Larkspur

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “Maggots,” Tanesha sneered.

  “No, Miss T.” Rodney said. “They don’t have any idea how to save our friends. We have to figure it out.”

  “How?” Tanesha asked.

  “I’m going to go watch the battle,” Rodney said. “Give me a few minutes.”

  Rodney jogged down the hallway and up the stairs. Heather shrugged, and they went back to work with the bombs. A few minutes later, Rodney came back down the hallway.

  “Well?” Tanesha asked.

  “What do we need to do?” Sandy asked.

  “I need to think,” Rodney said.

  ~~~~~~~

  Blane woke up standing next to a tree. He closed his eyes and opened them again. He shook his head to try to clear his confusion. Somehow, he was in a weird bubble in a forest. There was a historic reenactment going on outside the bubble, and some sort of ritual happening right in front of him. He took a step on weak legs. He dropped onto a knee, before catching himself. Looking across the bubble, he realized he knew the women in the stream.

  “Delphie?” Blane asked.

  “Blane!” Delphie jumped to her feet and ran to his side. The other woman seemed to float over to him.

  “Where am I?” Blane asked.

  “You’re on the Isle of Man,” Delphie said.

  “I was driving home when I heard about the earthquake.” Blane nodded. “I turned around and started back, I think I got there . . . and . . .”

  He shook his head.

  “What is . . .?” Blane gestured. “Celia?”

  “Hello, my dear Blane.” Celia smiled at him.

  She hugged him. Blane’s face flushed bright red and his eyes welled with tears.

  “I have so much to . . .” Blane started. He swallowed hard and started talking fast. “Have you seen my baby, Mack? We’re having another. And Heather, she’s made the little house a home for me and our family and . . . Heather is amazing, and my life now . . . and . . . oh God.”

  Blane cried into her shoulder.

  “I’m so very proud of you, son,” Celia said.

  “Why am I here?” Blane asked.

  “I would guess to help Jill,” Celia said. “She’s in a trance.”

  “We think this is what kills Marlowe mothers and their sons,” Delphie said.

  “Kill?” Blane rushed to Jill’s side. He slipped his hand around her right wrist and then around the other. He shook his head and scowled. He touched her forehead.

  “Can you save her?” Delphie asked.

  Blane looked up at Delphie and then at Celia.

  “She’s . . .” Blane nodded. “Oh, I see it now. I don’t know. How long has she been like this?”

  “Five minutes?” Celia looked at Delphie, who shrugged. “Ten?”

  “Good,” Blane said. “Not too long.”

  “Do you have what you need?” Delphie asked.

  “I should.” Blane started humming.

  “Can you check on the child?” Celia asked.

  Blane leaned over to the boy.

  “He’s dying,” Blane said.

  “If he does, he’ll take Jill with him,” Delphie said.

  “Good to know,” Blane said. “Is there any food here?”

  “Jill can eat?” Celia asked.

  “No, I’m starving,” Blane said.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Delphie’s words were lost on Blane. He was deep in thought looking at Jill. Delphie touched his shoulder. “Blane?”

  Startled, he jumped and looked at Delphie.

  “I had a dream,” Blane said. “Just like this except . . . Heather?”

  The ground shook, and the entrance to the catacombs appeared.

  “Blane?” Heather’s voice came from under the ground. “I swear I heard Blane.”

  “Heather, we’re up here,” Delphie yelled.

  Heather peeked her head out.

  “You guys!” Heather shouted to the people below. “They are right here.”

  Heather ran to Blane, and they held each other.

  “Sam?” Delphie asked.

  Sam ran up the stairs to her. He hugged Delphie and Celia at the same time. Sandy and Tanesha ran to Jill. Rodney appeared with Honey on his back. He set Honey down and went back for her chair. Once he returned, everyone was staring at Jill.

  “What’s going on?” Rodney asked.

  “Jill’s in trouble,” Sandy whispered. “I can feel it.”

  “Can you help her?” Heather asked Blane.

  “We can.” Blane smiled. “Do you have your supplies?”

  “Right here,” Heather said. She held up her backpack.

  “Is there anything to eat?” Blane asked.

  She dug through the backpack until she found one of his special homemade, chocolate protein snacks. He scarfed it down.

  “Let’s get to work,” Blane said to Heather.

  He told her what he needed, and she started making the Chinese herbal remedy. He’d placed a dozen acupuncture needles by the time she’d finished making the liquid. Together, they forced Jill and the boy to swallow the liquid.

  Sandy and Tanesha went to get Katy and Paddie. When they returned everyone was sitting in a circle with Jill in the middle. Delphie was leading them through a meditation. They sat down with the children on their laps.

  As the war raged outside the dome, everyone turned their attention to the battle Jill was waging right in front of them.

  “Now we wait,” Blane said.

