Echoes & Silence Part 1

by Angela M Hudson

  “We are happy. But I still feel…” My eyes wandered absently to the roaring fireplace, settling there while my mind focused hard on that empty place inside me. “There’s still a hole there where David used to be.”

  Em’s delicate hand patted my knee. “There always will be.”

  “I just keep thinking that if I could’ve gotten through to him last time we spoke, maybe I could’ve changed the way things ended, you know?”

  “Like, how?”

  Good question. “I just wanted to make him understand. I mean, he hides behind his anger, but he’s gotta be hurting pretty bad, Em—for what I did to him. And then he just up and left; no previous planning. Just a ‘sudden’ need to sort things out at the Ninth Order. Who does that?”

  “A new king with a lot to sort out,” she said simply.

  “Yeah, okay. Fair enough. But normally people plan these things out.”

  “So, you think he left because he hates you?”

  I didn’t want to think that. But my inner voice sure as hell didn’t care what I wanted. “I just think he feels really alone right now, like he has no one to turn to.”

  “And you care how he feels?”

  “Of course I care. I don’t want anyone feeling like shit.”

  “Especially not someone you love, right?” she said with her voice, but her eyes asked a different question. I decided to answer the second one.

  “It’s over between us,” I said with my voice, but my heart was running through the forest, screaming out for Lilith and telling her… No. Scratch that. That wasn’t an option. Jason and I were fated. David hated me. And I just had to accept that and move on.

  Emily puffed her cheeks up, blowing a long breath out through tiny holes on the corners of her lips. “One day, he’ll come to you, Ara—when he’s had time to heal. And only then is it time to talk to him about it all and maybe mend some bridges. Until then, he just has to feel like shit for a while. It’s a part of the process.”

  “I do know that. I just feel sad for him is all—the fact that he had to run away to the other side of the universe to get some space.”

  “Paris is the other side of the universe?” She smirked.

  “It feels that far away.”

  We both looked out the library window then and sat in silence for a very long time, just watching the pale blue glow on the horizon change to a lighter gray as the dawn approached. I could hear Blade in the corridor outside at his guard post, thumbing away on his phone, but the rest of the manor was in almost complete silence. Only slight murmurs of staff setting up for breakfast broke the stillness on occasion. Until a familiar and very stern, deep voice said my name.

  Em and I started to attention, eyeing each other like rabbits listening for hunters, before slowly turning to look over our shoulders.

  I put my book on the table beside Emily, praying for words to come. “David, I didn’t realize you were back.”

  He walked in from the doorway with a stack of packages under his arm, his hands tucked into his pockets. “I just arrived.”

  “Did you take care of everything in Paris?” I asked, breaking contact from those breathtaking eyes: they were so intense in this light, his lashes thick and dark, framing the vibrant emerald city like a black night. But the stern set of his jaw and his tight lips only offered that same ugly detest he’d had there when he left, and it threw me off guard in an unnerving way.

  “These are for you,” he said, ignoring my question.

  I took the seven-or-so parcels and fingered through them. “What are they?”

  “Post. Mail sent to the Ninth Order. They held onto them rather than couriering them to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was easier if I brought them back with me.”

  “Oh.” I looked at the address on an envelope, then at the giant square package. “These are from Vicki and Dad. I’ve been trying to contact them.”

  “It seems they’ve been trying to contact you.”

  “What do they say?” I asked, sliding my finger under the lip of an envelope—the oldest one.

  “I don’t know, Ara. I didn’t read them,” he said dully. “They aren’t addressed to me.”

  “Yes, they are.” I showed him the envelope. “They say, To Mr. and Mrs. Knigh—” I stopped then, his surname falling out of my lips like an insult. I didn’t mean for it to dredge up our lost future, but I guess it just wrapped up all the hurt and the betrayal in one sentence then slapped him in the face with it.

  He turned away stiffly. “I need to unpack.”

