Bindings

by Carla Jablonski

  “Huh?” Now what language was she speaking?

  “Come on, you,” she muttered to the trunk. She looked back at Tim. “You’ve had sex ed, right? You know. Sperm. Zygotes. Chromosomes, etcetera.”

  “Sure.” Man. More biology. Who knew school would ever turn out to be so important?

  She dragged the trunk all the way out of the closet. “Do you really care where your chromosomes came from?”

  Tim’s forehead wrinkled as he thought over her question. “I guess not.”

  “Well, what’s the point of all this then?”

  “I—I—I guess you know my mum is dead.” Oh, that’s bloody brilliant, Tim scolded himself. Of course she knows that. She’s Death. He checked to see if she had caught that stupid remark. She was still just looking at him, her expression concerned.

  “So it’s just been me and Dad for a long time,” Tim explained. “He’s okay, but he’s…well, he sort of falls into himself sometimes, and he forgets I’m there. Then this homeless bloke told me that my real father was this really moody guy who can turn into a hawk. And this hawk guy, Tamlin, he’s a falconer, whatever that is. The first time I met him, he hit me. The second time, he saved my life. So there’s him, and there’s my old dad, and I don’t know which of them I belong to.”

  “Belong to?” Death repeated. “Ooooh, you people. Where do you get these ideas? You are so strange.”

  Death was poised on her hands and feet beside the open trunk. Her flashing black eyes bored right into Tim’s. “Tim. Heredity is one thing. Identity is something else entirely. How on earth anyone could manage to confuse the two completely baffles me. But when you start talking about belonging to someone because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.” She shook her head and sat back on her heels. “Oh, give me a break. If you belong to anyone, you belong to yourselves. And most of you never even manage that.”

  Tim’s mouth dropped open. He had thought she was on his side. Now she seemed to be mocking him, putting him and everyone else down. His mouth clamped shut again.

  You’d think being dead counted for some kindness, he thought.

  Tamlin sat in the manticore’s ruined estate. It was as if when Tim killed the beast anything that the manticore had touched exploded or shattered. The shelves of books were toppled, shards of glass from the display cases lay strewn about. Only the bones and preserved bodies of the manticore’s collection remained. Some things are impossible to restore.

  Once Titania had transported Tim and Tamlin to the mansion, Tamlin had cleared one of the large display pedestals. He found an elegant tapestry and covered the platform with it, then laid Tim’s rigid body down on top of it. He placed candles at the four corners, creating a makeshift altar, then sank into a carved mahogany chair close by. He left the drapes drawn at the windows—he craved the darkness. He could not remember now how long ago his vigil had begun. Hours? Days?

  Titania flung open the doors and stormed inside. “How much longer are you going to brood here, like an owl in the dark?” she asked. “Be done with tormenting yourself! Surely you do not blame yourself for the child’s death.”

  “I see you now refer to Tim as ‘the child,’” Tamlin noted. “And you speak as if he were already dead.”

  “Dead or alive, what is it to him that you sit here in the dark?” she admonished him. “Look into his eyes and you’ll find only emptiness there. His spirit has flown.”

  She knelt beside Tamlin’s thronelike chair and her voice became gentle. “Come away, Tamlin. We’ve lost Timothy, but we’ve found each other. It hurts me to see you caged here for days by your sorrow—lost as a hawk in a snare, so alone—when I am here for you.” She placed her hand on his leg.

  Tamlin shook off her hand as he stood. He had sat motionless for so long he felt stiff. “Not so long ago you said that I was not a man. A hawk, you called me.”

  “Tamlin, I—” Titania rose but made no move toward him. Tamlin could tell she was uncertain how to proceed. Well, so was he.

  “You spoke in anger, but you spoke truth,” he said. “I was young when you brought me here, lady. I learned hawk’s shape and hawk’s ways before I knew what it was to be a man. For six hundred years I’ve ridden the wind and hunted and called that life. Flown to your wrist when you wanted me there, and called that love.” He felt anger welling up inside him. He turned to glare at her. “But it was a game, lady. Being your hawk. And I find I’ve tired of it.”

