Chapter 22
Ael*
“Cahir, darling, please stop flying that thing so close to my work,” Ael’s mother, Misandra, pleaded with him as he flew his paper airplane with his newfound magic.
They were in her dark room, as they usually were, while she focused on her important work—something related to a different kind of magic she often mentioned.
“But mama, I booorreedddd.” He dropped the plane mid-flight, and it landed on the stone floor with a soft thud.
He roughly sat down in the chair, pouted, and crossed his arms, making sure to furrow his eyebrows especially hard at the back of her head.
He glared at her long black hair streaked with white.
Ael was bored with being in this room and wanted to go outside and play with Luelle.
A slight smile touched his lips, but he kept his brows furrowed as he thought about Luelle and the funny trick she played on one of the maids. She was a couple of years older than him and his bestest-best friend in the entire world, even if she sometimes teased him.
His mama’s back was still turned away from him as she reviewed her papers and picked up some funny-smelling leaves. “I can sense how you’re staring at me, Cahir. You know I have the eyeball on the back of my head.”
He quickly masked his anger as she turned around and looked at him. “It’s not polite to make mean faces at people.” She furrowed her brows and pouted, exaggerating his own expression just moments earlier.
Ael couldn’t help but laugh at the silly-looking expression, and she ran forward, swooping him into her arms and kissing him all over.
“I sorry, mama,” he choked out through laughter. She began tickling him, and he struggled to breathe through the happiness that swelled within him.
When she stopped, he reached out and tried to tickle her back, but she quickly ran away from him.
He chased her around the room, bumping into her amethyst crystals and knocking them over.
When he finally caught her, his mighty wrath descended upon her, especially with tickles to her neck, where she always laughed the hardest.
“Stop, Cahir! I give in! I give in!” she said through ragged breaths. She pulled him into a big hug, and when she finally released him, she looked into his eyes, which mirrored her own emerald gaze. “You are the best little boy in the entire world. Do you know that? I love you so much.”
He nodded his head as he gently reached for the dark bruise under her eye. How was she always getting hurt? “I wuv you more. To the moon and back.”
Luelle always teased him about how he said ‘love’, and he winced when he realized he said it wrong—again. It was the best he could do, though, and Mama didn’t seem to mind.
She cupped his hand in hers and reached forward to kiss him on the forehead.
He felt around her head, searching for that mysterious eyeball she always talked about. He could never find it. “Where’s the extra eyeball, Mama?”
“Only adults can see it, Cahir. It developed as I grew you in my womb and was made extra special so I could always keep watch over you.”
He wasn’t entirely sure about that because sometimes he stuck his tongue out at her, and she didn’t notice.
“Let’s go find your father.” She reached out her hand, and they made their way out of the dark room, through the dark halls, and back into the main hallway.
The castle was so big and so tall, and not long into their walk, his legs felt tired. She pulled him up and carried him the rest of the way, and he nestled into her warm arms, pressing his ear to her chest and listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.
When they crossed the familiar double doors to his parents’ wing, he heard loud sounds coming from his father’s bedroom.
His mama stilled.
“Is Daddy okay?” Ael asked her, noticing how her heart had quickly changed its beat.
She didn’t respond as she slowly set him down. “Stay here, Cahir.” Her face looked serious, and it frightened him. His mama was never serious. Only Daddy was serious.
He tried to ask again, this time whispering, “Is Daddy okay, Mama?”
“Stay here,” she reiterated, and Ael stood frozen in the hallway, watching with wide eyes as she neared his bedroom.
She flung the door open and marched in, slamming the door behind her.
Ael heard screams and the shattering of glass. Suddenly, the door swung open, and a maid hurried out. She was the same maid Luelle often played tricks on. The maid was unclothed and dashed past him, vanishing down the corridor.
Ewwwwwwww, he thought. You only got naked when you took a bath. He shifted his eyes back onto the now open door and took a hesitant step forward.
He heard louder sounds, and the sudden scream made him lurch forward. As he entered the room, he saw his father standing over Mama. Blood dripped from a cut on her face, matching the blood on his father’s hand.
