Three Promises

by Bishop O'Connell

  Faolan shook his head.

  “A boat?” the boy asked.

  Faolan chuckled a little. “No.”

  “Then how?”

  Elaine smiled, then leaned in close. “It’s magic, but you can’t tell anyone.”

  The children shared a glance. Nessa was smiling and her eyes were bright. Ezra looked dubious.

  “I promise,” Elaine said. “This isn’t a trick.”

  Ezra looked from Elaine to Faolan. “Is she telling the truth?”

  Faolan smiled and nodded. “She is, and she’s right that it’s a secret. You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  “I promise!” Nessa almost shouted.

  Ezra blinked and looked at Elaine. “He’s taking us? Does that mean you’re not going?”

  Elaine’s smile faltered, but only a little. “No, I’m sorry.”

  Nessa stepped forward and threw her arms around Elaine. “Thank you for helping us,” the little girl said, her face buried in Elaine’s shoulder. Thankfully it was the uninjured one.

  After only a moment, Ezra hugged her too.

  Elaine didn’t know what else to do, so she just hugged them back and kissed their cheeks. “Okay, let’s get some food to take with you, then you need to get going.”

  Back in the kitchen, Elaine took a burlap bag from her rucksack and put some of the German rations in it, tied the end with a bit of twine, and handed it to Faolan. But Ezra reached out and took it.

  “I can carry it,” he said.

  The elves smiled.

  “Come on,” Faolan said. “The best entrance is just down the road.”

  Elaine shouldered the rucksack and led the children out of the farmhouse, following Faolan.

  Just over an hour later, they arrived at an old stone church, surprisingly intact. Faolan led them around the back where a massive oak tree stood proudly.

  “You should come with us,” Nessa said, taking Elaine’s hand. “I’m sure our aunt would let you stay with us.”

  Elaine smiled and fought back tears. “I wish I could.”

  “Are you going to help other children?” Ezra asked. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Elaine looked at the boy, then at Faolan, who seemed as interested in her answer as the boy.

  “I’m going to try,” Elaine said to them all. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a faint smile cross Faolan’s face.

  “A sheynem dank,” Ezra said in Yiddish.

  Elaine kissed the boy’s forehead. “You’re very welcome.”

  “We need to go,” Faolan said. He turned to the oak, muttered a few words, and the trunk rippled then bulged as a large portal opened in the middle, filled with swirling white mist.

  The children gasped, then both turned their huge eyes to Elaine.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Go on, your aunt is waiting.”

  Nessa took Ezra’s hand, and they walked toward Faolan.

  “I’ll be back at this spot in three days,” he said to Elaine.

  “I’ll be here,” she said.

  Then he ushered the children through the portal. There was a rush of power, and it closed.

  Elaine stood there, looking at the tree, and let herself cry. “Do something great,” she said softly.

  Three days later, Elaine sat cross-­legged in the ancient catacombs beneath the church, cradling her rifle in her arms in the darkness, trying to ignore the pervasive silence and the knot of anxiety that chewed at her insides. She looked over the paintings she’d moved down here for safekeeping, each propped against the stone wall so she could enjoy them. Elaine glanced over the Tintoretto painting, then she gave a final, mournful glance to the Botticelli, her Botticelli. Everyone had thought the model was Simonetta Vespucci. In truth, it had been Elaine. She knew she’d just been a stand-­in, but as the passion and love Sandro had felt for Simonetta, and had put into every brushstroke, washed over her now, Elaine didn’t care at all.

  Elaine let out a long sigh, coming back from her memories. She wiped absently at the tears that ran down her cheeks, then took a drink of her tea. It had gone cold, but she didn’t care.

  Faolan had returned, and she had gone with him willingly to stand before the Cruinnigh. They charged her with violating the Oaths. Well, not technically the Oaths, just an edict of nonintervention in mortal affairs. It was really just an excuse for the nobles of the Old World Regions not to dirty their hands in the war. And Elaine had said as much.

