by Rue Volley
“Beautiful, is it not?” she heard to her right and she looked out to see the colors start to pulsate in the middle of the floor looking more like wisps of fire, than rings.
“Who… who is there?” she called out.
“Child, step into the light.” The voice said and she slowly moved, being cautious to look all around her. Then the light raced to her feet and she watched it swirl around her and lap at her calves.
“What is it that you seek?”
Gracie looked up to see a man sitting in a chair made of white wood, he had a crown of white on his head and she narrowed her eyes as she tried to focus in on his face.
“Gracie Barrington, you look so much like your Mother.” He said.
“Oh my god!” she yelled out as she clinched her fists and raised them and the man smiled and studied her.
“Caine!” Gracie yelled and it echoed in the room causing a slight vibration all around them.
“Why yes, I see that my reputation has preceded me.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Caine smiled and rose up, lifting his arms.
“I am dead of course… but I see that you are indeed not.”
“No… I am not, how did you...”
Caine smiled and looked around the tree.
“I stumbled upon her, beautiful is she not? This tree is the root of my creation and I begged her to allow me in, promising good behavior in return.”
“Oh, whatever!” Gracie yelled at him.
He laughed and shook his head.
“Well of course you have doubt, but I assure you that all bitterness and deceit left me when I entered her and became her keeper.”
“If I had a blade I would run it through you for everything you did to my parents and to Johnathan.”
“Oh Johnathan… is he here? Well perhaps not.” Caine said as he stared around the room.
“Like you would care!” she said as she stood her ground.
“Oh but I do care… believe me, it was as much a shock to me as it would be to any other, but I feel.”
“You are lying.” Gracie said as she gritted her teeth.
“Well… you can believe what you will, but whether I am reformed is not your mission here; I would assume it is freedom, is it not?”
Gracie stared at him and shifted her weight to her other foot as he stepped down and held his hands up to her.
“Yes… yes, I wish to leave now.” She said.
“Well now, the tree does not grant permission to leave memory.”
“What?” Gracie asked him as he stopped and smiled at her.
Caine stopped and studied her face.
“You have your Fathers eyes.”
“Stop… stop trying to act human.” Gracie said as she held her ground and stared him down.
“Oh… humanity, what a strange thing that is, would you not agree?”
Gracie tilted her head. “What I think about humans is so not the point right now.”
“Oh but it should be, you see humans are the key… the human heart actually and although I would be the first to say that there was a time that I loved how they tasted, it was their compassion that eluded the vampire completely.”
“Compassion?”
“Yes forgiveness, complete and utter forgiveness and it was a mystery to me until I entered here and felt love, true love for the first time. You see although humans kill each other and have been prone to violence forever; they possess something that our breed could never understand... compassion, forgiveness and loyalty to those they loved.”
“I understand love.” Gracie said as she watched him move towards the wall and place his hand upon it, he closed his eyes as the color raced to his hand and wrapped itself through his fingers and then it dissipated. He opened his eyes and turned back to her.
“No… you do not, you see we feel emotion… it is a weakness to a vampire, brought on by the first of us you see… for she was human first, before vampire.”
“What?”
“Oh yes… it was actually a curse, a vampire was not really to be and yet it willed itself into creation, well with some help you see.”
“Stop talking in riddles.”
“Okay… see for yourself.” He said as he waved his hand and the light started to pulsate in the room and Gracie fell to her knees as the images raced through her mind. She fell forward and tried to catch her breath and Caine reached out to her and smiled. She ignored his hand and stood up quickly, blinking a few times and then focused in on him.
“You see.”
“Oh my god.” She whispered as Caine grinned and studied her face.
***
We killed everything around us and then I turned to see Sam kissing Kai and normally I would be disgusted, but quite honestly I was happy to see it. I had no idea how this would all play out and I wished that I did, but watching Sam touch my brother’s face and whisper to him made my heart feel warm. Who knew if this time tomorrow any of us would be able to touch anything, my fear is that it will all cease to be and I tried to swallow the fear of that and push on.
Theo caught up to me and leaned forward.
“Do you know which way we need to go?” he asked me.
“I am just going this way.” I said.
Theo touched my arm and I stopped and looked at him.
“I may not be a keeper of time, but what I am is a master of alchemy and I have an idea.” He said.
“Okay.” I said as I placed my blades on my back and crossed my arms on my chest.
“Okay.” Theo said as he stabbed his hand and I unfolded my arms and watched him circle me.
“I am the blood and the light, I am everlasting and with that I call upon thee, great tree of creation to guide us, to bring us to you, so that we may pay homage to you as it should be.” He muttered as he let the blood drip all around me in a circle. I stood my ground as he stopped and looked up at the sky and the clouds started to gather, lightning cracked through the sky and I looked back to him as the wind picked up and started to swirl around me.
“What is this?” I yelled to him.