  I winced at Emily, wrinkling my nose until David disappeared. “Oops.”

  She pulled the same kind of face. “I’ll go see if he’s okay.”

  “Okay,” I said, and slid open Vicki’s letter, shaking my head at myself. But before my eyes read the Dear Ara and David, they swept suddenly down the page, seeing the words heart and attack.

  I sat up, shoving everything in my lap to the floor, reading the letter then almost too fast to comprehend.

  Dear Ara and David,

  I’ve been trying so hard to reach you. Calls, text, and I’ve had no response, so I’m afraid this letter comes with bad news. Your dad had a heart attack last night. He’s in hospital. He’s stable. But that keeps changing. Sam’s here, but we’d really like it if you could come.

  The page shook so savagely I could hardly make out the date on the top, but it was clearly sent over three weeks ago.

  “No. No, no, no,” I muttered, falling to my knees above the pile of mail. My hands pushed envelopes and packages aside quickly, sorting through until I found one dated two days after the first letter. I ripped it open, tearing the paper inside a little.

  Dear Ara and David,

  Where are you? No one has been able to reach you or Mike or even Emily. I sent six emails, but they all said the same thing: invalid address.

  I checked the email address she’d written down under that and, sure enough, she missed a digit. She must have been using her own email account to send them because, if she’d gone into Dad’s, she could have simply replied to an email I’d sent.

  Did you change your number? she wrote. Please call. Dad is okay. He made it through, but they’re keeping him in hospital for a while. He woke up last night for a few minutes and begged me not to worry you—told me he’d be okay. But I think you should come. The doctor said there’s a very high chance he could have another heart attack, Ara. I’m worried. I’ll never forgive myself if he dies and you don’t get to say goodbye.

  My chest rose and fell in panic, the sound echoing so loudly through the room that Blade left his guard post and came in. “Ara? What is it?”

  I handed him the letters as I ripped open the next, my fingers weak and moving slowly.

  Dear Ara, Dad is okay. He’s home now, the next one said, and I burst into tears again, offering the letter to Blade.

  “He’s on strict bed-rest, but we think you should come home anyway. It’s been so long since we’ve seen you,” he read aloud. “Please. Just come home. I know it will make Dad so happy to see you both again. He misses you terribly, Ara.” Blade stopped reading and passed back the letter, sitting down on the floor beside me, his long, thin arms wrapping me up in a tight embrace.

  “Why hasn’t she called?” I cried.

  “Have you called her?”

  “I can’t get through. I just figured everything was okay, you know—I…” I bit my knuckle. “I’ve gone four weeks without speaking to them before. I just didn’t think anything of it.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Blade rubbed firm circles over my back. “Why not give her a call now?”

  I nodded, reaching in to my back pocket to get my phone. But when I dialed the number and put it to my ear, it went to message bank.

  “What is it?” Blade asked.

  “She’s not answering.”

  “Try Sam,” he suggested.

  My face dropped. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “T
hat’s what you’ve got me for.” He grinned.

  Sam’s phone rang only once before he picked up. “Ara!”

  “Sam. Is Dad okay? I only just got the letters. I’ve been trying to call, but Vicki’s phone goes straight to—”

  “I know,” he cut in. “It got stolen at the Cardiologist’s office a few weeks ago. She has a new number.”

  “Why didn’t you send it to me?”

  “I did! I sent it to David.”

  “He’s been away on business! His phone’s been off for three weeks.”

  “Why would his phone be off?” he yelled back.

  “Because he was in—” I stopped just before saying Paris, then going on to say he didn’t have International Roaming. But that would sound weird considering we supposedly lived in Paris. “Okay,” I said quietly, simmering down a bit. “I don’t wanna argue, Sam. Just… is Dad okay?”

  “He’s—he sleeps all the time, and… he looks really old, Ara, like he’s sixty or something, and skinny,” he said in a shaky voice. “He’s not doing as well as he should be.”

