She climbed into the bed and I held my two precious girls who have suffered so much and yet have allowed their hearts to open to me and we all three held little Lucy upon my chest and were soon asleep.
1421
Chapter One Hundred One
“Eddie, would you like to have your original body back?”
“I would Robert, but not now. To abandon this body would not be right. Not after the sacrifice that was made by the original owner.”
“I hope you are not still torturing yourself with guilt Eddie. You are no longer the man who did… Eddie, I’ve just had a crazy idea.”
“You have? If you find it crazy then, at the least, it must be quite interesting!”
“You tease, but I think you will not be in the mood for teasing when I tell you my idea. It may be a bit of a shock though, shall I go ahead?”
He looked at me, his eyes now very serious. “If you are about to shock me…go ahead my friend.”
“What if we bring a cell from your original body and place you back in your own body, but at the same time we also collect the soul of the child you displaced and give his body back to him. It would have to be rejuvenated back to his age of that time.”
From the stunned look on his face I saw the idea had never crossed his mind. I was about to give him the time he needed to recover, but he became almost childishly eager for it do be done immediately.
“Robert, I have lived with the guilt for so long and expected to die with it. If you would do this for me, for that child…could you bring him back at a younger age than he was? It would be difficult for him to adapt as a ten year old. If you can return him as a child of about three then I could bring him up as my son. God!! To be able to lavish him with a life filled with love!”
“We can go back and give a second chance to each of the children whose body you took. Would that cleanse you Eddie?”
“What is he talking about Eddie, what children are these?”
“We better give her memories back to her Robert.”
“Hettie, you want that?”
“I have been wondering about it, Robert. Why are you asking, are there terrible things for me to remember?”
“These few days since you came back, I have been thinking about it. Hettie…” I saw the pained look in his eyes. “I’m sorry Eddie, I think it is time. I think we should tell her first. Then when she gets her memories back she will not be so shocked.”
“May I do so?”
“It would be better coming from you. I think you would explain it better.”
They left, went to their bedroom. It did not take long for her feelings to hit us all. At first she did not believe what he was telling her, but as he continued with their life story she began to believe and she was sick with the horror of it. She spent a long time weeping and we felt how distraught Eddie was for she would not allow him to touch her. We felt her resolve grow into a decision strong as steel and were not surprised to see her walk out.
“How could you have done this Robert? I have killed three children and tried to take your daughter as my fourth. How could you have given me back my own body, given me another chance! You should have killed me.”
“Hettie, you are a sixteen year old girl, you see everything in black and white as all teenagers do. What you did, you did not do as a teenager. Life changed you, changed both of you. I think you deserve the chance to live and pay back your debt to those you harmed - do you agree?”
“But how can I?”
1422
“We will come to that. Do you know why I wanted you to be told of what you did, rather than just giving you back your memories?”
“No. I am not sure I want…”
I cut her off sharply. “I did not ask you what you wanted.”
Her retort was almost spoken as she flushed at my tone, angry. She quickly recollected herself and her attitude became meek. “I guess I do not deserve the right to make any decisions. Tell me what you want me to do Robert? How can I pay for all the evil I have done?”
“You are going to don the sack cloth and make yourself suffer as retribution?”
“Please. Speak clearly Robert, I am too shook up to understand what you are trying to say.”
I gave her a grin. “Girls, what do you say, do we let her suffer?” None of them answered for a moment.
“Robbie, this is not Doris, we cannot make her pay, it would not be fair.”
“Thank you. Hettie, do you know who it was that just spoke up for you? That was my daughter, the one whose arms you blew off.” I projected to her a picture of my girl, her eye upon her cheek, holding up her stumps to me. Hettie gagged and rushed off to the bathroom.
“Was that necessary Robert?”
“I’m sorry it pains you Eddie. Yes, it was necessary. Her guilt would not allow her to accept our forgiveness, for she does not think of us as being her victims.”
“I’m sorry, I will not interfere again.”
“Stop being silly Eddie, it is your job to interfere. Same as it is the duty of each Cherinian. She will be a while, she will sit in the bathroom and cry for now, plus she is too ashamed to come out. Would you come into the garden with me for a smoke?”
