also ci·on:
A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting.
A descendant or heir.
“I’d like to know more about Fran’s training,” I announced casually at breakfast. “Last night a hound tried to track me through her—why hasn’t she been taught to block that?” I asked point blank as I reached for the salt.
“And I think it’s time I know whatever it is you haven’t told me about my Da,” I told my uncle, who gazed at me somberly. “That, and I want his footlocker sent here. Can we make that happen today?”
Fran stared in shock, Elizabeth in surprise, and my uncle nodded at me.
“We can do all of that.”
“Good.” I picked up my tea. “And I’m sorry,” I said to Elizabeth and to Fran, “you’ll have to excuse me from our plans today—there’s something I need to do.” I glanced over at my uncle. “Would you monitor?”
This time, he seemed surprised. “What do you want to do?”
I put my cup down and pushed my chair back. I took a moment to think about what I wanted to say as I stood. I said what I thought, I said what I felt. “I want to find the son of a bitch from last night, and I want to know what Old Jones has to do with my father.”
*
“This is your hunt,” Cort told me once we were in the study. “Handle it however you want.”
I nodded. There were any number of ways this could go wrong, from sheer ineptness on my part and failing to make even the slightest of transitions, to bringing something unpleasant back with me that didn’t belong here, or even creating a massive backflow of energy, of power, that would rebound through me and overload not only my own system, but that of every “sensitive” in the vicinity, blowing open gates that should remain closed. Not to mention the literal headaches.
I could accept that, the responsibility for it. I was absolutely certain of my ability to do this and to do it well, and before I did anything else, for the first time, I pulled off my shirt, then reached for the robe that was presented to me. I’d do this the way I was meant to: sky-clad.
*
The first part was easy: I drew in energy from the earth, from the air, from the surrounding Aethyr and created the white light simulacrum. The next part wasn’t hard either, to travel through the Aethyr, find the track and print of the night before, to once more seek and see the dark signature that had reached out for Fran and to grab hold of it.
The trick was to maintain the hold, then transfer it with me to the nexus of the Astral. At first, it was a bit of fog, like gray cotton-candy in my hand, and as we moved through Aethyr to Astral, to the higher level only those invited, brought directly, or trained could reach, it thickened, grew heavy, oily and sticky, like an ugly black putty or the tar that was used to repair cracks in the street, and it fought and twisted in my hands, unable to stand my grip, the pure energy of the Light I carried, as we rapidly approached the Mid-Astral proper.
I had only a moment to see what it had resolved into when we arrived, before it tore from my grasp and the simulacrum ran, a frantic, beetlelike scuttle of skeletal legs and arms, while its oily cape billowed behind it.
What a waste of energy, the creation of the aethyric double that was meant to frighten, to intimidate, I thought. I could feel the smile that crossed my face echo on the body that lay inert on the Material as the sheer joy of the hunt sluiced through me, and I flew forward in pursuit.
I was gaining as we ran across the terrain and not twenty yards ahead of us winked a small hole in the ground, a burrow my quarry aimed for. I lunged, reaching for and rewarded with a good hold of the black, viscous cloak, which writhed around my fist, a cold and slimy feel, and together, we fell through.
We tumbled through dirt and water and clouds, a collage of energy and elements until we came to a halt and I maintained a firm grip as I looked around.
We were in the Material, but not exactly. I stared around as I realized we were in the Aethyr itself, the literal energy double of the world we inhabited, and we were in London, not far from St. Katharine dockyards.
“Who do you answer to?” I asked the hound I held in my hands, and as he opened his mouth to speak, a look of horror crossed his face as he choked and clutched frantically at his stomach. The robe was rapidly dissolving and I looked down as he did. There, dangling from his navel like live wire, was the torn end of the lifeline that had kept his soul tethered to his body. And as his now-human eyes met mine, we both knew what had happened: he’d been murdered in the Material to prevent him from speaking to me here.
He mewled in terror and clawed at the robe that was the waste of the resources he had left, shrinking and changing before my astonished eyes until a vaguely human figure, round and childlike, perhaps six inches tall, stood, cowering and crying before me.
“I won’t hurt you,” I promised and it shook in fear as I reached for it.
It trembled as I caressed its small round head and I caught it up in my hand.
No longer tied to a body, it couldn’t speak in words, in language, but it could send pure thought and emotion and it clearly broadcast its remorse and regret.
“I’ll bring you to the River, and you can start again.”
A burst of pure joy, followed by doubt.
“Yes, you can, you really can—would you like that?”