  It hadn’t been a persuasive argument.

  Faolan had spoken on her behalf. He tried to explain that she wasn’t directly involved, but merely showing mercy for mortal children. It was no different than the court had done in the past.

  Neither he, nor she, had spoken of his transgressions, how he’d violated the edict by helping her. And Elaine never would.

  The regent of the Old World had retorted that these times were not like any other, that never before had so much of mortal kind been embroiled in war. The court was bound by its word not to involve itself in mortal affairs, especially not of this scale. He’d reminded Elaine that she was a noble of the Rogue Court, not some noon fae rabble, and she needed to behave as such.

  It had been quite a shock to everyone, including herself, when Elaine said that if cold indifference to wholesale murder was what made a noble, she wanted no part of it.

  She took another drink of her tea and smiled, remembering the look on the regent’s face.

  They’d stripped her of her rank and locked her away. She shuddered, forcing down the memories of her dank cell and how the smell of exotic, blooming flowers that drifted in from the only window, far too high to see out of, almost taunted her.

  She later learned from a guard that Faolan had confessed his assistance to the Cruinnigh. He was only saved from censure by the magister of the New World Eastern Region, who’d sent word that he had desperate need of Faolan’s ser­vices.

  It had taken almost two months of planning, and some deeds she wasn’t particularly proud of, but Elaine escaped. She had been chased all over Europe by various marshals, but thankfully none had been as skilled as Faolan, so she always managed to stay one step ahead of them. When she learned that the allies had tasked a small group with saving the great works of art from Hitler, she’d helped when she could. She even handed over most of the paintings she’d found, only keeping those she was directly connected to. Her primary focus though had been on helping Jews, Gypsies, and others marked as undesirable escape the Nazi death camps; almost two hundred, mostly children, by the war’s end. It was nothing compared to the millions she couldn’t save, but it was something.

  Eventually, after the magisters and regent could no longer deny the atrocities that had occurred, the Cruinnigh pardoned her. It was as close as they would ever come to admitting they were wrong. They did offer to restore her rank, but she refused and went to America instead.

  Her eyes moved to another painting. It hung apart from the others, so it could be viewed from almost anywhere in the flat. It showed the kitchen of an old farmhouse in the northeast of France and a woman handing a tin of meat to two small children. It wasn’t a masterwork, but it was more precious to Elaine than all the others put together. The artist, an elementary school teacher in New York City, and her brother, a pediatrician who was famous for not charging those too poor to pay, had fled Europe as children. Their parents had sent them away, as it turned out, mere days before being rounded up and sent to Majdanek, the less famous of Germany’s labor camps.

  “How many could’ve been saved?” Elaine asked no one, for perhaps the millionth time.

  Yes, the Cruinnigh had pardoned her, but she had not, could not ever, pardon them. And now, homeless mortal children were suddenly, and unexplainably, manifesting magical powers in numbers never seen before, and changeling street kids were disappearing. All the while, the New World We
stern Region magister, Donovan, played the 1940s gangster boss.

  Elaine picked up her cell phone and dialed.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” Faolan said. “It’s been a while.”

  “Have you got a minute?” Elaine asked.

  “Sure, what’s wrong?”

  Elaine let out a long breath. “Something bad is happening in Seattle. Someone needs to do something about it, but I think I’m in over my head.”

  THE PROMISE OF NEW BEGINNINGS

  Edward paced the small room where he’d donned his tuxedo. It was beautifully appointed with comfortable furniture and stunning examples of plant life. He only noticed it peripherally. Fear and joy—­tempered with anxiety—­churned inside him as memories rose up and swallowed him like an ocean tide.

  “Excuse me,” Caitlin had said softly as she’d stuck her head in Edward’s office door. “Dr. Huntington?”