“She will demand we return her memories, but it will not be because she wants them, to her they will be part of her penance. That will not do Eddie. What I need is to understand what her weaknesses are, to strengthen her so that she need never turn back into what she had become. We’ve only helped her superficially up to now.”
“That is a difficult question. I have spent many years considering it.”
“Part of her weakness was due to her being a child of her times. She grew up, as did you, as part of the higher class, if not aristocratic, then at least wealthy. At that time empathy for the poor was not part of your lives. You felt you deserved the lifestyle you had and so the poor must deserve the lifestyle they had. I am generalising, but do you think I’m on the right track?”
“As a general comment, yes. Even during those times there were people of the upper class who sympathised with the miserable lives of the poor.”
“I am not interested in them Eddie, just the two of you. I would assume these feelings were accentuated by you discovering your powers. As you saw how easy it was to manipulate others, in the beginning you may have done so for their own good, but your contempt for them must have grown, until you no longer felt you needed to justify the manipulations. Not conducive to empathy, is it Eddie? Eddie, it says a lot for you that you were able to break out of that mindset and change.”
“You are not mocking me - I do not understand how you can be so…understanding.”
“It is far too easy Eddie, all it needs is empathy.”
He laughed, but without amusement. “You and your empathy! You are trying to make me stop feeling guilty. I bear the responsibility for all I did Robert, nothing can change that.”
“One thing can. Eddie, you bear the responsibility for how you live your life from hereon. Live it the right way and you absolve yourself of your past. You will have the opportunity to right some of the wrongs. For the wrongs you cannot right? Use your abilities to help others so that the good you have done finally outweighs all else that you did. To do evil now would be the real crime, for you are now aware.”
1423
He was silent a while. “You have a very gentle way of reprimanding. What you are really saying is that the last twenty years I spent cut off from mankind, aware of the evil I had done, but not doing anything to atone, those were my years of guilt.”
I nodded, pleased with him. “I had not thought of it quite that way, but you are right - though I also accept it was part of a process you needed for evolving.”
“Poor Hettie! Your empathy will be a sword.”
“Now you understand why I am walking in the garden trying to find a way to avoid hurting her?”
“You must not Robert. She too must see herself clearly.”
“Her memories will be filled with justifications, she must be able to see them for what they are.”
“I think she will, if her present age and way of thinking is allowed to remain dominant.”
“It will, her memories will be given to her, but they will have the feel of being ‘second-hand’, they will not really feel as if they belong to her. These days she has had as she is, have strengthened her.” I felt Hettie coming out, so I steered us back into the house.
I faced her, “You are going about this in the wrong way. You have returned a meek and defeated little mouse. Hettie, we need that girl of spirit, the one with the fire that made her such a wonderful person.”
“Give me back my memories please. All you have told me I did, none of it seems real. Let me see what I did.”
“You wish to have your memories as a kind of penance. They will enable you to feel guilt and that way you can punish yourself.”
“What are you asking of me!!” she cried out.
“I want you to take your memories for the purpose of understanding yourself, why you did what you did. I want you to take that understanding and use it to change yourself, make your life the best it can be. I want to see you grow over the years, become a lovely woman of love. I want to see your way of life, the softness of your heart, turn you into a Cherinian. We do not ask and it is not necessary for you to ask for atonement. Hettie, atonement is only another form of self love. Accept you did wrong and try to live your life in such a way that you become the best Hettie there could be, and all the ghosts of the past will depart. You may have the chance to give love, do so and that is the best atonement of all - for then your mind and heart are turned outwards towards others, not inwards, examining yourself and checking for a balance you can never achieve. Allow others to love you, even those you wronged and they will make their own peace with the past.”
Cherine and Dommi glanced at each other and giggled. Irritated I glanced at them. “What is so funny?”
Dommi, quick as ever in trying to accept responsibility answered, “I’m sorry Robert, you sounded just like a preacher.”
“I am a preacher, as a matter of fact, I am the head of our church. The Cherinian Church of Empathy.”
