Chapter Thirteen #2
Vivid fabrics and oil paintings of flowers dominated the living room. Scarlett was immediately reminded of Manon’s room in Soleil, although this place was homier. She peered at a cross-stitch hung next to a doorway. Ad Astra et Ultra. Under it was a constellation surrounded by shooting stars.
“That’s interesting,” said Scarlett. “What constellation is that?”
Manon came to stand next to her. “It’s the Fortuna constellation with the Bedivere family motto.
It means ‘to the stars and beyond.’” She leaned into Scarlett.
“Your mother made that when she was grounded for a week as a teenager. That constellation is part of our family crest, so that’s what inspired her. ”
Scarlett wanted that cross-stitch. Would Manon let her take it home?
“Is there more of my mum’s stuff here?”
“Oh, sure,” said Manon. “I had all her things moved here after she passed. It made your dad too sad, so he gave them to me. I saved it all for you. It’s all in her old room.”
She led Scarlett through the kitchen and down another hallway, stopping in front of a closed door. “Do you want to have a look?”
Scarlett vibrated with excitement. She had so few of her mother’s belongings. She’d wondered where they’d all gone. Now she knew her father had erased her mother from their home. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all. Go in there and take anything you want.
She was your mother.” Manon squeezed Scarlett’s hand.
“I’ll go make some tea. No milk, obviously, but there’s still some black tea in the cupboard, if I remember right.
” She left Scarlett standing at the doorway to her mother’s childhood bedroom.
A big bed with a cream-colored tufted headboard took up much of the room, along with a simple wooden desk.
A large poster of a surfer girl on a beach at sunset hung above the bed—it could have been a beach in Soleil.
Scarlett’s eyes welled up at the sight of it.
Maybe it was just a poster, but imagine if her mother had, on some level, dreamed of Scarlett’s life while she’d been growing up in Clair de Lune…
Was her life her mother’s dreams made manifest?
She wished she could ask her about the poster.
There were two bookshelves crammed with books and decorative boxes. Scarlett ran her fingers over the titles, finding a few she’d read. A love of reading was one of the things her parents had liked about each other. Her dad had told her that much.
There were a few dresses pushed to the far left of the closet, but most of the space was filled with boxes. Scarlett opened the closest one and found a stack of notebooks. She picked one up and opened it, finding it stuffed with concert tickets and photographs.
“Have you read any of these journals?” she called to Manon.
Manon appeared in the doorway. “No. She wouldn’t have wanted me to. You, though—you should. She’d want you to know her.”
Scarlett put the diary down. Reading them could reveal weirdness she wouldn’t like, but she ached to know more about her mother. She opened another box, filled with scarves. She pulled out a red tartan scarf and put it on.
Manon dragged a garment bag out of a closet.
“Here’s her wedding dress.” She set the bag down on the bed, unzipped it, and lifted out the dress.
It was a simple yet elegant white dress: long sleeves, mid-thigh length, with a square neckline lined with pearls.
Time had left it untouched all these years.
Scarlett gasped. “I’ve never seen this before. Not even in pictures.”
“She was so beautiful.” Manon’s breath hitched. “They got married here, you know. At the courthouse.”
Scarlett was touched by the happiness that shone on Manon’s face. She missed Sabina, but it seemed like the good memories were still good.
The kettle whistled in the kitchen. Manon, whose eyes were suspiciously shiny, hobbled to the door.
“Back in a moment.”
Alone once more, Scarlett touched the wedding dress reverently. She’d kill for a wedding photo of her parents. Turning back to the journal, she flicked through the pages until she found what she was hoping for: a photo of Sabina.
The picture was of her and several friends.
Scarlett didn’t recognize any of them other than her mother.
They all beamed at the camera. Sabina looked a little younger than Scarlett was now, but not by a lot, and Scarlett was struck by how much she really did look like her mum.
Her dad had always told her that, but she’d never felt it more than she did now, standing in her room, looking at a picture of this very real girl who once had a happy life before she died and was erased from Scarlett’s life.
Manon reappeared with two cups of tea. “Scarlett, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” She sat on an empty part of the bed and patted the space next to her.
Scarlett sat. “What is it?”
“It’s about my valor.”
“Go on.”
“So Brayden showed you his valor and told you he’s a phoenix.”
“Yes. I saw the fire.” Please don’t ask more. She didn’t want to tell Manon the embarrassing story of how she’d ended up in the woods.
