Crossroads

by Alexie Aaron [Aaron, Alexie]

  Mia waited there, and soon, Charles appeared and took her hand. His mind persona had him in his dig clothes. His nails were dirty and chipped.

  “Where is my grandmother? This looks like a celebration of my birth?” Mia asked.

  “I don’t know. Somehow, it never occurred to me that she should have been there. We weren’t getting along at the time. Honestly, I really don’t remember any time we got along. She seemed to only tolerate me after I and Amanda married.”

  Mia, I want you to look at Charles and invite him into your eyes.

  “Here?”

  Take him upstairs, where you lay in the crib. This way, he can see all that happened.

  “Yes, Baxter,” Mia said. “Father, look into my eyes. I want you to imagine walking into them. You can’t be hurt in the place I take you. You are just an observer.”

  Charles stood with Mia behind a four-poster bed. The large bottom drawer from the big dresser sat in the middle of the dusty bed. It had been made into a makeshift bassinet. The existing old dusty furniture hadn’t even been moved to accommodate the infant’s arrival. You could see where Ralph had tried to bring color into the room, but it was still cold, dark, sparse, and unwelcoming. Mia looked down at herself sleeping. “I look just like Genevieve,” she said.

  “I told you, you had dark hair when you were born,” Charles said. “We weren’t prepared. I padded the drawer, and you didn’t seem to mind it. I don’t remember this room looking so dreary.”

  “It is what it is,” Mia said, shrugging it off.

  Mia and Charles saw a timid spirit move towards the bed. It reached out but stopped. There was activity just outside the door. The misty female ghost disappeared.

  They heard Bev’s voice prod, “Come on, Amanda, we won’t wake her. This is the best time to see her. This way you don’t have to pick her up.”

  The door opened, and both women walked in. Beverly walked over and looked at the sleeping Mia. “It’s just as I feared. I warned you not to let the child survive the birth. The devil will rise, and the end of the world will come if this thing survives.”

  “I had a paper to finish. I put her in a drawer. After I finished, I was going to drown her in the bathtub and then toss her in the garbage, but then Charles arrived home.”

  Mia groaned. She put her face to Charles’s chest for a moment. As he held her, he regretted the blockage he had put into place that kept him from truly loving his daughter. He felt her steel herself and turn back around to witness what was to come.

  “Sudden infant death syndrome. Amanda, all you have to do is smother her with a pillow,” Bev said, handing Amanda one of the dusty ones from the bed. “When you’re through, put this in the closet, and no one will be the wiser,” she instructed. Bev walked out, closing the door behind her.

  “I had no idea,” Charles said. “I thought your mother was depressed and couldn’t bond with you.”

  Amanda walked forward. Mia, the baby, opened her eyes. Charles and Mia were now viewing the scene through the infant’s eyes. They saw the determination in Amanda’s face as she brought the pillow down upon the baby.

  Charles held his daughter who trembled while witnessing her own death.

  Mia, the baby, opened her eyes to darkness. There was no light there waiting for her. Was she born evil? A pinpoint of light moved forward, and as it neared, it became larger and larger. The light was coming.

  Sounds of a door being forced open took their attention away from the dead child to the living occupant of the room. Amanda turned to see Charles stumble in as the door crashed against the wall.

  “What have you done!” he accused.

  “I never wanted her. It’s not like we need a child. Let’s go down. Our guests are waiting.”

  Charles pulled the pillow off Mia. Her eyes were red. Her mouth was open, and her lips were blue. Her body was limp as Charles cradled her to him. He moved quickly and started CPR and breathed air into her lungs. He was faintly aware of Amanda clawing at him to stop. The baby coughed as life returned to Mia’s tiny body. She didn’t cry. She just held on to the cuff of Charles’s shirt as if it were a lifeline. The infant Mia couldn’t see Charles because she had closed her eyes to stop them from hurting from the abrasions caused by the pillow.

  The perspective of the room returned to Charles’s memories.

  Amanda sat down on the floor and started to have a tantrum.

  Charles put Mia back down in the drawer and went to comfort his wife. But as he did, he kept looking over at the drawer on the bed.

  “Amanda needed me,” her father said. “But I wanted to be with you.”

  Charles and Amanda left the room.

  Charles and Mia were getting ready to leave.

  Wait, something is happening.

  A distortion preceded the arrival of a young tattered man dressed in an army uniform.

  “That’s Shane Quivers. He was the earthly vessel for Abigor Duke of Hades,” Mia told her father.

  “Abigor was your commanding general during the frost giant battle,” Charles confirmed.

  “Yes.”

  They watched as Abigor walked out of Shane and looked down at Mia.

  “He has come to kill me. I was prophesized to be his assassin,” Mia explained.

  Mia, the baby, assumed the man who rescued her was back. The demon reached in, and she felt the tickle of his scales on her skin. Mia opened her eyes and smiled. Her small hand closed around his finger. Mia looked into the orange fallen eyes and associated them with the love it took to bring her back from the dead. She fell in love.

