The only sound I can hear past the blood pounding in my ears is Rian’s frightened gasping. All I can think of is how much I want to hurt Rian, wipe the smug superiority off his face in the only way I know how. Show him that he has no reason to raise himself above me.
Eventually, sound returns to my ears when strong hands grab me by the shoulders and throw me bodily aside. I try to get onto one knee but my uncle cuffs me with a backhand blow that contains all the fury of his fear. My mother lets out a scream that she quickly stifles. I try again to rise but am forced back to the ground by another powerful blow.
“Don’t you dare touch my son,” my uncle roars. I’m still slightly stunned and don’t attempt to rise from the floor again. My uncle looks as if he would like me to try, so he can cuff me again.
My aunt shoves the baby into one of my younger cousin’s arms and drops to her knees beside Rian. She helps him to a sitting position where he coughs sporadically. She glares at me with all of the considerable venom she can muster.
“You keep your unnaturalness away from my children, demon-spawn.”
Gentle hands grip my arm and tug upward. My mother pulls me to my feet. It obviously costs her a great deal of effort, and as soon as I pull out of my half-stunned state enough to notice, I support my own weight.
“Come on, love,” she whispers in my ear. “Let’s go get some air.”
We leave my uncle’s family staring after us, daggers from my aunt’s and uncle’s eyes and wide-eyed confusion from my cousins.
Past the threshold, my breathing is loud and harsh in the still morning air. Anger pumps through my veins, but it is now tempered by fear. How much longer will my uncle tolerate me in his house?
My mother threads her arm through mine and leans heavily on it.
“Take me to the river, Merlin. It’s a beautiful morning.”
We direct our steps south. It’s not long before I speak.
“I’m sorry, mother. I just—I just got so angry.” I swallow, feeling the fury ebb when I acknowledge it aloud. She pats my arm.
“I know. I heard what Rian said. But you must remember that we owe your uncle for giving us a home. With no one willing to marry me,” she gestures at her face with its taut scars and drooping right eye, “your uncle was kind enough to provide for us. And now that I can contribute so little, well, it’s important to remember our place.” She rubs my arm consolingly. “Those are not the words a young man wants to hear, I know. Nevertheless, they are true. And when I am gone—”
“Don’t say that,” I whisper. She squeezes my arm.
“When I am gone I want to know you’ll be well. And the best way for that to happen is if you stay in your uncle’s good graces.”
“It doesn’t matter how much I try,” I say at once. “As soon as you—” I can’t finish the sentence. “One day they will kick me out. They’re afraid of me.”
“Oh, Merlin, can you blame them?” She sighs deeply. “You need to learn when to use your abilities, and when to hold back. Promise me you’ll be careful who you tell in the future. Some people, like your aunt, will never be ready to know.”
I’m silent, pondering both her words and the injustice of the scene at the house. The path leads us to the river. It has no name—it’s simply known as “the river.” There is none other nearby, and we don’t see enough travelers in our forgotten corner of the world to bother with a name. The river is brown and muddy from the spring rains and snow melt from higher in the hills. Thick trees shade most of the bank where a few scraggly wildflowers bloom, but the slanting sun illuminates a patch of moss under an ash tree. I lead my mother there—it’s her favorite spot.
I guide her to the ground carefully. She tries not to show how much the movement pains her, but she clutches my arm and remains tight-lipped until she settles on the moss. She’s so slight these days, and I know it’s not simply a function of my emerging strength as I grow. I sit next to her and pick up a stone within arm’s reach to fiddle with. My mother sighs with something approaching contentment.
“I always meant to travel with you, Merlin. Someday, when you were older.” She gazes into the swirling water.
This is news to me. She always appeared content to live her life in our tiny, nameless cluster of huts, helping with the harvest, aiding my aunt with her many children.
“Really? Why—I mean, where did you want to go?” I’ve never been farther than the fort of Caernarfon, a two-day walk through the mountains. Exciting possibilities blossom in my mind of the unknown world beyond these hills.
“I’ve watched you grow over the years, Merlin, and my heart nearly breaks every time you have to hide your abilities or are punished for them. I wanted to find somewhere you belong, somewhere you could be yourself without fear or judgement. I thought that if we found the land your father came from, perhaps you could finally feel at home.”
I stare at my mother’s wistful expression as she follows the progress of the river with her eyes. I never considered that there might be a whole land of people like me.
She catches my eye and smiles regretfully.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it happen before I go. Perhaps one day, when you are older, you can leave here and find your way in the world. You are so special, my darling.” She touches my cheek with her hand. “Especially to me.”
My fist tightens around the stone and I look down at my mother’s abdomen, swallowing hard. Her center is a mess, a terrible lauvan cluster above her stomach. In some of our rare quiet moments together I’ve tried to smooth away the knots, but whatever I try never works and every day it gets worse.
“Let me try again,” I say, reaching for her center. She intercepts my hands and clasps them in her own.
“Merlin, my darling boy.” She sighs and squeezes my hands. I can’t meet her eyes. “Please, just sit with me. Talk to me.”
“About what?” My voice is raspy with repressed emotion. I can’t fix her. I don’t know how to fix her.