  ~~~~~~~~

  “This is the fiftieth situation,” Jill yelled at no one in particular. She was standing on a platform where a hooded executioner was sharpening his axe. “I’m still not afraid of you.”

  The crowd sniggered and someone threw a tomato. Jill ducked this time, and it hit somewhere behind her. Jill sighed. The executioner towered over her. When he touched her, she healed him. He stood in a daze beside her.

  She kneeled down and touched the guillotine. Placing her hands on the wood, she worked to relieve the pain and suffering in the device, and in this place.

  “I’m just getting so tired,” Jill said.

  The scene spun in place, and Jill rushed through time again.

  Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-six

  Doing something different

  “You know, that’s okay,” Jill said to the burly Viking standing in front of her. Worn out, she decided to try something she hadn’t tried before. “You can take him.”

  The boy scowled at her. The men grumbled and looked terrifying. Jill noticed that she was wearing a plain, thin wool dress that fell to ground. She felt like she was a novitiate at a convent.

  “I can always have another son,” Jill said.

  She gave the boy a wave and turned to walk up the hill. A tall soldier grabbed her around the waist. He lifted her from where she stood and carried her to a tall man wearing dark robes. The moment he set her down, she started walking away from the scene.

  “You have sinned,” the man in dark robes screamed.

  “Yes, father,” Jill said. Having dealt with more than her fair share of these monk-like men in this never-ending nightmare dream, Jill decided to turn the tables on him. “I’m going home right now to resolve my sinning ways. Please tell me what I can do.”

  “Do?” the man asked.

  “To make amends?” Jill asked.

  The man in the robes seemed confused. Like a shadow cast by hand puppets, the man could only mimic a historical script. Jill had stumped him.

  “How about if I fast for a month and pray the rosary a hundred times a day?” Jill suggested.

  With a nod, she walked around the man and kept walking toward a fort up on the hill. She had gone about a hundred feet when she noticed the seven-year-old boy was walking with her.

  “You weren’t supposed to do that,” the boy said.

  “Why not?” Jill asked.

  “Because that’s not what happened,” the boy said.

  “We’ve been stuck in the same situation over and over agai
n,” Jill said.

  She held out her hand, and he slipped his small, cold hand in hers. They walked for a few minutes until they reached a granite boulder. Jill gingerly set herself down on the rock and pulled the boy to her. He didn’t resist, so she held him while she rested.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened while I rest?” Jill said in a low intimate voice.

  “What happened?” The boy looked at her.

  “When you were taken from your mother,” Jill said. “You don’t have to show me. You can just tell me what happened.”

  “I can?”

  The boy leaned into her. Jill looked out onto the lovely seaside and held him close. After a few minutes, he shifted away from her.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Jill said. “You can always show me if I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t know where to start,” the boy said.

  “At the beginning,” Jill said.

  The boy nodded, and Jill settled in for a long story.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Rodney sat between Honey and Miss T. near the wall of the safe bubble. While his eyes were shut, his mind focused on the philosopher’s question:

  Why do two armies fight day in and day out when neither army is able to win or lose?

