Chapter 19 #2
“Not yet maybe, but you have wielded it before. And you will again.”
I swallowed, pondering the thought. There was no way.
If I’d been able to do magic, I would have known by now.
He was mistaken. The light I’d seen drain into the black waters in my last nightmare came rushing back like an avalanche.
What if that was—no. There was no way. It had just been a trick of the brain.
A worn man emerged from an alley across the dirt road—my attention was on him the second he stepped into the open—a young boy hot on his heels.
They paused to dust their tattered clothes and tipped their hats at a passing woman with a stroller in tow.
I studied the men’s lively conversation as they made their way closer to the blacksmith’s weathered shop.
They prattled on about the market, a food shortage, all their words a little too fast for me to pick up in sharp detail.
They neared my position next to the blacksmith’s door, and I locked onto the younger of the two.
At first his features were fuzzy—almost like a mist covered them—but my eyes adjusted a moment later, exposing his familiar features.
His hair was not yet white, but his frame was the same shape it was now—tall, slender—and he had eyes like emeralds.
“I was once the object of your affections,” Leeran said. “Long before Cillian came along.”
My gut soured … he—he knew Cillian … by name.
“You went by Aislyn then, and you were fierce and warm as summer rain,” he cooed. “We met in the hills of Ireland in 1846, when the primary focus of all was one simple thing: food. A blight had fallen across the land, devouring everything in its path and leaving the lot of Ireland starved.”
Miss Celine … she’d mentioned this famine. Of course. Another coincidence? Doubtful. I was beginning to think she and Cillian were more than just withholding information.
I watched the stilled image before me change, the younger boy I now recognized as Leeran growing a few inches taller, a few years older, and his dad disappearing completely. The scene resumed, a nudge at my heels ushering me into the shop behind Leeran.
“Your father,” he continued, “had taken me in after my mom and pop were claimed by hunger. Our fathers had become fast friends, thick as thieves they were. Your pop put me to work, taught me what it meant to survive.”
I watched as a burly, redheaded man unknowingly smeared coal across his brow, giving all his attention to his work. My skin buzzed with warm confirmation. I … I knew him somehow.
“Your mother met an untimely death when you were a mere child, long before widespread hunger consumed the land. Needless to say, you were your father’s entire world.”
In a rush of strawberry blonde curls and boisterous smile, a young girl swung through the back door and danced around the hefty man.
He hoisted her into his arms with a chuckle and booped her on the nose.
The electricity under my skin grew to a near-staggering level, threatening to shake my bones from their joints.
Everything became crystal clear in an instant, like tunnel vision. This man was my father.
Papa …
I knew it. Without a single doubt, I knew it.
The same way I knew the sky was blue, the grass green, and the world round.
Happy tears flooded my vision as I collapsed at his feet, a strange, consuming cry taking over me.
I’d missed him with a fierceness I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding on to.
How could I have forgotten him? I’d craved a family for so long, craved to be wanted, and now I knew …
I had been. And not simply wanted, but loved, cherished, and provided for in every way a child deserved. Maybe not in this life, but I had been.
My father and his shop faded away, exposing a meadow much like the one Leeran had conjured up upon my entrance to the dream.
Only this one was littered with mint-green, bell-like flowers that swirled in the wind like dainty bells.
Chills raced up my arms as his next words rolled over me like warm honey.
“I have fancied you since the day we met,” he whispered.
“But you were wild and carefree, entirely disinterested in settling down. So, I was patient; content in soaking up the light radiating off you and our friendship. But come my eighteenth birthday, I knew I could not keep my true feelings concealed any longer.”
I watched as the image of Leeran swept over the gentle hill, a more mature strawberry-haired woman in tow. The woman I now accepted I’d been. They looked so effortless together, like they knew true happiness in each other’s company.
“The day you agreed to be mine, heart and soul, remains my most treasured memory aside from one: the day we brought our twins into the world, Fagan and Lynn.” The scenery shifted once more, revealing two spirited toddlers dancing through the same flower-covered meadow, singing songs that lingered on the tip of my tongue.
“We raised them in a modest home alongside a stream as you had dreamed of doing in your childhood. And we were so incredibly happy.”