  Mia and Charles watched as confusion filled the demon’s face and then a tenderness. He kissed Mia’s forehead. He healed her eyes and took away the dead cells that the suffocation had killed before he buried the memory of his being there.

  “This is where he opened my eyes to being able to see the danger and the beauty around me.”

  They watched as Mia’s dark hair was pushed out by strong strands of white.

  “I thought it was the trauma of your mother killing you that changed your hair.”

  Abigor walked back into Shane, and the two disappeared. The trembling ghost appeared out of the dark corner of the room and moved over, picked up the baby, cradled her in her arms, and comforted the abandoned child.

  “This is my misty mother,” Mia said. “She was killed by her father, and her bones were hidden in the brownstone.”

  “We sensed something there, but in our line of work, we ran into creatures like this quite frequently.”

  Mia, close your eyes so you’re out of your infancy and back in Charles’s memories.

  Mia did so.

  Charles was downstairs keeping an eye on Amanda, but he kept looking upstairs. Mia walked with her father out of the memory. “I didn’t remember my death until Amanda spat it my face. My first memory was of Abigor. I realize now that I confused the love you pushed into me with your life-giving breath with Abigor arriving. My eyes were closed, and his were the first I saw. The smile that saved my life was meant for you. If not for you, Abigor would have arrived to find a dead child. Or I would have been killed by Abigor had Bev not convinced my crazy mother to kill me. The way I see it, Father, is that you saved my life, twice.”

  “You must have bonded first with Abigor and then with the ghost. You were a cold child that would rather run the fields than sit still with us. You made it too easy for us to leave you, and most times, we forgot you existed.”

  “This was all part of the programing to make me a bitter assassin. But you can see why it blew up in Fredricka’s face. Had she been kinder to Bev, then maybe I would have become the assassin. Who knows?”

  Mia, Charles, it’s time to exit Charles’s mind.

  “Wait,” Charles said. “Let her see why I lied to her about the cremation.”

  “Father, I will believe your words. It’s too dangerous for me to stay within your mind this long.”

  “Very
well,” Charles said. He let go of Mia’s hand. He watched as she walked away but looked back and said, “I’ll see you soon, Daddy.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Charles opened his eyes to see Mia staring at him. Her eyes seemed to be softer than he was used to.

  “Brian has your eyes. But Varden has your heart,” he told her.

  “Brian has already learned to hide his feelings behind a mask of intelligence. Trust me, Brian loves as hard as Varden does.”

  Charles nodded.

  Baxter walked back to the desk. He sat down exhausted. When he started this guidance, he had no idea it was going to do more than show Mia how much her father loved her. He had no idea the pivotal moment in her life occurred when she was only days old.

  “Did you save me because Amanda would go to prison again?” Mia asked.

  “No. It didn’t occur to me until years later when she tried it again. I was quick to remove the poisonous meal she had prepared for you. I was the primary cook from then on.”

  Mia accepted the answer.

  “Mia, I know I have to tell you some things, and they are going to be hard to hear. I want you to remember that even though I was cursed to love Amanda unconditionally for her entire life, I did see what she was doing. I did try in my inept way to make sure that you spent more time with Ralph than your grandmother or us.”

  “Thank you for that. I wish I was kinder to him when I was a teen.”

  “If anyone would understand angst, it’s Ralph and Bernard.”

  Mia looked over at Baxter. She rose to go to the weakened man, but he waved her away. “Listen to your father while I recover.”

  Mia turned back to Charles.

  “I didn’t start off to deceive you. I did intend to cremate Amanda so no retribution could be taken out on her corpse.”

  “What?”

  “Head separated, stake through the heart. There are many ways, I have found in my studies, where the anger of a population was allowed in the graveyard. I figured that the demons involved in the battle may want to get a little bit of their own back.”

  “Alright, you were going to cremate her. What stopped you?”

  “I thought she deserved the opportunity to make restitution before she is judged by the light.”

  “She could have gone to Purgatory. I looked for her there before I searched Hell for her.”

  “I see you weren’t under any assumptions that, perhaps, your mother would have been welcomed by Heaven.”

  “No. She was unapologetic about her scorn of the place. I do, however, know she was groomed to be this person a long time before you came into her life. I believe you saved her from herself, and she did love you, Daddy.”

  “Oh yes, she loved me so much, she bashed in my skull so she could get the glory for opening what she thought was a treasure chest.”

  “You don’t know that’s what was on her mind.”

  “Exactly, I thought that if she had the chance to come back as a spirit, I would have the opportunity to ask her that question. I need to know that I was loved.”

  “I love you.”

  “Do you? Your disdain for us was evident by the boxes of unopened birthday presents sent to you.”

  “I’m not proud of that, and Ralph did raise me better. This was all before PEEPs came into my life. You have no idea what Fredricka and her minions did to me once you agreed to emancipate me.”

  Baxter cleared his voice. “Mia, this is for another time. Right now, you’re to listen to why your father kept Amanda’s burial from you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mia said. “I’m sorry, go ahead.”

