Chapter 13 Bechora #2
Geordie will have guided you here. He has already seen what is to come.
His visions began far too early, long before any mother would want such burdens placed on a young heart.
He will insist that at seventeen he was already a grown fae, but I know better.
He may not be my child by blood, yet he is a son to me in every way that matters, and no mother wishes her boy to witness the things his sight has forced upon him.
We sent you to the human realm because it was the only way to protect you. The storm gathering around our family grew too dark, too quickly. Keeping you hidden was the only choice left that gave you a chance at survival.
I had hoped the prophecy would wait, that it would not fall upon you in this lifetime.
I begged the stars for just one more generation, one more lifetime of peace before the mantle passed.
Fate rarely heeds the wishes of mothers.
It chose you, my daughter, my Starcaller, and no amount of love in my veins could change that path.
It grieves me that such a task rests with you. It grieves me more that I cannot stand beside you as you rise to meet it. All I ever wanted was to watch you grow, to see joy light your face, to know you would find those who cherish you as fiercely as I do.
You will feel lost, but you are not alone.
I have left something to guide you. Our family has kept a journal since the first Starcaller, each generation adding to the knowledge of what our power can become.
I hid it in the place that belonged only to Geordie and me, our secret place where no one ever thought to look.
Find it, my Little Star. Let it show you what I no longer can.
With all my love,
Mother
The letter trembled in my hands by the time I reached the end.
Tears gathered without permission, blurring the ink until it swam across the page.
I hadn’t cried in front of anyone in years, but the dam cracked.
A tiny sound escaped me, one I wished I could swallow back down.
I felt Geordie move before I saw him. He stepped in close enough that I could sense him, but he kept his hands at his sides as if afraid to interrupt the moment.
“I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know any of that was in there.”
I looked up at him. His face wasn’t smug or knowing for once. He looked… shaken. Pale around the edges. Vulnerable in a way that didn’t fit a fae seer who had always seemed to know everything.
“But you knew to bring me here,” I said.
“I did. I saw us in this room and me taking something from the hidden compartment, but beyond that…” He dragged a hand through his hair, his expression pained. “If I’d known she left something for you, I’d have brought you sooner.”
I pressed the letter against my chest. “You didn’t know. She said she hid a journal in your secret place. You didn’t know about that either?”
“No,” he said softly. “She never told me. Whatever she hid, she wanted you to find it, not me.” Geordie took a slow breath and glanced around the office, eyes scanning shelves, corners, the desk, and his face twisted as if he were reliving years of memories.
“Mother and I had a hiding spot, just for us. She wanted me to know that I was just as special as any child she bore, and having a secret between us was her way of showing me that. She’d always leave me little gifts and trinkets there to show she was thinking of me, not just when father was around. ”
Geordie’s voice softened in a way I had never heard before, raw around the edges. “She always made sure I knew I was hers, too. Not by birth, but by choice. That secret place was the first thing she ever gave me that belonged only to us.”
My throat tightened. “Where is it?”
He let out a slow breath and turned toward the window. “The garden.”
I followed him down the creaking stairs, through the back hall, and out the shattered doors that led into an overgrown and long-forgotten garden.
Frost-slicked vines curled over broken stone tiles.
Moonlight glimmered off a rusted fountain that no longer held water.
There was a heavy sense of forgotten memories wrapped up in the wilted flowers and overgrown paths.
Geordie walked with purpose toward a gazebo tucked near the far edge of the grounds.
The structure leaned slightly, its white paint chipped to grey, but something about it felt warmer and more welcoming than the house behind us.
My eyes landed on a set of carved initials low on one of the beams. GF.
My fingers traced them lightly, and I caught the sad smile that curved on Geordie’s lips.
He shook his head as if pulling free of a memory and moved to kneel at the wooden bench along the back.
“This is it,” he murmured. “She hid little treasures here for me. Sometimes a sweet, sometimes a polished stone she’d say reminded her of my eyes, sometimes a note telling me she loved me. I haven’t been back to open it since I followed you into the human realm.”
He pressed on a nearly invisible groove, but nothing happened. He frowned and tried again, but the hidden compartment refused to budge.
“Of course,” he muttered. “The wood has swollen shut.”
With a whispered curse, he slammed the side of one fist against the top of the bench while tugging at it with the other.
The bench groaned in protest, and dust sprinkled to the floor from underneath.
The second attempt was harder, the third even more forceful.
On the fourth, something cracked, then slid with a harsh scrape.
A narrow section popped loose from the bottom of the bench.
Geordie inhaled sharply. “There.”
The hidden space was about the size of a shoebox, just large enough for the leather journal resting inside.
Its cover was dark and smooth with age, but otherwise seemed well preserved.
Symbols I didn’t recognize flared to life on the cover when I reached inside to take it, warming my hands and temporarily blinding me with the flash of light they emitted.
Geordie stepped back slightly, awe softening his features. “Elvish runes,” he murmured. “This is… I can’t believe she hid this here, of all places.”
I pressed the journal to my chest, as if I could absorb my mother’s touch from the ancient tome. “You really didn’t see this coming?”
He shook his head. “No. This is one moment the Sight left untouched. Maybe because the knowledge in that journal belongs to you alone.”
The night air felt still around us, as if the estate had exhaled for the first time in decades. I tightened my grip on the journal.
“Let’s open it,” I said quietly.
Geordie nodded. “Here, or back inside?”
I glanced at the ruined house, then at the moonlit gazebo where my mother had whispered love into hidden compartments for a boy she chose as her own.
“Here,” I said. “Here feels right.”
And as I opened the journal for the first time, the air around us shimmered as if the very stars leaned close to listen.