by W. J. May
For the second time that day, Marian seemed to literally freeze in shock. Her eyes shot once more to Rae’s face, before drifting down to the giant ring on her finger. They stayed there for a full minute, before filling with another round of tears.
“You did?” Her voice lowered to a scratchy whisper. “And she said yes?”
It took Rae a second to realize she was trembling. She’d been through most every kind of emotional landmark in just a few short years, but she’d never experienced something quite like this. “Yes,” she murmured in a voice almost soft as Marian’s. “I did. I’m…I’m in love with your son, Mrs. Wardell. I have been for quite some time.”
A sudden smile cut through the tears, and Devon’s mother placed two, gently wrinkled hands on either one of Rae’s cheeks. “Please, sweetie, call me Marian.”
* * *
An impromptu brunch was set out as a lovely picnic on the table on the veranda. While being immaculately presented, it was comprised of a rather strange combination of foods—foods that, Rae surmised, were all of Devon’s old favorites. While none of it was meant to be served with the rest, it all came together to make an endearing, if hilarious, mid-day feast.
Cinnamon rolls, candied yams, rosemary chicken, peanut M&Ms…
Rae wished she could take a picture to immortalize the moment forever, or at least to show Marian and Devon sometime in the distant future, because she highly doubted either of them were registering much of anything going on at the moment.
But while everything smelled oddly delicious, all three plates remained untouched. This meal was about far more than just eating. And all the peanut M&Ms in the world couldn’t buy them enough time.
“So you met each other at school?” Marian confirmed, leaning subconsciously across her plate to be even closer to her son.
For his part, Devon was just as swept away. He kept one hand on Rae at all times, like some sort of existential anchor, but with his other he kept reaching out without seeming to realize it to touch his mom. Tugging on her sweater, tapping her shoulder, squeezing her hand. Any kind of subliminal contact. Nothing was ever enough.
“Yeah, we met at school,” Devon replied, beaming without even noticing it was happening as he stared between them. “She also works with me.”
He didn’t say the name of the school, Rae noticed. Neither did he provide any clue as to what exactly that ‘work’ might be.
If Marian caught it as well, she didn’t let on. She was simply too thrilled to have Devon back home to mind much what he was saying. As long as he was saying anything at all.
She nodded engagingly, trying transparently to keep him talking if only to hear the sound of his voice. “She and the dark-haired boy who came one year for Christmas? What was his name? Julliard or something?”
“Julian,” Devon answered with a smile. “Yeah, Jules is kind of my…” What was he going to say? Partner? Resident psychic? Best man? He backtracked quickly, flashing a distractingly easy smile. “You wouldn’t even recognize him now. He’s over six feet. His hair’s longer than mine.”
Marian flashed a smile just as casual as his, but Rae saw the knowing glimmer dancing deep in her eyes. Like mother, like son. Try as he might, Devon’s usual ‘charm and disarm’ didn’t work on this woman. She was probably the one who’d passed it on to him in the first place. Anything he got away with, he did so only because he was allowed. Rae wondered how much of that Devon was aware of himself, and how much had been lost through the years in blind panic.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t,” she murmured. “I barely recognize you. You look so much older than you did before. So much more grown up.”
Rae bit her lip and glanced down at her plate. In the car, she’d asked Devon how long it had been since he’d talked to his mom. Perhaps the better question would have been how long had it been since he’d actually seen her, in person? From the way Marian was staring at him now, soaking in all the details with quiet desperation, Rae was guessing it had been a very long time. Maybe when she’d broken her leg? That felt like a lifetime ago back in Guilder.
Devon’s entire body stiffened. He seemed far less able to control his reactions here, but before he could say a single word, Marian shook her head with a brisk smile, pouring another splash of lemonade into their already-filled, untouched glasses.
“I hope you’ll at least let me cut your hair while you’re here,” she said brightly—a little too brightly, but this time, Devon didn’t notice. “You look like you’ve been living out with the wolves.”
He chuckled and swept it back off of his forehead. It was almost long enough now that he could fix it in a little ponytail like Julian’s. A fact that Rae happened to adore.
But whatever mother wanted, mother got. Apparently, Devon felt the same way, because he nodded quickly with a mild, “Sure. Whatever you like.”
Marian leaned back, looking satisfied, before turning her eyes to Rae. “So, my dear, tell me a little about yourself.” When Rae hesitated, trying desperately to come up with something true-ish to say, she continued, “I mean, since we’re going to be family soon. Give me the highlights, so I can tell my friends I know at least a little about the girl my son’s going to marry.”
She hadn’t meant the last sentence to be sad. Of that, Rae was sure. But when the words were said aloud, they abruptly struck the entire table as so heartbreaking, no one knew what to do.
Rae looked at Devon, he looked at his mother, and Marian lifted her eyes out of habit to the horizon, staring down the familiar road as another round of tears slid down her neck.
“Dev,” Rae slipped into her telepathy, “now would be the time to tell her. If there’s ever a moment to do it—it would be right now.”
Devon’s hand tightened in hers, tightened to the point where it was trembling. He took a deep breath, and opened his mouth…but nothing came out.
