When Colleen woke Christmas morning, Evangeline had already slipped away, likely to another guest room to catch some extra sleep before their mother called them down for breakfast. Christmas breakfast was a sacred tradition in the Deschanel household. As the years drifted by, and her children’s interest in the magic of the holiday waned, Irish Colleen rose later and later on the holiday morning, but the tradition was one that would live on always.
A drone of voices carried upstairs. At least some of the family were up, then, unless it was the doctors, who’d been flurrying about the house all night. No word of Ekatherina’s quickening yet, but her labor was in full swing, they said, and would prove to be a long one. Both Colleen and Evangeline tried to lay hands on her, to ease her pains, but Ekatherina chased them both out with curses hurled in Russian.
Colleen rose to gather her bearings and find her robe before a wave of nausea stole over her, and she stepped swiftly into the adjoining bathroom.
In the mirror, a stranger gazed back. Dark crescents held residence under her eyes, framed by swollen cheeks and a soul-deep tiredness. Twenty-six weeks with child and she’d managed to keep this secret through evasiveness and chunky sweaters. Only Evangeline, Ophelia, and Irish Colleen knew, but there was no hiding it anymore.
Who had she become? A woman who’d given her heart alongside her reason, setting everything she had ever admired about herself aside. Who was she, if not the sensible one? Only a third child, but nevertheless looked upon as the next leader of the family.
Colleen turned on the faucet, impatient, not waiting for the water to warm. She splashed the cold on her face, relaxing as the shock settled over her.
When she opened her robe, observing the swell of her belly, she understood the time had come for honesty. Inside, her daughter was the size of a mango, only several months from emerging into the world. Denial served no one, and Colleen was nothing if not a consummate planner.
Amelia. Don’t listen to my heartache, my dearest. You’re a part of me. I would give up everything for you.
Closing her robe, Colleen went to join the family and share her news.
Augustus paced the hallway, from the end housing the rooms they’d turned into the birthing suite, to the other, where his sisters slept, awaiting the rise of Christmas morning.
Ekatherina had been in labor over twelve hours now, but the doctor, weary, eyes glassy, reported she was nowhere near delivery. It could be hours. She’s fighting it, and her body isn’t fighting harder than she is.
How many?
She may not deliver until tomorrow.
If that were true, Ekatherina’s agony would last well over thirty-six hours. Her screams were muffled by pillows held by caring nurses, but Augustus felt every one of them, deep in his bones.
He would be there with her, if only she’d let him. He’d gladly experience as much of her pain alongside her as he could, or at least be there to absorb her rage and sadness.
No matter how Ekatherina had shoved him crudely to the sidelines of both their marriage and her pregnancy, Augustus still loved her. He would still do anything in the world for her, including take her place, God willing.
At the other end of the hall, Colleen slept, unsuspecting. Augustus prided himself on not being a meddler like many other sharing his name. The business with Maureen still plagued him, and always would. Colleen had never needed him in any meaningful way, and though she didn’t ask for his help now, he trusted his instincts that she would benefit from it just the same.
He hoped.
He prayed.
Hoped he’d made the right decision. Prayed if he hadn’t, that Colleen could forgive him.
Charles hadn’t slept a wink.
Although Lisette chided him for it, claiming it was unsafe, he gently nestled Nicolas in bed beside him, on the side of the bed that would’ve been Cordelia’s, had their marriage been anything close to normal. Sleep was impossible, so there was no chance of him rolling over on his precious boy. If Cordelia found out, she’d be outraged, for no other reason than she loved to criticize his choices, but she slept in the garçonnière on Christmas Eve, the old detached living quarters once reserved for the young men coming of age in the family. Charles’ own father, August, had lived there once upon a time. Charles never had the chance, because August insisted Ophélie was no place for children.
Maybe he was right, but Charles intended to fill the halls with them anyway.
How many? Well, as many as Lisette could bear, and she assured him the women in her family’s crowning glory was their impeccable fertility.