Nicko groaned. “Now he appoints himself as our Pope - I suppose he will soon be demanding we kiss his hand.”
“That is the Catholic Pope Nicko. As your Pope it is my duty to kiss your hand, the hand of all Cherinians. Would you like me to start with you?”
Nicko looked alarmed for a moment and then he saw the grin on Cherine’s face and he laughed. “If you really want to turn things around then you should make it the rule that you have to kiss our feet. That would really make your point.”
“That would be cumbersome, you would all soon get fed up of having to take your socks and shoes off every time you see me. Cherine, you were the first Cherinian so it is only fitting you be first now. Come, let me kiss your feet, after that I will be quite happy to kiss the feet of Nicko.”
1424
Eddie softly told his wife, “Hettie love, he has not forgotten you. It is just his way, when things get too intense for him, he starts clowning around.”
That was how easy it was to kill the Cherinian Church of Empathy. I may have enjoyed being it’s Pope for a while - especially the part about kissing their feet; their embarrassment at my doing so would have been a fine joke for me.
“I wish there was a way not to give you back your memories Hettie. If you are to become a full person, attain all you can become, you need them. Apart from the wrongs you committed, you also grew wiser in some ways and a lot of what you learnt should not be thrown away. What of the years of love you and Eddie have shared, those too must remain a part of your lives. Please keep that in mind. Your memories are not being given to you for the purpose of you using them to punish yourself. Use them to grow into a better and stronger person. Build or rebuild, based on whatever was good.
Once they have been transferred to you, we will give you time alone to re-absorb them. Do not use that time to make any decisions - that by the way is an order. You will wait until we sit together again and I will tell you the rest of what I have to say. Then you may make your decisions. Is that understood and agreed?”
“I’ll try.”
“That is all I ask of you sweetie.”
We took her back to the bedroom and she was slowly given back her memories, giving her time to review them in a chronological order, sickening her. When we were finished, I knew she would now need time to review them again and digest them until they become part of her.
“We will leave you now. One more thing Hettie, those of us who have held your memories for you, we did not examine them. They are yours and private to you, so do not fear we know what you did or thought. That is not our way. Eddie, please come with us, she needs time alone.”
Dommi take her supper in to her and next morning Wendy took her breakfast. At lunchtime we took a tray in again.
“Robert, she has not touched any of the food.”
“That is alright Wendy, I did not expect her to. By tonight I think she will be ready for a meal and a talk.”
Actually I had not been monitoring her and to work off the anxiety I had sat at the computer designing new work for Alki. Not anywhere close to my best, just efficiently pleasant, but I was certain he could make use of it.
She showed consideration by proving my prediction true and came out to find every single Cherinian waiting for her.
“I sense a lot of hurt in you Hettie, but I also see growth. Have you kept your word?”
“I have. Why are all these people here Robert?”
“These are the people you wronged. They have all come to give their love if you will accept it. First though and more urgent, those little girls whose bodies you took, do you wish for us to bring them back as I have offered to do for Eddie?”
“He deserved a second chance Robert, he changed on his own. You had to trick me to change me, I have not proven I deserve another chance.”
“Do those girls deserve another chance? Then what has it got to do with what you deserve? Just thinking of yourself again?”
Her cheeks turned red. “I did not mean it that way.”
“Well, I did mean what I said. You turn inwards to find ways to punish yourself and you will achieve nothing. Turn outwards, be prepared to give love and you will find peace. The girls and boys we bring back, they will need a mother and father to look after them and love them. Are you willing to be their mother?”
1425
“I swear I will look after them as if they were my children.”
“I’m sorry Eddie, I will have to find others to look after them. I want them to be loved, not just looked after, pampered to assuage your own feelings of guilt.”
“I meant I would love them Robert.”
“How do you know you would love them Hettie? Apart from Eddie you have not loved another human being in over two hundred years. Remember, they come from shitty families, they were poor and uneducated. They might turn out to be horrible kids.”
She began to cry. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because it is important for you to realise they are human beings, just like you. They need to be loved for who they are, not as a payment for what you did to them. Do you really think you can Hettie?”
