The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “I know that.”

  “You do?” He seemed surprised.

  “You...” She looked around for listeners, as it was more crowded in here. “You did that thing to Lonzo,” she said cryptically. “Superheroes, the ones like Superman in the movie, they don’t k.... They don’t do that to people, no matter how bad they’ve been.”

  “And that makes me human?” Asher was back to being puzzled and amused at the same time.

  The express pulled in with a hiss and clank of wheels and the doors whooshed open. Charlee took a step toward the train, then looked back at him. “I know you’re human, because you seem sad. And angry. Superheroes, the ones in the stories, they don’t have bad feelings. But the superheroes that are human, they do. They always feel bad. Haven’t you noticed?”

  He was staring at her. “No, I didn’t notice,” he said slowly.

  Charlee ran for the train and at the door, once it was closed, she waved at him, for he was still standing by the bottom of the steps.

  Asher lifted his big hand in farewell and she saw once more in her mind’s eye his fingers curled around the hilt of the big sword.

  She hugged herself, keeping her secret inside, where it warmed her.

  * * * * *

  “Whenever you get back, Charlee,” Darwin prompted her softly.

  Charlee blinked and refocused on him. “Jeez. Sorry,” she said, straightening up and squaring up the notebook in front of her.

  Darwin closed the textbook, keeping his finger on the page they were up to. “That’s the third time you’ve zoned out on me. Do you want to quit for today?” he asked her, not unkindly. Charlee was the sort of student most teachers dreamed about—self-directed, disciplined, with a crystal-sharp mind. But it was a lazy, warm Saturday afternoon. The sound of kids playing out on the street, where a fire hydrant had popped its cap, the rushing sound of the water and the soft tinkle of Anna-Marie’s wind chimes in the open living room window were distractions of their own. He had a beer chilling in the fridge to drink after Charlee’s lesson, and his throat contracted at the thought of the cool liquid hitting the back of it.

  “It’s a hot day. We can always pick this up again next week,” he told her.

  “No, I’d like to finish, if that’s okay?” She gave him a smile. “I won’t zone out again. I promise.”

  He opened the book again. “Something wrong, Charlee?” God knows, with her family, anything could be wrong. Maybe her drunken mother had fallen down the stairs. Her father was losing weight the way a wilted flower sheds petals, and looked just as dried out, too. The way Lucas was filling out around the shoulders and shooting up toward the ceiling, he would be creating his own mischief sooner rather than later.

  “Nah, it’s nothing,” Charlee said. “Just a book I’m reading.”

  “They give you interesting books at school?” He often rolled his eyes at the education system’s idea of appropriate reading material for school kids.

  “I got it from a friend. It’s a history book. Pliny the Younger. It’s sort of about that volcano. Pompeii.”

  “Vesuvius is the name of the volcano,” Darwin corrected her absently, while he considered the matter. “Pompeii is one of the cities it destroyed. You’re reading Pliny? Who gave that to you?”

  “A friend.”

  “Who likes history?”

  “He knows a lot of history,” she replied. “But he doesn’t think much of history books. He says that everyone who ever wrote a book about ‘real’ events is a flat-out liar.”

  Darwin grinned. “He might be right. Did he say why?”

  She nodded and reached for another cookie. He always laid out six of them, but she would only ever take three. “He said that people who were writing about events that they saw happen are all mixed up about it. They could be writing about it because they were slaves and didn’t like what happened to slaves, so whatever they write will make slaves look good and slave owners look bad, which isn’t the way it really happened, but who knows the truth if they’re the only ones who wrote about it? And if they didn’t actually go through the events, then they’re using someone else’s opinion about what happened and that’s even worse.”

  It was a simplistic model of the subjectivity of historical records, but it was workable and it had struck the right note with Charlee. She was thinking about the veracity of what she read, now. Darwin felt a grudging respect for this friend of hers.

  “If he dislikes historical books so much, why did he give you one to read?” Darwin asked curiously.