  “Where’s Vicki? Are you at home right now, can you—”

  “Hang on,” he said, and I heard a lot of shuffling, followed by footfalls on stairs, then the sound of the blender in the kitchen stopping suddenly.

  “Ara!” Vicki screeched down the line. “Oh, God. I’ve been so worried. I thought maybe something had happened to David, I—”

  “No, he’s fine, Vicki. We’re all fine. I’m so sorry we worried you. I only just got your letters.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Ara, you must have been terrified. But he’s okay,” she assured me. “He’s looking great and he feels so much better now.”

  “That’s not what Sam says.”

  There was a long pause. “I… I think you should come home tonight.”

  “Vicki, is he—”

  “He should make a full recovery. But he needs to see you. He misses you terribly.”

  I nodded, sliding up and sitting in the big old armchair. “I’ll book a flight and be there in a few days, okay.”

  “Good. And…” she added. “How are you and David? Are you coping all right after the news?”

  News? “Oh, his diagnosis?”

  “Yeah, have they done any more tests?”

  “Um, yes, actually, and…” I could feel the true joy radiate through me for the fact that he no longer had to die. “They were wrong, Vicki—”

  “What!?”

  “He’s gonna be okay.”

  “What? Oh, Ara, I can’t believe it. That’s so fantastic. And it’s just the kind of news we need right now. Oh, your dad will be so happy to hear that,” she said, and I could hear the noise in the background of a spoon scraping something plastic. I pictured her with the phone between her shoulder and ear, scooping cake mix into a pan.

  “I know. And we have more good news, too.”

  She gasped. “You’re pregnant!”

  “How did you—”

  “Oh, my gosh! You are. Oh, Ara, congratulations. How far along are you?”

  “Um, well, it turns out that, last time we spoke, I was actually already pregnant. So, I’m twenty weeks now.”

  “How wonderful. Did you have an ultrasound? Do you know what you’re having?”

  “Um, yeah,” I lied. “We’re having a girl.” I pulled the phone away from my ear while Vicki squealed. Nothing of what she said after that was comprehensible.

  “Ara?” Sam said, clearly having been passed the phone.

  “Still here.”

  “She’s hysterical.” He laughed. “And congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Will you tell Dad for me?”

  “No way. That’s something you need to tell him.”

  “Ara.” Sam suddenly turned into Vicki. “I agree. You should just show Dad when you get here. He’ll be so happy. I’ll tell him about David, but we’ll keep the surprises to a minimum for one day, okay.”

  “You worried he’ll have another heart attack if he finds out I’m having a baby?” I joked.

  “Oh, Ara, no. Of course not. I—”

  “I was joking, Mom.”

  “Oh.” She stayed silent for a second. “Well, he’ll be thrilled, just as I am. And… did you get the package?”

  “Package?”

  “Yeah, the big square one.”

  “The one that looks like a book?”

  “Yes,” she said excitedly. “Open it while I’m on the phone. I want to hear your reaction.”

  “Okay,” I said, frowning up at Blade. I’d half-forgotten he was there. He handed me the package and helped me, with my one free hand, to rip the brown paper off, and when I saw the words David and Ara’s Wedding on the front cover, I drew a breath so shaky that Vicki laughed.

  “I thought you might like that,” she said.

  The spine cracked a little as I slowly drew the cover back and laid eyes on the very first page.

  “Now, there’s not many there,” Vicki explained. “It’s all we could get since you two ran away from your own wedding, but we gathered everything friends and family had taken, too, and it was just enough to put an album together for you.”

  “Vicki, it’s—” I covered my mouth, catching my tears before they dripped on the paper. I’d never seen David in a photo before, except for the war pictures at the museum, and to see us both so happy on a page right in front of my eyes made the last few weeks pile down on me like a collapsed building. “It’s amazing.”

  “I’m so happy you like it. Now, you just enjoy those, and I’ll start making up the spare room for you and David.”

