SONS of DON

by Brenda L. Harper

  Cei glanced at the tree one last time before turning and studying Gwen. “You are stubborn.”

  “And you’re a little young to be playing daddy.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “I’ve had a lot of people attempt to tell me what to do,” Gwen said, glancing at him over the top of her book, “but none as determined as you.”

  “Just trying to protect my own skin. If Theresa knew you were coming up here—”

  “What would she do? Talk you to death?” Gwen shook her head, her eyes moving back to her open book, but her brain not registering any of the words she was staring at. “The worst thing I’ve seen Theresa do since I got here is ground Richie from the game system for an hour.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to lose my gaming privileges.”

  “You really have had it easy, haven’t you?” Gwen gave up on the book, dropping it to her lap as she let her eyes travel slowly over the curves of Cei’s face, the masculine line of his jaw, the soft, patrician slope to his nose. “If you think getting grounded from a game is the worst thing that could happen to you, you really haven’t been in the foster care system for long.”

  “Maybe it’s not as much about Theresa as it is about not wanting to see you splattered all over the front walk.”

  “I’m touched that you care. But no one asked you to.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s part of being human, Gwen. People tend to care without being asked.”

  Her gaze dropped, despite all efforts to continue to look cool and indifferent. She couldn’t deny the little thrill that ran through her at his words, at the idea that he might actually care what happened to her. It almost made her rethink her whole “hands off” thing.

  “Fine,” she finally said. “I’ll go back down.” She stood up and tucked her book into the back of her jeans so that her hands would be free as she climbed down the narrow ladder. “But this doesn’t mean that anything has changed.”

  “I wouldn’t presume to think it did.”

  But he seemed relieved, just the same.

  Chapter 8

  Gwen was up in plenty of time for school the next day. She made double sure her clock was set right. But she also asked Theresa to come wake her. If she hadn’t…

  It was like the cosmos didn’t want her to go to this school.

  She lingered in the shower, making up for the lack of bathing the day before. Cei was the one pounding on the door this time, yelling for her to get out while she was still brushing her teeth and trying to decide what to do with her tangle of curls. She finally decided to twist it into another braid—she kind of liked it that way, it stayed out of her face while she was trying to study.

  “Should get up a little earlier,” she said as she brushed past Cei at the bathroom door.

  “I’ve been up for forty minutes, waiting for you to get out of the bathroom.”

  “I’d try a little earlier than that. 5 am, maybe.”

  Cei just shook his head as he disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door. Gwen laughed.

  She settled on the edge of her bed as she finished fixing her braid, her thoughts wandering as she twisted her head into the appropriate position. Her eyes fell on the window—and froze.

  “What the…?”

  She got up and pushed the window open, careful not to dislodge the package that was sitting precariously on the edge of the outer sill. It was narrow, but long, and heavy. She pulled it into the room, glancing up and down the side of the house, looking for—she didn’t really know, a ladder, maybe—something that might tell her how it got there.

  When she didn’t see anything, she pulled the window closed, making sure it was locked. She was a little spooked, needless to say.

  She stared at the package for a long minute, trying to decide if it was safe to open. Where had it come from? Who had gotten onto a ledge twenty feet off the ground? Why?

  All questions she wasn’t going to answer just staring at the thing.

  She tugged at one end of the package, the heavy paper wrapping coming loose easily. It was…a book.

  But not like any book Gwen had ever seen before. The cover was heavy and thick, like leather, but not really. And the pages were of heavier grade than anything currently available, so thick that they seemed like three or four modern pages stuck together. The writing was faded, as though it had been written by hand and the ink was fading from the pages. The book itself was shaped oddly, long and narrow, as though designed to be hidden easily and quickly.

  She didn’t understand.

  Maybe someone had meant this for Tony and somehow got her window confused with his? But that didn’t really make sense since his room was on the second floor and on the opposite side of the house from Gwen’s. But what else could explain it?

  She studied a few sentences, but couldn’t read any of it. It was written in a language she didn’t understand. Lots of unusual vowel couplings and misplaced consonants. It almost looked like English, but not quite.

  She rifled through the pages, checked the front cover for any writing that might indicate where it had come from. Nothing. She had no clues to draw from.

  “Hey! Leaving in two minutes!”

  Gwen glanced toward the door at the sound of Theresa’s warning. She dropped the book on the bed, grabbed her backpack, and headed out.

  She’d figure it out later.

  Chapter 9

  Ms. Dru was in a mood when Gwen walked into history class that day. She was leaning against her desk, laughing as a young man in a leather jacket despite the heat of the day told her a story Gwen didn’t quite catch. She slipped past them to her desk, which was right in front of where the man was standing, just barely brushing his jacket as she did.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “No problem.”

  He had a deep voice, one of those that either made shivers of fear run down a child’s back, or made women quiver. Gwen settled herself in her chair before she dared a glance at him. She almost wished she hadn’t afterward.

