A Court For Fairies (Dark Heralds Book 1)

by Lynn S.

  “Do you think this is about Esteban? No, better yet…do you think this is about what I might feel for you? Of all creatures under the stars, you are the one I don’t lose a wink of sleep over. Years of silence, years of putting up with you, years of restraining myself. Not uttering a word, playing at being human, hiding all I hold claim to. I have been waiting for my weakened, almost mortal offspring to remember his better half, to tap into the traces of magic left by his dead sister. To connect with one who loves him truly, through the veil.” She spat out every word with heavy disdain. “And here, I had it all set in place; the ashes of your ancestors enriching this very soil, the savage, untamed beauty of nature that opens a safe passage into my world. Summer after summer, winter after winter, I’ve been waiting for Esteban to bloom, for his blood to remember. Until this morning, he finally did it. His voice called to my sister-mother on the other side.”

  Neil scanned the place for iron, but the garden was all stone and wood. The years led him to slip back into comfort and he had overlooked even the slightest security measures. Still he went for her, blinded by rage and the hurt of discovering she had been taking him for a fool once again.

  “I will kill you. You damn bitch! And don’t you think you are laying a hand on my son!”

  Isabel chuckled while her lips formed two syllables: “Kar-Lagh.” The sound of humming wings cut through the dark and then opened wounds in his skin with surgical precision. Neil folded in, victim of hundreds of stabs, bleeding out in a few heartbeats.

  Isabel followed his descent, cradling him as he could no longer stand. She kissed his lips, stained red as much of his face was already. Without hesitation, her nails, now small, pointed claws, ripped into his artery and pulled, tearing away at the conduit of blood once guarded underneath the skin.

  Neil’s blood opened a door through which Carla crossed. Neat and elegant as she ever was, Carla Alejandro wouldn’t allow a drop of that miserable blood to touch even the sole of her shoes. She looked on as Isabel kept saying, as in prayer, “Her name was Evelyn. Had you given her a chance, she would have been perfect, and beautiful.”

  It was late at night and Esteban opened his eyes, grumpy as ever, as his mother turned on the light. The sudden bright made him blink, annoyed. Then he was worried that something might be wrong. His mother told him to take off his jammies because it was time for a bath.

  “But it is night!” he quarreled.

  “No, sweetheart. It is just the beginning of a brand new day.”

  She sat him in the tub. The water was the color of poppies and smelled a little like rust. Isabel washed him from head to toe, careful to ensure the blood of sacrifice was absorbed through his skin. Then she rinsed him in waters of the Lethe, one of the five rivers that flowed into hell. It was Carla’s gift, a precious souvenir from the other side.

  Esteban O’Reilly’s life began that day. His father was not only gone, but forgotten. Only his mother and Carla held a place in his childhood memories.

  Chapter XIV

  Accidents

  Two Years Prior

  “She is…different.” Esteban took the time to emphasize the word to Isabel, to make his sentiment clear without the need for further explanations.

  “Just listen to yourself!” Isabel rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Excuse me if it is too early to put up with tawdriness while keeping a straight face. Spare me, Esteban. I just don’t want to hear what is coming up next if this is the very first thing you’ll say when I ask you what you see in that girl!”

  Her son had a number of interactions over the years that Isabel considered appropriate for someone his age. He even had a steady girlfriend for a year or so before Marissa came along. Isabel remembered that time fondly. Esteban had shown interest in one of those socialites who enjoyed playing at being a forward feminist, but was really scouting for a husband. Isabel found her charming, adequate, malleable, and placed most of her effort in helping this woman conquer her son. But she could only influence so much, and it all fell through. Then, one day, out of the blue, Esteban showed up at her door announcing that a paralegal from a lesser known firm in Manhattan was it. She didn’t quite believe it until they both moved into an apartment on Franklin Avenue.