Another burst of joy mixed with gratitude waved forth as it threw itself on my neck. I turned once and was instantly back where I needed to be, the Mid-Astral, and it rode my shoulder as we approached the glowing banks of the River.
A shadow of fear crossed its little body and I understood. “No,” I said, “your Master can’t follow you now.” I carefully set the body of light on the grass of the bank.
It took one hesitant step, then another, and another, glowing brighter and brighter until it leapt with pure joy and glee into the opalescent glow. It took a moment to look back and wave at me as the current carried it past a curve in the bank and out of sight.
*
I slapped my hand hard on the wood beyond the rug I lay on, before I even opened my eyes, to ground out what energy I could.
“We have a problem,” I announced to the serious brown eyes that greeted me as I sat up and Cort put the food and drink that would help shut the channels into my shaking hands.
He covered me against the chill and after I sipped and swallowed what was now tasteless in my mouth, I was able to speak. “This one’s a killer.” I told him everything I’d seen, and his face grew grim.
“Can you wait here a few moments?” he asked me.
“I’m not in a hurry to move,” I said and gave him a small grin. I was still a bit shaky and unsteady from the work, and I wanted at least a second or two for myself to reflect on what I’d seen and what had happened.
“I’ll be back,” he said as he strode to the door. “Shall I send Fran up?”
“Yes, please,” I answered as I picked at the nuts and raisins in the bowl I held. I had been shocked by the callous murder I’d witnessed, disembodied, to be certain, but murder nonetheless. I wondered which of the many crimes reported on the news and in the papers it would be, or if it would go unnoticed.
And after…what had happened after, I had known what it was, the little soul that stood before me, had known what to do, as if I’d done it a thousand times before, would do it a thousand times again. How…why did I know that?
It had happened despite the fury of hunt that had ridden me. Faced with that living Light, my anger had disappeared, to be replaced instead with an overwhelming… What was it I had felt, anyway? Care? Not a strong enough word. Compassion wasn’t exactly right either. I glanced up to see Fran enter the room and as her eyes met mine, I knew what it was. Love. I had felt love for that creature that in the Material had tried to do such damage, had hurt and willfully hurt others out of fear, out of pain.
So small, so young in the Universe, and I had seen it in its pure essence, brought it by its own choice back to the Light, to begin again.
I couldn’t control the shudder that ran through me as I pondered what it meant.
“God, Sam—you’re freezing!” Fran said as she knelt next to me and vigorously rubbed my shoulders. I was unresisting and let her wrap around me until my head rested against her collar.
“Are you all right?” she asked as she stroked her fingers through the hair that feathered against my ear.
“I’m fine,” I said, then kissed the hollow of her throat and sat up straight to gaze into her face. Her eyes reflected the concern that waved off her.
“Did you have lunch yet?” I asked, not ready at the moment to discuss anything.
“It’s almost dinnertime,” she said softly, “you’ve been here all day.”
I had known it would take some time, I just hadn’t known how much, and that explained the cold and the stiffness I felt in my limbs. I stood and stretched until I felt my back loosen.
“I think they might actually be arguing,” Fran said and passed me my tea from her perch on the floor.
“Who?”
“Cort and Elizabeth—no one’s yelling or anything like that, but…” She shrugged, then stood herself and handed me the rest of my clothes.
She was right. I let my senses extend and felt not anger but fear and frustration roil through the household.
What was between Fran and me could wait. This had to be taken care of now and I took her hand in mine to go downstairs, but we heard their discussion in the hallway as they approached.
“She’s mastered movement through the Aethyr and the levels of Astral on her own. You’re certain?” Elizabeth’s voice said.
“Yes.”
“Guide for the willing return to the River—you didn’t teach her that?”
“No.”
“Then she’s more than Wielder.”
“More what than Wielder?” I asked. Fran’s fingers were warm and steady in mine as Cort and Elizabeth stepped into the room. They’d each brought a tray.
They stared at us in apparent surprise.
Given the look they shared, it wasn’t difficult to guess what they were thinking.
“I’m not avatar.”
“How do you know?” Elizabeth asked as Cort set a tray down on the desk, then took hers, placing it next to the first.
I shook my head. “I’m not. We’re all…” I cast about for the right words. “We’re all a part of that, all of the same Light, and if I was avatar, I think…I’m certain I’d know it. I’d think differently, see and feel things differently.”
They all looked at me curiously and I shook my head in an attempt to clarify my thoughts. “Every avatar I’ve learned about—they’ve each had a sense of mission, of message. Most of them seem to have been born with it—even if they didn’t know what they’d do or who they were while on the Material.”