“When valors manifest, they appear on your physical body as a tattoo. Your soul light can help you make the tattoo invisible, which is why you’ve never seen mine, but one will appear on you during the ceremony.
Mine’s on the back of my neck.” Her grandmother’s hair was already up in a neat bun, so all she had to do was turn her head for Scarlett to see.
Scarlett gasped. A tattoo of an eye stared at her—it was open wide and had long black lashes.
“I’m an oculus. This is my valor tattoo. Together, the valor tattoo and the soul light give me the oculus power to see glimmers of the future. My unusually good intuition comes from being an oculus.”
Scarlett reeled as she lifted a finger to touch the tattoo. “This tattoo gave you magic?” She stared at the eye, transfixed.
Manon faced Scarlett. “Yes. The powers manifest through the valor ceremony.”
“What does it mean to be an oculus?” When Scarlett was a kid, Manon had always swooped in—seemingly out of nowhere—to stop her from doing something she wasn’t supposed to, like sneaking off to the beach alone.
“Wait… Is this how you always caught me when I tried to sneak out?”
Manon chuckled. “Not really. That was my sixth sense as a grandmother. My intuition was strong even before my valor manifested. The oculus power just enhances what’s already there.
Sometimes, being an oculus means you get exceptional psychic abilities.
Other times, it means you’re simply intuitive.
I’m somewhere in the middle. I wouldn’t call myself a psychic, but I have excellent instincts. ”
Scarlett’s mouth fell open. Those mentions of her grandmother and Lachlan… A new understanding dawned. “You use your abilities to help Lachlan, don’t you?” My grandmother is a spy. “That’s why you talked in the mirror so often.”
Manon’s smile was apologetic. “My specialty is assessing strategic decisions, which is helpful for the military and the government.”
“Could you have seen Dad was going to die?” It was an awful question, but Scarlett had to ask. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want to understand.”
Manon’s eyes watered, and she grasped for Scarlett. “From the bottom of my heart, I wish I could’ve saved him. And your mother. I can’t see the things I don’t know to look for.”
Squeezing her grandmother’s hand, Scarlett gave her a reassuring smile. She knew deep in her heart Manon would have saved them if she could have, and she wished she’d framed the question differently so as not to upset her.
Manon continued. “Take Lachlan, for example. He’ll come to me with a decision he’s trying to make and ask me what I see.
I’ll usually give him good advice. However, if someone were planning to kill him, I wouldn’t know unless he asked the right question.
It’s far from a perfect power.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I couldn’t save us from Laylani either, which was irritating as hell. ”
Scarlett huffed out a laugh, satisfied by the explanation. “Yes, I wish you could have seen that in advance. How do you get that label—oculus? Why do different people have different valors? What was my mum’s valor?”
Manon crossed her legs and leaned back on the bed, looking around at her daughter’s old room. “She was a scientia. She was always brilliant in school, specifically in science, and her valor enhanced that, which is why she went to Soleil for university, where she met Jules.”
Soleil, where she’d died. It was a wonder Manon didn’t hate the whole country.
Manon sniffed. “As for why we get what we get, sometimes valors run in families, but it’s often a total surprise. I have no idea what you’ll be.”
“I guess I’ll find out soon enough. Is that all you wanted to tell me?” Scarlett glanced at the boxes in the closet. She wanted to sort through more of her mum’s things before it was time to go.
Manon looked at the ceiling. “I also wanted to tell you I spent yesterday evening searching for our best path. Unfortunately, Scarlett, when I see myself returning to Soleil, I die. Every time. No matter how I change the path, the outcome remains the same. Laylani gets me, and I weaken and die. But if I stay here, I live.” Her stare was empty as she let out a heavy sigh.
Scarlett’s heart grew heavy as it sank in that her grandmother wasn’t coming back with her. “Then of course you’ll stay. Will you move back here?”
“Yes, dear. As soon as I’m able.”
Scarlett ran her fingers over the worn duvet on her mother’s bed. “Can we take some of Mum’s journals back to the castle? I’m losing the will to go on, and I want to go to the Forest Temple before I’m emotionally and physically exhausted.”
“Of course. Let’s head back.”
Scarlett rushed to load a box of journals into their borrowed car before returning to help Manon. She tried not to catastrophize as she imagined what it would be like to take Beni back to Soleil alone.