Royal Blood

by Kolina Topel

  Alex was staring at me dumbfounded. It was even stranger for him to see me so angry than it was for me to feel it.

  “Your father is…. dead, Christina.”

  A single chill ran down my spine. Alex looked at me with tormented eyes and lowered his head. For some reason, he looked….sad. Like he knew already, too.

  “Dead,” I repeated.

  A single tear rolled down my cheek, and Alex put his arms around me.

  “How long have you known, Mom?”

  “Ten days.”

  “What?! Are you kidding me? Have you known about him this whole time?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you keep something like this from me?” I was angry now. All the sadness I felt was overpowered by the sudden immense and uncomfortable hatred I felt for her, for not telling me what I was now certain she had always known about my father. What she said next I was most definitely not prepared for.

  “Because it was the dying wish of your mother.”

  Four

  “My…my….my….” I was hyperventilating now.

  “Christina, calm down,” Alex was holding my arms, shaking me now. He didn’t seem as disturbed as I was thatthe world I had never fit into, the mother I was nothing like, and everything I believed came crashing down on me at the words my mother had just said. I was dizzy at the thought.

  “Are you saying that I…that I….” I trailed off.

  “Yes, Christina. You are adopted.”

  “But how could you not tell me? Lies!” I shouted. “It’s all been lies.”

  “Chris I had to. It’s what your mother wanted—”

  “Stop! I don’t want to know anymore,” I closed my eyes.

  I had never felt anything like this in my life. I felt so betrayed. Adopted. Lied to. Adopted. It was too much. Adopted. And both of my parents—dead. I would never know them.

  “I just want to know one thing. What are their names?”

  I could hear the tears in her throat.

  “Lynn Marie Mason and Azariah Delano. But Chris—”

  “Don’t. Goodbye, Mother.”

  I put down the phone and tears flew from my face like never before. Alex just lay there patiently rubbing my hair while I stained his shirt with salt water. Aside from an occasional “Sshhh,” or “It’s okay,” he never said a word.

  I didn’t know I had fallen asleep, but when I woke, the room was dark and I was still in the same position, curled up into Alex. He hadn’t moved either.

  The tears once again began flowing. It woke up Alex, but he stayed in place and occasionally kissed my hair or forehead. Once the tears drained again, I fell back asleep.

  When I woke up again, I felt hardly rested, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to get up and walked to my desk and turned on my laptop.

  While I waited for it to load, I stared at Alex. He was the only person I could trust. The one person I knew I could count on. I was so grateful to have him. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through this without him.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, but I wiped them away and turned to the screen. I pulled up my favorite search engine and typed my mother’s name first. No results. Then my father’s. Same thing.

  I drummed my fingers on the keys not knowing what to look for next. I typed St. Christina Marie Church, Ohio. That brought up only one link that looked valuable. I clicked on it. There was a picture of the outside of the church on the homepage. Even on a computer screen, it made me shudder.

  I scanned through the information provided, which wasn’t much, and gathered it was a Catholic church built in the early 1800s, but the foundation dated back to the early 1600s.

  It stated that it was no longer an attended church, but it had no listings for contacts. The rest of the information proved useless, so I went to another search engine to start again. Still no more information. I put my head down on the desk annoyed.

  * * *

  It was much darker this time. I could barely see the once bright paintings and figures on the walls. I was again in the hallway with the photo of my father.

  I turned to see that face that was so familiar, yet so strange to me, and stopped short. The photo was gone. The man from the picture was standing there, right in front of me. His eyes sparkled and he reached his hand toward me.

  “My Christina,” the same voice from my dreams boomed.

  “Father,” I breathed and took a step forward. He didn’t come any closer, so I took another step. Still nothing. I started running toward him, still not closing the distance. Suddenly, he looked like he was choking. His hands scratched at his throat and he made a gurgling sound. He, too, leaked bright red blood from his eyes and crumpled to the floor.

  “Father!”

  “No!” I screamed. My head snapped up off of the desk. Alex was by my side in a second.

  “What happened?”

  “It was just a dream. Oh. Just an awful dream,” I sobbed.

  He held me until the tears stopped. It wasn’t long. I was slowly learning to control my tears. He picked me up and carried me to the couch.

  “Why don’t you tell me about this dream?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Maybe it will help.”

  “Which dream?”

  “This wasn’t the first?”