  He hoped that discovering the reason would help him stop the war before Valerie and Jacob were injured or killed. He’d almost given up when a thought popped into his mind. He looked up at Delphie, who was walking around the outside of their circle around Jill. She smiled at him.

  “Do you mind if I ask Abi something?” Rodney asked.

  “Go ahead,” Delphie said.

  “Why did this war start?” Rodney asked.

  “Start?” Abi looked confused. “I don’t know. Mari?”

  Mari shook her head.

  “You don’t remember?” Rodney asked.

  “I doubt we were alive then,” Abi said. “Mari and I aren’t very old, certainly not compared to Gilfand. Even Edie is a hundred human years older than we are.”

  “The war started a long time before we were born,” Mari said.

  “The story says that the war started because the prince defiled the daughter of a neighboring kingdom,” Sam said.

  “What story?” Rodney looked confused.

  “The Kingdom of Marle?” Tanesha said. “Mom used to read it to me. It was one of Ne Ne’s books.”

  “Good Lord.” Rodney rubbed his hand over his face and pulled it over his tight haircut. “Of course. Ne Ne’s books.”

  “Of course?” Tanesha asked.

  Every eye was on him. He shrugged as if he couldn’t explain what he meant.

  “Remind me,” Rodney said. “It’s been a long while since I sat with my baby reading one of Ne Ne’s books.”

  “The fairies say they drew clues in the pictures in the hopes that someone would use them to set things right,” Sam said.

  “Lots of fairies drew pictures in the book,” Mari said. She nodded, and added, “My mother’s a librarian.”

  “We grew up with the book too,” Abi said.

  “The pictures in Ne Ne’s book are different from Jill’s book,” Tanesha said.

  “We used the pictures,” Sam said. “Jake and I. That’s how we knew that the queen was torn into pieces. The pictures in the book helped us find the burial locations.”

  “The pictures in the book?” Rodney asked. “Goodness, I don’t know if I ever looked at them.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Doesn’t the story include some bit about a prince defiling someone from the other kingdom?” Rodney asked.

  “Right,” Tanesha said.

  “The fairies out there are fighting Christian crusaders.” Rodney looked at the fairies. “Is that right?”

  The fairies nodded.

  “And the Celts are involved in some way,” Rodney said.

  “That’s right,” Mari said.

  “What are you getting at, Dad?” Tanesha asked.

  “I can’t figure out the timeline,” Rodney said. “According to everything you told me, we are dealing with THE Queen Fand and THE Manannán. Correct?”

  “That’s right,” Delphie said.

  “Manannán is believed to be the original ruler of the Isle of Man,” Rodney said. “That put him at something like 6000 BC. But the Celts, they weren’t around until much later. Patrick and this Kirk Maughold came around 300 AD and 600 AD.”

  “The boy on Jill’s lap is Manannán’s grandson or great grandson, Kirk Maughold,” Sandy said. “The man who defiled the neighboring kingdom’s daughter hanged himself after killing his son. And the queen of Marle . . .

  “In the book,” Rodney nodded.

  Sandy nodded.

  “There’s a picture of people who look . . .” Abi nodded.

  “They look like us,” Rodney said.

  “Like her,” Mari said and pointed to Jill.

  “And her daughter, Katy,” Abi said. “The queen is very fond of Katy.”

  “Do you know anything more than what’s in the book?” Rodney asked Abi and Mari.

  Abi and Mari shook their heads.

  “How is that possible?” Tanesha asked.

  “They are the fairy corps,” James said. “Like your Marine Corps. They do what they’re told to do.”

  “You know this story too?” Rodney asked.

  James nodded.

  “Don’t you find it strange that we would all know this book?” Rodney asked.

  “I thought so too.” Sam nodded.

  “It’s got to be a clue to what’s going on,” Rodney asked. “Jill has a bunch of siblings, right?”

  “Four,” Sandy said.

  “They’re a couple of years apart?” Rodney asked.