That, I realized, was it, the real difference. Avatars incarnated knowing they had a mission and it was the guiding force in their lives, whether they recognized their true self or not. Me though, I’d had no such self-knowledge of my role in life—I’d been born into it and stumbled upon it, unknowing.
Elizabeth smiled at me. “Well, you might not know if you were, but you do know that you’re not—and at this point, we have to decide what to do. Right now, you need something a bit more substantial than that,” she said, nodding at the bowl I’d left on the table, “so tonight, we’ll eat up here.”
The covered bowls and plates revealed a simple but hearty meal: a thick potato soup, with no sprigs of green on top because I hated the superfluity of garnishes (which Elizabeth took a moment to tease me about), several steaks (Cort promised me the “raw” one was mine), and string beans, which, as far as vegetables went, were the most innocuous so far as I was concerned, which meant I’d actually eat them.
“Please eat,” Elizabeth requested, “and then let’s discuss this.”
Cort built a fire, and it wasn’t until after we had finished dinner and the plates had been cleared, when I was comfortable on the sofa with Fran curled at my side and a blanket over both of us because I was still a bit chilled, even with the merry sound of crackling in the grate and the occasional pop of wood, that I felt functionally human again, or that anyone spoke.
My uncle went first. “You’ve so much yet to learn, but your abilities outstrip my training. In fact, you’ve gone out of the sphere I’d normally teach within. We still don’t really know,” and he began to tick off the points on his hand, “what your natural gifts will be once you’ve been sealed, or what your blind spots will be. We know the threat to you is physical, but I suspect…” And he glanced over to the fire.
For a moment, I saw the salamanders dance in the flames, an urgent jump as they tried to convey a message, or merely a greeting, before the world righted itself again.
Once it did, his eyes were steady on mine, the same flame within them. “This one is very close, and will not stop, even after, especially after, you’ve been sealed to the Circle. That he…eliminated one of his own adepts proves it.”
I knew that. I knew that, had expected it, and even as the quick rise in Fran’s heartbeat was as audible to me as the quick catch of her breath she tried to quiet, part of me relished the challenge.
“Ann, you’ve changed all the rules,” Elizabeth said into the silence that greeted the last statement.
“How?” That puzzled me. I’d been certain I’d been almost rigid in my adherence.
She smiled at me again. “We didn’t know what would happen—how you’d face your training, your testing. You’ve done things no one has done before—you’ve managed to change the whole game, and you didn’t even know you were playing.”
I stared, fully confused.
“Your abilities, your senses—they’re still somewhat intermittent, are they not?”
“Yes, sometimes,” I answered.
“We call that being head blind, or mind blind. And when you have been stripped, as it were, blinded, you were tested—you’ve had to make decisions. What were they based on? What you wanted, or what was needed?”
I thought about the times I’d found myself trapped in my skin, forced to act based solely on the information the usual five senses gave me.
“Always what’s needed,” Fran said and put an arm around my waist.
I gave her a grateful smile and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “I try.”
“When faced with your first real threat, there would have been no wrong, none, in taking you to a safer place, yet you chose to stay—and then? And then you teach yourself how to change your own projection.”
Elizabeth got up and poured a cup of tea, then offered me one, but I declined, fine as I was for the moment. It was bizarre, because she spoke as casually as if this were one of our normal discussions about history or literature. Perhaps we’d discuss Blake, or Joyce, or Hemingway in a few moments.
“Now, you’ve faced several of the deeper trials, passed those tests, and on your hunt, your first solo hunt—no small milestone—you decide to track using the Aethyr, and then? You’re not only successful, you moved through at least three different levels of the Astral, all while attached to another. Do you have any idea of how…” She paused to shake her head, and her eyes were lambent as they gazed at me.
“Of all the things you could have done, from pursuing your curiosity to your own revenge, you instead gave someone something precious. You gave them back their free will.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang and Cort stood. “Anyone expecting anything?” he asked. “No?” he said to our negative expressions. “Back in a moment, then.” His footsteps echoed across the floor, then faded down the steps to the door.
“I owe you an apology,” Fran said softly as she stirred next to me, and I twisted my head around to see her clearly. “I haven’t told you much of anything that I’ve been doing.”
“At my request,” Elizabeth clarified as she drew her seat closer, “at my very specific request. It was necessary at the time—it would have distracted you.” Her eyes still flickered with their own flame in the firelight as she neared.
