocket. At least that’s what I got from television lately. I’ve never been to a hospital and didn’t watch television growing up.
“We’ve seen such as this before, yes,” Kieran interjected.
“I would say the boy knows it intimately,” she said to Kieran, pointing at me.
“And I would say that the boy can see it when you cannot,” said Kieran. “There are several people in this room that the boy can see that you cannot, I believe.” He had stressed the boy both times, so his aggravation was pretty clear, even without an aura to read. He turned to Cahill with more civility. “Mr. Cahill, please excuse me while I have a discussion with my brother.”
As he stepped through the veil curtain, a solid wall of force rippled into existence on either side of him and flowed along the edge of the curtain and meeting on the other side. Everyone in the room gasped as Kieran ducked behind the newly formed curtain. This was a freakin’ powerful wall and he hadn’t touched a bit of outside power to throw it up. That was a lot of power to have holding and ready to use. The wall cut us off from the entire room.
Without saying anything, Kieran stepped up to the far side of the table and peered down at Mom’s face, examining the joining as we had. I watched him even as another part of me followed the fibers of the spell on my mother through the confines of her mind. I’d gotten good at truly multi-tasking during the last few days, or at least bi-tasking.
“Yes, I see the differences,” he said quietly. “They are not quite as subtle as you might think, though. This is a personal cache. Very much the same as the Pact but smaller, more compact. One of the many things you should have learned at your father’s knee.” He stood up straight, looking at me. There was a growing frustration in the statement, but it wasn’t quite an accusation yet, and not directed at me.
“Can we remove it?” I asked. “Or at least disentangle her mind?”
“This is usually self-actuated. I’ve never seen it done any other way,” he said. “Not that my experience is definitive, by any means, but if what Cahill said is true, finding someone with more experience could be difficult.”
“Ethan?”
“I’d… be afraid to try anything, Seth,” he said, softly. “Kir du’Ahn is far less destructive than I, far more delicate with his touch. I could hurt her worse in one stroke.” He hadn’t called Kieran that in some time. Obviously, he was trying to impress his sincerity on me.
“So I give up?” I said, voice cracking. The tears were rolling down my face again. “After all we’ve been through? Leave her a vegetable? How can I do that?”
“No, Seth,” said Kieran. “We’ll try to find a way around this. We’ll find Father; maybe he’ll know a way. Until then…” He paused, sighing loudly, trying to think of something, anything, that would be helpful. “Talk to her, Seth. Talk about your childhood, good times that you had with her and Father. Paint vivid pictures with words. She can hear you. If this is self actualized, she might be the key to getting herself out.”
They stepped away and behind the curtain Kieran made. I don’t know how long they were gone, but all I could do was look down and cry. Kieran came back sometime later and gently put in a chair beside me, then put another on the other side of the bed, sitting down there. He took her hand and smiled down at her. I remember that smile, too. That was the Da Vinci smile, beatific, an angel onto a mortal. He exuded his personal power, his aura, like he was showing himself to her, like he had to me on the night we met. I hoped it was more slowly and less shocking than before.
“Hello, Olivia, I’m Ehran,” he said softly to her. “I’m Robert’s youngest son, next to Seth. I’ve come home again to see my father, to make peace with him. You have raised a remarkable son, Olivia. You would be amazed at what he has accomplished in a very short time. But the most important single item that he has done, he did for you, Olivia. Just this afternoon, he killed the Loa that destroyed your father, that destroyed your family. Olivia, the Loa called St. Croix is no longer a threat to you or Seth. You have the right to be proud of him. Even the Fae are afraid of him.”
“Hello, Olivia, I’m Ethan,” Ethan said, stepping up behind me. I hadn’t heard him pass through the curtain. He stood on my right and grasped her hand lightly. He, too, pushed his power out like Kieran had, showing himself to her. “You don’t know me at all. I came back with Ehran and became a part of Seth’s family quite by accident. I owe Seth my life and Ehran’s. You have indeed raised a remarkable son. What he has accomplished in his search for you and his father is truly am
azing. I know you’re afraid for him, Olivia. But now you need to turn that fear around. Hope for him, Olivia. Come back and let us show you the man your son is becoming.”