  “Might want to close that mouth, Miss Reese,” Morgan said as he came into the room. “Someone might get the wrong idea.”

  But she couldn’t help herself. The stranger in the leather jacket had to have been a god…some sort of Greek god who had fallen to earth. He was…it was so difficult to put it into words. Tall, dark, broad shouldered. A lot like Cei. But it just looked different on this guy.

  It looked like Gwen imagined perfection would look.

  “Be nice, Morg,” the guy said, shoving Morgan’s shoulder as he turned. His gaze fell on Gwen, clearly interested in what he was seeing. His interest was so naked that Gwen felt her cheeks burn with her own interest.

  “Rhein Evans.” He held his hand politely toward her. “I guess you’re Gwen. This one over here,” he indicated Morgan, “wouldn’t stop talking about you yesterday.”

  “Not true,” Morgan objected.

  Rhein moved close to Gwen, whispering in a loud voice, “Watch out for him. He could be trouble for you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Gwen managed to choke out.

  Rhein smiled, his eyes taking a slow tour of her face, the front of her thin tee, before he turned and practically ran right into Cei.

  “Rhein,” Cei said in a tight voice.

  “My friend. How’s it hanging this year?”

  Tension seemed to tighten in Cei’s shoulders as he glanced from Rhein to Gwen. That look had a suggestion in it that Gwen wasn’t sure she wanted to see.

  Was Cei jealous?

  “You better get to class, Mr. Evans,” Ms. Dru said as the last of the stragglers made their way into the classroom.

  “Of course.”

  Rhein flashed a smile at Gwen before he left.

  It took every bit of willpower she had to keep from smiling the entire class period—or reaching over and asking Morgan every little detail about Rhein.

  Maybe she should have taken Morgan up on his invitation to lun
ch the day before. Imagine, she could have known Rhein for a full twenty-four hours now if she had.

  “Okay, class,” Ms. Dru said, clapping her hands to draw attention to her. “We have a lot to go over this hour, so pay attention.”

  She walked to the white board and wrote Druids in the center.

  “Someone give me a definition.”

  “A religion based in Ireland,” someone said.

  “No,” Ms. Dru responded, nodding to another student with his hand up.

  “A group of educated Celtic people during the Iron Age.”

  “Wonderful ability to look things up on your phone,” Ms. Dru said with a slight nod. A titter went up in the room that she quashed with a wave of her hand. “That is, technically, true. The Druids were very well educated. Julius Caesar once wrote that Druids spent more than twenty years of their lives learning. But he also noted that all of this knowledge was imparted through word of mouth.”

  “What does that mean?” a girl in the back asked.

  “That they never wrote down their teachings. They were always taught one on one.”

  Ms. Dru turned back to the white board and wrote a set of figures there. “The Iron Age,” she began, “is thought to have taken place in Britain during this time period. It is characterized by…”

  Gwen, normally an attentive student, found her thoughts wandering as Ms. Dru lectured. She didn’t even know she was sketching on her notebook until Morgan hit her elbow, causing her pencil to drag across the page. She looked down and saw this word: mathair. It was written over and over on the page even though Gwen had no idea what it meant.

  If she was honest, she would have to admit that she had been thinking about Rhein.

  “Miss Reese, could you answer the question?”

  Gwen tore her eyes almost reluctantly from the notebook. “Question?”

  Laughter burst through the room behind and around Gwen. She blushed—she’d never been comfortable being the center of attention. Ms. Dru raised her hands and again, like a judge in front of her courtroom, quieted the classroom without a word.

  “Have you been paying attention, Miss Reese?”

  Gwen glanced back down at her paper, at that word that seemed to be taunting her there. “I’m sorry, Ms. Dru.” She didn’t know what else to say.

  “Perhaps if you weren’t so busy writing notes.” Ms. Dru snatched the notebook off of Gwen’s desk, high color coming into her normally creamy cheeks until she saw what was written on it. That color quickly disappeared as she stared at it. And then a slow smile slipped across her lips.

  “You are forgiven, Miss Reese,” she said, dropping the notebook back on the desk. Then she turned to the whiteboard as other students began to whisper—again making Gwen feel as though she were the focus of their comments—and began writing there once more.

  “Mathiar,” she wrote.

  “Does anyone recognize this word?”

  Suggestions flew. “It’s a name,” one girl said. “No, it means mountain,” another said. “It’s French for mohair,” some boy said.

  “What about this?” Ms. Dru said as she wrote another word: athair.

  But she didn’t stop. She wrote more, dearthair, deirfiur, seanmháthair, and others that Gwen couldn’t even begin to remember, let alone understand.

  “What language do you think this is?” Ms. Dru asked as she turned to face the class again.

  Again suggestions flew, everything from French to Spanish to Italian to Arabic. Ms. Dru let the students continue, a soft smile on her lips as she watched them. Then she raised a hand, the class quickly growing silent as she did.