  Ignoring her stricken expression, he crossed to Tim. He placed his hands on the boy’s cold forehead. Tim’s body was quite blue now, and the skin was stretched taut against his bones, giving it a painfully skeletal appearance.

  “It is not guilt that binds me to my son,” Tamlin said. “The child that might have been ours. Nor is it grief. It is something you will never understand.”

  “Which is what?” Titania demanded behind him.

  “Titania. May we have new candles, please? Two will do.”

  Tamlin stroked Tim’s forehead, wishing to ease the boy’s torment. There was a long pause.

  “Candles,” Titania said, her voice tight. “Very well.”

  Titania charged out of the mansion, fury and frustration coursing through her body. He thinks I am his errand girl now? She stopped when she reached the archway in the crumbled wall. “Amadan, attend me,” she ordered.

  The flitling appeared, hovering a few inches from her face. “No sooner said than done, my queen.” He gave a little bow. “Now let your Fool hear what’s amiss. I’ve not seen you this angry since yesterday.” He grinned at her.

  “Mind your tongue, jester, or expect to lose it,” Titania snapped. “What troubles me is none of your affair.”

  She took in a calming breath, and conjured herself at her most imperious. “Fetch two candles and give them to the other fool—the one you’ll find communing with the corpse in there.” She waved at the mansion. “And should the encounter suggest to you any amusing little songs or stories, you will kindly refrain from repeating them to me, unless you prefer to be voiceless the rest of your days.” With a snap of her fingers, Titania, Queen of Faerie, vanished.

  Poor little queen, Tamlin thought, as he stroked Tim’s twisted cheek. It must be disconcerting to find yourself jealous of a dying child. How comforting it must be, at times like these, to know that your world exists to console you.

  “Ahem.”

  Tamlin glanced over his shoulder. “Amadan,” he greeted.

  “I should have guessed these were for you, Falconer.” The flitling held up two candles as big as his small body. “No one else has your knack for infuriating queens,” Amadan commented. “What a special talent.”

  “Amadan. The candles.”

  Amadan flew to Tamlin and placed the candles alongside Tim. “So how have you put milady out of sorts this time? Did you slay the boy?”

  Tamlin picked up one of the candle holders and removed the stubby remains of the burned-down candle. He replaced it with one of the new candles Amadan had delivered. “Amadan, I’ve been too busy to track you down. But if you will stay where you are just a moment longer, I’m sure that I can find the time to kill you.”

  Amadan fluttered away without another word.

  Tamlin prepared the other candle. “It was Merlin who taught me the hawk’s shape,” he told Tim, even though he knew the child could not hear him. “He taught me much else besides. He wept in his wine as he told me how he stood beside Arthur’s bed in Avalon, listening to the king moan, gripped in his death sleep.”

  Tamlin pulled several herbs from his sack and scattered them over Tim’s body. “‘I could heal him, he said in his withered old voice,’” Tamlin remembered. “‘Why don’t you then?’ I had asked him, not believing him. ‘You mock me,’ Merlin replied, his eyes smoldering. He raised his hands and they turned to fire for a moment. I thought he meant to cast me into the fires of hell. Then he sank back into his chair and in a voice bitter with self-loathing said, ‘No, you do not understand. How c
ould you?’ It was then that he told me of the spell.”

  Tamlin studied his handiwork. The herbs were in place, the candles were lit, the words recalled.

  “Yes,” Tamlin said. “The spell.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  OKAY, NOW DEATH HAD REALLY ticked Tim off. “Oh, I’m so stupid,” he retorted. “Us people, we’re all so bloody stupid. Right. Thanks, then.” Tim stood up, but realized he had nowhere to go.

  Death flipped open the lid of the trunk and started taking things out. A bag of nails. A stack of postcards. Mismatched socks. “I wish you’d stop putting words into my mouth. I don’t think you’re stupid. Not you in particular anyway. Just confused.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Tim muttered.

  “Yep. It is.”

