* * *
“So here we are, my love,” Lisa said as she stood at the grave, Donald in her arms. “A year.” How could it only be a year? How? How could it only be six months since she gave birth? It had been an eternity.
She bounced Don in her arms. “He’s growing up fast, as you can see. Bigger every day.” She felt a hot tear stream down her cheek. “He has your hair. And he loves things. Everything. He’s so curious.” It was torture. Every day, looking at her husband in miniature. Watching her son investigate and delight in the simplest things, being reminded that James did the same: took joy in daft ideas and simple acts.
Being reminded that it was her fault he wasn’t here to share it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I went to them for help; I thought you were dangerous, but you weren’t, were you? The others told me about Beck. You couldn’t know it was the wrong Fruit. You didn’t know what would happen.”
Seemed no one did. McGregor’s later translations indicated that the blessed union would take place a while after killing his brother. In fact, McGregor was rather grumpy with the Three-God for the inaccurate terminology employed in the last prophecy. How had James been trying to claim Beck’s life? And he hadn’t been embittered by Beck’s feeble victory in asking out Suzi. How did that line work?
For Lisa, how the words fit together didn’t matter. The outcome remained the same.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” she said. “I’m sorry I went to them. I’m sorry they…” She trailed off, throat closing over as if it didn’t want her to speak the words. She’d been here enough times, failing to say them. Today she had to keep going. She fumbled for tissues in her non-baby arm.
A hand offered a tissue, then opened when she took it. Lisa passed the baby over so she could properly blow her nose.
“It’s not your fault, Lisa,” Mitchell said.
She snorted, then mopped up a burst bubble of snot. “Thanks for the sentiment, Jerry,” she said. “But it really was. He rushed ahead with a plan to save me and got Joel killed, and then when he came to the castle to collect me, the Andrastes shot him because I’d told them they were wrong.”
“You couldn’t know how they’d react,” he said. Don had a hand out, grasping the collar of Mitchell’s leather jacket. His other hand was, as always, firmly fixed in his mouth. Don had always been good with Mitchell.
Lisa knelt, kissed her fingers, and pressed them to the tombstone. She said her goodbye, again, for the hundredth time. It didn’t matter. She kept coming back here. She supposed it would stop hurting, one day. Eventually.
For now, she just tried to put the thought that she’d been responsible for two more deaths behind her. Time stretched on. The wind whipped through the cemetery, making more of a mess of Lisa’s hair and causing snow to drift across the graves.
“If you ever need anything,” Mitchell said, “anything at all, you know how to reach me.”
“I wouldn’t impose—”
“We’re like family. Whatever and whenever you need, I’m your man.”
She stood. “Thanks, Jerry. That means a lot.” Mitchell passed Don back and the baby gave off a lopsided smile with what few teeth he had. “And hey, look on the bright side,” Lisa said, “because the Andrastes… shot him…” She drew a quivering breath and expelled it. “…it means the universe is safe, right? If the demon’s dead, he can’t defile the Mother of Creation.”
He put an arm around her shoulder in the universal language of consolation. Lisa let herself rest against him and, just for a moment, the world stopped hurting.
“Yeah,” Mitchell said. “There is that.”
Epilogue: Return
James Paddington opened his eyes, opened his mouth, and gasped for breath. He sucked it in in long rasping gulps that seemed to go on forever. It was like he’d never breathed before, like he could keep inhaling forever and ever. It was, in a word, wonderful.
Finally, though, he ran out of lungs and had to exhale. He did it quick, got it over with as fast as possible so he could go back to inhaling. Glorious, brilliant inhaling.
That done, and his breath coming more regularly and normally, he took stock of… nothing.
There was nothing here. He opened his eyes. Nope, already done that. He checked by blinking; yep, definitely open. Why couldn’t he see anything?
Paddington reached up to put a hand in front of his face, but his arm hit something right in front of him. Soft and cushiony, but firm behind that. It didn’t give when he pushed out at it, not that he had a very good angle to push from with his arms down by his sides.
Right. He’d have to assume his eyes were open and that sight wasn’t any good to him, so he used his other senses. There was nothing to hear. The only smells were fresh linen and dust. He felt around and encountered the same cushioning all around him. There was no pressure on his feet, but there was a soft, cushiony type of feeling on his back.
That meant he was lying down.
Paddington didn’t like what that meant.
He brought his arms up around his chest and over his head. There wasn’t far to go before he felt the cushioning above him. Something about the way it was lacy and everywhere – covering every surface of the inside of this box that was, clearly, custom-designed just for him – unsettled him.
A soft padded box. He might be in a mental institution on the Mainland. With really small padded cells. They were always going on about overcrowding, right? That was possible. Best thing to hope for, right now. But since there was a police cap in here with him and he seemed to be dressed in a uniform rather than a straightjacket, and since there was not a sliver of light, and since the box felt like wood and the noises of his hitting it were dampened as if insulated by several feet of earth on every side, he guessed that he wasn’t in a padded cell.
He was in a coffin. In the ground.
They’d buried him.
“Ah,” Paddington said. “Right.”
The End.
* * *
James Paddington will return in
Deicide, Vampire Confessions, and the Legacy of the Brethertons.
About the Author
Stephen Bills is a kilt-wearing, motorbike-riding Adelaidean with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Management, a Master of Arts in Creative Writing, a cat, and a turtle.
Connect with Me Online:
Webpage: https://StephenBills.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephenbillsauthor
* * *
Coming Soon:
You Don’t Know Jack
Okay… He was standing at a road.
He couldn’t see any landmarks in the predawn light, and this road wasn’t winning any prizes for interesting, so why had he come to this flat patch of crap in the middle of nowhere?
He searched his memory and found he didn’t have one. There was nothing where his mind should have been. That was odd. He checked his pockets for clues and found he had rather too many pockets with entirely too few clues. There were pockets on his cargo pants (black), his vest (black), and his shirt (black). Surprisingly, there were no pockets on his socks (black), so someone clearly wasn’t trying hard enough.
So what now? Pick a direction and walk? Might as well; the odds of a beautiful woman whisking him away from this abandoned road in the middle of nowhere were, honestly, slim at best.
Lights on the horizon distracted him and, a minute later, a clattered old car chugged to a halt beside him. A young woman leaned across to open the passenger door. “Need a lift?” she asked.
Huh…
The man climbed in. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do with himself, at least until his past reared its ugly head and dragged him back into a sordid web of intrigue and death.
But until then he was free.
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