Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  I knew them all. I knew the shirt David was wearing—the one I bought on our holiday to Michigan six years ago. I knew the look in Harry’s eye—the fact that he was about to cry, scared he’d done something wrong. I knew why the ring on my finger was melted and I remembered the pain of the moment the flames touched it.

  I felt like I’d grieved the tragedy already, though, like the emotions I had right now were out of place, or maybe in the wrong time, and yet I felt a great need to cry.

  I pulled David closer and put my face against his shoulder, taking a few breaths—airy and full of fear, like the moments leading to a violent regurgitation. He put his arms around me, screaming for Drake to get Harry inside.

  “Now!” he demanded. “Before she has flashbacks!”

  My son vanished before my eyes at a speed I knew he’d never travelled before, scooped up and taken away by my father—a man I loved but, only minutes ago, had not understood. Everything he did since my death made sense now. Everything he said. It didn’t hurt anymore because I knew, to the deepest part of my soul, how much he loves me, how much he loves my sister, and I was so glad, despite everything she’d done, that I hadn’t killed her. Hadn’t left her dead. Hadn’t severed the relationship between myself and Drake by failing to let go.

  But she killed my baby. It hurt so bad my knees buckled. David followed me to the ground and wrapped himself around me, telling me over and over that it was all right. And it was now. I felt its spirit. Morgana had removed the child’s physical form, but she had not removed its soul.

  My eyes widened then as I saw the knife in her hand—curved and twisted like an ugly tree branch, because it was a tree branch, or at least made from one.

  “She used the Blade of Eden,” I said.

  “The what?” David took my face in both hands.

  “The Blade of Eden.” I touched the baby. “I didn’t know at the time.”

  “Ara, what are you talking about?”

  “This child was meant to be. She couldn’t erase it—couldn’t remove it forever. Its soul didn’t cross over, David. It stayed—it waited here until it could be born again.”

  His wide green eyes bled the sadness away, but comprehension didn’t touch them. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s what Lilith tried to kill me with—in the forest that day.”

  “When?”

  “When I asked for the hand of Blackworth.” My mind flashed back to that moment, linking facts from my past with actions of the present. “It’s a blade—forged from the Tree of Life. Made by me long ago to keep souls on this plane—ones that were needed to do great things, but in another life. It takes the body, but leaves the soul attached to the earth until a remake comes along.”

  “A remake? What are you talking about?”

  “Sometimes, mistakes are made.” I looked at him. “Sometimes souls are born to the wrong people. Lilith was killing those people and bringing their souls to purgatory—”

  “Babies?”

  “Not always. But it was hard to get them to cross back over to where we needed them to be. So I made the blade, kept them bound to earth, so I could walk them to the intended family, and they’d wait until it was time.”

  “And Morgana knew this? She knew what that blade was?”

  I nodded, frowning. “She wanted to hurt us. She wanted to kill me and let Lily be resurrected. She must have known.”

  “Known what?”

  “To have used that blade, she must have known Lily would bring me back.”

  “I doubt it,” he said, then his eyes fixed wider on nothing. “Then again, she knew you could be brought back. She kept a vial of your ashes as a bargaining chip.”

  “And got nothing for it, I see.” I felt sick, knowing what had happened to her. “Drake was right, David.”

  “About what?”

  “You should have been punished for what you did to her.”

  He just nodded, saying nothing.

  “Who raped her?” I asked, looking him square in the eye. I’d seen it in his eyes when he told me about what happened to her. He’d lied to the naive version of me he was speaking to then, but he couldn’t get the truth past this one.

  “His name was Garth Hedly.”

  “And was he punished?”

  “No,” he said regretfully. “He fled the island that night.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. But when she wakes, if she ever remembers, she’ll hunt him down.”

  “She needs to be allowed to remember.”

  “Are you crazy!” he yelled. “She could come after us.”

  “She won’t. All hope of resurrecting her mother has been lost, and she knew I would one day awaken. She left our child on this plane to be reborn if ever I was.” I touched my belly. “She means us no harm now, David. Justice, in her eyes, has been served.”

  “And what about what Lily did to her in revenge?”

  “What else could she have expected?” I said with a shrug. “She killed a child and I would bet that, at no time in all her torture, did she confess that she had not taken its soul.”

  “Why… but she could have saved herself if she’d spoken up? It changes everything.”

  “I guess we’ll never know.”

  “Well, it’s not important right now,” he said, looking up to the sky as it started raining. “We need to get you inside. You need rest.”

  “No.” I pushed back and got to my feet. “I need to hold my son and apologize to Vicki for what happened to Sam. And then I need to spend all night looking at you.” I reached over and touched his cheek, hardly able to believe the way he felt under my fingertips. His skin was softer, thinner almost, as if I could feel it aging as the moments passed. He was so much taller and broader. I never realized how young he looked until I saw him now, older. His hair was thicker, darker, and he had lines on his face where he’d been crippled by pain or overcome with laughter since I last saw him. It was like I could see everything he’d experienced without me by the lines on his face, and it made me miss him terribly.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, taking me in with new eyes—eyes that had seen so many things and hadn’t yet healed from them.