  “Sure,” Tanesha said. “Why?”

  Rodney raised his index finger to her and turned to the fairies.

  “Can fairies have children every couple of years?” Rodney asked.

  Abi shook her head.

  “And Queen Fand? What do you know about Queen Fand’s children?” Rodney asked.

  “Queen Fand and Manannán have five children,” Mari said.

  “Their youngest child was born in the time you’re talking about,” Abi said. “Around 200 or 300 AD.”

  "And the second son?" Sandy asked.

  "The book says he was the second son," Tanesha said.

  "He's the youngest," Mari said, and Abi nodded.

  “Fairies live on a different timeline than humans,” James said. “It’s in my mother’s books. They can’t have children until they’re some three hundred years old, and they can’t have children back to back like humans. It takes a hundred years or more.”

  “Edie just reached the age to pick a mate,” Mari said. She and Abi looked at James and giggled.

  James blushed.

  “So we have Celts, Christians, fairies, a war . . .” Delphie looked at Rodney for a moment before turning to the fairies. “What do you know about King Arthur and his advisor Merlin?”

  “The Celtic king?” Mari asked.

  “Merlin, the last of the druids?” Abi asked.

  “Yes,” Rodney nodded. “That’s exactly it. Yes”

  “We only know what we were told,” Abi said.

  “Which was?” Tanesha pressed.

  Abi looked at Tanesha and then looked down.

  “Merlin, the druid monk, came to the island to find a queen for his king,” Abi said in a singsong voice, as if she was repeating something she’d memorized as a child. “He asked Queen Fand for a fairy to bring his king luck. Queen Fand chose a young woman, fair in face and personality. She went with the druid to marry the king.”

  “But when it came time for a child . . .” Mari said.

  “She was too young.” Delphie nodded. “They must have been furious.”

  “They stole Queen Fand’s son because they said she betrayed them.” Abi nodded.

  “The ‘daughter of the other kingdom,’ the one who was defiled, was a fairy named
Guinevere?” Rodney said.

  “How did you know?” Mari asked.

  “She’s ‘defiled’ because she can’t have a child,” Delphie nodded.

  “But really she was just too young,” Abi said. “She had children long after Arthur was gone.”

  “Arthur’s son was actually Queen Fand’s child,” Rodney said.

  “Stolen,” Abi said.

  Rodney shook his head.

  “What is it?” Delphie asked.

  “It’s crazy but . . .” Rodney said. “It’s got to be true.”

  “What has to be true, Dad?” Tanesha asked.

  “The child on Jill’s lap is Queen Fand’s son,” Rodney said.

  “And the son of Arthur by way of Merlin,” Delphie said. “Yes, that’s the truth.”

  They turned to gawk at the boy.

  “Is that possible?” James asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Rodney said.

  “This boy is the missing prince they are fighting over?” James asked.

  “Not the grandson?” Sandy asked.

  “It makes sense,” Rodney said. “Those armies out there, they don’t know that time has passed. Neither does the boy.”

  “But he’s just a boy,” Heather said. “Just a kid.”

  “He’s the son of the queen of the fairies,” James said. “Even as a half-human, he’d be powerful. And who knows? Maybe he’s a lot more fairy than human.”

  “We’re caught in some kind of spell,” Rodney said. “We read the book.”

  “That’s our incantation.” Delphie nodded.

  “The child is creating all of this,” Rodney said. “He is stuck at seven-years-old, even though his body went on to live a full life with Arthur and Guinevere and later became a monk here on the Isle of Man.”

  “His stuck-ness is killing him,” Blane said.

  “Exactly,” Rodney said.

  “We have to let Jake and Val know that the boy is here,” Sam said.

  “How do we stop the war?” Heather asked.

  Sam went to the edge of the safe bubble and looked out at the battle.

  “I know just the thing,” Honey said. “I need some help, maybe Mari’s help, but I bet I can get their attention.”

  “Do it,” Delphie said.