He felt so scared. She was hurt. He needed to protect her. He loved Mama.
“Cahir…” she choked out when she saw him, her eyes going wide.
Ael tried to run toward her, but Daddy turned around, and the familiar look of anger met Ael, stopping him in his tracks. The only things his daddy wore were the crown on his head and the blood on his hand. Why was he also naked?
Guards and the mean witch, Tahti, rushed into the room.
“Get him out of here NOW!” Daddy shouted at the guards. The guards grabbed Ael, and he screamed in response, kicking his legs wildly.
He had to protect Mama and help her.
He broke free from their grasp and ran to her, embracing her tightly. Blood covered his hands, arms, and shirt as he held her close, longing for his own body to shield her from further pain.
“Mama…” he cried into her. He could feel her heart pounding rapidly beneath him. Mama was frightened. He had to be brave and strong. It was not right that Daddy hurt her!
His father quickly walked up from behind and painfully yanked him away from her. He struck his father with all his strength, but his father remained unfazed.
Daddy should never hurt Mama!
He screamed as the guards seized him again, this time holding him more tightly. He kicked and yelled at the guards, but couldn’t break free.
Tightly clutching him, they carried him away from Daddy’s bedroom, quickly shutting the double doors behind them, leaving Daddy, the witch, and Mama behind.
He heard his Daddy say, “It’s time.”
His Mama’s screams echoed once more through the hall, and he reached out with his hands, trying to grab for the door that got farther away with each step, watching in horror as Mama’s blood covered his arms and hands.
The darkened clouds in the sky parted, and a waterfall of sunlight filtered through, casting its rainbow of light onto Mama’s closed casket where she lay within.
Everyone stood there in mourning as the magical essence swirled around them all, dancing up along the cliffside where the casket was placed.
The box was tightly closed, and Ael couldn’t see her. He wanted to be close. What if her box fell over the edge into the raging waters of the ocean below?
Tears ran down his cheeks. His mama was his favorite person in the whole world. He didn’t know someone could ‘pass away’. What did that even mean?
Daddy said she would never come back.
This was a new pain for him, one he didn’t understand or know how to handle. Before this, the worst thing he had felt was when Luelle tripped him, and he fell into the gravel, causing his blood to pool on his knee.
Mama helped him then, gently brushing away the small rocks and cleaning him up. Mama wasn’t here now to help the hurt.
This felt different. It hurt more.
He stepped closer to her casket and dropped to his knees, pressing his ear to the box, trying and praying to hear her soothing heartbeat through the wood.
Only silence greeted him.
“It’s time to get up, Ael,” Daddy sternly said behind him. “It’s time to grow up.”
He cried into his hands and collapsed further onto the ground, pressing the side of his face to the rocky ground below, feeling the kiss of sunshine heat his other cheek.
“Fucking disgrace,” his father said of him as he and everyone else walked away.
Ael lay there alone as he firmly pressed his eyes closed. He cried out loudly, perhaps to no one specific, or to anyone who would listen, or even to the heavens, the earth, and the depths of hell itself.
This pain felt like his heart was dropping into his stomach, and it hurt so very much.
A soft hand pressed against his cheek and lightly brushed away a tear.
He cracked open his eyes and saw the blurry image of Luelle kneeling beside him. She leaned down and hugged him tightly, her long golden ponytail draping over his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Cahir,” she whispered.
Ael sat up and angrily brushed the tears away from his cheeks and forced his tongue to move how it was supposed to, “I love my mama. Only she could call me that name. My name is Ael.”
Luelle paused before she said, “Okay, Ael.”
She sat alongside him, grabbing his hand into hers and rubbing her thumb back and forth over his palm.
They sat there, with hands tightly intertwined, as the clouds thickened once more and rain began to trickle from the sky, blending with the pain sliding down their cheeks.
They allowed the rain to soak through their clothes and listened to the deafening thunder rumble across the earth.
They sat there until the sky darkened, the clouds parted, and the twinkling of stars glittered above.
And there they remained… both trying to understand what death was at such a young age and how to cope with the loss of such a special person.
Luelle didn’t release his hand once.