“Yes I can!”
“And you Eddie?”
“I will love them Robert”
“You both have a few weeks before I bring them back. We cannot do so while we are still in the middle of a conflict. Use this time to become close to each other again. Your love for each other will make you a family when the kids come.”
“What are we going to do about the other Eddie and Hettie?”
“I intend bringing them here as our guests.”
That caused an uproar, even Eddie looking at me as if I had gone nuts. I took my Cherine into my arms and sat down.
“Take over the protector, love.”
I closed my eyes and went into the void, becoming a part of it. I gathered the energy and using as much of it as I could I speared my way down to them.
“You spoke of my weakness, my love, and claimed that would be my undoing. I decided to use my weakness as my weapon, as I warned you at the time.”
“Cutting off communications with the other Hettie does not prove love is your weapon.”
“I did not cut off communications between you. I have come here for two reasons. First of all, I wished to thank you for not attacking during this time of what would have been our time of weakness. The second reason is, I have come to invite you to stay with us for a while. It will give you the opportunity to get to know us…perhaps it could help you decide on more effective ways of fighting us,” I added with a small smile.
“Eddie there is a catch to this. He is trying to trick us in some way.”
He looked at me disdainfully. “That is obvious. We thank you, but we shall not be accepting your invitation. However, should you be willing to surrender without terms, we invite you to do so.”
“I am sorry, it would have been far more pleasant if you had accepted my first invitation. You now force me to order you to become our guests for a short time.”
I brought forth all of my energy and power and it shone out of me as the two of them are capable of seeing. I spread it out and wrapped them within it and carried them back to our home. They used all of their powers to try and free themselves, to try and harm me, but I ignored their efforts. As we arrived, they immediately lashed out at the others, hoping I would try to defend them and thus lose my control over their bodies. I again ignored them, the protector being fully capable of protecting all my loved ones.
1426
“Eddie, Hettie, we need to give you different names so that you know when we are talking to you. I shall call you Edward…and Hettie, you I shall call Doris - at least until you deserve to be called Hettie again."
As soon as Edward saw Eddie, he unleashed a full attack on him, thinking perhaps that Eddie was the power assisting me. Eddie paid me the compliment of not trying to protect himself, just standing there with a small smile. Hettie took a step towards him, to be at his side and help defend him. Soon as Edward saw her his attack died down.
We all saw the way he stared at her before turning to look at his own wife. She too was staring as if she could not believe her eyes.
“Bringing you here against your will is the only act of force I wish to use against you. Will you both agree to a truce for the time you are here? It would be of great inconvenience to me to have to remain in this form, I would rather welcome you in my own body.” As if taking their agreement for granted, I returned to my own body. Cherine tried to return the protector to me, but I shook my head and biting her lip, worried, she let me have my way.
“We are not such an impressive lot are we? A handful of people who allow their emotions to rule.” I smiled at them. “I see you are both in shock. You are correct, this is the Hettie you sent to take over the body of my daughter. I trust you approve of the alternative accommodation I found for her soul?”
“That is how you tempted her?”
“Doris, could I tempt you in the same way? Before you answer, allow me to make myself clear. We will return both of you to your original bodies and we will show you how to keep your bodies young for almost as long as you want. We will not stipulate any conditions that have anything to do with your wish to destroy us. You are free to continue your fight, however stupid it may actually be.”
“There has to be some trickery behind this Eddie, they cannot be so stupid.”
“Trickery Doris? I was able to bring you here against your will. I could just as easily remove you from your bodies, lock your souls up within a couple of Sparklers for all of time. Do you know what that would cost me? Can you imagine me having to live my life knowing what I have condemned you to? Edward, you said love was my weakness and it is, but it is also my strength. It forces me to do what is right and somehow that always turns out to be to our advantage also. I had not finished Doris. There will be a condition. You have to lead us, through your memories, back to the exact location and time when you took over each body. We do not expect you to look after those children we will bring back, you are not capable of loving them. We are and they will join us, so as you see, our love brings us new members who strengthen us.”