  She munched, then shrugged. “He says everyone should know history. Because if you know what happened in the past, then you won’t go and do the same stupid sh... stuff again.”

  Darwin recognized Edmund Burke’s philosophy. Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it. He nodded. “He sounds like a smart boy, this friend of yours.”

  Charlee hesitated, then she nodded. “He is.” She finished the cookie and wiped her fingers of crumbs. “Can we finish?” she asked, touching the geometry book.

  Darwin picked up where they had left off, with the very basic history of Euclid and his measurements, and realized what had prompted her trip down memory lane. And while they finished the lesson, he wondered who her friend was, who knew history was usually a pack of lies but also the most valuable information in the world? That didn’t sound like any ten year old Darwin had ever met.

  * * * * *

  Charlee slipped into the kitchen via the back door and dropped her backpack to the floor.

  Pierre was yelling at one of the kitchen hands. Well, not yelling. He didn’t yell, but he started to speak very fast, and use more and more French as he forgot the right English words. His hands would speed up their frantic waving, keeping time with his tongue.

  Charlee waved to the kitchen hand from behind Pierre. He grinned and waved back, then blinked and looked at Pierre, wiping the smile from his face. Pierre turned around, exasperated, then beamed at her. “‘ello, Charlee, my fiery beauty!” He hugged her, then she brushed the flour off her shirt.

  “Hi, Pierre. You be nice.”

  He looked puzzled. “I am always nice. Very nice.” He turned back to the kitchen hand and began to speak rapidly again.

  Charlee helped herself to a plastic bag from the dispenser and picked through the scraps bucket they kept just for Chocolate, selecting the best pieces, while the scolding continued. She sealed the bag and dropped it into her backpack, then went through to the front of the restaurant and dropped into the chair opposite Ylva, who put down her newspaper and picked up her teacup.

  “Hi Ylva. Where’s Asher?”

  Ylva lowered her cup to the saucer carefully. “He didn’t come here today.”

  Charlee wrinkled her nose. “Bugger.”

  Ylva looked shocked. “That’s not a word you should use on a day-to-day basis.”

  “Asher does.”

  Ylva rolled her eyes. “Nor should you scrunch up your face in that way. It’s not very attractive.”

  “It’s not?” Charlee bit her lip. “Damn,” she said softly.

  Ylva sighed.

  Charlee considered Asher’s absence. It wasn’t the first time he hadn’t turned up at the restaurant, but it was unusual. He was here nearly every single day when she arrived, either sitting at the bar or at the table with Ylva and holding a teacup that was dwarfed by his hand. Often he had a book for her to read, or some other item that they might have been discussing the day before. Once, he had brought his dog, Torger, for her to meet. That had been late in the summer, because he’d had to leave Torger outside, tied up to the fence, because Pierre would have burst into tears over a dog being in his kitchen. That’s what Asher had said, although Charlee privately thought he didn’t want Ylva to get mad at him and start yelling about inspectors.

  Torger was a multicolored mutt. Charlee loved that Asher had rescued him and raised him to be one of the best-behaved dogs she had ever met. He held his paw out to shake hands with her when
he was introduced, and sat up and waved goodbye when she left. But Asher wouldn’t let her feed him, not even a treat. Food was something Torger had to work for. He was a type of guard dog and very good at his job, Asher explained.

  Charlee looked out the window at the snow drifting across the road as the wind pushed it along. She was glad the subway entrance was just around the corner. It meant she didn’t have to stay outside for too long. Her coat wasn’t very thick and the wind always seemed to cut right through it. It was last year’s coat and the sleeves were too short—her gloves didn’t reach all the way up, leaving an inch of skin around her wrist exposed.

  “It’s cold out, isn’t it?” Ylva said, drawing her attention back to the table.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yes,” Ylva corrected.

  “Yes. Sorry. Yes, it’s cold out.” Charlee put her hand against the pot, checking the temperature. “Would you like me to pour you a cup?” she asked Ylva.