He just sat there, staring at Marian, who just sat there, staring at the road.
Chapter 9
“I can’t do it.” Devon paced manically back and forth. “I just can’t do it.”
He and Rae were in his old childhood room. After the emotional brunch date with his mother spun accidentally off the rails, they had discreetly decided to take some time to recover. Marian had gone out grocery shopping—something she claimed she had been intending to do anyway, and now with Rae and Devon here there was even more need. Rae had followed Devon up the winding staircase and through the second door on the left.
A door that Devon had slammed shut behind them.
The second they were inside, he’d thrown his dinner jacket automatically on the bed—a bed that was still crumpled, like he’d only just left it. And while his fingers twisted up the worn lock, Rae looked around in wonder, trying rather unsuccessfully to play it cool.
This was where Devon grew up. The place where he’d spent his entire childhood. The room where he’d played. The bed where he’d slept.
Her forehead tightened slightly as her eyes flicked around the four corners, taking quick note of all the telling details. Not only did the bed look like it hadn’t been touched since the last time Devon was here, but the rest of the room showed similar signs of neglect. Or maybe neglect wasn’t the right word. It was more like…the room had been intentionally left alone.
There was a discarded sweatshirt lying on the floor just beyond the bed. From the way that Devon had automatically cast off his jacket, she suspected it was a long-standing habit. An empty coffee mug was sitting on the dresser. A book was still open on the desk—a crumpled receipt marking the page—and the expensive speaker system mounted in the corners of the walls had been left on, draining unnecessary power and filling the room with an almost inaudible hum.
The hum caught Devon’s attention at the same time and he strode to the wall to flip it off, banging his hand against the control panel and looking as out of sorts as Rae had ever seen him.
Her heart tightened in her chest. Marian Wardell didn’t seem like the kind of woman who w
ould let one room in her immaculate house fall along the wayside. This was a preservation attempt. A shrine. A desperate grab at maintaining any illusion of the presence of her departed son.
A son who had no idea how to live here anymore.
“I can’t,” he muttered again, almost to himself. “I just can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can,” Rae insisted quietly, angling herself supportively beside him and reaching out for his hand. “You can—I promise, you can.”
“No, I can’t,” he said flatly. “I don’t know how. I have no idea how to be the person who has this conversation. I have no idea how to be…honest with her.”
His face fell, and Rae’s heart broke as she ached to reach out and take him in her arms.
“You’ll figure it out,” she encouraged gently. The Devon she knew had never met a problem he couldn’t face. He just needed someone to help him remember that. “Honey, you—”
“It’s impossible, Rae!”
Throughout all their years together, she could count on one hand the number of times he’d raised his voice at her. But while this time wasn’t even directed her way, it was somehow worse. There was a strange, hollow look on his face she’d never seen before. A gut-wrenching lack of fight, lack of hope, lack of resistance. This from a man who was historically incapable of walking away.
“I’ve kept it from her for years,” he continued in a low monotone. “For a—”
He broke off suddenly, and his eyes grew distant. For a second, Rae thought he’d seen something she hadn’t. She glanced discreetly behind her out the window he was facing, but when she turned back, he was staring right at her.
Well, he was looking at her. Whether he was seeing her was another question.
“You know,” he said softly, “there’s a saying in our world.”
Our world. Not his mother’s.
“Your life starts the day you get your tatù.” His eyes tightened as his head bowed down to his chest. “A lifetime’s worth of secrets I’ve kept. I don’t know how to go back from that.”
Rae caught her breath, wishing she had some sort of tatù that would make all his heart-wrenching problems go away. A tatù that would make it all better. What was the point of having so many if she still had to stand here and watch the love of her life crumble before her own eyes?
But there was no ink. Not for this. In fact, in this particular situation ink was the problem. As it stood, she was only able to offer a few heartfelt words. “You don’t go back. You go forward.”
They were words she’d come to live by herself. Words that had carried her through even the darkest of times.
Devon looked at her for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t know how to do that either.”
“Let her help you.” She reached out and took his hand. “She wants to know, Dev. Even if she doesn’t know exactly what it is. She wants to know.”
For a second, Rae thought she had gotten through to him. He sank down onto the bed, staring thoughtfully at his hands. But then those hands turned into fists—shaking fists that he lowered out of sight before he had to look at them a second longer.
“She doesn’t want to know this,” he whispered. “No mother wants to find out that her son is a freak.”
Rae stared at him stunned. Did he just say what I think he said?
Since the day she’d arrived at Guilder, she’d never heard him talk like that. He’d always treated someone’s ink with the ultimate respect, believed that it was something to be grateful for and cherished. A gift bestowed upon a select few to be used for the good of all mankind. Now, he was staring at his arm like he wanted to tear the fennec fox right off of his skin.
“You don’t mean that,” Rae said quietly, sinking down in front of him and forcing him to look into her eyes. “You know that’s not true. That’s not what we are. You don’t, for a moment, believe that. I understand that you’re—”
“No, you don’t understand, Rae! You’ll never understand!” He stood suddenly and pushed past her, ripping his keys from the pocket of his jacket. “Your mother has always known. Even when Simon was alive—he knew. You’ve never had to hide this from a parent.”