Cordelia stayed the night to pretend their marriage was more than a sham, when there was no one staying under the roof at Ophélie who didn’t know better. Charles allowed her foolishness, because it was Christmas, and if there was any time to lay aside animosity for amity, it was now.
But Cordelia wasn’t the only one testing him.
Catherine was the last person he wanted to be thinking about, as he watched his son’s soft, peaceful sleep, because she was only person with the power to distract him from what was most important to him now.
There’s something I have to tell you, Huck. Something that can’t wait.
He’d promised to meet her, and then failed to. It would’ve been nothing to drive into town, and listen to what she had to say, but was this not always the way of things with her? It was an endless loop, one he could never get ahead of, and never win, because of the interminable circumlocution, circling, circling, repeating a version of the past that always ended the same way and then began again.
I love you, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry. Merry Christmas, Cat. He hung up before she could change his mind.
Catherine was a dream that only worked if he chose never to wake up.
Lisette was real. Flesh and blood, eager to please, ready to love and be loved. She had no visions of another life, or aspirations beyond what Charles could offer. She was his, and he thought he could be hers, too.
She wasn’t Catherine, and that was the problem.
She wasn’t Catherine, and that was fine by him.
Charles brushed his hand over Nicolas’ fine, dark baby hair and waited for his mother to call them to breakfast, like she always had, every Christmas, except the one that had altered their lives forever.
Elizabeth kissed Connor to wake him.
“Shh,” she whispered, when he stirred. “Mama will be up soon.”
“Oh, shit,” he murmured in confusion, running his hands over his nude belly. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep in here, Lizzy.”
“I know.” She kissed him again. “I’m glad you did.” She reached under the blanket. He was hard for her, but it was nearly six, and if Mama wasn’t awake, she’d be any minute. There was no better way to ruin their living arrangement then being discovered, naked, in bed together. Besides, they had their whole lives—or as long as fate allowed her. “Now get dressed, man, and get the hell out of here.”
Connor grinned through his sleepiness and saluted her.
“I love you,” she called, as loudly as she dared, when he turned to blow her a kiss from the door, shuffling into his pants with a lazy hop.
Maureen and Edouard stayed in the guest house to the rear of the property with Olivia. There was a room available in the Big House, but Edouard insisted he needed his quiet, which she read as a place to escape as soon as the requisite activities were over.
She couldn’t complain. He’d come. They were due at his sister’s house for dinner, but he’d put up no argument when she asked him to attend Christmas morning with her family. He’d made only one request, and when she asked Charles to help, he immediately put the staff to the task of fixing up the guest house, even though it hadn’t been used in years. The house was so big, the family never needed to use it, but the staff kept it up just well enough.
She hoped Edouard saw how agreeable she could be; how acquiescent. Why, yes, dear, I’m happy to have dinner with your sisters who both hate my guts. Do you mind tolerating my family for a few hours?
It was even his idea to stay Christmas Eve night. He’d asked after hotels in the area, and she laughed and said, what, in Vacherie? Really? He didn’t share her amusement, and when he’d doubled down on his desire for privacy—emphasizing that a house with a woman in active labor was far from quiet—she came up with the compromise.
He even shared a bed with her, and that was progress. Never mind that the guest house only had one they could ready in time for the visit.
Maureen nursed Olivia by the old fireplace, filled with a hope that was too big to be dwarfed by anything as meddlesome as reality.
Colleen heard her siblings stir in the adjoining rooms as she left hers. The rich smell of sausage and pain perdu wafted up from downstairs. So Mama was up, and very soon, the house would come to life with her.
She dipped her toe down one step and froze.
Noah stood at the bottom of the stairs.
At the sight of her belly protruding from the thin robe, his jaw hung slack, and he seemed to forget everything he’d intended to say. He fumbled the gift he held in his hands, as he snaked one out to grip the banister.
Behind him, his father, Kellan, laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder. Irish Colleen appeared and placed her hand on the other, in a strange, unexpected sign of unity.
Colleen hardly had time to make sense of any of it.
“What…” Colleen’s words failed her. She reached out for purchase, afraid of losing her footing, equally unable to look away. “Noah.”