  She continued rummaging. It infuriated Tim. She was so casual. This was big stuff to him. Didn’t she get it?

  “You don’t have to worry about anything,” he said in an accusing tone.

  “Nope. I don’t. Oh, look! I found it!” She held up an envelope and grinned.

  Tim didn’t care what she had found. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to what he was saying. She was more concerned about that stupid little envelope than she was about him.

  “Nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to. Not adults, not fairies—nobody!” Tim complained. “And you can’t get lost, and you know what you’re doing and stuff. You have your weird mission.” He shook his head and glared at her. “You’re so happy, it’s bizarre.”

  “Weird mission?” She laughed. “That’s pretty good.” Finally her expression grew more serious and she looked straight at him. “Tim,” she said, “everything you said is true. Maybe you should ask yourself—” She cut herself off and looked as if she were hearing something in the distance. “Oops, too late. Sorry, Tim. It’s weird mission time.”

  Tim gaped at her. She was just about to tell him something important and she was leaving? “B-b-b-but—it’s not fair!” he sputtered.

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “It’s not.”

  Tim collapsed as everything went all black and swirly again.

  The pain, Tamlin thought. It is only pain. Soon it will end. The death he would have died is mine now. Tamlin moaned in agony, writhing in his thronelike chair. When the sacrifice is done, my life will be his.

  “Tamlin?” Death appeared in front of him. “You can let go now.”

  Her voice was gentle and true, the tones bell like. Tamlin felt himself rise out of his body and go to her.

  “Lady? Will the child be—”

  “Oh, Tim will be fine,” the woman assured him. She cocked her head to one side. “It’s too bad the two of you couldn’t talk a while, though. There was something he wanted to ask you.”

  Tamlin gazed down on his son. Already, the life Tamlin had sacrificed was now reanimating the boy. Tim’s limbs untwisted, color returning to his skin.

  “Must we leave him here to face Titania alone?” Tamlin turned back to the girl he knew to be the angel of death. “Titania believes she loves me and she will blame him for my death. She will be vicious. Cruel.”

  “Tim will handle it,” Death said. “You’d be surprised at that boy’s resources. Let’s go.”

  Tamlin nodded, and then they were gone.

  Tim stirred. His movement toppled a candle, dripping hot wax on his hands. “Ouch!” he exclaimed. He sat up and took in his surroundings, confused. “Huh? If this is supposed to be my funeral, someone’s going to be disappointed.”

  He swung his legs over the side of the platform he was laid out upon and dropped to the floor. “How did I get back to this place?” he wondered as he gazed around the manticore’s mansion. “Someone should recommend a good maid service,” he commented, kicking aside some broken glass.

  Now I just have to remember where the door is, Tim thought as he made his way through the mess. He froze when he saw the twisted figure in the thronelike chair.

  His heart thudded. He recognized that leather gauntlet, that long hair. Suddenly he realized what must have happened.

  “You jerk!” Tim shouted. He stumbled to Tamlin’s twisted, dead body. “Why did you do it? I was dying just fine and you had to go and butt in.”

  He sank down beside the chair and wept. Hard, rasping sobs racked his body in waves. He felt for the Opening Stone Tamlin had given him, and he cried for his dad in London and for this father he had just discovered, who had sacrificed himself for him. For all of his own confusion, and sorrow, and exhaustion.

  Finally, depleted, raw, he wiped his face with his T-shirt. He leaned against the chair and hugged himself. He felt so cold. Tim felt as if he knew even less now. Understood nothing at all. All he could think was how much he wanted to see Molly. He shut his eyes, still holding the stone, and fell into sleep, exhausted.

  When he awoke again, he was back in his room in London and the phone was ringing. The Opening Stone was still in his hand.

  Disoriented, he automatically picked up the receiver. “Hello?” he said, his voice rough and hoarse.

  “Tim?” Molly said. “Are you okay?”

  “What?”

  “Did you talk to your dad yet?” she asked. “About, you know, what we talked about a little while ago?”