Touch was a rare thing in this household. At first, I’d assumed it to be the normal formality that existed between people forced together who were still more strangers than friends, but as the weeks had flown by and my own knowledge had grown, I’d come to realize this was not the only reason for the physical distance.
There was no one in this group that was not a sensitive of some sort, and touch, the bare of skin on skin, could forge an instant connect, not merely the recognition of general mood or condition, but of mind-view, a peek into the inner thoughts and feelings. It was brief, certainly, but it was also intrusive and potentially uncomfortable unless one’s barriers were perfect or the sense of the person’s self was so familiar as to be comfortable, a normal part of the background noise, so to speak.
That Fran and I could sustain such continued contact was due to many things: we’d been teammates and friends for years, were linked because of the contact we’d shared when we’d dated, and now we were bound to each other because we were lovers, though that in and of itself made our rapport almost constant, to the point where we were almost extensions of each other.
So when Elizabeth briefly skimmed her fingers across the back of my hand as it lay resting on the arm of the settee, I was happily surprised by the level of affection it meant she held for me, that she let me see, and for a moment, I remembered her. I had a very clear image of her face reflected above mine in a mirror as her hands gently parted then plaited my hair…and then the image blanked.
And while I already knew she and Fran had a special bond by virtue of the learning they shared, I was stunned but pleased to discover the deeper, nurturing aspect of it: Elizabeth cared for Fran as if she’d been born to her. Perhaps, in another life, she had been.
??Francesca…is adept,” Elizabeth said softly. “She is very easily made priestess, High Priestess.”
“What do you mean?” I knew, of course, that there were different religions, pantheons, schools of theory and of belief, and each of them had their representations, their godheads. Some were historical figures, real, “living” incarnations of an archetype that had its root in the beginnings of the Universe, some of them were actually highly evolved and advanced beings, and a few, like the Elemental Lords, were the existence, the ultimate manifestation of a principal force, but most of them were constructs, the projections created from the combined energies of worshippers—and I adhered to none of them. However, it didn’t surprise me that Fran might or that Elizabeth had trained her in a specific Rite. Fran had told me about the “green ray”—and being a priestess, or, more specifically, High Priestess, was something unique within that school of thought.
Fran, with her essential…I didn’t know what to call it, couldn’t quite name it, but it was something akin to buoyancy, an unshakeable part of her core makeup. It was that part of her, I was certain, that responded so well to that philosophy. I had no doubt that it was her innate talent that made her adept, and the combination of her own personality, ethics, and intelligence that enabled her to advance, take on a larger role.
“It means…” Fran said in a low and throaty drawl, and she gently caught my chin in her hand and turned my face to hers. I couldn’t help the skip in the beat of my heart when I read her expression, caught the shape of her deeper desire. “It means that before you can have your sealing, you have to go through mine.”
I struggled to understand even as she kissed me, and I glimpsed a very clear image of part of the role I would play. This was not what I thought would happen; this would wreak havoc on my plans, on the path I had intended to take.
“There are some decisions that are not yours alone,” Fran murmured against my lips.
“But Fran,” I tried to explain, “you’ve already been threatened twice and approached—attacked—once. This hasn’t even started yet, and it’s only going to get worse. You heard what Cort said—it’s not going to stop.”
Fran leaned back, her eyes blazing, body radiating heat. “Do you really think I don’t know that? Do you really think I’d let you go through that—alone?” She gestured vehemently. “You’ve lost your mind if you—”
I caught her hands in mine and spoke over her. “I don’t want you to get hurt—or worse. I couldn’t—I didn’t—do anything for Nina, and she’s gone.” I didn’t know I was going to say that and it hurt, oh God it hurt, a churning lump of aching sorrow and anger that I thought I’d forgotten. I was wrong. I felt worse than ever, and it was because I now knew what it was I felt. Guilt. I felt guilty. I should have done something, anything, differently than I had. “Let me do what I can,” I said quietly. “This I can at least do something about.”
Fran stared at me, eyes wide. “What in the world could you have possibly had to do with that? Sam, you don’t know what happened. All either one of us knows is what her father told us.”
It was my turn to stare as I realized Fran didn’t know, had no idea about the conflict that had existed between our friend and her parents, the very real physical threat she had dealt with at least once at their hands and survived.
I don’t know why I had assumed Fran had known; thought she’d have been told. How much should I tell her? It wasn’t my story, it was Nina’s, but if she was gone, then shouldn’t someone besides me know it? That story was a part of who I was now, of who Fran was, whether she knew it or not and Fran…had loved her, still loved her too. And like it or not, for better or worse, Nina was also a part of how Fran and I loved each other.