  I shook my head, wiping away the last of the tears on my face. He waited patiently as I told him about the city and the girl, the church and the man I met there, and what he called me, and about the picture of my father. He showed no expression on his face through all of it. Great, he thinks I’m crazy.

  When I finished, he sat with his eyes down for a minute.

  “So how did you find this church?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t understand how he was so calm. It kinda pissed me off. Not that that wasn’t happening a lot lately anyway.

  “Well, I had some recent deposits in my account that I noticed. Large amounts….”

  “He left you his assets.” It was a statement, not a question. I nodded. “How much?”

  I winced. “Well, the last time I checked it was three different deposits totaling… a little over one and a half million.” His mouth fell open. “Finally a reasonable reaction,” I snapped.

  He clamped his mouth shut and looked offended. “I’m sorry, Alex. It’s just, I have been so emotional lately, I don’t know why I just, I just….” I started to cry again.

  “It’s okay, Christina,” he soothed.

  “Alexander, will you stay with me today? Please?” My eyes begged him, and if he said no I was sure I would lose it.

  “Of course, silly girl. I’ll stay as long as you want.”

  “And, um, all night?” I asked shyly.

  Even after almost a year of dating, he had never slept at my house, and I never stayed at his. We had never really done much more, physically, besides kiss. He and I were both old-fashioned in that way. We both wanted to wait until marriage.

  “If you want, sure. I can sleep out here on the couch,” he smiled reassuringly.

  “Okay,” I smiled. “And I don’t wanna talk about any of the—”

  “Say no more.” He held his hands up. “A full day of movies, maid service, and gourmet cooking at your service, my lady,” he bowed. It made me giggle.

  “Oh so you cook now, do you?”

  “Are you kidding me? I make the best darn grilled cheese sandwiches in the northern hemisphere,” he stated smugly.

  “Well in that case, I’ll take two.”

  “For breakfast?” he wrinkled his nose at me.

  “Hey, you offered.”

  “At your request.” He dazzled me with his smile and darted off to the kitchen.

  The rest of the day passed, and he did well to distract me from the battles in my mind. After dinner we snuggled up to a movie.

  “You know, Alex, even when nothing else in my life makes sense, you are the one thing I am always sure about. Thank you for today. I love you.”

  Understanding gleame
d from his eyes. He leaned in and gently pressed his lips to mine. My lips, mouth, and whole body were on fire. My heart thudded in my ears, and I swear I could even hear his, too. His lips suddenly turned fierce, hungry, and he moved them faster, more intensely, parting my lips with his tongue. His breath on my face made me dizzy. He smelled so sweet. He pulled back and parted our lips then leaned into my ear.

  “Christina Marie, I love you as well.” He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “My heart is yours.”

  After the movie, Alex grabbed a pillow and a blanket out of the closet to make himself a spot to sleep on the couch. Not knowing how far our boundaries extended on the “not being intimate yet” thing, I decided to test it.

  “Will you um, sleep with me?” I mumbled. His face looked a bit panicked, but he quickly straightened it out.

  “You think that’s the best idea?”

  “Um, well, yeah, I guess you’re right, you don’t have to—”

  “Urgh, of course I will, Chris. You know it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I don’t want to, ya know….”

  “I know, no temptation. I just want you to hold me. Maybe then I won’t have any nightmares,” I said as I looked out the window.

  “Well when you say it like that,” he put his arms around my waist and pulled me close, “then I wouldn’t dare refuse.”

  He gently kissed me on the lips and led me to my room. I fell asleep quickly to the sound of him humming. For even just a moment, everything was perfect.

  Five

  You know how sometimes when you dream, it can seem so real at the time that you almost don’t really know if you are awake or asleep? Well, I have dreams like that. Quite often, actually. More often than not I have them in a place that I am at on a regular basis— home, work, Mom’s house…something like that. But these dreams were an exception, especially one particular night….

  * * *

  The scene was the same as the last time. I was back in the church sanctuary. The little girl was in front of me again.

  “Who are you?” I asked her.

  “I think the question is, who are you?” the girl asked in her own voice. This was the first time I’d ever actually heard her, heard me, speak.

  “I don’t know, that’s what I’m trying to—”

  “Run!” she shouted. She pointed behind me, and I turned and saw a figure in a black cape running toward us, and it was coming fast.

  “Follow me!” she shrieked and grabbed my hand. She ran down a hall I recognized and turned toward the wall with my father’s picture.

  “It’s a dead end!”

  “Trust me.”

