Mark of Betrayal

Page 78

“It so does not.”
He groaned, shaking his head, and wandered down the stairs, rapping on the inside walls.
“David?” I ran down after him.
“Look.” He stopped and turned to face me. “I know how you are, Ara. We’ve always had to deal with this.”
“With what?”
“You and…other guys. You get too close. You get too caught up, and…you’re not a child anymore, my love. You just can't behave that way now.”
“I'm trying, David.”
“Trying isn't enough. It stops. All the flirting, all the mucking about, all the looking at other guys. From this moment on, you will not ‘hang out with’, notice, smile at or even think about a guy, unless it’s me.”
“So, I can't even have guy friends, now?”
“No.”
“You can't tell me what to do.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No. You can't! You’re not the boss of me.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Since when?” I put my hands on my hips.
“Since I married you. Discussion closed.” He turned away.
“No! I'm allowed to have friends, David. And it’s twisted and sick that you would even say something like that.”
He stopped, sighing heavily. “Look, I know, okay. But I have to be more careful with you than I did with other girls, Ara. You can't keep yourself in check. You don't know how to control yourself.”
“I do, David. Okay, maybe I'm a little closer with Jase-on, than I should be, but I can stop that. I can make distance between us, but you can't tell me what I can and cannot do.” I made myself a little taller. “I love you, but I won't stand for that.”
He groaned again and started down the stairs, banging around, searching for something.
“David, are you mad at me?”
“No,” he said in short. “If anything, I’m mad at my brother.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want him to love you. I understand why he does; how can he not?” He presented me with a flat palm. “But I don't like it.”
I looked down at my feet then back up, grinning. “I can be a bitch to him, if you like. I can make him hate me.”
He laughed. “No, you couldn’t. You’re not capable of that. Just…just be careful, okay?”
I reached out, and he placed his hand in mine. “Okay. I’ll stop calling him Jase.”
He smiled to himself, but it was weak. “And, can you just…”
“Just?” I prompted him out of his pause.
“If I was ever…if Drake ever…” He cleared his throat.
“David? Don't.”
“No. I need to say this.” He put his hand up between us. “If I was ever not around for any reason, you…just…not my brother, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay. But it’s not an issue, we’re immortal.”
“I know.”
“So, who then?” I asked, following him down the stairs. “Hypothetically, if you ever got hit by a car and died, who would you choose for me?”
He cleared his throat again, grinning when he pushed on the wall and it gave way, revealing a door. “To be honest?”
I nodded.
“No one. Ever.” He shoved the door open and it creaked over my shock. “Get a cat.”
I laughed nervously, squeezing his hand as we stepped into the greyish darkness of a shadowy room. The musty smell of dust dried my nostrils out, and my eyes shot straight to the boarded windows, blocking out all light, all life. The room was cold, ghostly, a bedroom clearly cut in half by the wall of Jason’s room; a doll house, a small table laid out with a tea-set, and a few other things had been shoved aside, sitting awkwardly in a cluster by the four-poster bed. Wooden stars, painted gold, hung down from hooks in the roof above it, and an old round rug, grey with dust, cradled the rail of a wooden rocking horse; its mane streaked in purples, golds and blues. On a shelf by the wall where we stood was a collection of expressionless dolls, copper-eyed bears, tiny lace gloves and other trinkets.
“I know what this is,” David said, walking across the room.
“A child’s bedroom?”
“Yes,” he said, tugging a board on the window. “But not just any child—it was Lilith’s first daughter.”
My mouth dropped.
David chuckled, tossing the plank of wood aside, and light peeled into the room all around me, showing dancing motes of dust, woken from centuries of slumber or hiding. The bedcovers were still ruffled, once slept in, and right between the window and the fireplace, an old chair sat proudly, a book still open in place on the seat.
I ran my fingers over every surface, touching the detailed carvings in the foot of the bed, running my hand down the post, feeling the presence of my ancestors.
“This room must be centuries old.”
“I’d say so,” David muttered, nodding at the torn curtains around the bedposts, nearly worn away to nothing but silvery webs.
I reached across and plucked a small ragdoll from between the pillows, standing up again to look at her; she was loved once. But someone came in here, took away that little girl and she never saw this place again. Never outgrew her toys, never heard the end of that story—never even crawled back into bed.
“Are you okay, Ara?” David came up beside me.
I flattened the doll’s hair and hugged her to my chest before placing her back and tucking the blanket around her. “It’s so sad. What happened here?”
“She died.”
“How?”
“Some say it was losing the summer, some say it was heartache.”
I touched the torn white curtain over her bed, unthreading a web from the base. “How old was she?”
“She would have been nine the year she died, as far as I’ve read.”
“What was her name?”
“Evangeline—The Rose of Winter. She was born on the first day it snowed that year, with lips red as a rose, and there was never a more loved little girl.”
“Evangeline? Wasn't Lilith’s granddaughter named Evangeline, too—my ancestor?”
“Something I’ve learned recently?” he said, like he was asking if I wanted to know. “None of Lilith’s children reached adulthood. Everything we’ve been taught about her is lies. I'm not sure how your bloodline survived, but I'm starting to wonder if you’re even related to Lilith.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“So…this Evangeline—” I nodded around the room, “—isn't the one I descended from?”
“Not in the version of the story I read.”