“I sense she has truly got her own body back, but the Eddie of this world, he is still in another persons’ body. That is not our original body.”
“I did not want to make the change while this conflict is still on. Edward, your solemn vow on your love for your wife, that you will not harm the children we bring back, those who owned the bodies he used, and we will do it now so that you are able to see for yourselves. Those children will be only normal children, not Cherinians, they will not have our gifts yet, so they are not part of our conflict. Do I have your word?”
“This is not a good time to do it Robert. While I am being moved to my original body I will not be able to help you should they attack.”
“Eddie, you know yourself best so I presume there is a danger that they will do so. To remove that from being a problem, I ask you as of this moment to stop helping me. I wish them to try and attack me safe in the knowledge that you are not part of my defence.”
“I cannot stand by and…”
“I am not asking Eddie.”
“But his powers are greater than yours Robert, it would be foolish…”
“It is my right to be foolish…as the others will confirm to you. Do you deny me that right?”
“No. I am not trying to challenge your right to lead us Robert.”
1427
“Then please say it. Even should you see them winning, I want your word that you will not interfere.”
His Hettie anxiously pleaded, “Please don’t agree Eddie.”
“I have to love. I joined them knowing he is their leader. I have to trust him, even if it scares the shit out of me.”
“Edward, do you accept his word?”
He gave a small smile. “You ask for a truce, demand it and force it upon us. Now you demand we attack you. Which do you want?”
“Both. I want a truce as a general condition. That means you are not allowed, either of you, to attack anyone else. You are requested though to attack me. You may do it now or at some moment when you hope to catch me off guard. I only ask you do not delay too long as my poor girls will end up chewing off their nails.”
“If we are to attack, we need to know, will you also be counter-attacking? Is this an excuse for you to try and kill us?”
“Edward, feel your heart beating. Do you feel it now? Do not worry, it will start again. You are wrong, I do not look for an excuse to kill you, I look for an excuse to allow you to live. There will be no counter-attack. I will only defend myself.”
His lips were bloodless as he stared at me. “How did you do that! You should not have been able to get through.”
“He must have hypnotised you Eddie to make you think he got through. Just kill him!!”
“Poor Doris, surely it would be more difficult for me to hypnotise either of you? So, you are faced with two impossibilities. How about a third one? Stretch out your arm, either will do. Not to me, just put it where you can see it.”
We stood silently while she saw it change in front of her. She brought up her other arm and compared them, the one young and firm, the other growing old, slack flesh and wrinkled. She looked at her Eddie and saw that he saw the difference too. A pained rage filled his eyes.
An explosion of light, searing white, hit me. I found myself thrown far into space, rocks smashing into me at tremendous speeds. I asked the protector to darken the shield as my eyes were being affected and extended my awareness back to the house. I saw he had not attacked the others. They could all sense the tremendous force of his power as it lashed out at me.
*Cherine love, ask him to please try harder, he has not even caused me much discomfort.*
*The protector is helping you?*
*Just tell him love. By the way, thank him for me also, I’d always had a yearning to go out into space, comes from reading all those science fiction stories I suppose.*
I had deliberately not kept my communication with her on a tight beam and all my Cherinians heard, including our Eddie. He could not stop himself from laughing. “Cherine, do as he says. That man of yours, he truly is crazy.”
Cherine passed on my message and the attack stopped.
*Tell him I will wait here. That way his attacks will not endanger anyone else.*
It was Doris who tried the next trick. She grabbed me and threw (teleported) me directly into the sun. Even my protector found this a bit extreme and rushed to pull me out before it loses the ability to protect me.
*Tell her we have already visited this sun together, could she try something more original please? Maybe the sun of another system?*
1428
As my message was relayed by a cheeky Cherine, I felt her anger and she attacked my little girl. I was instantly in front of her and I forced her attack back upon her. She screamed and her husband drew it away from her.
I stood there trembling, livid with anger. “You have broken your word! How dare you attack Cherine! Doris, you will be forced to pay for what you did. I too will use your love against you. I will kill your husband and destroy his soul - I hope you are able to feel the pain you tried to make me feel.”