  “I had her buried in the mausoleum of a colleague of mine. I then tried to mourn her. You were so obliging. You and Ted welcomed me into your family. Your insisting I take Ed on as an O.I. on my dig team was the right move, and it was healing. Yes, I was still pissed at him for dragging me around the country, but I saw how far he had come to be a power of good. I thought, perhaps, I could find my way to be a credit to you too.”

  “You weren’t just using Varden to get close to me, were you?”

  “No. I genuinely love the boy. I don’t know how anyone but the coldest of hearts could be with the child and not feel love. While I was here to celebrate the arrival of your beautiful daughters, I wanted to get to know my grandsons. Dieter is already a teen and has witnessed the hurt that Amanda and I caused you. He puts up with me as long as you do. Brian is too smart to let us know how he feels about the situation of me being with the family. Amanda loved Brian. Varden was a bit too young for her to bond with, but Brian she was so proud of.”

  “I was fooled by her sporadic interest in me and mine.”

  “Mia, she was genuinely interested in you and yours. But Piers and Beverly got their hands on her, and Amanda was primed for the role of villain. I knew she was broken when I met her but not that she couldn’t be mended. My Mandy was somewhat sane, but not really,” Charles said sadly. “I had almost put this behind me when my old super called and told me of the activity in the townhouse.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me? Why did you involve Ted?”

  “I trusted the man, and you had been through so much in the last few weeks. And I’m a coward.”

  “I think not wanting to tell our loved ones hard truths runs on the Cooper side of the family,” Mia said. “I’m afraid to tell Ted that I’ve changed again.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I swam in the Second-day Sea. I accepted primal demon genes into my cells.”

  “Why for God’s sake?”

  “Two reasons. I have been unbalanced since I lost the demon I couldn’t control. Various wizards and ethereal entities tried to balance me with this and that, but I’ve always felt a weakness. This gene is so old that it predates the fall. I can calmly look at the antics of the fallen without being seduced or frightened by them. I can see angels for what they are and understand why they can be distant. The second reason is, a threat was emerging because of the greed of others that I needed to take care of. A threat so close to home, I’m really surprised I had no inkling it was there.”

  “I take it that explosion had something to do with it.”

  “That wasn’t me. I had already vacated an old race called The Balance, but I suspected they left a surprise for the would-be thieves. Murphy and I warned them. They did not take the warning seriously.”

  “Mia, I’m sorry.”

  “Daddy, I’m sorry too.”

  “I love it when you call me Daddy. Father is so formal and cold.”

  Mia blushed.

  Baxter saw her slip into the daughter role as if she was putting on a hoodie. “Mia, do you think you understand why your father lied to you about cremating your mother?”

  “Yes. And although he doesn’t need it, I forgive him.”

  “Thank you. Will you help me through facing her?”

  “I’ll be there for you after, but I sense that the two of you need time to communicate, first, without me. I fear I will complicate the situation. After all, she died thinking I was the antichrist. Me arriving with an army of 500, 000 demons would only give credence to Bev’s lies.”

  “But she was dead by then,” Charles said.

  “She could still have been there. Remember, Dad, there’s dead and then there’s dead-dead.”

  Baxter smiled. “Okay, you two. I’m going to take Charles home.”

  “No. I’d like to spend some time getting to know my brother while Mia tells Ted everything.”

  “But…” Mia started.

  Charles turned and put his hands on Mia’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “It’s time we Coopers took control of our lives. And it starts with the truth. Ted is better than I could hope for as a son-in-law, and I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and watch you screw your relationship up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Charles opened the door and walked out.

  Baxter looked over at Mia.
“How do you feel about talking about this now with Ted?”

  “Aren’t you exhausted?”

  “Yes, but I’m not the one who has to face Ted.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Good because here he comes.”

  Ted walked in and over to his wife. He scooped her up and held her. “I’m so proud of you. I’m not sure I could face Reg. I’m still mad he thought I was gay for ten years.”

  “Ted, I’ve got something to tell you that I should have told you right after it happened, and I used the crap-fest we were going through as an excuse.”

  Ted sat down but still held Mia in his lap. “Spit it out.”

  Mia did, and to give Ted credit, he listened until she told him everything. He dropped his head down and sniffed her neck. “It’s not an unpleasant scent. It smells like Christmas and the Atlantic. I like Christmas.”

  Mia’s eyes filled with tears of thankfulness.

  Ted turned to Baxter. “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?’

  “A good thing. Mia chose to have the change happen. Hell is not going to mess with her. Heaven may back off, but Michael likes Mia, and after lecturing her for a millennium, I think he will see what an asset she is. Best of all, you don’t have to be scared someone demonic is going to take her in the night. Her genes give her status. When your children are grown, she will have the choice of opening her mind and communicating with the old ones. The only bad thing in accepting the gene is that primal demons don’t procreate. They live so long that, had they been able to, they would have overrun the planet.”