“I know enough,” I said finally, “I know that…” We spoke as if we were alone, as if Elizabeth wasn’t there, and I started by holding Fran in my arms. I told her what I finally realized Nina hadn’t wanted to tell anyone—not even me—but had been forced to by circumstance at the time. I told Fran what I could.
“…and you think her parents or—or she herself…?” Her voice choked with the shock that so clearly suffused her, and though she couldn’t complete the sentence, I could complete her thought.
“Yes,” I said finally, the word spitting through my teeth, “and I still can’t tell which one I think is worse.”
“Oh, Sammer,” she whispered, her head tucked tightly against mine. I could feel her heart break within her, the equal echo of mine, the not-so-old hurt doubly renewed with the fresh cut of new knowledge, and I tore again, knowing I’d hurt her. “I wish I’d known—maybe we could have done something. My dad, I mean, maybe he—but it’s not your fault—I swear it’s not.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of what she said. “You just found out,” I said, raising my head from her shoulder and wiping my eyes, “just now, and even you think something could have been done.”
I touched her face gently, and my thumb wiped away tears that still streamed hot and wild from her eyes. “Frankie…I can barely live with that, I wouldn’t, if I didn’t have to. Do you think, even if you know what you’re doing—even if you accept responsibility for it—that I can live sanely with something happening to you? Especially if it’s something I can prevent in any way?”
She caught my fingers against her cheek, then turned her head to gently kiss my palm. “I hear you, Sammy, I really do. But this doesn’t have to happen now. Can we talk about this again after we both know more about what happens next for you?”
“I recommend that,” Elizabeth broke in, startling us both out of the little private world we’d just been in.
“By courier, today, as you asked,” Cort said, having just entered the room. He carried something large in his arms and I stared as he set it down before the hearth.
The skin on my scalp went numb as I recognized it: the footlocker. My Da’s footlocker. I got up on frozen feet to open it.
I hadn’t seen it, set eyes on it, since it had been sent to me from his station right after the funeral a few years before. I couldn’t bear to see it, to even begin to look within it, but I wasn’t going to get rid of it either—it was my Da’s, and I’d had it left in storage with other things.
But it was time, more than time, and I needed to find out if my Da had left me something besides the mixed blessing that was the blood I carried.
“Shall we leave you to it?” Elizabeth asked as I knelt before the first puzzle: a tubular combination lock that held the brass clasp firmly shut. She briefly laid a warm hand on my shoulder, a firm gesture of support, a lending of strength and affection I was grateful for.
“I’ll be in the workroom back of the shop, if you need me,” Cort said.
I didn’t even look up as I nodded and once more heard the tread of his retreating step as Fran knelt next to me and I faced her.
Lit by the fire that still burned happily away, her eyes carried the same flicker and I was struck sharply by how beautiful she was, by how much I wanted to forget the tasks that lay before me, forget everything to touch the delicate curves and planes of her face, to taste the honey-sweet soft of her mouth, the feel of her body yielding to mine, and for a brief instant, I did. I reached for her, folded her to me, let myself feel the beat of her heart against mine.
“I’ll wait for you,” she said quietly into my ear before we disentangled ourselves. She paused to give me a smile before she left the room, to leave me to my discoveries in the half-light.
The lock shimmered before me and I hesitated. My father, my Da, had been the last person to open and close it, and in my mind’s eye I could see his hands setting the clasp, then setting the bar through, giving the tumblers a final twist to scramble them before letting it loose to bounce back against the hasp. How could I disturb what his hands had wrought, who knew how long before he’d been taken from me?
Then again, whatever was in there was mine, was what I had left of him and maybe, just maybe, would provide me some insight into who I was and what I was doing.
I inhaled slowly before I took the lock into my hand, half expecting it to move, or be warm, or perhaps shock me in some way. Instead, the brass was cool, and I received a very clear image, hands firmly set upon the trunk, and a sense of finality, of resignation, before the tumblers were spun for the last time.
What would he have set as the combination? The two most important things in his life, or so I’d been told, had been me and my mother, and I smiled as I remembered how he’d joked more than once as I’d gotten older that they ordered me the moment they’d gotten married, they’d wanted me so much.
I’d never doubted the love, but now I wondered how much of what I’d thought was a joke had been true. I did a quick calculation; my birthday marked the beginning of the last week of July. Maybe…
I dialed in the numbers that signified my parents’ anniversary, a day of delight for many American children. First the ten, then the thirty-one, then finally the last two numbers of the year before my birth. I tugged the lock. Nothing. Damn.
