“I know. Now go back into your body and hold the light for humanity. I will return for you in sixty-three years.”
Suddenly, I was back in my body. The lofty cathedral-like space, Zelena, and all the beautiful beings were gone. I was back in the cavern.
“Autumn,” Rocco calls.
I open my eyes and look at his pale concerned face. “Rocco,” I breathe.
“Why are you crying?” he murmurs.
I touch his face sadly. “Because I have seen the tyranny that is coming on earth.”
He frowns. “What did you see?”
“The singularity,” I explain. “The point where human and machine intelligence becomes indistinguishable, and humanity is plugged into a global A.I. network. There will be no privacy or freedom, and all humans will be born slaves.”
“Yes,” he confirms gravely, “that is what our ancient books have foretold.”
“But it doesn’t have it to be that way,” I say fiercely. “The future is not set in stone. We can still change it.”
Our conversation is interrupted by a wet sound coming from one of the bodies of his family. I sit up and see their bodies moving jerkily as more and more blood clots come out of their mouths.
“Stay here,” Rocco instructs, as he stands. I notice, to my surprise, that the deep cut on his wrist has completely healed over. The same has happened to me. All my wounds have healed without a trace.
I don’t look as he stabs them in the heart with Zelena’s silver dagger. One by one, they breathe their last. Then he comes to stand over me.
“It’s finished,” he says softly. Then he holds out the little pendant I had torn from my neck and flung to the ground.
I curl my fingers around it and bring it to my cheek.
“Can you walk?”
I stand, and it appears as if I have suffered no ill-effects at all from everything that has happened. “Yes, I can walk.”
“Let’s go,” he says, as he gently gathers Zelena’s inert body into his arms. We go upstairs and find the main room is full of people. They are beautifully dressed and in a celebratory mood. When they see us, they turn pale and shrink back as if they are afraid of us.
Frozen with horror, they watch us walk out of the castle.
Chapter 69
Autumn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjrOcrisGyI
-Up Where We Belong-
I do not know how Rocco managed it but we are allowed to bring Zelena’s body with us back to the States. William opens the door for us.
“Welcome back, my Lord, Miss Delaney,” he says, stepping back from the front door. His voice is as polite as it always was, but his eyes shine with a secret joy.
Rocco nods at him. “It’s good to see you again, William.”
William swallows so hard, his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “At your service, my Lord.”
Before we let ourselves feel the relief we have of coming home we bury Zelena. In the darkness, Rocco himself digs a grave in a special spot in a sunny corner of the garden facing south, so I can see her from our bedroom every day I wake.
Rocco holds my hand as I say a prayer for her. I can’t help the tear that runs down my face. I understand that she has finished her job on earth and I understand I will see her again, but she was my guardian angel. Rocco wipes away the tear with his thumb.
Then we walk back to the house hand in hand.
We go upstairs and lay on the bed. I turn to look at Rocco. The soft light from the lamp falls on his cheekbones making them glow. God, I love this man so much there are butterflies in my belly.
“It feels as if a lifetime has passed since I was last here,” I breathe.
“You’ll never know how terrible I felt when I saw that man drive away with you. The helpless rage I felt when I couldn’t come after you. I never want to be without you again, Autumn. It was unbearable.”
“Oh, Rocco. I’m sorry I made you suffer, but you’ll never be without me again, my love. I belong to you.”
He rises from the bed and goes to his cupboard. He opens it and comes back holding a black box. I sit up and watch as he opens it and puts it in front of me. There is a diamond ring inside. It looks very old and very valuable.
“Where did you get this from?” I murmur, staring at the stunning stone.
“From my art dealer. I didn’t think I would ever be able to give it to you, but I accidentally saw it in his suitcase when he came to show me a new work of art he’d acquired for me.”
“So it’s not a family heirloom. You bought it for me?” I ask, looking up into his face.
“Will you marry me, Autumn Delaney?”
I exhale in a rush, and start grinning from ear to ear. “Thought you’d never ask, Count Rossetti.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, that is a big, fat yes,” I shout happily, flinging my arms around his neck and clinging to him like a monkey and kissing him. He tastes like home. Finally, he is mine. And only mine.
Eventually, he puts me down on the bed and slips the ring on to my finger. “I love you, Autumn. I never thought I could love someone the way I love you. Without you, life has no meaning. I was ready to end it all if things went wrong in Scotland.”
I wind my fingers in his silky hair. “I know exactly how you felt. I didn’t know how I would carry on without you in God knows where.”
“We will never be apart again.”
“Does that mean… we can stop using condoms?”
He laughs, a rich dark sound. “Yes, I’ve been alone so long I want at least a dozen children running these lonely hallways.”
“You better get started then, hadn’t you?” I say cheekily, pulling my t-shirt over my head. Out of respect for Zelena’s body we haven’t had sex since we left the castle and I’m dying to have him inside me.
“Thought you’d never ask?” he says, reaching for his belt.