  “This is an ancient language that is only spoken in a much different form in modern times than it was during the Iron Age. This is the language the Druids most likely spoke.”

  Silence settled for a long moment before someone said, “Then what is it, Ms. Dru?”

  “Gaelic,” Cei surprised Gwen by saying.

  Gwen glanced over him. She hadn’t even realized he was paying attention to the discussion. His attention was as focused on the neat stack of papers on his desk as Gwen’s had been on her notebook. He was still studying whatever it was that was written on the paper, not bothering to look up to receive the look of pleasure that crossed Ms. Dru’s face when the correct answer was delivered—by a student, no less.

  “Correct,” she said, her eyes falling to Gwen. “These words are familial names written in modern Gaelic. If I had written them in the ancient form of Gaelic, it would have looked like some sort of code to most of you. And I would have to own a time machine because no one knows for sure what that would have looked like except those who lived in that time period.”

  Ms. Dru smiled as the class again erupted into laughter. But when her gaze dropped to Gwen again, there was no sign of amusement in them.

  It made Gwen a little uncomfortable, the way Ms. Dru looked at her, as though she had just answered some hugely important question—as though she had just revealed a secret of the universe—and Gwen should be on her knees, worshiping her great knowledge.

  But, again, she had answered a question Gwen hadn’t even known to ask.

  She ran her finger over the letters etched into the first page of her notebook, could feel the dips they created on the paper from the force of her pen, as a word began to float in her mind.

  Mother. That word, that strange word that had appeared on the paper without conscious thought from Gwen, meant mother.

  How did she know that?

  Chapter 10

  “Are you eating alone?”

  Gwen glanced up, aware of the identity of the speaker because of his awesomely deep voice, but still unwilling to believe it until she saw his face floating somewhere above her.

  “The cafeteria was a little crowded for my taste.”

  “Hmm, what, with all five of its occupants?”

  There was amusement in the curve of his lips, but Gwen still blushed somewhat intently with the realization that he had figured her out. Most of the students left campus for lunch. And, why not? They were situated just a mile from some of the best restaurants the city had to offer. Money wasn’t an issue for most of these kids, either, if their designer labels, their expensive laptops, and high end cars suggested anything.

  “I heard a rumor you turned down a trip to lunch with Morgan yesterday.”

  Gwen shrugged, her eyes falling to the cold sandwich she’d bought in the cafeteria before coming out here on the back lawn. She was curled up under a tree, that sense of peace that always came over her when she was outside still lazily curling around her spine and out into her stomach.

  “So I thought I should come get to know the girl that would turn Morgan down on…well, on anything.”

  “He does like to get his way, doesn’t he?”

  “Indulgent parents. He’s an only child.”

  “That probably explains a few things.”

  Rhein settled in the grass beside Gwen, moving close enough to her that he could lean against the tree trunk, which meant he was close enough to rub against her arm each time he moved.

  “Have you known Morgan long?” Gwen asked in an attempt to avoid become single-mindedly obsessed with the subtle creak of his leather jacket.

  “A few years.”

  “He mentioned you yesterday, when he asked me to lunch.”

  “Did he?”

  “Like he wanted me to know it wasn’t a date or something.”

  “Did you think it was?” Rhein glanced at her. “A date?”

  “No, or course not.”

  “Cuz, if you like him…”

  Gwen shook her head. “Morgan is not really my type.”

  “What is your type?”

  The burning in Gwen’s face made her eyes water. She had never been this uncomfortable—and this unwilling to remove herself from an uncomfortable situation—in her life. She reached up and brushed a stray curl out of her face even as she tore at the crust of her bread with her other hand.

 
; She struggled to find something to say. When she thought of her type, the first thing that came into her mind was him. And then Cei. She tried to think of some of the guys she’d been with before coming here, but, somehow, she couldn’t quite picture their faces.

  “I guess I don’t really know,” she said quietly, hoping he didn’t hear the slight quake in her voice. “I just know what isn’t.”

  “Good answer.”

  Rhein reached over and stole half of her sandwich—the half she wasn’t pulverizing—and took a monstrous bite out of it. Gwen laughed, partly out of nervousness, and partly because everything about Rhein made her either want to run away in tears, or jump into his arms and discover what it felt like to have his hands on her skin.

  She tore her gaze from his face, leaning back a little and letting her eyes move over the seemingly endless lawn. Unlike at a public school, there weren’t any students hanging around waiting for the bell to ring. Students were encouraged to go inside and speak with teachers who weren’t holding classes, or go to the library. They could also go hang out in the gym or the auditorium, should they get back from lunch early enough to do so. But most of the kids left and didn’t come back until minutes before the bell rang. So the campus was pretty quiet, just a few birds moving around in the trees, or voices drifting out through open windows.