  I snapped out of the awe I was in. “David?”

  “Yes, I assume you’ll bring him home to see Dad?”

  “I—” Oh, crap. Blade and I looked at each other. “Um, yeah, sure. If he’s not busy.”

  “He’s not too busy to see his sick father-in-law. You tell him that for me.”

  “O…kay. Sure,” I said.

  “Great. I’ll see you in a few days. Call us once the flights are booked.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, bye now.”

  “Bye.” I hung up the phone and lowered my head dramatically, letting out a huge huff.

  “Damn,” Blade said.

  “Uh, yup. That’s gonna be awkward.”

  Blade laughed, patting my shoulder. “You’ll get through it. Are you okay?”

  I nodded, looking down at the second picture in the album: one of me stepping out onto the porch in my wedding dress. So many emotions came flooding into my heart for everything I was then and everything that followed. I was so innocent and naive. I could never have imagined what waited for me just half an hour away from that simple and perfect moment and, on the happiest day of my life, I should never have had to. I was exactly as innocent and naive as I should have been.

  “You were a beautiful bride.”

  “Yeah, pity I can never pass my dress down to my daughter, though.” I touched my belly. “Jason butchered it.”

  Blade sat down on the arm of the chair, quietly looking over the picture. “I’m sorry, Ara. I wish I’d been in your Guard back then. None of that would ever have happened to you.”

  “It’s in the past.” I smiled, turning the page.

  “Oh, look at that.” He pointed to another picture of my dad and Mike. “Mike looked younger then, don’t you think?”

  I laughed. “He’d been through a lot less stress.”

  “Yeah, poor bastard.” We both flipped the page again and, there, smiling back up at us, as if nothing bad had ever happened, was David. His eyes were small with a sparkle and his teeth were showing under his smooth dark-pink lips; it was one of the most honest and open-hearted smiles I’d ever seen on him, and it was captured perfectly right here for me to keep for eternity.

  “This must have been taken before the wedding,” I said, smoothing my fingers over his perfect face.

  “He looks pretty darn happy.”

  “He was.” I nod
ded. “It’s—”

  “What are you doing?” David said from behind, peering over my shoulder.

  I snapped the book shut and spun in my chair. “David, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Clearly,” Morgaine added, stepping into view.

  Blade’s jaw came down on one side, his black eyes saturated with the tension we all suddenly felt.

  “Blade,” David said, his shoulders going straight as a ruler all the way across. “You can leave.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” He shook his head apologetically at me and bowed to the king, then wandered out of the room. He didn’t stay by the door, though—he continued onward, disappearing completely.

  I quietly wondered what he was doing, but only until David reached into my lap and snatched the book.

  “Hey! Give that back,” I demanded, springing to my feet.

  He flipped through it for a second, more disgusted by each page, then stopped to look over at Morgaine. “Throw it in the fire,” he muttered, handing it to her.

  “No!” I reached across and snatched it back before her traitorous paws got anywhere near it. “You can’t just throw it away because you don’t love me anymore.”

  “Watch me.” He yanked it so forcefully from my hands that I stumbled forward, grasping at the air it left behind.

  “No! David, please,” I yelled. “I know you hate me, but that’s our wedding album.”

  “And it shouldn’t exist,” he said coldly, tearing out the first page as he stomped toward the fireplace.

  “Don’t.” I ran forward, making it just within reach of the book when Morgaine rushed in and yanked me backward, pinning my arms behind me. “Let me go.”

  “No,” she said smugly, then looked at David. “Don’t worry, My King. I’ve got her. You go ahead and do what you have to.”

  “David! Please don’t,” I screeched, but he lowered his arm toward the flames as though I wasn’t even in the room, as though tears weren’t streaming down my face right before his eyes, and let the first page float downward, the corner catching fire as it neared the heat and then igniting before it even came to rest. “No.”