“I was wrong.” Noah fumbled.
Colleen’s foot hovered over the next step. She withdrew it and gaped at him, wordless at his appearance and his apology. How many months had she imagined these words, before abandoning the hope?
“I was so very wrong, Colleen. I was afraid, and I let that fear take over, and once it did, I didn’t know how to shake it. Not even my father could peel it back.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t know fear until you watch the person you love most in the world dying in front of you.”
Noah shuddered as he drew a breath. “I don’t have words strong enough to say how sorry I am for closing my mind when you opened yours. I told you it was safe with me, and I hurt you when that promise was put to the test. Almost daily, I thought of going back to you and saying all these things, but every day that passed made that feel more and more impossible, because every day I went without easing your pain was a day I caused more of it.”
Colleen focused on one step at a time, descending closer to the man she’d once agreed to marry after a week, and never regretted that decision, not even when he abandoned her at the moment of truth. She wanted to run back in her room and slam the door, a stubborn but powerful defense, but instinct propelled her forward. “Months you let me die inside. You seemed fine, and I was…”
Noah found his strength and rushed to assist her down the stairs. His face was visible with relief when she let him support her. “I should have thanked you, and instead, I abandoned you. If I have to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I’ll never complain about that for even a second, Colleen.” He dropped his eyes. “And you’re wrong. I was never fine. Not ever.”
“You really hurt me.” Said aloud, the words were freeing. Colleen released them so they could no longer bind her.
“I know.”
“I trusted you, Noah.”
Tears pooled in his eyes. “I was so, so wrong. I let my pride take over my better judgment. I don’t care about the magic. It doesn’t matter.”
Irish Colleen and Kellan Jameson backed away to give the couple privacy.
“It does matter,” Colleen insisted, straightening up with pride. “My abilities are as much a part of me as anything. You can’t pick and choose which parts of me you want, and don’t. That’s what got us into this mess, don’t you understand? It’s all, or it’s nothing.”
Noah knelt in front of her when they reached the bottom step. He couldn’t stop the tears. “Then teach me. I want to spend the rest of my life learning everything about you, especially the things I made you feel like you needed to hide.” He reached into the box he’d set aside when he came to escort her. “It’s Christmas, Colleen. Marry me.”
“And when you find something else about me that scares you?”
“Never.” Noah choked up, shaking his head. “Never. I know what a world without you is like now, and I don’t want any part of it. I swear on Skye.” He extended a tentative hand toward her abdomen. She helped him, pressing it against her twitching belly. “On us.”
“Her name is Amelia,” Colleen answered, her voice heady with emotion. “After my grandmother. I never met her, but Ophelia said she was strong, and in this family, this is what we do. We honor our ancestors.”
“Amelia,” Noah whispered. “Amelia is a beautiful name.”
“You can name the next one,” Colleen said, reaching down to clasp his hands in hers.
“We can. Together,” Noah replied, staring up at her with a joy that outweighed any fears that still remained in her heart.
Colleen’s mother and sisters decorated the study, including the tall tree, with wreaths and bows of heather. They’d planned this, all of them, and Colleen had the impulse to be angry at their assumption she’d agree to the marriage, but they’d known her heart better than she knew it herself, because there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to be Mrs. Noah Jameson.
In the absence of her father, Charles gave her away. He beamed with pride as he eased her down the stairs to her waiting groom. Augustus presided over the ceremony, having secured the proper licensing after the call with Noah, where the other man spelled out his intentions and begged assistance. Kellan brought his own Catholic priest, to bless the union.
Irish Colleen, Evangeline, Maureen, and Elizabeth glowed in their purple gowns. The only one missing was Madeline.
“In the end is our beginning,” Noah vowed, slipping the ring he’d had made from the old dried heather, dipped in rose gold, over her finger. “The end of closed minds and hearts. The end of hiding, of being anyone but ourselves, ever again.”
Colleen tearfully repeated the words as Kellan handed her his own ring to give to Noah.