No, I was doing this wrong. Perhaps…I reversed the order. Thirty one first, then ten, then the next—there was an audible click as the last number fell into place, the lock popped open in my hand, and I knew my father had told me a partial truth: I hadn’t been ordered, but I’d been planned.
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and took another as I laid my hand on the latch. This was it, the moment of decision. Forward to perhaps a dead end, or leave it forever unknown. My hands were steady as I shifted the brass, then opened the footlocker.
The first thing to greet me was the scent, the familiar coal-tar and smoke scent, and right on top of everything lay his bunker boots, neatly laid over an FDNY sweatshirt that covered most of what was beneath it.
I carefully lifted the boots out and set them on the side, then took out the sweatshirt, the slightly faded navy blue fleece with its worn patch. It was soft against my face and I let myself miss him as the scent washed through me bringing memory upon memory, things I’d thought forgotten: his laugh, his smile, the pride he couldn’t hide when he came to my swim meets, first at the community club, then when I was in high school.
I missed him, I missed my father, his comforting solidity when I was small and snuggled into him on the sofa where we’d watch Disney movies or karate flicks on a rainy afternoon; later, sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, we’d sit out on the deck in back of the house and talk, about everything: school, girls, cars, and even—sometimes, not too often, but occasionally—my mother.
Enough of that, I told myself and sighed as I folded the sweatshirt then placed it behind me. Inside the trunk itself there were two well-packed and distinct piles. To the left were a few more articles of clothing, the first a T-shirt of mine that I’d outgrown at about the ripe old age of six. It still proclaimed “Fireman’s Kid,” and the sharp lines of the folds indicated that it was wrapped around something—in fact, it seemed like several shirts had been used in exactly that way, considering the stack that lay beneath it. I picked it up, felt the weight and solidity under my fingertips and, removing the shirt, stared. My mother, her hair loose and tossing about her, sunlight streaming over her in the park I’d played in, twirling me about by the hands and caught in the act of laughing. We had the same smile, and I traced hers with a fingertip through the glass.
I put that down too and picked up the first book on the other side. Bound in leather the color of blood, it too had a lock, a hinged flap of leather with a brass button, the sort that you push to the side and release and lock with a little key in the center. I tried to shift it with my thumb, first left, then right, and when it wouldn’t budge, I put it down, frustrated. There had to be a key somewhere.
There were three more volumes like it underneath, then below them photo albums and scrapbooks, filled with old school reports and cards I’d made for him and photos my father had taken of us, of his friends from work and their families, and a few of him as well. I glanced quickly through those; many of his coworkers I’d seen last in full dress uniform, their wives in black and their children similarly dressed at my father’s funeral.
I sat back on my heels. The key. Where was the key for all of these books? The very fact that they were locked convinced me more than ever there had to be something in them that could shed some light on the current situation.
Frustrated, I pulled all the albums and scrapbooks out in a heap, and as I lifted them over the edge, an envelope fell out.
Hope thrilled through me and as I unfolded the legal-sized flap that hadn’t been glued shut. But it quickly dissipated when no key materialized as I unfolded the papers within.
They were documents. My parents’ original marriage license—and when I read it again, I realized it was dated five years before I’d been born. Behind that was a copy of my mother’s death certificate. It listed the usual information, such as her name and dates of birth and, of course, death. I read quickly through the primary cause, pulmonary embolism. I’d known, of course, what had killed her, from the initial “Mommy had something in her lungs” explanation to the fuller one I’d received when I was old enough to understand. But it was the contributing, or secondary, factor that caught my attention: spontaneous abortion.
That rocked me so hard I almost dropped the paper. I’d almost had a brother or a sister and instead, I’d lost my mother. I wondered that my father had never told me, then thought better of it. My poor Da; he’d lost his wife and a child—how could he have told me? What would he have said?
Maybe he would have told me sometime, I thought as I separated that paper from the ones behind it, then folded it back into the envelope. He’d obviously taken care to make certain it was preserved.
The slip between my fingers told me there were two more documents left. The first was my birth certificate, or a copy of it at least, a black background and white type. It contained all of the information I’d expected, female infant, 7.5 lbs, 22 inches, the time, the date, father’s name, mother’s name, and mine: Samantha Joan Cray.
Everything was in order and after I’d put it away with the others, I read the last. The paper was as old as the rest, printed with a coral-colored ink. Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth, it read in the upper left hand corner. There was a shield in the center, and Given at the GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE on the right.