My spine stiffened. Me, a—a mother? Absolutely not.
You don’t forget something like that, not even in another body …
right? Who was I kidding, of course not.
A mother would never forget—what a ridiculous thought!
Leeran’s vision shifted toward a quilt sprawled out near the stream’s edge. This had to be a lie, a clever ruse or—
I doubled over, fleeting images striking like vipers one after the other.
Tiny faces … little hands … gentle coos.
The scene rolled on, seasons passing in mere seconds, stopping on two pairs of bright eyes peering back at me in the tall grass.
Their giggles sent goose bumps up my spine, a sense of knowing settling in.
The kind that strikes the spirit before the mind.
I let the visions take me then. Gave myself over.
A little boy’s scuffed knee and a warm hug.
A young woman’s first heartbreak and shared tears.
Each new flash felt like a broken bone being snapped back into place.
Like this cavernous hole in me I’d battled for so long hadn’t come from something as simple as my twisted mind.
It’d been more. So much more. A deep longing, grief swelling under the surface for a love I hadn’t known I’d had nor lost. At least, not until this moment.
I knew them. I knew them, heart and soul.
My babies.
I began to weep, the levee in my mind breaking wide open. Fagan: affectionate, creative, kind, Fagan. And Lynn: strong, brave, and oh-so-opinionated. The same way I’d known my father, I knew them. More so, somehow. Flesh of my flesh. Bone of my bone. Heart of my—
I found myself back by Leeran’s side, visions gone in a blink.
“Why’d you do that?” I blurted and brushed away the tears on my cheeks.
He flashed me a sad smile. “I did not want you to see this part …”
“What? No! Bring them back!”
“You made me promise not to show you this.”
My stomach twisted, a hefty weight settling in my chest. “What? Why? What happened?”
He strolled out into the meadow, eyes cast down at the daisies.
“You had insisted on smaller rations, giving every last bit you could to Fagan and Lynn. And well, you—you grew ill. I searched high and low for anything to cure you or slow the process but found nothing.” His shoulders sagged.
“You were gone within a month of acquiring the fever, and I was left to care for our mourning twins on my own. Not a day passed where their freckled green eyes did not remind me of what I had lost. What we had lost.” His misty gaze fell into mine.
“I have missed you desperately; ached for your touch every second of every day since you left. Living without you, well … I wouldn’t call it living at all. ”
He reached his hand toward my face and I shied away from his touch, though a part of me longed to do the opposite.
His shoulder slouched at my rejection, a knot forming in my stomach as I paced through the swaying grass.
The entire thing seemed impossible, and yet I knew in my soul it wasn’t.
This is … a lot. I surveyed Leeran, who sat calm and collected on the bench.
He made no attempt to rush my process or try to sway me. He just waited patiently.
“I have questions,” I finally said.
“I would be shocked if you didn’t.” He leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. “Your curious mind remains one of my favorite qualities. Ask me anything your heart desires. I am an open book.”
I cleared my throat and began to pace about. “If this has all been the truth, why are you here and I’m not?”
“Simply put? I am not as powerful as you. Shocking, I know, given my incredible strength and masterful skill with a blade,” he said with a smirk. “But I don’t share your gifted affinities and abilities.”
I scoffed. “Me? Unless you count sleepwalking and social anxiety as abilities, I think you’ve got the wrong woman. The only thing I’m gifted in is being an absolute mess.”
He made his way to me. “Now, that simply will not do.”
“… What?”
“You, doubting yourself.” He lifted my chin, quickly dropping his hand away though his stare remained locked on mine.
“How can you say such things as you stand here, smack dab in the middle of the Shroud, whole and searching for answers from lives you have long since forgotten? If that is not a testament to how powerful your soul is, then I do not know what is.”
“The Shroud?”
“Yes, this.” He gestured to the scenery all around us. “The world you are standing in now.”
“A dream,” I whispered, though I knew it was more.
“Normal people dream when they sleep, but you go somewhere quite different when you close your eyes to rest, my dear.”
“So … this place is …”
“Real? Yes. Very.”
“And …” I shivered. “What exactly is this place, anyway?”