I used the gifts of Natalie, compounded and enhanced by my own powers and blocked him off, making him invisible to her. We placed the shield around him so that he could not move.
“Now we only have you to deal with, he is dead.”
She did not respond, just staring at the spot where he had been. When she spoke it was in a soft whisper. “You should not have done that. He did not break his word, I did. You should have killed me.”
“I only paid you back in kind. You tried to deprive me of the one I love.”
“Eddie, has he really killed him?” she appealed to him and I saw he did not know what to answer.
“Hettie, Robert has had the power to stop all three of you from the beginning. He spoke truly when he said he was trying to find a way to let you live.”
“Can he bring him back? If I offer my life, will he bring him back?”
“You would offer something that is already in my hands?”
“I would offer anything! Please.”
“Let me see you grieve then. Stop holding it within you, let it flow out to us.”
She sank down to her knees, an old woman, her head bowed. “I do not know how to.”
“Hettie, where is that sixteen year old girl who fell in love with that short skinny young man? Does she not feel grief at losing her love?”
She did not answer, but soon her shoulders began to tremble. Our Hettie went over to her, putting her arms around her and stared back at me defiantly.
“You are cruel. You killed her Eddie, what more do you want from her?”
“I want one tear. One tear for her love.”
“Jesus, but you are a bastard!!”
Doris looked up at me and I saw the tear I asked for. I let her Eddie go. He staggered at the sudden release. Doris and Hettie screamed at his sudden appearance. I turned my back on them, picked up my cigarettes and walked out to the garden. I felt defeated. The girls kept themselves linked to me, but did not intrude, though they were sorely puzzled as to what ailed me. Through them I heard what was said.
Eddie said to them, “I am not that stupid so you cannot be either. He has left us, but that does not mean he is not still protecting his family of Cherinians. Do not try to anger him any further.”
“Why has he walked out?”
“I do not understand, none of us do. All we can sense is a dark feeling of defeat in him.”
“Defeat!?”
“My Robert does not think the way you or any of us do. If he feels defeated there is a good reason for it. I think he wanted to win you over, make you our friends, but you forced him to use his power. As long as you only attacked him, to him it was a joke, he enjoyed it. Attacking Cherine angered him.”
“Dominique, he should not have been caught by surprise. Even my Hettie was not very good at honouring my word.”
1429
“You do not understand Eddie. If they give in now, it will be because they see how powerful he is. He did not want that. He wanted them to see how much better it is to love.”
I flicked away the stub and walked back in.
“I see no alternatives. This is what I propose to do. Edward, you and your wife, I will return you both to your original bodies. You will give me the information to bring back all the children you killed. Your bodies will be of the age when you first met and fell in love. Then we will return you to your reality. There will be one big change though, I will burn out of your minds all your special powers. You are to be given one last opportunity to live your lives again, but they will be the lives of two ordinary people. You are wealthy enough to be able to enjoy it as most people cannot.” I considered for a moment. “I will grant you one gift. I will leave you linked to each other, you will be able to feel the love the other feels for you. That is a gift worth more than you can imagine at this moment. Actually, perhaps we can leave the doors open for a few more gifts...but only those that mght help you grow and become better people. We will exchange your bodies tonight after supper. Alki, please call the taverna and tell them we are coming for supper.”
I went to Cherine, ignoring them, and put my arms around her. “I’m sorry my love.”
“You are a ninny! Sorry for what?”
“I don’t know - I’m just sorry. I should not have trusted them.”
“He did not break his word Robert. Our Eddie is right, you should have remembered that she does not keep her word.”
“I think our new Hettie will.”
“Boy was she angry with you!”
“Yup! That was lovely to see.”
Everybody was silently leaving for the taverna. I saw the two, Edward and Doris standing alone, a little lost at this sudden turn of events. I went to them and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Come with us, I do not think you have had a good Greek meal before, it is not the same as eating at a Greek restaurant overseas - especially the posh ones. Here you get the original stuff - not always better, but still…”
“You have pronounced your decision as a judgement, as if we have no say in it and now you want us to eat together as if we are friends?”