I take off my skirt and underwear and stare up at him as he undresses then, crouches down in front of me. Spreading my legs apart he impales me, his buck naked, hard shaft ramming into me so suddenly that there isn’t time for me to adjust to his size. It shocks me into a long whimper of submission.
That drags a rumbling animal growl from his throat.
I love the way his skin feels inside me. Like hot silk. Every inch of me feels like it is on fire. My hips push upwards as my hands grab his firm, strong buttocks and shove him deeper into me, our bodies slam together and he is in, balls deep. At that moment I feel a flash of primal possession. He fought for me and now he is mine.
And only mine.
I scratch my nails down his spine like a wildcat and wrap him so tightly to me it feels as if we are melded together. I know exactly what I want. I want every last inch of him inside me. I need to feel him in the depths of my belly.
“Make yourself come,” he orders. His cock swells and jerks inside me.
“Do it,” he growls.
I arch my back, press into him, and grind myself against his pubic bone until I feel a knot forming in my stomach. Just as I am about to climax, he slips his hands under me, lifts me up and begins to slam into me. All his frustrations, his fear, his anxiety about losing me is in those raging thrusts. I welcome it and he goes wild, fucking me like a feral beast until even the veins in his temples bulge.
The burn inside me turns into raging flames.
“Rocco,” I cry lustily, my whole body jerking under his.
I claw at the sheets. It feels as if my body is shattering into a million pieces, but every little piece is waiting. Then it happens… the waiting is over.
His hot cum spills deep inside me, and my body clenches as if it wants to keep and give life to everyone of those precious seeds.
I feel as if I am the luckiest girl alive. I watch his face, contorted with desire, his eyes like frozen lakes of blue. Little by little I will discover what lives in those frozen lakes.
I have sixty-three years to do so.
Chapter 70
Autumn
Two days later
The Parallel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgkThdzX-8
-Imagine-
“Remember, Autumn, that not everyone will take up the offer to leave the Parallel.”
“Why not?”
“Because, my love, some people value safety more than freedom.”
“I think you’re wrong. Everyone in the parallel is going to want to come to the surface. Why wouldn’t they? They have been stuck underground for all their miserable lives.”
Together we walk to the town square. All the residents are already gathered there to hear what the announcement is going to be. Rocco goes up on the makeshift stage and tells them about the surface of the earth. He tells them they are free to choose to live here underground or to go up to the surface and try to make their own way in life. It will be difficult, he warns them, but it will be worth it. There is so much to see and do.
When he finishes speaking, a hush falls over the crowd. “Who wants to come up with us to the surface?” he asks.
For a few seconds, no one moves. I stare at them astonished. I had thought there would be a stampede of people wanting to go up to the surface. There isn’t. Then the redhead, April, starts moving to the front.
“I’ll go to the surface,” she says.
Slowly, in twos and threes other people join her, but the majority decide to remain where they are. The thought of the surface scares them. They didn’t want change. They just wanted life to go on as it had been yesterday and the day before.
As Rocco had guessed they valued their safety more than freedom.
I look at the group of about twenty people. They look a little afraid, as if it might be a trick. I smile at them. They are my first handful of sand. I will teach them what the beings taught me. I will teach them to love themselves and each other so much that even the idea of filling their bodies with nanobots connecting to a global super brain will be an unthinkable aberrance. The beach will be moved.
Epilogue
Autumn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q
-Hallelujah-
There are many things I find out about him. He knew the great Michelangelo Buonarroti and he was actually friends with my idol, Leonardo Da Vinci. He taught me about the many hidden messages in Leonardo’s work. Secret images that you could only see in the mirror. Images of beings.
I find out that when he is really happy his cheeks become pink. They became pink when I told him I was pregnant, and they remained pink and flushed all through our wedding day.
Ah, our wedding.
I’d always thought I’d wear a simple white dress (I hate the meringue look) on a bright summer day. I’d never imagined I’d wear the most fabulous dusky-gold, custom made dress with a train so long it needed April to walk behind and keep adjusting it and get married in the middle of the night.
I thought since I didn’t have any close family to speak of, it would just be a few old friends from school, and work, I never thought the entire church would be packed with people neither Rocco nor I knew. They were beings with the same spiritual mission as me who had turned up to witness our union.
“Who are all these people?” Larry whispered in my ear.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back, mystified.
But I felt their love radiating into me as Larry walked me down the aisle. Rocco was turned towards me. I looked into Rocco’s breath-taking eyes and I felt as if I must be in the most fantastic dream. How could I be so lucky?
“Do you Autumn Delaney take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do.” Of course, I do. Do you not see what a spectacular man he is?
The beings who filled the church pews filed out silently afterwards. There was no need for words.
We flew to Paris for our honeymoon. I loved Paris by night. If you don’t count the dreadful abduction episode, I’d never been outside the States and it was such an adventure. I didn’t think much of French men, they were not Marlboro men, that for sure, but the women had a style all of their own. Even when they wore jeans they wore them with red lipstick and a flair that I never saw back home.