  “Thank you, yes.”

  “Is he seeing anyone, Ylva?” Charlee asked as she poured. “Is that where he is?”

  Ylva shook her head. “He’s just busy.”

  “It’s not good,” Charlee said. She had been thinking about it. “He doesn’t see anyone. He works. He goes home at night. Well, I assume he goes home at night. He could be sleeping on park benches for all I know.”

  “Asher has a home,” Ylva said gently. “And between you and me, I don’t think he lacks companionship when he wants it.” She smiled and Charlee noticed, not for the first time, that the wrinkles around her eyes were getting deeper and more pronounced. Jerry, Ylva’s husband, was much older than she looked, which made Charlee wonder how old Ylva really was.

  “He’s angry all the time,” Charlee said, getting the last of it off her chest. She looked at Ylva. “He is nice to me and to you, but I know he’s angry. It sits at the bottom of his thoughts, like the tea leaves in a pot, making him stew.”

  Ylva put her cup down slowly. “You may be right.”

  Charlee twined her fingers together. “Please don’t tell me it’s complicated and that I won’t understand. I want to understand.”

  Ylva gave her one of her understanding smiles. “It is complicated, but I would tell you if I could. I’m not entirely sure I understand myself.”

  “Please,” Charlee begged. “You two know more about me than my own brother. I don’t know anything about you except you run Asher’s businesses, and I know just as little about Asher.”

  Ylva shook her head. “I can’t. To begin with, Asher’s story is his to tell. And I cannot tell you mine.”

  Charlee sighed. “Is he...is his anger something to do with me?”

  Ylva didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not,” she said gently. She leaned forward. “Have you ever had to keep a secret, Charlee?”

  “Yes,” Charlee replied flatly.

  “Did you ever want to get rid of that secret? Did you want to tell anyone—everyone—what the secret was, so it didn’t sit in your mind all the time?”

  Charlee shook her head. “It’s my secret. There isn’t anyone I want to tell it to.”

  “Not even Lucas?”

  Charlee hesitated. Especially lately when she and Lucas were talking, the things she and Asher spoke about—some of the wildly odd and strangely different things—would sit in the middle of her mind, just like Ylva had described. Then, she would have trouble concentrating on what Lucas was saying. “I think about things Asher said that are different to what Lucas says. Then I want to tell Lucas about the way Asher said it...but I can’t. Is that what you mean?”

  “In a way,” Ylva agreed. “That pressure to tell people, if you hold onto it for a very long time, becomes immense. It can become the only thing you can hear in your mind. Secrets grow. They build weight. They can gnaw at you.”

  “Asher prefers to tell the truth,” Charlee said, thinking about their first deal, about how he had laughed whenever they were truth-telling. He always seemed somehow lighter when they were talking truth. But they hadn’t spoken truths for a long, long time.

  “Yes, he does prefer the truth,” Ylva agreed.

  “Then it is my fault,” Charlee murmured unhappily.

  Chapter Five

  Asher gazed fiercely at the clock on the wall, making the hands come into focus one at a time. Then he put together what their positions meant in his mind. It took a moment to make sense of it. Then he had it. It was a quarter to five.

  He sat on the sofa, opposite the clock, which was under the TV. He’d been sitting there for what seemed like only five minutes, but when he thought it through, the time stretched out even longer. He had been sitting there for a very long time. It only seemed like he had just sat down.

  He looked at the clock again. Why had he been trying to figure out the time? Was it important?

  The wind moaned around the window frames, pulling his attention to the glass. The bottom half of the outside pane was frosted, with starred flake shapes patterning the glass. Was that why he was sitting here? Too cold to go out? But it wasn’t that cold, not really. He could remember cold winter mornings when he was a child and it had been much colder. He’d also been much farther north, and the building he had called home didn’t come with central heating and double-glazed windows. Oh no.

  But that was then and this was now, and—

  He stared owlishly at the clock again, trying to remember what the time had been when he had figured it out, instead of reconstructing the time in his pickled brain once more. He would have to add half-an-hour (five minutes?) to that time to get the correct time.