“Do you see any alternative for me?”
“No, but I do see alternatives for us. We could just leave and return to fight another day.”
“Edward, you may leave, but then you will need to call a cab. You both have no powers left to you.”
I felt him struggle to use a power, but he felt the deadness, an emptiness where he had once felt a surge of power. His face was a death mask as he stared at me. “Why did you let things get this far since you could stop us from the start?”
“For the same reason I let our own Hettie attack us. We are still like children, yes, we have abilities that set us apart from the rest of mankind, but it is important we learn to use our gifts wisely. I also had hoped to win your friendship. Doris, no, I will now call you Hettie, I apologise for lying to you. I did not kill Edward, only made him invisible to you. I wanted you to feel what you would have made me feel if you had managed to harm my Cherine. I hoped that way you might learn to have a little empathy.”
“You were not angered by the…other Hettie when she took my part and shouted at you?”
“No. I was proud of her.”
“You are a very strange young man.”
1430
I laughed. “When we return, let the girls sing and tell you our story. You will find that all my Cherinians think I am crazy - though they have pulled a trick on me…never mind. Let’s go and eat, we can talk later.”
“I’ve just had my life ruined, destroyed. I’m not much in the mood for eating.”
“Then come drink and forget your woes. Edward, it is not the end of the world for you. Will you not find pleasure in having your original Hettie, sixteen years old again?”
“That is the only plank I have to cling to.”
“Please join us for supper?”
“I think the other Eddie only joined you so as to protect you. You are like a child.”
“And he is like a wise uncle and a very good friend to have at my side. Unfortunately not even he can save me from myself.”
Walking over to the taverna, indulging in a light banter, it felt surreal to me - god knows what it must have felt like to them. Being amputated of all powers must have put them in shock. It pleased me that they tried to talk, that they did not react with violence or spit their hate into my face. Hettie was not talkative, she seemed to have buried herself deep within her thoughts, even though she tried to give the impression she is listening to our chatter. As we arrived at the entrance I put my hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“I have a feeling your wife needs a few minutes alone with you. We’ll be waiting for you.” I left them staring at each other. I also left the protector out there with them so as to listen in. Nasty, but necessary if I was to do what I hoped.
“What is it Hettie?” He spoke to her in German.
“You blame me for what happened, how are we to live this life he offers us if you hate me.”
“More than two hundred years and you are still not convinced of my undying love? I do not blame you my love, you broke my word, which he forced on me anyway, but it was out of anger that a child speaks to you as she did. As for losing our powers, that is not your fault. He was toying with us all along, we sadly underestimated his powers.”
“My Eddie, it is not his powers we underestimated - it is his weaknesses we did not correctly understand. You are certain you do not resent me?”
“Not a bit. We need time to recover from what he has done to us. It is better we play along, join them for supper. We will decide what to do later.”
“There is nothing we can do. Eddie, would it really make you happy to see me as I was when we first met?”
“Yes, but it will not please me to see you grow old again. I will pay any price to avoid that.”
She put her fingers on his lips. “Shh, do not say that. The only price you could pay to avoid seeing that would be death. I do not want to grow old alone.” He wrapped his arms around her and they stood silently, drawing comfort from each other. I smiled to myself - which earned me a sharp look from my girls. That made everyone else realise something was up, but I played stupid and called loudly for some wine.
This supper was no celebration. All Cherinians sensed I had not wrapped this up to my satisfaction. We ate and drank and there was a lot of subdued conversation, everyone making an effort to include our two recent adversaries. We returned home feeling some of the lethargy that good food and wine brings. Silently I asked everyone to use their healers to adjust themselves back to normal alertness. A couple of them groaned softly, but they all complied.
“Your loss is still too recent for you to feel able to concentrate, but I ask that you try anyway. Meli will narrate our story to you. In between her telling of our story, Wendy will sing for you of our feelings, interpreting what you have heard. At the end of it I will explain anything you still need explained.”
Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου
(Alexander Zenon Eustace)18th July, 2019
- posted on Steemit: 18th July, 2019