  “Yes?” Edward had said, looking up from a test result. When he saw it was Caitlin, he nearly fell out of his chair. Two weeks before, when he’d seen her for the first time, he’d been so awestruck that he’d walked right into a wall. He was still mortified. But that feeling was soon quashed by the quickening of his heart when he saw her smile. He tried not to think about how he’d altered his path through the hospital over the last two weeks so he’d see her at least a ­couple of times a day, mostly because it sounded creepy. Okay, even he had to admit it was a bit creepy, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Do you have a moment?” Caitlin asked. She glanced around, then stepped into the office.

  Edward blinked and sat up. “Oh, ah, I, um.” He shook his head, which seemed to kick-­start his brain, and smiled, setting the papers on his desk. “Of course, come in.”

  Caitlin’s smile grew, and Edward fought back a sigh.

  Come on, he thought, stop acting like it’s high school and a cheerleader stopped to talk to you. You’re not thirteen!

  “Thank you,” she said and closed the office door.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. . . . ?” He knew what her name was, he’d overheard it while she’d been talking with some other nurses. But he suspected there was no way to let her know that and not sound exceedingly creepy.

  “You can just call me Caitlin, Dr.—­”

  “Then you call me Edward,” he said and smiled.

  She pursed her lips, looked him over, then shook her head. “No, you seem more like an Eddy.”

  He bristled a little but found it didn’t bother him as much as it usually did. Normally, he hated being called Eddy, but it didn’t seem so bad coming from her. “Well, whichever you prefer.”

  She looked around his office and when she saw the collection of degrees, her eyebrows raised. She looked from Edward to the degrees and back again. “How—­”

  “I graduated high school a few years early,” he said by way of explanation. He was used to the reaction. Most ­people his age didn’t have multiple graduate degrees on top of an MD and a psychiatric certification.

  Caitlin smiled bright. “You’re like that old TV show from the eighties,” she said, a laugh just behind her words. “Doogie—­”

  He winced.

  “Shit,” she said. “I’m sorry, you probably got sick of hearing that about five minutes into med school.”

  He smiled and felt much more at ease than he expected. “It’s okay. But I don’t imagine you came by to talk about child prodigies, on old sitcoms or otherwise.”

  Her smile faded, and now she was the one who looked uncomfortable.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  She sighed. “How much time do you have?”

  “How much do you need?” Edward answered a little too eagerly. He was about to kick himself when her genuine smile returned.

  “The other nurses said you were about the nicest doctor I’d ever meet.”

  He blinked. “Really?” He had no idea others talked about him.

  Caitlin nodded. “It’s why I came by. I know you’re a psychiatrist, not a therapist—­”

  “Actually, I do both,” Edward said, again a little too quickly. “I do diagnose and treat neurological problems, but I also do psychoanalysis.”

  Caitlin arched an eyebrow.

  “No Freud,” Edward said through a laugh. “I promise.” Now that he was wearing his professional hat, his confidence started to rise. “Do you think you need a therapist?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t really have anyone I can talk to about things. Do you see employees of the hospital?”

  He nodded. “I have before, and I happen to have an opening, as luck would have it.” Which was a complete lie; he was overbooked by about twenty patients, but sleep was overrated. “Why don’t you have a seat, tell me why you came by, and we’ll go from there. Okay?”

  Caitlin nodded, then looked at the couch. “Am I supposed to lie down or sit?”

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he said, collecting a notepad and a pen. “Though most ­people sit.”

  “Thank God,” she said and perched on the edge of the leather sofa.

  “You can use the whole cushion,” he said.

  Caitlin laughed and moved back, sitting more comfortably. Eddy moved to the leather chair and sat down.

  “So how does this work?” Caitlin asked. “Do I just start talking?”

  “Pretty much,” Edward said. “We can talk about whatever you like. You can tell me as much or as little as you’re comfortable with, but the more you tell me, the easier it is for me to help.”

  Caitlin closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Okay, you asked for it.”

  In the end, he’d concluded that she didn’t need a therapist, just someone to listen, and he’d told her as much. Though he promised himself—­and her after they’d become friends—­that if he ever thought she did need professional help, he’d refer her immediately to someone else.

