Page 40 of The Discovered
I rolled my eyes. He was definitelyabnormal. This earned me a light slap on my ass, which took me by surprise.
“So much for not hurting me,” I accused.
He wrapped white towels around me and then himself, looking mischievous. He dried his long hair with a smaller towel, shooting me a devilish grin. “That didn’t hurt.”
True. It hadn’t.
We got dressed and cooked together, still carefully avoiding any talk of evil witches, revenge plots, or reasons why we shouldn’t be doing what we were doing. Now we stood in the kitchen, and I told him more about my friends and all that he was missing out on in the human realm, though he didn’t seem all too convinced.
“Wine?” he asked, gesturing to a bottle of Bordeaux he pulled from a cabinet.
“See, now how can you talk so much shit about humans yet drink their wine?” I asked, giving him a pointed look. “And yes.”
“I didn’t say they doeverythingwrong.” He poured some into two wine glasses. “I’ve been to many human cities actually, and I didn’t even mind some of them.”
I shook my head. “Wait, how do you hop realms, exactly?”
He hesitated, taking a sip from his glass and handing me mine. “With a spell. There are different methods, but it requires a great deal of power. It’s not something the average person can achieve without help. It’s usually only performed as a punishment to banish witches who have committed horrible crimes.”
I took a sip, and before I could respond, Daelon spoke again.
“I’ll show you sometime.” Something in his eyes needed to reassure me, but of what, I couldn’t tell. I thought it might’ve been about seeing my friends again. Or maybe he was still concerned I would think I was a prisoner here.
I offered a smile. “This is really good. So, you’ve been to France, then?” I gestured to the Bordeaux.
“Yes. I’m a fan.”
“My friends and I studied abroad there.” I smiled, remembering my time picnicking with them along the Seine and touring art museums.
I had many fond memories of traveling, but I’d refused to venture to any part of the United Kingdom or Ireland. Steph tried to convince me to visit my home village, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t walk the earth my mothers used to walk. I couldn’t hear the accents of my former neighbors, schoolteachers, and childhood friends. I couldn’t see those sloping hills dotted with sheep—the place that held so much magick and so much fear and pain. I resolved to stick to France and surrounding countries, doing very human things and exploring with my very human friends, pushing aside thoughts of the power—no, the witches—that stole my mothers.
It was still my instinct to blame myself for their death, but ever since my experience on that beach, I stopped myself. Regardless of whether or not they were merely a construct of my subconscious, what my mothers had told me was true. I had been using my guilt and shame as a way to distract myself from feeling all of my grief. It was a way for me to avoid accepting inevitability—the understanding that sometimes bad things couldn’t be stopped. I remembered their words on fate and a grand, cosmic story, urging me to have faith through the uncertainty. I wanted to believe I’d somehow made it to the great beyond in those moments, and thus had truly connected with my mothers again.
Next time I was on Earth, I would visit our little village in Northern Ireland. I would walk where my mothers walked and cry where I cried as a child. I would actually enact a proper ritual for their deaths, which was something else robbed from me by the nature of their passing and my thrust into the unknown streets of a foreign city.
“Áine,” Daelon said, pulling me from my reminiscing. “What are you thinking about?”
“My mothers,” I answered honestly. “I can’t stop thinking about seeing them.”
“When I…” he trailed off, and he pulled me to his chest, refusing to voice whatever thought came to his head. “What all did you see?”
I pulled back from him and sipped my wine. “I was on a beach. Actually, I think I was onthatbeach.” I pointed to the painting that hung against the living room wall. “The one I’ve used as a metaphor for my channeling. And I was dressed in white, as were my mothers, and many other people I didn’t recognize. It felt like they were my family—the coven my mothers belonged to—who helped them escape when those dark forces came for me when I was still in the womb.”
Daelon’s face was suspiciously impassive, but I thought I saw a flash of shock in his eyes.
“They were chanting, I think for my healing and protection. My mothers told me they loved me, and that I had friends where I least expected them. They told me to stop blaming myself for their deaths, and that there was a greater purpose for that tragedy and other events, too. It’s all connected in a way I can’t see yet, but will eventually,” I finished. Something made me want to stop talking about this aloud, like it was too intimate or sacred.
“Did they say anything else?” he asked, his eyes searching mine intently.
I found his reaction slightly off-putting. “No.”
“I’m glad you had that experience,” Daelon said. “I think we all long to see our loved ones again. I know I do.”
I remembered Daelon had a similar start to life, and I immediately softened my composure. I reached for his hand. “I’m not sure normal will ever really be an option for us, will it?”
He chuckled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “No, I don’t think it will.”
By the time the moon replaced the sun in the sky, Daelon and I had retreated under his duvet to beat the cold. Our night of normal was a relative success, but we knew it was a futile effort. There was far too much subtext to ignore. Unanswered questions and suppressed truths hung over us like a dark storm cloud. I felt it even now as I lay in his arms, but I tried to focus on the sound of his heartbeat instead. Its steady, rhythmic beating beneath my ear was soothing.