  “You’re beautiful,” I said. “Being human suits you.”

  He laughed, looking down shyly as he did.

  “I’ve missed you,” I added, standing on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck.

  “Aw, believe me,” he said in that deep, husky whisper, “I missed the hell outta you.”

  * * *

  Vicki took one look at me and she knew, before I said what needed to be said, she knew the words that were on my lips.

  “Don’t,” she cried, hugging me tight. “It’s not Elora’s fault.”

  “I know.” I nodded. “But I am so so sorry, Mom. I loved Sam and I’m so heartbroken that he’s really gone—”

  “I know.” She nodded, sniffling as she drew back. Drake stepped in then and he needed only to smile to say it all. I read everything there on his face that he wanted to say, and all the responses he’d give to anything I had to say.

  “It’s good to have you back,” he added, hugging me tight.

  “For what it’s worth, Dad, I missed you. I just didn’t even know I did.”

  “Or you wouldn’t admit it.”

  We smiled at each other, finishing the rest of this conversation without words or even thought.

  “Where’s Harry?”

  “Finishing his picture.” Vicki nodded to the stairs.

  “His picture?”

  “He’s been working on something for you for when you came back.” She motioned for me to go up, so I took the rail and each step slowly, with the weight of two-years-passed on my shoulders, truly feeling the wood under my fingertips and breathing the smell of this home deeply. When I reached his room and pushed his door open, Harry was coloring frantically at his desk by the window.

  “Harry?”

  “Wait.” He put his hand
back like a stop sign and continued coloring. “Almost… done!” He spun around and held up a page. “This is for you.”

  “What is it?” I asked, coming closer.

  “It’s us,” he stated, sitting proudly. “I didn’t want you to miss anything, so while you were gone, I made them for you.”

  “Them?” My eyes moved past his happy round face to the stack of paper behind him. “You did all these?”

  He nodded as I came to kneel beside him, putting the last drawing he’d done face-down, and handing me one from the top of the pile. I laughed to myself when I saw it, amazed by his talent. At just eight years old, he could already draw as well as me. Well, as well as I could now that Cal had taught me.

  I looked at the first picture closely: the day he found out I was dead. His talents developed as the time went on, and slowly, each dark, sad comic strip featured a smile here and there until, just before it was announced that I was alive, there was finally a small yellow sun and even a smile on his dad’s face.

  “Daddy was sad without you, Mom.”

  “I know,” I said, wiping my cheek. “And I was sad without him. And without you.”

  “I wasn’t sad,” he said pragmatically. “Not always, because I knew you’d come back.”

  “Did you?” I said absently, because it was never a promise, but I was happy that he’d had faith to get him through.

  “I did,” he said, showing me another comic strip—this one of him in bed, talking to a man standing at the foot of it.

  My blood ran cold. “Have you shown these to Dad?”

  He shook his head.

  “To anyone?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Harry?” I pointed to the likeness of the man I now knew to be Arthur. “Do you know who this is?”

  “Of course I do.” He reached to the corkboard behind his desk and plucked off another picture of a man’s face, with bright blue eyes and a warm smile. “It’s Uncle Arthur.”

  I laughed, covering my mouth. “So he comes to see you?”

  “He comes to see everyone,” he stated. “He was at the hospital, taking care of Aunt Em too.”

  “You saw him there?”

  He nodded. “I asked him to save the baby.”

  “And… did he?”

  Harry shook his head. “He said he wasn’t strong enough, but he knew who was. That was when Lilith came.”

  “Lilith?” My eyes widened.

  “She’s pretty, Mom. And I can see through her.” He laughed.

  I felt sick. “So… Lilith saved Uncle Mike’s baby?”

  He nodded. “And she said to tell you thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For showing her the…”—his nose crinkled like mine did when I’d get confused, his hands out—“the light? But I told her I didn’t know what light she meant, and she just said you’d know.”

  Harry and I looked up at the door then. I hadn’t noticed David there until he let out an accidental sob and turned away, quickly leaving before either of us could see him cry.

  “Is Dad gonna be okay?”

  I nodded. “He’s just tired after everything, that’s all. And he’s really happy to have Mommy back.”

  Harry smiled, hopping down off his chair to hug me. “It’s okay, Mom. You can go spend some time with Dad now. I have to go to bed anyway. I have school tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, squeezing him tight. “I love you, Harry.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  As I backed away and took him in one last time, his face popped with a reminder and he turned back to his desk. “Don’t forget your picture.”

  “Thanks, Harry.” I took the page and waited while he climbed into bed. “All set then?”

  “All set,” he said, snuggling down. “Night, Mom.”

  “Night, sweetheart,” I said, and shut the door, heading for David’s room. But as my gaze swept absently over the picture, I stopped dead and looked back at his door, one step away from going back in there to stare at him. How did he know?