  Edward smiled as he thought back to that first visit. It had lasted more than two hours and had ended only then because she’d had to get to a parenting class. It still made his heart full to think of how much she’d opened up to him right away. She’d told him in that first visit about losing her parents as a child. She’d even told him about James and finding out she was pregnant while still grieving the loss of the grandparents who’d raised her. Even then he’d admired her strength and courage. She’d seen so much loss in her life, but she still was able to give comfort to patients for twelve hours and make it look easy.

  Then he started to think about when Fiona had been taken—­five years later—­and how his and Caitlin’s relationship had evolved, rather quickly, after that. He loved her and had for years. While he didn’t doubt she loved him, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe her feelings had been helped along by the traumatic events of the last year: the kidnapping and rescue, and everything that happened around that. Who was to say that any day she wouldn’t come to her senses, grab Fiona, and head for the hills? Who was to say that day wasn’t today? He had plenty of confidence when it came to his profession and his intelligence, but he knew he was far from a catch. He was a thirty-­two-­year-­old virgin—­

  “Relax, it’s going to fine,” Dante said.

  “What?” Edward stopped midstride and turned to face Dante. The elf was sitting on the arm of a plush chair, looking incredibly suave in his tailored tuxedo. His blond hair, which had been shoulder length for as long as Edward had known him, was now cut short and perfectly styled. Edward felt an inferiority complex start to overcome him. Then he remembered it was Dante, and that James Bond would feel inferior. That thought helped, a little.

  “What the man is saying,” Henry said, his voice carrying a soft Southern drawl, “is that you’re going to wear a hole in his floor if you keep pacing like that.”

  Edward turned to his best man, his friend and former roommate from
medical school. Henry was taller than Edward, though still several inches shorter than Dante. He sat in another chair, giving Edward a calm, casual smile that embodied Southern charm.

  “Today isn’t about you; it’s about Caitlin,” Dante said.

  “He’s right,” Henry said and smiled. “Trust me, soon as you see her walk down that aisle, looking every bit like an angel stepped from heaven, with eyes only for you, nothing else in the world will matter. In fact, you’ll probably need a little prompting to remember your own name.”

  “I don’t recall you being this nervous when you married Hannah,” Edward said.

  “No, I wasn’t the least bit nervous,” Henry said and shrugged. “Black man marrying a white woman in Louisiana—­whatever could I have been nervous about?”

  Edward winced and muttered something under his breath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about that, I just—­”

  “I always liked that about you,” Henry said.

  “My ability to deftly slip my foot into my mouth?” Edward asked.

  “That is a rather remarkable talent,” Dante said.

  “It is at that,” Henry said and chuckled. “But to my original point, if you think I gave one moment of worry to what anyone else thought, you’re a fool.” He shook his head. “I had no room for those thoughts. I just kept picturing Hannah coming to her senses and making a run for it, or me passing out halfway through the ceremony.” He laughed again. “Or that old preacher falling over dead—­”

  Now Edward burst into laughter. “That’s right! I forgot about him. Dear lord, how old was he?”

  “Ninety-­seven,” Henry said. “Momma wanted him to marry me and Hannah like he married her and Daddy.” Henry shook his head. “I think he might’ve married Moses and Zipporah.”

  Edward’s laughter faded when he looked at Dante. The elf’s smile had softened and become a little bittersweet. Edward realized then that he didn’t know anything about Dante’s romantic past. Had he ever been married? Had he loved someone but was never given the opportunity to pursue it? His hand was in his pocket, obviously worrying at something. Edward thought he recognized the look on Dante’s face and wondered if the regent was thinking not of a past love but of a lost friend. The elf was still the same to anyone who didn’t know what to look for, but since Brendan’s memorial, something in Dante had changed. How could it not? They’d memorialized a man no one was sure was even dead. It was one of those things you knew everyone was thinking about because no one ever said anything about it. Edward wondered if Dante’s dramatic haircut, going from shoulder length to close cropped, was a coping mechanism.