  ***

  The Day Of The Accident

  Isabel had waited it out for a couple of years, treating Marissa with decorum and a good helping of acceptance while waiting for them to break up over some insurmountable quarrel. It just didn’t happen. If there was a walking cliché bothersome enough to make her bitter, it was the ever attracting opposite her son had found in a girlfriend. And if it was not enough, Esteban had held his own counsel brilliantly. It was quite a punch in the gut when he finally told Isabel and Carla he was sealing the deal with Marissa.

  “Help me here. When were we meant to find out about this?” Carla was the first to ask. She had always been gracious about disguising her contempt. Even Esteban was fooled for the longest time. He always counted on his grandmother to soothe Isabel when it came to Marissa. And now, his mother looked the image of hurt and drama while Carla had finally raised the one disapproving eyebrow.

  “Well, I guess right now.” Esteban gave Carla a look that reminded her, inevitably, about that rebellious streak on the O’Reilly side.

  She loved him, but sometimes that look was enough to make her grind her teeth and take a deep breath. Still, she managed to give Isabel a pitiful look, stand up, and walk toward her grandson. She held his hand, knowing that he was a man and not easily persuaded, but still, gave it a try. “There is so much of your father in you. Enough to make your mother’s heart bleed.”

  The younger O’Reilly took his grandmother’s hand to his lips and kissed the interior of her wrist. Carla felt how he drew a smile afterward. “I adore you, Grandmother, but these types of games have not worked since I came of age.”

  It was low and unexpected and both Carla and Isabel protested, indignant. Carla presumed to have great control over her emotions, but insubordination and insolence unnerved her. She reciprocated, cold and direct.

  “You are too valuable to let you do whatever you want. That was our first mistake.” This time her hand touched his cheek and Esteban felt a wave of heat. It was a caress that carried the weight of a slap. His grandmother simply smiled, and Isabel’s eyes twinkled as well. They were connected, enough for the younger to see what the other had discovered with a single touch. They had their ways to know, after all.

  “You had a fight,” his mother declared. “A definite one.” The words left her lips with a cruel sense of plentiful knowledge. “Hmm. That is why you came for the ring. Oh, please do! Run, go back to her. Fix your life with a magic binding and watch it fall apart. That is not how it works, son. With all I’ve told you, my story with your father…it seems that you are bent on discarding every warning along the way. I’m tired of steering you away from suffering.”

  Esteban didn’t dignify her argument with an answer. He pocketed the engagement ring and left. He did cross paths with her on the way out and simply said goodbye, the hazel of his eyes grown darker because of all he wanted to say but kept inside. Isabel saw him leave. She relaxed about it, happy. As he left the driveway, she turned to tell Carla, “He’ll be back.”

  “I am afraid, if he ever returns, he will no longer be ours. I can’t see his future,” Carla added, “but I can well read his plans. We’ve said too much and he took it to heart. He plans to leave, with her if possible, if not, he’ll go alone. His human side is stronger than his Sidhe, and though he knows about our bloodline, I don’t think he cares much.”

  ***

  Esteban kept clear from Montauk Highway on his way from Long Island to Brooklyn. He needed time to come up with an infallible strategy. He wanted Marissa to say yes, a definite yes. He checked the time, it was 12:10 and Marissa must have been taking her lunch. He called her, but it went directly to voice mail. “Okay, I deserve it. Don’t answer the phone.” His voice was calm. “We’ll talk about it at home.”
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  He hung up quickly. The phone was distraction; the road was a bit difficult to travel. The recent, persistent snowfalls that blanketed the Northeast had left banks of hardened white that refused to melt as temperatures were still quite low and the Atlantic threw nothing from the coast but dry breeze.

  The younger O’Reilly kept thinking about the row he had with his girlfriend. Esteban considered Marissa’s almost pathological relationship with the city. He had wanted them to leave it all behind and start somewhere new, away from both their families. True, he appreciated Adriana enough, but Marissa seemed uncomfortable about her mother, yet wouldn’t let go. Sure, he had a terrible mother as well, but at least on his side, their strained relationship didn’t bleed into their daily lives. More than once Marissa agreed to leave, only to get cold feet at the last minute. She had decided to give herself a chance, not moving away, but getting closer to Carla and Isabel. Esteban hated the idea of Marissa becoming Isabel the Lesser. And yet he couldn’t say a word to bring his mother’s hypocrisy to the forefront.