“You’re family now,” Augustus said, announcing their unification. “Glory and all. Scars and all.” He looked directly at Noah as he said, “In marriage, you are as much a Deschanel as any of us. You have much to learn, and many willing to teach you.”
When the wedding party scattered to begin the Christmas celebrations, Noah whispered to his new wife, “If you have scars, they’re mine as well.”
“Let’s go back to Skye. In the summer,” she rejoined, resting her face against the warmth of his chest. Elizabeth offered her a vision of their future, a gift Colleen knew she wouldn’t give unless there was happiness, but she refused. The real gift would be experiencing it. “I think I need to be where the magic is. Ours and the kind the land offers.”
You knew, she would say to Evangeline later, before returning to Scotland. You knew and said nothing. Evangeline, in return, would only grin and shrug.
Noah kissed the top of his bride’s head. “Merry Christmas, my love.”
With breakfast eaten and the gifts cleared, Augustus retired to the study to be alone with his thoughts.
He’d brought a tray of Irish Colleen’s cooking to Ekatherina, but the hatred burning in her eyes was enough to send his own meal lurching to the back of his throat.
Augustus had a tenuous relationship with God. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the deity, but prayer had never come easy, nor had the idea that he was simply expected to give his troubles over to a higher power. If Augustus couldn’t solve his own problems, that was a mark of failure, not faith. This was why, when Maddy died, he didn’t look to the heavens for his answers or his anger. He also didn’t seek his penance from God, for failing her, though he suspected what was happening with Ekatherina now was a form of divine justice.
Colleen found him huddled over, and he couldn’t fault her for thinking he was praying, in that position.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She aimed herself back to the door. “I can come back.”
“Not at all. Come in.” He rolled his shoulders back and settled properly in the chair. “Who’s all still here?”
“Evangeline, Noah, Kellan, Lizzy, Connor. Charles, of course. Cordelia disappeared before the wrapping paper was even cleaned up, and Maureen and Edouard left with Olivia not long after. They have a dinner planned with his family.”
“So, most everyone.”
“Lizzy and Connor retired to her room, and are doing God knows what.” Colleen laughed. “Evangeline is napping. Noah and Kellan went for a walk along the levee. So, yes and no. If you’re worried about privacy, I think you’ll be good in here a while longer.”
He nodded.
“Any word on Ekatherina?”
He shook his head and cast his eyes toward the silver tray where Charles kept his best booze at the ready. How many times had he talked himself out of pouring a glass? He loathed the stuff; the burn, the taste. But if he could tolerate it long enough, the sweet escape would be worth it.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” he said. “Just lost in my own head.”
“I won’t distract you. I just wanted to come say thank you.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “For?”
“Oh, come on. I know it was you.”
Augustus tried to protest but laughed instead. It felt good to laugh; to feel something other than the acute sting of failure. “I was worried you might throw something at me. I’m glad it ended well. I like Noah. I like him for you.”
“You did well.” Colleen perched on the side of his armchair so she could hug him. She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I love you.”
Until he heard the words from her, Augustus didn’t realize how seldom they used them in this family. “I love you, too. Be happy, Colleen. You deserve it.”
“I am happy.” She rolled her hand over her belly. “In a few months, this family will have four in the newest generation. Four, Aggie. A year ago, it was just the six of us.”
“The world is changing.”
“We’ve changed, too.”
He looped his hand around her waist and squeezed. “We have. But I don’t remember what life was like before.”
“Before?”
“Before it all changed. Maddy. Everything.”
Colleen started to disagree, but she changed her words as she was saying them. “You know? I don’t really, either. I can’t decide if that’s good, or bad.”
“I don’t have much use for the past, but history repeats itself when forgotten.”
“Deep!”
“But no less true.” Augustus smiled and nudged her off the chair. “Go entertain your husband before Evangeline or Lizzy get ahold of him.”
“Husband. I like the sound of that.”
Colleen wasn’t gone two minutes before a series of frantic footsteps sounded on the staircase. They drew closer, and Augustus knew, even before they stopped outside the double parlor doors, that they were for him.
His eyes traveled to the grandfather clock. It was past ten in the evening. Almost the twenty-sixth, just as predicted.