She leans against the tree and holds out her arm.
“Tell me again about the owl nestlings you found last week.”
I look for a moment at her closed eyes in her tired face, then I lean back into her arm. She pulls me close and rests her cheek on the top of my head. I fight to control my emotions. After releasing a deep sigh, I speak.
“I was walking north down the trail, twenty paces past grandfather’s oak stump, when I heard a shrill shriek to my left…”
***
“He’ll have to go.”
My aunt doesn’t realize I’m right outside the door. Or maybe she does, and she doesn’t care. Both are equally likely. I hang back and lean against the wall of the hut to listen. I know they’re talking about me.
My uncle replies, his voice weary and strained.
“He’s still family.”
“Hardly. His mother may have been your sister, but what of his father? The one we know nothing about? The one he obviously takes after, with his unnatural ways and those intense eyes. And his temper? Your sister was such a sweet, mild woman—may the goddess be gentle with her.”
My uncle sighs but says nothing. My aunt must sense her advantage because she presses on.
“You took her and her child in for all those years, fed her, clothed her, protected her. You helped her despite her deformities, the mark of the goddess’ displeasure. You have done more than enough, and owe her boy nothing. Why, he’s not much of a boy anymore, practically a man. He would be out supporting himself soon enough—a year or two early won’t kill him. It might even be good for him. Teach him to take some responsibility for his actions for a change.”
“There is that,” my uncle says. “He’s almost of age.”
“That’s perfectly true,” my aunt says, eager to foster her agenda in my uncle.
“But I promised my sister I would look after him.”
“What about your promises to me? Only last month he pinned Rian to the ground at breakfast. I honestly thought he would kill Rian. Do you
remember his face?”
This seems to awaken my uncle.
“Yes, I remember.”
“You have a duty to your children, to protect them. I don’t see how you can do that as long as we harbor that boy in the house. For the safety of our children, the boy has to go.”
There’s a pause, and then a deep sigh.
“You’re right. The boy must go.”
I am stricken. My knees would give out on me if I weren’t frozen in place. So, this is it. My mother’s body is scarcely cool in her earthen grave and already I am abandoned, bereft of mother and home and place in the world all at once. Anger simmers deep within, but my mind is covered by the dull, numb blanket of grief laid on at my mother’s deathbed.
I can’t stay here, not in this house anymore, and not on this mountainside where no one trusts me or likes me. My mother was all I had.
Through the haze of loss and fear I remember my mother’s words. I thought that if we found the land your father came from, perhaps you could finally feel at home. Is there something else out there? Somewhere else I might truly belong? Someone else who might care about me?
My aunt and uncle walk toward the door and I quickly scuttle around the corner. Once they leave, my aunt leaning on my uncle’s arm, I slip into the house. It is dark without the fire lit, but I know my way. In my blanket I bundle the bread my aunt made this morning and some smoked meats hanging from the ceiling. I swing my cloak over my shoulders and adjust the pin holding it shut. A moment’s hesitation, then I grab my uncle’s hunting knife. It is a prized possession that my uncle has owned for years, well-oiled iron with a carved wooden handle. But he’s on good terms with the blacksmith at the nearby fort of Dinas Emrys. He can get another one. I have nothing. Besides, he’ll probably think it’s a good trade, the knife in order to be rid of me for good. I grit my teeth and kick a stool over. It hits the wall with a solid thud. I take one last look at the room I grew up in—the only home I’ve ever known—and leave forever.
CHAPTER XXVII
I push open the turquoise-painted door with my hip, grimacing at the force needed. When the door pops open, I stumble with the sudden lack of resistance. A jangling dissonance from the disturbed wind chimes reminds me of my visit with Jen for our free palm reading. Was it only a week ago?
The door needs a shove to close, and leaves me blinking in the dimness. A voice floats out of the corner.
“Good afternoon.”
The voice comes from the middle-aged woman behind the counter. Her silver lauvan drift gently around her, in the breeze from another world. I clear my throat.
“Is it Bethany? Aunt of Jacqueline Appleton?”
Bethany’s lauvan tense and she stares at me closely. A wide smile follows, and she comes out from behind the counter with her arms outstretched.
“You must be Merry.” She reaches for my unresisting hands and grips them firmly, shaking them for emphasis. “Jacqueline told me all about you and what you did for Wallerton. Words cannot express my gratitude for saving my lovely girls.” She beams up at me. The hand-holding lasts for longer than I’m comfortable with before she releases me. She says, “I had no idea it was you.”
“You remember me?”
“How could I forget? That intense reading—I knew immediately that you were different, but I never guessed how.”
“Out of curiosity, what did you see?” I wouldn’t mind knowing exactly how much Bethany knows about me. She ponders my question, her forehead wrinkled in thought.
“It wasn’t visions that came to me, so much as feelings. There was a sense of time, of endless waiting, of sorrows and disappointments beyond number.”
“Sounds about right,” I mutter.
“But then a sense of relief, of future joy and reuniting, of the bonds of affection between two friends.” She looks at me with earnest eyes. “It will occur, and soon, that reunion you long for. The spirits do not lie. Take heart.”