  Isabel was quite charming, careful, and understanding toward Marissa when she was present, but as soon as she left, venom and disapproval were spewed in the most intense fashion. Isabel pushed his buttons, knowing that he’d never bring her duplicity into view. Marissa, that blonde beauty with sad gray eyes he had fallen in love with, came with quite a frail ego in tow. To find herself the target of Isabel’s scorn and mockery might just destroy her self-esteem.

  It was something almost ingrained in her personality. Marissa might have looked decisive in her line of work, but Esteban knew it was all a product of long hours of practice in front of a mirror. That was how deep and damaging her insecurity was. It might hurt to admit it, but Marissa was nowhere near as perfect as he made his mother believe.

  Nothing to lose sleep over though. He had learned to love her weakness, moments in which she shed the armor and simply asked him to hold her. Whenever they were on their own and she opened up to him, Marissa always stressed how wonderful it felt to be considered part of the family by Carla and Isabel, how caring they both had been to her since the first day they met. He’d rather damn himself than burst her bubble.

  That was the least of his reasons to feel guilty.

  Esteban knew that the longer they stayed together, the more Marissa fell victim to his secrets. And that was precisely why he had made up his mind to leave, even if it meant revealing stuff he had been carefully guarding for close to eight years.

  On the day of his twenty-first birthday, his mother and grandmother asked him to visit Innisfree. Esteban complied, though at that moment, the house on the hill didn’t mean much to him. Innisfree was a place he’d grown to associate with pain and long lost memories. Isabel was the sole proprietor of the estate, and if there was a place in which his father’s presence was ever dimmer, he still had to find it. All that was Neil O’Reilly had been relegated to a nasty, unkempt fishing cottage in the middle of a lake.

  They had brought him there to celebrate his being an adult, so he decided to address the part of his life that was sorely missing. “You told me I was happy here once. So why do I get such a bad vibe from this place? I hate that I don’t have a single memory that ties me to this house…or to my father.”

  The party had died down and the guests had gone their way, most of them once they discovered Esteban had retired. The house was a little too much for him and somehow he found himself wondering away into the yard and off to the fishing cabin. His mother followed. She always knew where to find him.

  “Sooner or later, questions surface.” Isabel sat in front of her son. They were both cross-legged on the floor.

  Esteban cradled a family album he had been looking at for the last half hour. The pictures were faded and stuck together because of exposure to humidity. The distorted images were a perfect match for his memories. In one of the better preserved ones, Neil was carrying little Esteban on top of his shoulders. Esteban did not remember ever laughing, probably taken by surprise and delight to feel his feet had ceased touching the ground, safe in his father’s care. A breeze coming from the lake had made a mess of his then dirty blond hair and his small hands held a plastic spool, testimony to a kite lost beyond the picture’s frame.

  Isabel bit her lip and ran her fingers through her son’s hair, somehow glad that time had darkened its shade.

  “Things became difficult after your grandfather’s death. A suicide is always hard to deal with.” Isabel leaned forward, allowing for both her hands to slip down Esteban’s shoulders, until they finally met his and she was able to take hold of the album. “The O’Reilly men were lacking in emotional stability. I guess love made me blind to certain details. It was long after we were married that I learned not only your grandfather, but your great-grandfather was also deeply disturbed. Daniel died under suspicious circumstances. Though suicide might have come to play as well, Nathan could have…I don’t want to draw conclusions about the dead. But, sweetheart, your father’s blood was tainted by madness and violence.”

  “What are you trying to get at?” Esteban felt the conversation was taking an uneasy turn. Was she trying to tell him that he might be prone to insanity? In twenty-one years, he had never doubted his capacities, nor had he gone through an episode that might bring into question his mental health. Isabel went back to appreciate the picture before her.