He jumped to his feet as the doctor burst through.
“Sorry for the intrusion, but she’s close.”
Augustus followed him, wordless, forcing his mind to go blank as he ascended one step after another and made his way down the hall toward the inevitability of fatherhood.
Irish Colleen caught her eldest daughter as Colleen carried a mug of tea from the kitchen. She called her name.
“Mama,” Colleen replied. “Merry Christmas.”
“I’m happy for you, my dearest. Noah. Amelia. This is all I ever wanted for you.”
Colleen couldn’t recall this much tenderness from her mother in many years, perhaps as far back as when she was too little to tend to herself. It didn’t matter that she saw happiness as simple and neatly tied as marriage and children. That, if Colleen had chosen to go through life without either, her mother would stress over that decision, seeing her as unmoored.
It didn’t matter, because today was the happiest day of Colleen’s life, and she had no room for the bane of overanalyzing.
“Thank you, Mama.” Colleen set her mug on the counter and embraced her mother. “I’m happy. Everything is as it should be.”
“God provides when we most need Him.”
“I believe He provides most when we provide for ourselves.”
Irish Colleen reached up and patted her cheek. “That very well may be, dearest. I think it’s lovely you want to honor August’s mother. I never knew her, either, you know. She died very young, but he loved her so. He admired her, and he came from a time where women weren’t always revered for their strength.”
“He always said that she was the greatest woman he’d ever known.”
“I believe he meant it. There’s a special bond between mothers and sons. And daughters and fathers. You picked a good father for your children, Colleen. A good man. An Irishman.”
Colleen sighed internally in relief. Why had she ever worried that her mother would quibble over the Jameson name? Why did she ever worry about half the things that troubled her?
“He is,” Colleen agreed, smiling. “And what you said, about fathers and daughters, it’s true. I want to help Kellan reunite with his. The way he helped Noah and me find our way back to one another.”
“Just be careful, Leena. I spoke with Kellan last night, when we met to help plan this wedding, and we talked about this very thing. He loves his daughters, but time is fickle. For some, it heals. For others, it severs.”
“But isn’t it better late than never? And what about Noah? He has three sisters he’s never even met.”
Irish Colleen’s smile broke through her concern. “Never mind all that. You have your own family to worry about, dearest. My Colleen Jameson.” She pressed her hand to her mouth and then lowered it to Colleen’s belly. “A stór.”
“That’s beautiful. What does it mean?” Colleen had never heard her mother speak Gaelic directly to them; only to her friends. She often wondered why she never bothered to teach them, only to later realize that her mother looked back upon her years before she married August Deschanel with a degree of embarrassment. More, that she worried her children would see this time in her life this way, and be aghast to be connected with such humble, working class beginnings.
With a swell of shame, Colleen understood that they’d helped shape this belief by never asking.
Now that Colleen was approaching having children of her own, she would find the time to ask her mother these things. To learn where she came from and carry these stories down the line. It wasn’t only their Deschanel heritage that mattered.
“It means ‘my treasure,’” Irish Colleen answered, after a pause. “A common thing for mothers to say to their babies.”
“Me? Or Amelia?”
Irish Colleen craned up to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “Both.”
Christmas changed Colleen’s life forever, but her marriage was only the beginning. When she fell asleep just after eleven, her dreams decided the remainder of her fate.
Anasofiya Aleksandrovna Vasilyeva Deschanel was born several minutes past midnight, in the wee hours of December twenty-sixth. She announced her birth with a blood-curdling scream that matched the tenor of her mother’s, who refused to hold her newborn and demanded they take the demonkin from her sight before she smothered it with her pillow.
Augustus stayed his tears as he held his precious daughter in his arms. The nurses cleaned her up, but her face bore the remains of a hard entrance into the world. He hoped her days thereafter would be only easier, but the wails of hatred coming from the birthing suite bore no such promise.
“Ana, huh? I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” he said to Evangeline, when she had her turn in the quiet room with Augustus and the baby. “I don’t want people to look at her and think of the tragedy of Maddy’s life. Anasofiya will be her own woman someday. I don’t want her living in the shadows of another.”