Another birth certificate. Also made for Samantha Joan Cray, for the same date and year, except for the glaring differences: the hospital Saint James, not more than a quarter mile from the shop in Leeds, and the unmistakable seal in the bottom right corner, two lions rampant surrounding a shield, encircled by the words “X General Register Office X England.”
My mind reeled as I placed everything—save the sweatshirt, which I put on—back into the trunk, then closed it up again. The fire was almost gone and the chill of fall was once more creeping through the room despite the hum that said the heat was on.
Answers. I’d been looking for answers, but as I went downstairs, heart full with the new information I had, hurting again for my father, I grabbed my jacket to walk outside to the shop and to Cort’s workshop. I now had more questions than when I’d started.
*
By the time I trudged back up the stairs to my room I was numb, overloaded from the work, slammed on all sides with new information that conflicted with so much I’d thought I’d known, and gnawed at from within by questions still unanswered. Fran was already in bed, but she sat up and switched on the light by the nightstand as I opened the door.
“C’mere,” she said and opened her arms to me.
I kicked off my shoes and went right to her. Her body was all sleepy warm, even under the tee she’d worn to bed, and I rubbed my face against the satin of her neck.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked. Her fingers drew comforting lines against my spine.
“No.” I shook my head and sat up straight. “I didn’t even go through the whole thing. I found—” I shivered and Fran drew me back to her. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to make of the welter of questions and news that squirmed in my head.
“I found out that I have dual citizenship,” I said finally, attempting to smile, “and that my parents were married longer than I’d thought.”
Her eyebrows raised at the first part and stayed that way for the second as she studied my face. “And?” she prompted. “What does that mean?”
“Well, there are two very legitimate birth certificates, one from Richmond County, New York, and the other… Well, according to Uncle Cort, I was actually born in Leeds, in Saint James Hospital, and didn’t actually hit American soil until I was about six weeks old.”
Fran started at that. “Are you serious?”
I nodded, unable to speak because my throat tightened around the lump of grief that rose with that admission, because it brought to my mind not only the loss of my mother, but of the second loss my father hadn’t shared with me. There were other losses as well—Cort told me of grandparents I’d vaguely known about, childhood events I had no memory of. I’d lived for two years, from the time of my mother’s death until I was four, in the same house I’d just summered in, with Cort and Elizabeth—why didn’t I remember that? And he told me my father had thought there had been hints, signs, of a gathering…darkness, for lack of a better term…that seemed to be growing, had been gaining strength for some years now. But why?
Fran stroked my cheek and caught the tear that had fallen. “What’s this mean for you now?” I knew she was aware that there was more, but that I wasn’t ready to discuss it yet, and I was warmed by both the touch and her readiness to let me speak when I would be better emotionally equipped for it.
“It means…” I said, then caught her hand with mine to kiss her fingers. “It means that I’m not the one who really changed the rules. Somehow, during the time between our move and my Da’s…murder…” I almost choked on the word, the first time I’d consciously used it. “Someone found out…something.”
I slammed my free hand down onto the bed. “I wish I knew what it was.” I was frustrated, frustrated and torn between wanting a moment to absorb, to reflect, and to properly mourn losses that were new and refreshed for me, wishing I’d never known, and the gut-level certainty that there was something vital I was missing. But through all of that, there was one thing that was clear: I’d been very right in thinking Fran’s proximity to me brought her into more than mortal danger. Beneath my thoughts anger smoldered, the beginnings of a rage at the unfairness of it all, and for the first time in my life, I doubted how wonderful my Da had been, because if what I understood was right, my mother’s death as well as that of my potential sibling had in all likelihood had some connection to him. And there was no way he wouldn’t have recognized that possibility.
Fran stroked my hair back from my face. “You’re overloaded,” she said quietly, “on every imaginable level.”
“You understand, don’t you?” I asked, latching onto the one thing I could fully comprehend, desperate to convince her for her own sake as well as mine. “This…this between us…it can’t, it just can’t continue—not if—”
She quieted me with her lips on mine and gently pushed me down beneath her. “I understand,” she said, “I understand that there are things you don’t know, things out of your control.”
I wasn’t going to, hadn’t meant to let her kiss me again, or help her hands undress me as they licked along my sides.
“Let it wait right now, let the Circle complete,” she whispered. “Nothing, but nothing, can be done till then.” Her energy weaved through me, sweeping mine with it, her body silken warmth as her thighs embraced mine. She ground against me in a way that took my breath from me when her knees met my ribs and she reached between us, spreading us both, the contact shifting from subtle to sublime, her cunt on mine as amazing as her tongue.