  “Nothing. I’m simply talking about being in love. Taken to the point of being unmindful. I hope that’ll never be your case.” Her eyes concentrated on the photograph, her fingers traced every shape about it, as if trying to relive memories long buried. “I was brought down by his smile and the warmth of his skin and the effect the sound of his voice had in me. I thought I’d be able to handle his slow descent into madness, and for a time, I was. His moods became erratic, impossible to predict. At times I was the center of his universe, and then, suddenly, he’d blame me for everything he considered wrong about his days. I am ashamed to say, son, that I grew used to it, to the cycle. It was bearable to live with a caress one day and a slap the morning after. I had convinced myself it was my duty to put up with it, the price we pay for love. I didn’t want to give up on him.”

  Esteban saw his mother’s eyes blur with tears. Though he thought she hurt, this confession was the most she had ever said about his father and he needed to know. “He turned violent, mistreated you?” He was trying to keep his own anger in check. Although he never knew Neil, he was made to love his father. But now…

  Isabel took a deep breath, making sure Esteban felt the weight of her sorrow, even as she shrugged her shoulders in a dismissive gesture. “In every way conceivable, darling. Until you came. When I became pregnant I discovered you inspired a different kind of love within me. A love that led me to take care of myself. I drew lines. I invited my mother to move in with us. I made Neil promise to give treatment a try, for our sake. At first, he did. We lived here for years, away from all the bad memories of our life in the city. And then, one day, it started again.”

  Isabel shifted, kneeling, placing her flat palms on top of her son’s thighs. She pushed forward, closing the gap between them. Esteban recoiled, flinching. Isabel’s hair looked alive, coated in a lustrous blue-black sheen that framed her face in a porcelain oval. She was no longer his mother, but a creature of perfect and inhuman beauty with eyes like liquid emerald. She tightened her grip upon him, holding him in place. Her considerable strength was softened by the plea in her eyes, which had reverted to dark in just one blink. “I can’t conceive of how Neil could even think about it. I had hopes that being blood of his blood, he’d spare you. Your father was given to delirium and hallucinations, he even once convinced himself that you had to die. Do you understand now? This is why I am so protective of you. Because I was so close to losing you. And still, when I tell you we were happy here once, I do not lie, love. Innisfree was the closest to a second chance for us. This is where I tried to save him from himself. Though, for your sake, I kept him distant. Eventually
, he succumbed to other maladies. His body became as frail and unbalanced as his mind. If anything good came from it, I had the chance to take care of him until the day he died.”

  She lied, but her misdirection made perfect sense to Esteban. His memories had been altered and scrambled since early childhood and Isabel’s words were the only truth he’d ever known. His mother broke down, sobbing, shaking. Esteban held her, but his better instinct kept telling him to draw back. He was taken by the creeping feeling that the woman he held was just someone who looked like someone he knew and loved.

  Esteban didn’t continue to embrace her, though he was careful not to hurt her by revealing his sense of dread. The lights in the cabin were dim, and for the second time that night his senses played a bizarre trick for the briefest instance. He saw Isabel, shaken, eyes still running with tears, face contorted in a grimace of pain. Yet underneath her skin, he could see another face behind his mother’s. A woman who smiled, enjoying every bit of the spectacle she had unfolded. This other woman knew she was safe behind a veil of tears and carefully crafted agony. He raised his fingers to the edge of his mother’s lips, touching the hardened filaments underneath, the pliable muscles of that other face beneath her human guise. Esteban was about to say something when Carla showed up, leaning against the doorframe.

  “If you began this story, Isabel, then you must finish it.” His grandmother appeared out of thin air and he barely processed it. That was how relieved he was to see her there. Both mother and child turned to the elder, who was, as she usually did when demanding attention, with arms crossed firmly over her chest. Carla gave Isabel a cold stare, as far from a sympathetic glance as could be.

  The daughter responded by brushing away tears and pressing her lips in a quick, tight line before answering, “Don’t you worry, Carla. I never intended to continue without you.”