“You still named her for a dead woman.”
“I named her for my wife’s sister, who never had a chance to live. And for her father. And for the world she left behind.” And I did this because it might be the one chance I have to change her heart and show her that her daughter is worthy of her love.
“Why isn’t she with her now?”
“If Ekatherina doesn’t want to be a mother, that’s her choice. If I think about it too much… I’ll… I’ll say things to her I’ll regret,” Augustus said, his voice hard. “But God as my witness, Evangeline, Ana will know nothing but love. Anyone who wants to be near my daughter will come to her with joy, and nothing else. She’s my life now and my priority. Nothing or no one else will ever come before her.”
“I like this side of you,” Evangeline replied and clapped him on the back, grinning.
“Yeah?” He rocked Anasofiya in his arms, lulled by the magic of her soft sounds.
Evangeline peeled back the blanket and tickled the side of Anasofiya’s cheek. “She looks like you.”
He laughed. “She doesn’t look like anyone yet.”
“I meant that scowl.” She frowned, taking a closer look. “Yep, that’s all Augustus.”
“Stop,” he said, but he was playing. Happy. There was another, darker matter to attend to in the room next door, but his worries dissolved into joy as soon as the nurse transferred his daughter to his arms. He was utterly and completely in love. Not love like the healing spell of Carolina. Not love like the enchantment of Ekatherina.
Real, unfiltered, untempered, true love.
I will give you everything and will keep you safe in a way I couldn’t do for your mother, Ana. You’re the best part of me, and I’ll make a world for you where only the light shines through.
The phone rang just before midnight. Colleen willed it to go unanswered. She shivered under the blankets, consumed by the terror of confirmation. If no one answered, then it wasn’t real. Her heart spoke a truth the rest of her couldn’t accept, and she begged it to shut up, shut up, shut up. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. Not on her wedding day. Not on Christmas.
Irish Colleen knocked, entering before anyone answered. Her face was streaked in red, and it looked as if she was on the verge of crying. “Colleen… I have terrible news.”
“No,” Colleen cried. “Don’t say it.” Noah stirred, but didn’t wake.
“Something tells me you already know.”
“I had the most terrible dream,” she managed, through her tears. “She came to me.”
They were lost in the garden. Colleen used to misplace herself often as a little girl, and then it became a game, because whenever Ophelia came looking for her, there was always tea and cookies after, long beyond the point when Ophelia knew what Colleen was up to.
Rich flora painted the landscape, blinding her. No, it was more than the flora, it was the light itself, as if someone had turned the contrast up to a hundred and bathed the world in extremes.
A beautiful redheaded woman stepped from behind a palmetto tree, wearing a berry-picking hat tied at her neck. It draped over her shoulders, doing her no good on this excessively sunny day.
Who are you, Colleen started to ask, but she knew Ophelia, even this version of her, the same way she would know her grandmother, or anyone else who lived in her heart.
I wasn’t sure you’d come, said this younger, vibrant version of Ophelia. Oh, what a vision of loveliness she was, her cheeks bathed in freckles, lips full and red, like the begonias growing just beyond.
I always come when you need me, Colleen said, but a part of her knew this wasn’t true, or perhaps feared it was not. For Colleen, abandonment was a cross she bore whether anyone else suffered from her absence or not. Her leaving Ophelia for Scotland was a sin she wasn’t prepared to answer for, but she knew this was why she was summoned here now, or part of it.
I have always needed you, the young Ophelia confirmed. Always, Colleen. Always, even when you needed me more. When others look to you for counsel, you must find your comfort somewhere, and in you, I saw the future. When you are dying, the future is everything.
But you’re not dying! Look at you!
This is me in my mind, at a time where I was happy… in love, but that’s not your story, or why we are here.
Why are we here?
You know, my darling.
I don’t, Colleen insisted, like a petulant child, unwilling to play this game anymore, because it was no longer fun. She didn’t care about the tea or cookies. She wanted to go home. To wake and remember Christmas through the eyes of a blushing newlywed.