The expression on her face as she settled that incredible body over me, the mask of the day gone, replaced with the love and desire that shone from her eyes, curved her lips even as she licked them was enough to— “You need me, right here, right now.”
And she needed me too, needed me to remind her that I loved her, that we were still here, that there were things that existed beyond what we’d known and learned, that as deeply as we could hurt we could love as well and not only in spite of it, but also because of it.
I felt the embrace of her body and filled my hands with her curves, her breasts rolling under my palms, in my mouth, hips gripped and marked by my fingers because I pulled her closer, tighter, ground back into her, glanced down to see the working muscles of her stomach as her breath blew hot past my cheek, and that just so fucking set me off I could only sink my lips against her neck, then wrap my arms around her, filled with need, filled with blood and fire and once more the tearing knowledge that all I had, all we had was now and now was all that mattered as I lifted her and set her on her back.
“Oh God,” she groaned as her spine hit the mattress, her own shock and heightened arousal at my having done that an echoing wave through me and into the slick glide that resulted. The rock of Fran’s cunt under mine found us with her hands tight on my ass, shifting me, holding me, pulling me even harder against her when I grabbed her hips, eased my hands around the perfect globes of her ass, let my fingers wrap around and spread her further beneath me. I loved her, loved the way she felt, the blazing pure power that flowed between us, intense, so, so intense it drove me out of my head and I couldn’t resist playing my thumbs against that gorgeous entrance.
“Please,” she gasped, her hips a smooth wave under me, pushing against me, drawing me further in until… “Oh yes.”
I couldn’t pretend for one moment that being inside her didn’t turn me on even more, because it did, it so did, and the fit was so close, so very, very close, and even better when she bore down on me. “So…fucking…tight,” I breathed out, my heart pounding as hard as my clit. “I love that—I love you,” I whispered against the tendon that strained in her neck, then traced it with my lips, my tongue, as I moved within her, filled her, stretched her, let her scratch deep lines into the muscles of my back and loving it even as she grew tighter around me, and I felt the tension build in her, in her cunt, in her stomach and the way it heaved under me, the toss of her head and the way she bit back on her lip when I gazed down at her face.
“Say it,” I asked, knowing there was something, something deep, something desperate, she needed to let out.
She shook her head once and her hips lifted as she worked with me, shoving me harder within her.
“Please,” I asked again. “I want to hear it, I need to hear it.” And it was true, I did, I wanted and I needed her to be free, as free as she could possibly be with me, it meant so much to me—it meant everything.
“Ah, fuck, Sam,” she groaned out. “Fuck me—just fuck me.”
That. Was. Hot. It was so fucking hot I felt it everywhere, my clit, my toes, my chest, my fucking head that felt like it could come too as I thrust deeper, harder, able to move only because she was so beautifully wet, she held me so snugly.
“Oh my God,” I managed to grind out between teeth set in muscles that had locked, with air that almost didn’t exist, “you’re gonna make me come.”
“Good,” she managed to gasp, “because I’m gonna…just…just—Sam…”
I felt it when she came, the pulse of her body, the wish that came from her heart, from mine, to stay in this eternal now, and I came too, a deeper burst that started in my chest and spilt colors before my eyes before I was blinded by the flood of Light, floating in it, until I came to rest, back in the skin, back to earth, and cushioned from it by Fran, who smiled and laughed even as tears streamed from her eyes.
We held each other closely, with loving, soothing strokes, with the most gentle of kisses, and as we finally settled in to sleep, Fran securely over me with her head on my shoulder, and her breath across the hollow of my throat, she nuzzled my neck and whispered, “It will all work out—you’ll see. Have faith, Sammy Blade, have faith.”
I kissed her head, drew her to me just that much more, and resettled the comforter firmly over us. I closed my eyes to drift, the rapport between us so easy and clear, and something I hadn’t understood earlier about Fran became suddenly transparent: she had faith, and I loved her for it, wanted her to keep that. It was part of what made her soul, her spirit, so beautiful. It made her innocent in so many, many ways.
My mind played with that, stretched it farther. If Fran had faith, it was because she had hope. I, on the other hand, I knew that in my world hope was a dangerous, perhaps even fatal luxury, and ultimately a fool’s errand. I shivered as I realized what it meant: I would do what I had to for no other reason than because there was no one else to do it, or at least, that’s what everything I’d been taught implied. Hell, hadn’t I been told it outright—otherwise, why would there be a need to leave a blood heir?
But before that happened, part of what I had to do was to keep that fool’s errand called hope alive for others. And I couldn’t help but think in some small part of me that this… Really. Sucked.