  “Everything okay?” David asked, tucking himself in beside me.

  “Look.” I showed him the picture and even he looked at Harry’s door, both of us looking back down at the picture again after. There on the page, smiling out at us, was a cartoon version of David, Harry, and me, with a bundle of pink blankets in my arms.

  David laughed, placing his hand on my stomach. “So it’s a girl?”

  I nodded. “But no one else knows that. Do you think he read it on my mind?”

  “No,” Drake said, flicking his hands dry as he came out of the bathroom. “He has the Gift. It runs deep in our blood, after all.”

  David and I smiled.

  “And I suppose congratulations are in order,” Drake added, offering his hand.

  “They certainly are,” David said, cupping his shoulder as they shook hands.

  “Congratulations for what?” Vicki asked, taking one glance at the picture before she knew, her mouth popping. “Oh my God!”

  I laughed as she squealed, hugging me then hugging David, even pulling my father in for a group hug at the end.

  “How many weeks?”

  “Barely even four,” I said.

  “Then how can Harry have drawn this?” she asked.

  “He didn’t sense its gender,” Drake said. “He foresaw it.”

  We all looked at the picture, David laughing as he pointed to the words Harry wrote on the top in rainbow colors: And they all lived happily ever after.

  “Look on the back,” Vicki said, turning it over. The words there were simple, scribbled beneath a flaming red bird, but for some reason had me concerned.

  “But it wasn’t the end.” David read them aloud, his tone rising in question. “Why would he write that? And what’s this bird all about?”

  Drake looked closer at it. “It’s a phoenix, I believe.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A bird—mythical. Rises from the ashes anew.”

  I felt a lick of worry wet my soul.

  “Never mind that tonight.” David plucked the drawing from my hands and told Vicki to put it on the fridge. “We have some catching up to do.”

  I yelped as my knight in shining armor bent down and scooped me off the ground, walking gracefully to the bedroom door and kicking it open before turning and toeing it shut behind us, making the action into a statement all on its own.

  62

  David

  My life was complete. I had my Ara back. The curse was broken. Mike and Emily’s baby would be okay, and my son was now outwardly the coolest little dude on the planet. But all I could do, after I shut the door and closed us away from everyone, was cry. My Ara was compassionate and caring—always there to support me if I fell apart—but tonight I felt like a complete loser, unable to compose myself for a moment to get the words out that I’d longed to say.

  “I know,” she said, cradling my head against her heart, her gentle touch moving my hair back off my brow. “I can say it all for you: you’re sorry you couldn’t protect me, couldn’t save our baby.” Her voice broke a bit. “You’ve missed me more than you can ever vocalize, and you can’t even begin to measure with words the relief that I’m back. You loved me as I was all this time and you love me still now, even without the curse, and you just need me to know that.”

  I laughed, feeling a sense of relief as her words unburdened me.

  “And,” she added, looking right into my eyes as I drew back and sat up. “You’re sorry for what you did… in the tombs.”

  I couldn’t look at her then, seeing myself instead as the monster I’d become with that potion.

  “I know it was the potion, David.” She touched my hand. “I remember everything that’s happened between us since I woke up. And even though I wasn’t me, what I told you that day when you confessed it all”—she nodded to where we’d been sitting on the floor that day—“I meant it. I knew you weren’t the kind of man that could do that. I mea
n, what did you think?” She slapped my arm hard. “Did you really think, after all our years together, that I’d truly believe you suddenly turned into a rapist because of a bit of torture?” She laughed. “I am actually insulted.”

  I laughed too, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “You’re right. It was me getting all curled up in self-pity.”

  “It was.” She got to her knees and touched my face, rolling it up to hers. “And you’re over it now, I hope. Because we have a life to get on with.”

  “And I’m all in,” I said, cupping her hips to pull her closer. “But it will take some time. There’s a lot of healing to do—”

  “I know.” She bent to kiss me, and I noticed the difference immediately. It was my Ara. Her lips found mine like they’d known them all her life. She knew exactly which way to move as I got to my knees, taller than her. Her head rolled back and she angled it to the left, just as she always did, her hands going under my arms and up around my shoulder blades—as they hadn’t done since we were king and queen.

  “Speaking of which…” She broke away from the kiss, leaving me grasping for more. “Lily is back! And she’s… so not what I expected.”

  I laughed. “No. We all said the same thing.”

  “I’m really glad you didn’t kill her,” she noted, looking off at distant thought. “And I’m so…” Her head moved in a no. “I just can’t believe how happy Jason is.”

  “I would be too if I’d stolen the monarchy from my older brother.”

  “You’re the younger one, remember, since you were born second.”

  “Yes, but”—I threw her down on the bed and landed on top of her, caging her shoulders between my hands—“we grew up with me as the eldest, so that’s how it’s gonna be forever now.”

  “As you say, Your Majesty.”

  “Not anymore.” I dropped down hard beside her, laying with my hands across my stomach. “We’re free now, and the monarchy is in damn good hands. Just like we always talked about.”