Rocco could speak French. Actually, he could speak Italian, Latin, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Persian, Aramaic, quite a few German dialects, and even languages that have since been lost to time.
Rocco’s personal assistant, Gabriel had arranged for me to shop at some exclusive boutiques at night. I needed two new suitcases to pack my new wardrobe. Birkin bags and spectacular silk scarves from Hermes, classy houndstooth patterned suits from Channel, sexy leather pants from Versace, and knee-length boots from Louis Vuitton. I felt so incredibly spoilt I actually felt guilty.
“Don’t,” he said. “How can you begrudge me the pleasure of spending money on you.”
Gabriel had also arranged, and paid a great deal of money, for the Louvre to be opened just for us to have a night tour of it. Alone, we wandered around the rooms. He knew so much. I listened to his hypnotic voice tell about the different artists, he knew so many of them and I felt so much love for him I felt as if I was floating on air.
“Mmmm…” I couldn’t help uttering, when the delicious smell of crepes cooking filled my nostrils. Vanilla, eggs, and chocolate. It was coming from a stall across the street. A man in a striped t-shirt and jaunty cap was making them.
“Would you like one?” he asked.
I immediately shook my head. I knew he could not eat them. They were poison to him.
“Why not?”
“Not hungry,” I said with a big smile.
“Liar,” he teased. “You’re dying to have some.”
“For your information, I’m not dying to have it. I just commented on the smell,” I denied haughtily.
“Let’s get this straight,” he said. “Never deny yourself anything because I can’t have it. That would break my heart. I want you to have everything you want.”
“I don’t want the crepe,” I said softly.
“Okay then. I want you to have it. Are you going to deny me the pleasure of seeing you eat one?”
So it came about that he bought me a crepe filled with bananas and chocolate sauce, and we sat on a bench so I could eat it.
“I feel really bad about this,” I said chewing my bottom lip.
He gazed into my eyes with amazement. “Do you really think I give any importance to eating a street crepe? It is nothing to me. I have you and everything else is superfluous. If I have it, I have it, if I don’t, I don’t. Now will you please eat the damn thing before it becomes cold.”
In our room later, I lay next to him, satiated and asked him. “Rocco, what will happen when I start to age and you don’t?”
He turned to look at me. “Then I’ll fall utterly and completely in love with your wrinkles.”
“I’m being serious here,” I mock scolding.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Imagine you are me. You are going to live forever, but the only thing you love in the world is going to be taken away from you in sixty-three years and there is not a thing you can do about it.”
My eyes popped open and I stared at him with pity.
He nodded. “Do you get it now?”
I nodded silently.
“I have enjoyed every precious second of our time together and I’m going to keep doing that.”
“Okay,” I whispered and wrapped my arms around him. At that moment I loved him, more than I had thought was possible. But I was wrong, because as the years went by, I loved him even more.
And my great love was never ending. It just kept on growing and growing.
Sixty-three years later
Rocco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048
Jerusalema ikhaya lami(Jerusalem is my home)
Ngilondoloze(Guard me),
Uhambe nami(Walk with me)
Ndawo yami ayikho lana(My place is not here)
Mbuso wami awukho lana(My kingdom is not he
re)
I didn’t attend her funeral. It was held in the day, but our children and grandchildren did. Now that the sun has set I stand by her grave and lay flowers on the fresh dirt. She didn’t suffer. She wasn’t sick. She simply said, “My darling, it’s nearly time.”
We never slept that whole night. I didn’t want to miss her passing. At four in the morning she turned towards the door, and smiled. “You have come.”
I didn’t have to look towards the door to know there was no one there. She turned her gaze back to me.
“I have to go,” she whispered.
She saw the tears in my eyes, and she whispered. “I’ll wait for you.”
I nodded, I couldn’t speak. I held her hand tightly as if I could stop her slipping away. I couldn’t. She slipped away. I lay my head on her silent chest until it was morning. Then I made arrangements for her funeral.
Some small animal scurries in the dark behind me. No point standing here. She is not here under the dirt. Slowly, I turn away and begin to walk towards my car. The air is scented with night flowers. I breathe in their sweet scent and feel no pleasure. I get into my car and drive to my home.
We have moved homes every twenty years. It was hard to stop people from being curious about the man who never ages and the couple who never go out in the day. I put the window down and drive fast, very fast. The wind rushes into my face and that gives me no pleasure either.
I get home, and there are lights in some of the rooms. Some of the staff must have stayed. William died ten years ago. Sometimes I miss him. I go to the bar and pour myself a whisky. It gives me no pleasure.
“Can I get you something to eat?” Miriam, my housekeeper asks.
“No, thank you.”
“Goodnight, my Lord,” she says and withdraws quietly.
The Other Side Of Midnight Page 25