Theo smiled. “Old magic, forbidden… I shouldn’t even know it, but I do.”
“What will it do?”
“It is supposed to allow you to travel to the tree of life.”
“What?”
“The tree of life!” Theo called out to me as the wind started to make it hard to hear.
Suddenly lightning started to crack all around us and it ran along his bloodline he had placed in a circle around me, it caught fire and red flames whipped up about ten feet high. He stepped back and shielded his face as I stood in the middle and stared at the red flames. They started to slow and I could see my reflection in them.
I looked a mess, my hair was ragged, my face was covered in smeared blood, my once white battle gear was covered in dirt and red stains. I pulled my blades and stood my ground, not knowing exactly what was going to happen but then I started to lower them as I could see figures walking towards me, from all sides. I dug my heel into the ground and prepared for a fight but as I focused in I could make out faces, then more... many I recognized, all dead now, but people from my past. I took a breath as two figures worked their way through the now growing crowd and when they parted I stared at my parents and stepped forward as they held their hands up as if to say stop. I could feel my heart beat quickening and I waited for anything to happen, anything but staring into the faces of people that I had killed, or had seen killed. My Mom smiled at me and I tilted my head.
“Rue.” She said and the mirrored red flame waved like water.
“Honey, you need to let us all go now.” She said and I gripped my blades in my hands and shook my head.
“I can fix everything, I can.” I muttered.
“Baby girl.” My Dad said and I looked up at him.
“How long will you do this? How long will you write us into a story of which we have not belonged in forever?” he said to me.
“I do
n’t understand what you mean Dad.” I whispered.
“You do honey, you need to search your heart and you will see what the story is, what the truth is and it is then that you will be able to let go,” my mom said.
“I can’t… I can’t see the truth, I only see my family, happy and all of us together.”
“Rue, we have never been and will never be.” My Dad said to me and I blinked at the weight of his words.
“Don’t say that, please don’t.”
My Dad placed his arm around my Mother and they both looked at me.
“Rue, we love you… we will always love you, but living in the past is not what we wanted for you, we want you to move forward and find happiness without us.”
“I can’t do that.” I yelled at them.
“Then nothing will be, you won’t allow it and in that you will kill the world and any happiness for yourself.” My Mom said and I wiped tears from my eyes.
“I can fix everything that is what I do… I am a keeper of time.” I said as I looked at my hands.
“Rue, a keeper of time does not change it, you allow things to be as they are and in the end everything will set itself right.” My Dad said.
I looked up at him and my Mom and I gritted my teeth.
“Have I ever really known you?” I asked them.
“We died when you were young, so no… you did not.”
I held my head as the truth waved through me like an ocean and stumbled backward… then I slammed my blade into the ground and looked up at them as they started to fade.
“Please… please, please stay with me, I need you, I need you in my life… I always have and I cannot do this without you, I can’t.” I said as I held my chest and tried to catch my breath. I looked up and my parents had returned and they placed their hands against the red flame and I reached out and I could feel the warmth, I placed my hand against the flame and one word rang out in my ears so loudly I screamed and it blew me back as the flames started to rise and with one huge sonic boom they dissipated into the sky racing across it like the northern lights. Theo ran to me and fell to the ground in front of me. I wiped my eyes and watched the last of the red flames race out of sight. Theo touched my face and I buried myself into his chest as I cried and tried to let the emptiness of knowing that I would never see my parents again leave me forever.
Chapter 16
Learn To Say Goodbye
I sat very still. Taking slow breaths and it wasn’t until I looked up at the now clearing sky and felt the warmth of the sun did I really know if I could feel anything at all. It was a strange thing to allow yourself to let go of something you thought you could not live without. But I had, I had shed my selfish need to change things as I saw them to be as I let that leave me, words started to slowly disappear from every book that I had written, each one sinking deep into the white paper and becoming what it should have been all along.
All but one, the final book was writing itself without my help at all. Blank and waiting to write itself and that was where I was now. In a place I had never been, on the edge of darkness lit dimly by a small word my Mother had called out to me and with that I rose up and suddenly knew what I had to do. It was what needed to be done all along and although I am sure it sat in me, locked away with a key I had made, I looked down at my hands and then glanced over to Kai and watched Sam touch his hair as Theo slowly paced back and forth.
“So you did not go to the tree?” he asked me. I shook my head and looked at Kai again and walked to him.
“I need to talk to you alone.” I said.
He glanced at Sam and she nodded and he stood up and I took his hand, which is unlike me to do and we walked away from them. I fidgeted with my hands and then turned to him.
“Our parents died when we were very little and we never knew them.” I said and as the words left me so did a weight I had not known that I carried.
“What? That is crazy.” He said.
“No… listen to me, everything you have, every memory of them… I built it; I wrote it down and made them real to us.” I said.
He stared at me and waited almost as if he thought I would start laughing and hit him on the arm.