It’s time, Colleen.
No. No! You have to fight it!
Yes. Ophelia laughed, a delightful sound that echoed across the flowers. You place so much faith in me, to think I can cheat death! He comes for us all, child, at some time. I have lived nearly ninety-eight years and I daresay I’ve gotten away with far more than I deserved.
This isn’t funny. It’s not the least bit funny. You can’t leave me! I need you!
You’ve never needed me as much as you believe, my darling dearest. I’ve never told you anything you didn’t already know, somewhere within you. If I am to be credited for anything, it’s helping guide you to a place where you no longer needed me to show you.
That’s not true! It just isn’t. You’re the only one in the world—
Hush, Colleen. The time is upon us, and I’m trying very hard to remember how this goes, because it was only described to me, and many years ago, at that. You might remember that I was the one who renewed the Council for the Louisiana Deschanels. I didn’t have the privilege of having the mantle passed to me in the dream state.
Are we dreaming? Colleen could cry with relief. If this were a dream, she could wake up! She could wake up, and—
Be present! This is as real as anything, Colleen Amelia, and if you don’t focus, I’ll depart this earth before you have a chance to accept my gift.
Your gift? Colleen asked, but she knew.
Say the vows with me now, child. Quickly.
I don’t remember them.
You? Psh. You forget nothing. God help your husband.
I don’t… I can’t…
In power, obligation, Colleen.
Colleen barely got the words out, but she said them.
In obligation, commitment.
In obligation. Colleen paused to catch her breath. Commitment.
In commitment, solidarity.
In commitment, solidarity.
In solidarity, enlightenment, they said together, and then, the vows of the Council, governance through enlightenment.
There is one more, that is only for you. Only for the magistrate, Ophelia said. Are you ready?
I will never be ready.
I ask you again.
I’m not ready. I am ready. I am, but—
For as the strong shall rise again, so shall the strong be governed.
Colleen hesitated before repeating. She didn’t know these words, and she didn’t understand them.
You do understand. You understand all too well, my darling. Our family is doomed to fall and doomed to rise, and only the magistrate can know how to govern in such chaos. The head and the heart.
What if I fail?
Say the words?
What if—
I’m fading, child. Say them. Now!
For the… for the strong… shall rise again and so shall the strong be governed.
The young Ophelia approached, and as she did, parts of her began to disappear. First the hat, then, inch by inch, her hair. Her hands dissolved into dust, and then her legs.
Her face was the last to go. It remained long enough to say her final words.
I love you, Colleen. As my own. More than my own. Now, go, and do as you are born to do, so that I can die with the peace of possibility.
I love—
But Ophelia was gone.
Charles found Augustus in the quiet room with Anasofiya. He’d slept there, holding her, and Charles understood, because even a moment away from Nicolas was a moment too long. This was just one more thing the brothers would find they had in common, and Charles felt a surge of closeness to Augustus that was welcome.
He brought his son to meet his new cousin. They wouldn’t remember this first meeting, but it was the beginning of a relationship that would follow the rest of their lives, if he had any say in it. He’d nurture this friendship the way August Deschanel and Colin Sullivan Sr. had nurtured the one between their oldest sons.
“Did you hear the news?”
Augustus nodded solemnly. “God rest her soul. Tante Ophelia was an incredible woman, and the family won’t be the same without her. How’s Colleen?”
“About what you’d expect,” Charles said with a heavy sigh. “These scrolls arrived not long after the phone calls, announcing the news, and Colleen’s promotion to magistrate.”
“Scrolls?”
“What did you expect from a council of witches?”
Augustus half-laughed. “Right. Poor Colleen. Is she ready for this?”
“Are we ever ready for any of the shit life throws at us?”
Augustus looked down at his daughter. “I suppose not. But she’ll need us, all the same.”
“We’re the men in this family. We’ll rise to the occasion, same as we always do.”
Anasofiya yawned, waking. Augustus adjusted her in his arms. “Wanna hold her?”