  I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, the air smelled and tasted differently. Sounds that seemed out of place presented themselves. I waited to slam into the wall, but it never happened. I slowly opened my eyes and gasped. We were no longer in the church. We were in a forest somewhere.

  “But how did we—”

  “No time! Run!” she shrieked.

  I glanced behind me and the robed man was still running after us. I pushed my legs as fast as they would go. Suddenly, the forest was whizzing past us. Impossibly fast. Yet, I could see everything, smell everything, and hear everything, even the footsteps following us.

  It was almost like a dreamor like a slow-motion movie or something. The loudest sound was my rapid heartbeat in my ears. For a minute it was the only thing that I registered. Run, run, run, run. I was running perfectly in time with it. Even if I had no idea why I was running….

  The strange part about it was that it wasn’t strange. It wasn’t unfamiliar. It felt like waking up, kind of disorienting but familiar. Like it had always been there, I’d just never realized it before.

  “Christina, you have to get us out of here!”

  “What? What do you mean? How?”

  In a flash, the girl jumped back and over my head and tackled the advancing robe. I stopped to turn back to help her.

  “No, you must run! You must save us! GO!”

  The robe fell off of the face of the man in the church, and his eyes turned almost white as he snarled at me. I had no idea where I was going, but I ran even faster now than before. There seemed to be no end when suddenly I stopped short.

  Below me was the city, same as in the dreams. Empty. Dead.

  I heard someone slowly approaching. I heard the heartbeat, the slow labored breathing. Then the girl stepped out of the woods. She was bleeding from the side of her neck. Blood was dripping down her fingertips.

  “You must find the way, Princess,” her voice was strained.

  “The way where? Where do I need to go!?”

  She looked into my eyes and barely smiled.

  She raised her hand up and pointed with one finger over the edge. “Home.” Then she collapsed.

  * * *

  When I came to, I was in the opposite corner of my room crying and hyperventilating. Alex was in front of me, and I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn’t make out the words. I was crying too loudly.

  “What happened, Chris?” he half yelled.

  “Another dream. Another horrible dream. How do I save her? How?” I sobbed.

  “Save who? What happened?”

  “Me.”

  He looked at me, confused. I put my head down and dropped his hands. I stood and looked him in the face.

  “This is the first nightmare in a few weeks.”

  “I have to go back.”

  “Back where?” he said, and then knowing flashed in his eyes.

  “To the church.”

  His mouth twisted, and he folded his arms across his chest.

  “Why?”

  “Cause it’s the only way to make the nightmares stop. And it’s the only way to find out the truth.”

  “The truth about what?”

  “About my father. And about Sangre Real.”

  “What?” he murmured. “What is that?”

  “I…. I don’t know. The name of the city, I think. I’ve never heard the name before, I don’t know how I….”

  The look on his face was pure pain.

  “I can’t let you go there.”

  “What do you mean you can’t letme—,”

  He held his hand up to my face. “Not alone,” he said.

  “So come with me.”

  A mix of emotions washed over his face as he stared into my eyes. Then it settled on defeat.

  “I doubt I have another option, but Chris,” he looked into my eyes, serious and sad, “are you one hundred percent sure you want to do this? No matter what you may find out, I mean?”

  “Alex,” I closed my eyes and reached around my neck and unclamped the necklace that I had worn for years. “My mother gave me this when I was eleven.” I held up a tiny gold baby ring that once held its place on my infant fingers.

  “She said that my father had given it to me before he left her. I’ve worn it around my neck every day since then. It’s kinda been a reminder to me of a part of myself, and my life, that I have never known. I always swore I would find out someday.” I slowly put the ring in his palm and closed his fingers around it.

  “I want you to have it. I was born to love you, Alexander, if nothing else, and you have erased all of the emptiness and void in my life from my father leaving. The rest doesn’t matter anymore. But I do still want to know. Why he left me. Why he never came back. I need to know.” I looked up at him and smiled. “So you ask me if I can handle this, if I want it. As long as you stay with me, I can handle anything.”

  * * *

  It was early afternoon when we arrived at the church. It looked the exact same as the last time. He took my hand when I stepped out of the car, looked at me, and smiled encouragingly.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  I gnawed on my lip as I contemplated one last time if I was certain I wanted to go. I mean, I knew I wanted to, but I was scared. A million different things could happen.

  “You okay, Chris?”

  I thought abou
t that for a minute. Was I? I couldn’t show too much fear or he would never let me go in.