I stare into Bethany’s eyes, letting myself believe for just a moment that she knows what she’s talking about. I wonder what “soon” is to Bethany. Do the spirits go by her clock or by mine?
I give her a wry smile and break eye contact.
“Thanks, Bethany.” I remember one of the reasons I came to the shop today. “Oh, I wanted to tell you—your necklace won’t work anymore. I destroyed Anna’s, and it seems to have stripped the connection to the spirit world from all three necklaces.”
“Yes, Jacqueline told me as much.” She sighs and smiles a little sadly. “I won’t pretend I won’t miss the spectacular insight, but I’m more grateful that the volcano did not erupt. And if that is what was needed to be done, then so be it.”
“It was. About the necklaces, do you have any more information on the man who gave them to you? I think Sylvana said his name was Drew?”
“I wish I had more to tell you. He came in claiming to be an acquaintance of a good friend of mine, who just so happened to be on a month-long yoga retreat in India, with no contact to the outside world. Of course, when she arrived back two days ago I asked her, and she’d never heard of Drew.”
“When he gave you the necklaces, did he do anything strange?”
She looks at me and nods slowly.
“When he gave me the necklace, he placed it around my neck and kept his fingers above my collarbones for a while, with his eyes closed. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I felt a strange sensation of too much familiarity with the stranger. It was unnerving. But when his hands left me, oh, I could feel the world open up to me. It was intoxicating, that sense of revelation.”
Bethany touches the nape of her neck absentmindedly, and closes her empty fist above where her necklace used to lie.
“Is there anything else you found out about Drew? Anything he mentioned?” A first name and a vague description aren’t much to go on if I want to know more about these necklaces and the spirit world.
“He didn’t say much else, but after Anna spoke with him on her own, the night she and Jacqueline had their big row, Anna mentioned the name of the organization Drew was part of. She called it Potestas.”
I frown. Potestas is Latin for power or opportunity. In light of Anna’s shenanigans at Mt. Linnigan, I’m starting to guess what the name means. But what, oh what, is their game? Unfortunately, I think I’ve found out all I can here. Bethany says she has no more to add, and her openly flowing lauvan conceal nothing. Potestas will have to stay a mystery for now.
I dig into my pocket for my wallet and pull out a card.
“Can I give you my card? If you hear anything more about Drew and Potestas, I’d appreciate you giving me a call.”
The card is simple, with merry lytton on the top in capitals and my cell number underneath. I acquired the habit of having a calling card in the seventeen-fifties, and found them so useful that I’ve had a version at all times ever since. I especially like the simplicity of name and number. They’re both things that I can change easily, to disappear without much of a trail.
Bethany takes the proffered card and holds it in both hands.
“I will ask my friends in the community if anyone else has come across Potestas.” She thinks for a minute, then her eyes brighten. “I can ask the spirits as well.”
I look at her askance.
“I’m confused. I thought the necklaces didn’t work anymore.”
Bethany smiles conspiratorially.
“There are many other ways to contact them. Messages from the necklace were incredibly clear and obvious, but I can gain insight through other channels.”
Okay, I’m less hopeful about her innate abilities to summon spirits, but what do I know? Spirits didn’t exist in my mind until last week.
“Thanks, Bethany.” I turn to go.
“Wait,” she says. Her face is pensive. “Can I ask—how is it you have these abilities? Who are you?”
I look at her thoughtfully. I have a feeling I could trust Sylvana and Bethany with my secrets, if I wanted. Both their minds are so op
en, so willing to believe the inexplicable—after an initial shock, I expect they would take it in stride. And their lauvan show no sign of deception or subterfuge—both aunt and niece are open books, so different from Anna.
Still, I hardly know them. And what purpose would it serve? It’s a risk to divulge. I’m wary after the recent debacle with Jen. I could be reading them both wrong, although it is unlikely. I’m still undecided when Bethany speaks.
“No, don’t answer. I don’t need to know. I felt your intentions were good when I read your palm, and your actions in Wallerton confirmed my feelings. I trust you are on the side of good, and that’s all I need to know.”
A short laugh escapes my lips. I’ve lived long enough to know there is no good or bad, no black and white, only the murky grays through which every human flounders.
“I try my best. It’s not always good enough, but it’s all I have to work with.” I nod at her. “Goodbye, Bethany.”
“Be well, Merry Lytton.” She stumbles over my last name, slurring the t’s, and to my ears it almost sounds like my true name. She nods back graciously and I turn to leave. The jangling wind chimes echo in my ears long after I close the turquoise door.
CHAPTER XXVIII
I’m in my office, aimlessly swiveling my chair. Papers to be marked sit in an untouched pile on my otherwise sparse desk, a red pen at the ready but as yet unused. I turn around and around, staring at nothing.
I can’t concentrate. It’s way past lunchtime, but the thought of food sickens me. I can’t stop thinking about Jen, her face after I manipulated the lauvan, the overwhelmingly loud silence in the car, the quiet goodbye at the sidewalk. Was that the last time I’ll see Jennifer Chan?
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