“Let’s trade.” Charles handed Nicolas over and accepted the cooing Anasofiya into his arms. She was beautiful, a beauty he’d seen only in his own son, and he’d never felt closer to his brother than he did right then, not even moments before when he’d entered the room filled with brotherly love.
“This is love,” Charles said. “This, right here.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Augustus agreed. He brushed his fingers across Nicolas’ cheeks.
“These two, they have to look after each other, Augustus.”
“Of course they will. They’re family.”
He met his brother’s eyes, forcing contact. “No, I mean it. Their mothers failed them both, and we can only give them so much. They’ll need each other. I wish… I wish Dad had prepared you and me better. Maybe things would be different.”
“Their mothers might yet change, Huck.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Augustus looked away.
“Cordelia is dead to me. Ekatherina… she’s your wife, and I won’t say a bad word about her, but Ana’s been on this earth for twenty-six hours and still hasn’t met her mother.”
“The labor was hard on her. They had to bring in blood for a transfusion, Charles. It took almost forty hours! The doctors say she needs rest—”
“Stop,” Charles commanded. “Stop it, Augustus. I don’t know how you decide when fantasy is better than reality, but reality is what we have. And reality is, we have two babies with fathers who would die for them, and mothers who wished they were never fucking born.” He swallowed. “Years from now, I want you to remember, your wife chose not to let your healer sisters fix what’s wrong with her. She’s choosing pain, to avoid choosing motherhood.”
“You may be right,” Augustus said after a long, uncomfortable silence. “But right now, all I can think about is Ana and shielding her from all of it. The rest is noise, and I don’t have time for it. Not anymore.”
“You’re a good man,” Charles said. “Better than me.”
“You’re a better man than you think.”
“I just had an affair with my best friend’s wife. Still think that?”
Augustus smirked. “I knew about the affair. I also know you’re the one who ended it.”
“How the hell did you know that?”
“Lizzy.”
“Damn her little deviant mind.” Charles rocked his new niece in his arms. Ana. Nicolas. Augustus would realize soon that he was right. These two would need each other, in a way their other cousins would never require. Their births were a nuisance to the mothers who bore them, and that had a way of marking a child. “Colin keeps telling me his marriage is broken over things he doesn’t understand. For his sake, I hope he never does.”
“His marriage is broken in spite of you, not because of you. Correlation is not causation.”
“Come again?”
Nicolas gripped Augustus’ fingers with a peal of giggles. Augustus smiled down at him in equal delight.
“Catherine’s choice to be unhappy was there long before you met her,” Augustus said, making faces at his nephew. “And the Charles I know would have kept going until the whole thing exploded in both your faces. You made a hard choice. I know now how tough it is to put aside what’s in your heart for what you know is right.”
“Sounds like you’re paying me a compliment.”
“Your hearing might be off, but it’s possible.”
The brothers both grinned as they held the babies.
“Promise me. About Ana and Nic.”
“Of course. I promise.”
“They may not have their mothers, but they have each other. And us.”
“They won’t want for anything.”
“Ever.”
Charles rose. “I should go. Colleen is expected at The Gardens and I don’t think she’s in any shape to drive herself. And if I know her, she won’t want Noah anywhere near this just yet.” He traded babies with his brother. “Call me if anyone else has a baby, or something.”
Augustus shook his head. “Three is enough for now, I think.”
“Four, shortly,” Charles said. “And if Mama doesn’t put a stop to that bullshit going on in Lizzy’s room, we’ll be welcoming baby number five soon enough.”
“Hey,” Augustus called, as Charles was exiting. “You are a good man, you know. Not the best.” They both laughed. “But a good one. Dad would be proud.”
Charles’ eyes burned, as the missed opportunities to talk to his father dug themselves further into the past, with Maureen’s ghosts now also a bygone hope.
He would do anything in the world to hear the words from August himself. He’d spent so long being the antithesis of his father that he never considered how good it would feel to be compared to him, and for that comparison to feel possible.
Disappointment was a useless emotion, though, especially now, when the whole world awaited in Lisette’s beckoning arms.