  The hands came into focus. Four-forty-seven. Time was just flying by. Why was he sitting here? He looked around, noticing the frost on the windows. There was glass in front of him, too. His glass.

  Wine. There was wine in the glass. Not much, only dregs at the bottom. There wasn’t enough of the wine to make it look dark. Instead, it was a pale, washed out red.

  The wine was loosening its hold on him. Thoughts began to connect in longer sequences, letting him put together more complex reasoning.

  Why was he sitting on his sofa at five in the afternoon, ripped out of his skull on expensive red? And why was he doing it alone?

  How long had he been sitting here, drinking by himself like a pathetic bum?

  More distant thoughts swam back into the range of his focus. The council meeting. That had been…when? He remembered it happening. He had been there. For some reason, it seemed important that he recall what had happened.

  He frowned down at his hands, struggling to recall the meeting. But nothing would come. Is that why he had started drinking? To forget about the meeting? He’d done a bang-up job, then.

  He looked at the window again. That seemed to be significant.

  Time. It was all around him. Prodding him. Rushing by frantically while barely moving. And what happy horseshit was he thinking about time, anyway?

  The window. He studied it. Nothing there.

  He had been at the council meeting. When was that? What was today? He closed his fingers, turning his hands into fists, and squeezed hard, making himself sort it out.

  It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon. Already the light outside was failing. But despite the way time was zipping (crawling) past him, he was sure that a whole night had not passed. That made it Thursday. Still.

  Which meant he had gone to the council meeting this morning. Something relaxed inside him with a silent sigh as he put this together. It was still Thursday. He hadn’t dived into a bottle so deep the world had turned on its axis while he wasn’t paying attention. It had only been a few hours.

  He shook his head, trying to clear it even further. What had happened that made him think getting drunk as a skunk would fix things?

  Think! he commanded himself, squeezing his fists even tighter. When did you get there? He had been late, which was usual, and almost everyone was there already, standing around waiting for the stragglers. Eira and Stefan were…

&nbs
p; * * * * *

  …standing at the top of the long table, for this month’s meeting was being held at the big hall, so they were the hosts.

  The portals had been busy, which slowed some of the attendees’ travel, but New York had the advantage of being directly connected to Oslo so Asher arrived as the bulk of travelers did, and his lateness became a non-issue.

  The council room was a large, airy chamber with tall walls punctuated by thick marble columns and a ceiling that had been painted to resemble the early morning sky, with wisps of cloud floating overhead. Like most of the mountain hall at Tryvannshøyden, the council chamber was a grand reception room designed to intimidate those who dared to step inside.

  There had never been any attempt to copy older, more traditional styles of halls. Stefan and those who had come before him had deliberately aimed for the unique. The remarkable. It was impossible to cross over to Tryvannshøyden and mistake it for somewhere else. When you stepped through the portal to the main hall, you knew you were in the home of the Regin and Annarr of the Kine, and it was hard not to be impressed.

  But Asher had visited so many times that the scale and beauty of the halls and passages failed to impact upon him as he hurried through them to the council chamber. The meeting had been called for nine in the morning New York time, which was mid-afternoon in Oslo. The high western windows that punched through to the great circular central hall were beaming bright winter sunlight down onto the shining marble floors, warming them in big rectangular patches, and dazzling anyone who walked through them.

  The council chamber had no external windows, so the light was kinder. Asher slipped in through the twenty-foot-high carved teak door that stood ajar in welcome. The murmur of those who had already assembled greeted him.

  He spotted Roar halfway down the length of the long table and moved around to that side, angling for the chair next to Roar. Every earl and his stallari were expected to attend these councils, along with miscellaneous other Kine, including Sindri, the little dark man who was an unacknowledged expert in the manipulation of auras here on Midgard. There were others who acted as consultants in aspects of Kine life who were regularly invited to the meetings.