“You can’t be… I mean, that can’t be.” He said as he studied my face for any sign that I was lying.
“Kai, it was the want of them to be here that made me do it, I am sorry.” I said.
“You couldn’t do that, you wouldn’t.”
I looked at my hands and then back up to him.
“Kai, none of it was real.” I said to him.
“Rue… tell me you are lying… tell me now.” He said.
“I wish that I was, but I am not.” I said and he grabbed me and hugged me so hard, I could feel him start to cry and I held him knowing that he was in fact real, he always had been. My only family and now I needed to make everything the way it should be.
“How could you? How?” he muttered as he cried.
I stepped back from him and watched him wipe his eyes.
“I couldn’t let them go, but I did… just now.” I said to him.
“What? You saw them?” Kai asked me.
“In the flame… yes.” I said.
“Well what did they say? Anything? What?” he asked me and I leaned up into his ear and whispered the word our Mother had said to me and he pulled back and stared at my face.
“That was it?”
I started to walk from him.
“It was enough.” I said and I headed out across the field as the black color started to become clear to me and I knew I could find him at last.
***
Gracie emerged from the tree and Johnathan stood up and raced to her, checking her over and she looked up at him as her eyes swirled in color.
“Are you okay?” he said and Gracie nodded and looked at Luci.
“You knew he was in there.” She said and Luci smiled and nodded.
“You had no idea if I would live or die and yet you sent me in there.”
“Well.” Luci said and Gracie rushed her and hit her as hard as she could and knocked her over the railing. Luci screamed and clawed at the white wood and Johnathan watched her and grinned.
“Without me you will be trapped forever!” Luci yelled out and Johnathan looked at Gracie.
“She lies; I know how to leave now… we don’t need her.”
“What?” Luci screamed as she clawed at the wood and one of her nails broke and her finger started to bleed.
“You know what?” Johnathan said as he pulled her up and then quickly ran her to the door, he stood there and Luci struggled to break free.
“I would guess that you would not be so lucky in there.” Johnathan said as the door opened and he threw her into the room and she screamed as light crept up on her, just as the light started to stab at her body Johnathan pulled the door closed and screams became a memory as the tree shuddered and both Gracie and Johnathan started to run as fast as they could down the winding stairs, the tree moaned and shuddered and Gracie lost her footing and Johnathan caught her and pulled her to him.
“Thank you.” Gracie muttered and Johnathan smiled.
“It seems that I am always saving the women in your family,” he said as they rushed down the stairs and finally jumped as the tree twisted itself and white wood splintered everywhere. Blood started to seep from it as it slowly started to sink into the ground… Elijah stood there in shock watching it and both Gracie and Johnathan grabbed one of his hands and they started to run as fast as they could across the field as the ground shook and it started to sink along with the tree.
Elijah looked back and screamed as dirt and grass blew up behind them and Gracie and Johnathan pushed forward, finally reaching the top of the hill and Gracie smiled.
“The house! Now!” she yelled out as the ground blew up behind them, they rushed down the hill and reached the house just as the earth started to crack around the house. Johnathan slammed the door open and turned to see Gracie running to the door to the library
, she threw the door open and looked around then she spotted it and grabbed up a book and held it to her chest as Elijah ran in and she took his hand in her. The house started to shake and cracks started to form up the walls and Johnathan stood there and watched them.
“Dad!” Elijah screamed and Johnathan smiled at him. Elijah broke free of Gracie’s death grip on his hand and ran to him, grabbing his shirt and Johnathan stood his ground as Elijah tried to move him.
“Dad… come on!” he screamed.
Johnathan pulled Elijah to him and hugged him, kissing the top of his head and Elijah pulled back and looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Elijah, I cannot go. I have to stay here.” He said.
Elijah shook his head. “Why?”
“I am dead, I am sorry.” He said.
Elijah screamed ‘no’ and Gracie called out to him.
“Elijah, we have to go now!”
“Dad… please.” Elijah said and Johnathan touched his face and grinned.
“Tell your Mother that I will always love her… forever.” He said and he pushed Elijah away and towards Gracie who caught his hand and pulled him to her.
“Dad!” Elijah screamed and Johnathan smiled.
“I love you.” Johnathan said and with that Gracie opened the book and a bright flash of light appeared and as it dissipated so did they.
Gracie fell hard onto a wooden floor and Elijah fell right next to her as a bright light appeared and then disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. She rolled onto her side, clutching the book to her chest and let her breath out slowly. Elijah lay there, not moving and she worried that he was in fact dead. She crawled to him and rolled him over to see that he was crying and he quickly turned away from her and buried his head.
“Elijah.” Gracie whispered.
He said nothing.
“Elijah… I am sorry.” She said.
Elijah wiped his tears and stood up quickly and looked around.
“We need to find who killed him and return the favor.”