  “When?” He knew he sounded like a right idiot, but she was confusing him. Wasn’t his conversation with her days ago?

  “Tim, what’s going on? You seemed sort of all right when you left here an hour ago. Now you sound shook up again. What did your dad say to you?”

  An hour ago? Then Tim remembered that time went all funny in magical realms.

  “You promised to ring me after you talked to your dad. Have you done it yet?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ve talked to him. Sorry not to have gotten back to you—I got a little caught up in something.”

  “So is it true?” Molly asked.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Tim replied. He put a hand in his pocket, and his fingers wrapped around something that felt like paper. He pulled a small envelope out of his pocket. Tim stared at it. “What’s this?”

  “What’s what?” Molly asked.

  “Nothing,” Tim said. He opened the envelope that he realized he had last seen in Death’s apartment. The thing she’d been looking for. For some reason, she had given it to him. He poured out the contents into his hand. They looked like seeds. How weird.

  “Listen, I think I should probably go now,” Tim said.

  “Do you want to come over?” she offered. “I could make you some tea. Mum swears it has calming effects.”

  He did want to see her, but there was something he wanted to do, and he figured he should do it alone. “Nah. It’s late. Your parents would freak if I showed up now. Oh—and Molly?” he added. “To make a really good cup of tea, don’t let the water boil too long.”

  Molly laughed. It was a nice laugh. “Well, expert, I’ll be sure to ask your advice on all cooking matters.” Then her voice grew soft. “If you want to ring back…no matter how late…”

  “Thanks, Molly. I’m okay now.” And he almost felt as if that were true.

  They hung up. Tim stared at the seeds lying on his palm. Closing his hand around them, he tiptoed out of the house. All of the lights were out. His dad must have already gone to bed.

  The streets were dark and cold, but Tim barely felt it. He moved quickly, sticking to the shadows, because the dark was where he felt stronger right now. He covered ground quickly and finally arrived at the cemetery.

  Never letting go of the seeds, he hoisted himself up and over the gate. He dropped onto the icy dirt and crept toward the familiar little mound.

  He knelt at his mother’s grave and gazed at her tombstone. “Hey, Mum. I really wish you could tell me how this all happened. But I guess it doesn’t really matter now, does it? You’re gone. Tamlin is gone. But I’m still here. And no matter how it happened, you meeting up with a man who is also a hawk, I mean, well, I guess I’m still me. Nothing changes
that.”

  Tim cleared a spot of dirt on top of his mother’s resting place. He dug a shallow hole and sprinkled the seeds into it before covering them up.

  He sat a moment longer, enjoying the dark night, enjoying the feeling of being alive. Then he stood on much steadier legs than he’d had when he arrived. “Good-bye,” he said to the tombstone. “For now.”

  He left the cemetery without a backward glance. Still, he couldn’t help wondering as he made his way back home in the dark, what he had just planted. What would grow from those seeds?

  And what would become of all of his new knowledge? And new questions? Discovering that your dad wasn’t really your dad, what impact would that have—on both of them? And knowing that his real father had sacrificed himself so that Tim might live…Tim shook his head. How was he ever going to process that one?

  Tim turned a corner, and the angle of a street lamp illuminated his reflection in a darkened store window. He stopped and stared at himself.

  “So, Timothy Hunter, who are you?” he asked himself. “That’s okay, go all closemouthed,” he teased his reflection. “Or are you just keeping things close to the vest? Probably a good idea in these strange times.” He grinned. “Maybe you’re not as dumb as you look, Hunter.”

  Hunter. Tim realized that his last name was Hunter only because his mother had married Mr. Hunter. If she’d married Tamlin, Tim’s name would be…what?

  It dawned on him. Timothy Hunter, then, couldn’t be his “true” name. It was just what he was “called.”

  So what was his real name?

  “No, thank you,” he told his reflection. “I’ve had enough of questions for the time being.”

  He headed home. For once, he let his mind empty and simply enjoyed the fact that the cold air reminded him that he had lungs, and that the night sky was full of stars, and that somehow, he had saved an entire world.