With that, he ripped open the lock and headed out onto the landing.
But they hid it from me. Rae pushed to her feet and followed after him in alarm. “Where are you going?” she cried as he blurred down the stairs, using the supernatural gift of speed he’d just claimed to despise.
“Out,” he said shortly. The words echoed back to him in the marble foyer, and his voice softened slightly as he turned back. “I’m going for a drive to clear my head. When I get back, we’ll head out for Scotland. We should never have come here. This was a mistake.”
His eyes flicked to the giant family portrait resting on the mantel, before hardening with a pain Rae couldn’t begin to understand.
“This was a massive mistake.”
* * *
An hour later, Devon still hadn’t returned. Marian was still out at the market—avoidance issues clearly ran in the Wardell family. Rae was left to wander the grounds of Devon’s childhood home by herself. She started small, not wanting to pry. Except no one was around to see her, and the longer she was left alone the bolder she became.
At first, she started outside, climbing up into the tree she’d seen on the way in and letting her feet dangle in the breeze. There were little nail indents in the wood. Panicked little scratches made by a child who’d leaned too boldly forward, and had to catch himself before he fell. Without making the conscious effort to do so, Rae’s body switched into the unlikeliest of tatùs. Ellie’s. A potent hybrid combination of both wisdom and understanding.
She identified with the restlessness a younger version of Devon must have felt when he was swinging in these trees. It was the same feeling she’d grown up with herself. She thought maybe all children destined to carry a tatù had it. A feeling of impending…something that couldn’t be ignored. Knowing Devon as well as she did, he must have been bursting with impatience, with a muted excitement he didn’t yet understand. How thrilled he must have been to get to Guilder. In a way, it must have felt a bit like coming home. Even though it meant forever leaving another.
After climbing back down the tree, she went back to his bedroom. She investigated all the little details she had forced herself to ignore in his moment of need earlier. Now she had the time to looked at things with different perspective. All the books were worn with ear-marked pages, all the CDs had scratches from overuse. Between how the younger Devon talked about his childhood and what she already knew firsthand about his father, she was willing to bet that he’d spent a lot of time holed up in here growing up.
It was a sanctuary. The one place he could let his guard down and be himself.
She pictured him coming home for the holidays, perhaps during his first year at Guilder. Perhaps even on the visit that Julian had gone with him. She pictured the two of them as sixteen-year-old boys, flipping up the worn lock and delightfully trying out their new powers in the dead of night.
What about his old girlfriend? Devon had dated a local girl before he’d met Rae. She supposedly had lived around here. Rae wondered if she had moved back to town, if she visited Devon’s mother. The thought annoyed her, and a silly stab of jealousy ran through her.
A wrinkled photograph caught her attention, and she pulled it out from where it was stuck between two books. Her heart leapt in her chest as an automatic smile warmed her face.
The little boy was adorable. Impossibly so. With a pair of twinkling blue eyes that she knew even better than her own. His arms were wrapped tightly around a huge golden retriever. The same kind of dog that always caused Devon to do a double-take on the street whenever they passed one. She remembered the story he’d told her, right before he’d said he loved her for the first time. The story of how he’d rescued the dog and nursed it back to health, shielding it from his father’s wrath until it was finally allowed into the family, to be forever loved.
It was one thing hearing him recount a memory from his past. It was another thing entirely to see the proof of it right here in her hands. She wondered when the dog had died, and where it was buried. Perhaps somewhere here on the grounds—
The sound of a car pulling into the drive perked up her ears, and she bounded down the steps three at a time, filled with fresh determination.
They simply couldn’t leave yet. She couldn’t let him give up and walk away, leaving what was left of his family behind. He’d worked too hard to get to this point. He’d sacrificed too much not to see it through. This was his home just as much as Guilder. It was a part of him just as deeply as any ink. He could not walk away. There was no walking away.
This was her responsibility now. To be the person he leaned on most in the world. The loving partner—both honest and true. His future wife. A future member of the family.
He wasn’t giving up. She’d be damned if she let him.
“Dev,” she cried, racing around a corner. “Look, you can’t just—”
She skidded to a halt right in front of Marian who was just walking in the door, her arms laden down with bags of food. For as second, both women just stared at each other. Then Rae reached out her arms quickly to help.
“Here, Mrs. Wardell. Let me take some of those.”
Marian didn’t move. She just stood right where she was as her face wilted with a soft sigh. “He’s gone, then?” There was a wearied acceptance to her voice. It was a question she’d been living with for longer than her heart could stand.
Rae gulped nervously as her mouth went simultaneously dry. “Just out for a drive; he’ll be back any minute now.”
Marian flashed a sad smile, before carting the bags into the kitchen and ignoring Rae’s attempts to help. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that exact phrase to myself over the years, staring up at that road. ‘He’ll be back any minute now.’” The smile tightened painfully, but she kept it fixed carefully upon her face. “You’d think I would have learned by now.” She sank down into a chair at the kitchen table, folding her hands in front of her, lost in thought.