Ethan pressed my hand into hers. “Just talk to her, Seth. Reminisce. Talk about walks through the woods in Savannah with your dad, Venice in springtime four years ago, learning how to drive. Talk about the last six months. She just needs to know you’re here.”
I squeezed her hand as they slipped past the curtain again. “So now you’ve met Ehran and Ethan. Didn’t even know I had a brother. All sorts of secrets in the family, it seems. They’re a heck of a cheering squad, aren’t they? You’d think I’d single-handedly solved all of humanity’s problems to hear them talk. All I did was what y’all taught me to do. And Ehran is just like Dad. He faced down both the Queens of Faery for me, at the same time. Told ‘em to go away and they did. And he thinks I’m something special.”
I went on like that for a while, talking about nothing and anything, just rambling. I didn’t break down again, which was something, I suppose, but I was drained emotionally anyway. Kieran came back, silently, after some time had passed. It was hard to tell how much since there was no reference behind the wall Kieran had created. He massaged my shoulders for a few minutes.
“If you want to stay, I can come get you in the morning,” he said.
I thought about the offer for a moment. “No, I need to get some sleep if I’m going to be useful tomorrow,” I said, sighing.
“Ethan and I can handle tomorrow, little brother,” he answered.
“I got us into this, Kieran,” I said. “I’m not walking away just because I got what I wanted out of it. That would be wrong, but thanks for offering.”
“See, Olivia? You can be proud,” he said, lightly brushing her forehead with his fingertips.
Kieran’s curtain dropped as soon as I touched it and revealed the empty room. We left the room and walked down the hallway. Kieran put his arm across my shoulders and I leaned comfortably into him. I felt someone slip into Mom’s room behind us, one of the healers from earlier checking on her. Martin was asleep on a couch in the main room when we came in, looking much scrawnier in a baggy T-shirt and surfer shorts, a paperback on the cushions beside him. We passed through without waking him and went to our own beds for the night.
~ ~ ~
I awoke the next morning with Shrank sitting on my nose, staring down into my left eye. Startling, to say the least.
“Ah!” I jumped, swatting at my face. “Shrank! Don’t do that!”
“Good morning, Master Seth,” he said, giggling, as he flew up and out of my reach. “Lord Kieran asked me to wake you. He has news from Ambassador Cahill.”
That got me up in a hurry and into the main room.
“Shrank, you could have told me that Mr. Cahill was here so I could have gotten dressed first,” I snapped at the pixie when I stopped three feet into the room. I was buck-naked and Cahill was sitting on the couch with Martin, sans brown robe. I felt the blood rush to my face and knew that there wasn’t a patch of skin on my body that wasn’t bright red from embarrassment.
“And maybe next time you’ll think twice before swatting at a pixie,” he squealed from the far side of the room, giggling and flying loops in the corner. I pulled my uniform on while the rest of the room let out their amusement at my discomfort.
“I have some good news for you, Seth,” said Cahill, still smiling. “Whatever you and your brother did last night had a positive effect on your mother. The healers have reported a small but significant reduction in whatever is disrupting her mind. And most importantly, she said something, just a whisper. Neil was too far away to understand, but he knew it was a distinct word. Very encouraging. The healers want to know what you did.”
I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “We just talked to her. Rambled about things. After they got me started, stuff just came out. It couldn’t be anything any different than you and Martin talk about on long trips or once he’s back from school.”
Cahill barked a laugh out and said, “You’d be surprised how hard it is to get him to talk to me, but I suppose that is more my fault than his. I’m not the most accessible man for a fourteen-year-old.” Martin’s jaw dropped at the statement.
“Who are you and what have you done with my father?” Martin asked, facetiously. Cahill laughed again, heartily. I guess he wasn’t used to his son making jokes with him, because he was genuinely surprised at the question.
“When does the final battle begin?” Cahill asked Kieran, standing. Martin stood up quickly with him.
“MacNamara said noon, but I have no idea who the competition is,” said Kieran, standing with them.
“They’re a mixed team of Americans and Brits. Regardless of the outcome, we will be leaving soon afterward and of course, Olivia will remain in our care until you deem it necessary to change that. You will always be welcome in our home,” Cahill said as he reached out his hand to Kieran.