I took a moment to combine that with the information Arthur had given me about Drake and his reasons for killing Lilith. “What broke her heart so badly—Evangeline? Why did she lose the summer?”
He wandered over to the rug, then bent down and picked something up, dusting it off as he stood. “Here.”
“What is that?” I reached for it, smiling when I felt its round body, smooth and cool in my palm. “An apple?”
“Her father Christian, Lilith’s first husband, had this preserved in gold for Eve when she had her accident. It was his way of bringing some of the outside back to a little girl who would never see it again.”
“So, what happened?” I spun the apple between my fingers softly.
He sat down on Eve’s bed. “She liked to play in the orchards, back when we still grew apples here. But, one winter, she went down there alone and climbed the oak tree where the workers would sit for lunch, but her foot slipped. She fell.”
“And she died?”
“No. She was paralysed. If she’d been of age, they would have given her blood, but they were afraid it would trigger immortality and she would be trapped as a child for eternity. So, they prayed. But as the weeks passed, that vibrant, spirited little girl became a ghost, and she grew ill. She died before she saw the summer again, and I guess they locked this room off to forget.”
“How do you know all that?” I sat beside him, sinking into the mattress.
“I’ve been doing some reading.”
“Is there a book about all this?”
“There are some. But this was in a maid’s diary—at Elysium.”
“Can you get it for me—when you go there?”
“Of course. I already planned to bring you all the books, anyway. I just need to take a car with me next time so I can collect all the stuff from my old room, too.”
I looked down at the apple, polishing it with my fingertip; it was small, for an apple—only the size of a plum. “Why is it so tiny?”
“It was winter. Apples don't grow in the winter.” He took it and studied it. “Legend has it that her father went down to the orchard to scream at the gods, and when he looked up at the oak tree, this was sitting on the branch his daughter had fallen from.”
I smiled. “You’re having me on. That’s a lie.”
He shook his head, closing my fingers around the apple. “This is just what I read. Wanna know something else?”
“Okay.”
“After Eve died, Lilith had the orchard torn down—forbid apples to be grown here or eaten here for the rest of eternity. But Christian, believing this apple to be a gift from the gods, couldn’t bear to tear that oak tree down. It now marks the centre of what once was the orchard.”
I looked up at him, my eyes becoming wide. “The field?”
He nodded, smiling.
“Wow. How come you never told me any of this?”
He shrugged. “We haven’t had a lot of time for small talk, Ara. And I only read this one a few weeks ago. I might even be wrong about whose room this was.”
“Will you tell me more stories?” I said, using the bedpost to stand myself up as David wandered across the room again, touching everything.
“Of course.” He stopped by the armchair and picked up the book, his lips turning down with thought.
“What were they reading?”
“No title.” He held the cover up.
“Can I have the book?” I asked. “Like, can I keep it?”
He placed it in my hand. “It belongs to you, I guess—all this stuff does.”
“No.” I placed the apple and the book on the dresser next to a small wooden jewellery box. “It belongs to Evangeline.”
“I'm sure she won't care. She's dead.”
“Even still. It doesn't seem right.” I opened the jewellery box and smiled when I saw the collection of trinkets Eve saved; there was a lock of golden hair, tied with a pink ribbon, which might have been hers—beside that was an oval pendant on a long silver chain and a small bracelet with a flat name plaque. I picked it up and traced the letters, reading them aloud.
“What did you just say?” David appeared beside me.
“Morgana.” I held the bracelet up.
He took it and studied it carefully. “I thought she was just a myth.”
“Who?”
“Morgana.”
“Who was she?”
“No one knows. I’ve read parchments that mentioned a lost child, and found only one that named her, but never any proof that she existed.”
“Maybe she died as a child, too.”
He shook his head and placed the bracelet against my arm. “Not if this was hers. It would fit a girl who was grown—beyond childhood.”
I looked back at the wooden box. “I wonder what it’s doing in here then.”
“I don't know.” He picked up the little box, placed the bracelet in it and closed the lid, looking at the base, the sides and the top.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah!” he said, spotting something in the mess of fake jewels and other ornaments. He picked up a small crank handle, pressed it into the side of the box, then wound it around and set the box down again, taking a step back. “Open it.”
Frowning, I slowly lifted the lid, and music chimed through the air; a sad, haunting song. But I knew the tune somehow.
As it played, I circled around slowly, hugging myself, taking in the room; purples and blues must have been her favourite colours, and I imagined, from the stars on the roof and the ones I now noticed painted all over the walls, fading with age, that she must have loved the night sky, too. Maybe she was a dreamer, like me; maybe she believed wishes would come true. But she never lived to find out.
The song ended, making the room seem like a very lonely place.
“How many daughters did Lilith have?” I asked.
“I'm not sure. I believe there were three—maybe four with Morgana.”
“Do you think this room has been boarded up since fourteen hundred?” I asked. “Like, did the other children ever live in here?”
David's eyes stayed on me, where they’d clearly been the whole time. “I don't know. Why?”
“There’s a rocking horse.” I nodded at it. “They weren’t even invented until, well, I can't remember when, but it wasn’t until around the eighteenth century, was it?”
He walked over and pushed the ear of the horse, making it rock. “That’s what people say. But I heard my uncle speak of them—talked of seeing one when he was child. And that was as early as the thirteen hundreds.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So, I guess that doesn't give us any clues about how long this room has been like this, does it?”