“Mr. Cahill,” I said as they turned to leave. “I’m sorry, I know this is in extremely bad taste, but I have to know, why are you helping me like this? I mean, there’s no way I can possibly repay you for what you’re doing…”
“Seth,” Cahill started, thoughtfully, seeming to take no offense in the question. He strummed his fingers along the couch at his side rhythmically as he considered what to say. “Over the last decade, I was called upon a few times by your father to look into the whereabouts of a few people, seemingly quite casually. Something he was quite good at, really. And as I continued to look into the histories of these people and, indeed, your father’s as well, I noticed a number of… let’s call them coincidences. And at least two of these coincidences involved Robert risking himself and literally saving my life in the process. Further, each of the persons he looked for had a similar history. Quite the conspiracy of good will your father was a party to.
“It was quite… eye-opening,” Felix Cahill said. The conviction of his words was strong in his aura as he said this. “You see, Seth, it’s not you who is indebted here.” Cahill led a confused Marty out while I processed his speech. I wasn’t sure I agreed with him that this was on Dad’s dime, but I also wasn’t in a position to argue.
I plopped back down on the couch beside Peter, rubbing the remaining sleep out of my face then pushing both hands through my shaggy hair.
Turning to Peter, I asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” he said with a shrug. “Slept great, really deep. Ate again when Ethan came back, then slept some more. Now I feel normal. Except for the fact that the three of you shine as bright as the noon day sun, I’d say nothing has changed.”
“What do you remember about yesterday?” asked Kieran, sitting down on the couch opposite us with a plate of what looked like quiche, toast, and sliced Esteleum.
“I remember clearly up to getting crushed and after waking up in the locker room,” Peter said. “In between, nothing.”
Kieran nodded, chewing on a piece of purple fruit. “Not unusual,” he commented.
“So,” Peter said, turning to me, “where’s my battery.”
“Hmm? Oh,” I said, distracted. The “Conspiracy of Good Will” he’d called it. That there was someone operating against my father seemed obvious, but who else was it operating against? How big was this going to turn out to be? I shook the questions off for now and concentrated on Peter again.
“So you haven’t been poking around, looking for it yet?” I asked, grinning.
“Since I’ve been up, yes,” he admitted, looking a bit frustrated. “But I can’t find it. I even looked myself over astrally and I don’t see it anywhere.”
“Have you tried your center?” asked Kieran. “Seth calls it his cavern, but you may have been taught to call it your center.”
“My center isn’t a place,” said Peter, looking confused. “It’s a state of mind, a sense of well-being.”
“Well, you’re in for a shock, then,” he said, chuckling. “
Seth, ask first.”
“May I come in?” I asked, grinning like Carroll’s Cheshire Cat.
“Yeah, sure,” answered Peter, obviously confused.
I touched Peter’s arm and pushed through his aura and into his cavern. It was easier this time to lock into the right perspective since I’d been there twice. I stood beside the milk-can battery, shining in its eerie light. There was still damage to Peter’s soul, I could feel it, but it would heal. It was beginning to already. I could feel his confusion, too. He could feel me as a part of him, inside of him, but not where I was. I was going to have to draw him in.
Outside, I said, “Peter, I need you to begin to perform some magic, something small that’s going to take some concentration and power, but not cause a problem if it gets disrupted. Can you do that for me?”
Peter started levitating the coffee table in front of us. I watched the astral plane from the outside world while inside Peter. I watched where his mind and his power pushed and pulled. Where his consciousness coalesced with his power to form the spell was the spot I wanted. I needed to pull that spot down into the cavern with me. I found it immediately and pulled gently toward me.
Then Peter was standing next to me beside the battery. The coffee table dropped lightly to the floor. The spell wasn’t disrupted; Peter had just let it go. He stood staring into the blackness around him, trying to decide what he was looking at, I suppose. After a moment, he looked at me, then the battery. He did a double-take on the battery, then bent down to examine it carefully. He pulled a small amount of energy out of it and looked at the string in amazement. Then he pushed it back in, then out and back in. He played with it like this for a few moments, until I said, grinning, “Should I leave the two of you alone?”
He looked up at me, shocked. “We can talk? Too cool!”