Chapter 2

The next two days felt like one endless council meeting. On the inside I was stretched thin and battling constant nausea, but all that anyone said about me was that I was sweet and gentle and so well spoken. So capable of seeing the most reasonable course of action and so patient and generous. I didn't deserve such high praise. Most of the time I felt like screaming, but at the end of those two days Liam announced publicly that he was abdicating the throne in favour of the rightful heir, and that a united Human Fay Nova Britannia was in the near future. But in the meantime, an army was marching on us.

The night before the Nova Britannian army was to depart to intercept my uncle's forces, there was a knock on the door to the very lavish state rooms that Rowan and I had been given. I had been asked if I wanted the rooms that had been my mother’s but I felt a revulsion at that idea. I smiled politely and told them, “No thank you.” Not to suggest that I liked the rooms that we were in. They were too fussy. I mean, I'm female, I like pretty things, yes, but the rooms felt stifling at first. Rowan and I had shut ourselves in the bedroom. I was wearing one of the 'too nice to sleep in' night gowns that had come with me from my father's home and a blue dressing gown, and Rowan still wore breeches and a linen shirt. We were sitting together on a settee next to the fire not speaking, for what was there to speak of? He was riding away in the morning, and all of the initial relief that we had felt at the success of our revolution was gone. War was coming, and this was it. All we could do was hold one another close for a few short hours, and then try to get some sleep. We were sitting quietly when the knock came and I heard Raphael in the other room answer the door. Raphael had a bed in the outer chamber and the window to the bedroom overlooked the ocean from high above. Only a fairy or an angel would have had any hope of reaching it undetected. Rowan and I waited, wondering who it could be when Raphael knocked, “Are you decent?” his voice came through the door.

“We are,” Rowan called.

Raphael stuck his head in, “It's your brother.”

I rose, curious as to whether he meant Lief or Liam, and Rowan followed me as I walked out into the sitting room. Liam stood there holding a box in his hands and looking uncertain. It was a strange thing dealing with the different reactions that people had towards me. Especially those who were close to me. Rowan had never shown me anything but unhesitating love, and Nimue in her own exuberant unconditional way was the same, she simply gloried in having a sister and I will admit, that I did too. Lief, once he decided that resenting me was counter-productive, treated me like a little sister, like he did Fenna. I got a bizarre combination of affection and lectures from him. Raphael . . . well, that was just plain old complicated, still is. And Lugh always looked at me with so much loss in his eyes that he kept me at arms length. But Liam? In those early days I hadn't had much time to spend with him in an unofficial capacity, and in an official capacity he was always very deferential towards me, very supportive. Although I knew that they both felt guilty for their feelings, I also knew that both he and Nimue felt relief that I was taking on the burdens that they had had to carry, though not because I wanted to but because I had no choice. I could see the guilt and sympathy in Liam's eyes and I could see that he wanted to help me, but there was also a timidity, an uncertainty to him, as if he were unsure if I needed or wanted his help. And now he stood before me looking very shy, holding a small wooden box in his hands. He looked at me standing there in my nightgown, my hair loose, the jewellery, except for my rings, removed, and then he said, astonished, “Wow, you look like a little girl in your night gown.” And then he gave Rowan a funny look.

I couldn't help it. I snorted then laughed at the idea that Rowan was attracted to me because I looked like a little girl.

Rowan smiled patiently, rolled his eyes, shook his head, and then said in a good natured tone, “What do you want Liam?”

Liam glanced at Raphael, then Rowan, before looking back at me. “I know that this might not be a good time, but what with the chaos of the last few days, I haven't had a chance to show you these. If I don't do it now I . . .” he broke off.

I knew what the rest of the words were going to be. He was going to say, “I might never have a chance.” Now that Liam was no longer King he had more freedom, and he had chosen to join the military. He was going away to fight in the morning too. “Have a seat,” I motioned to the small, round, ornate, table surrounded by heavily carved, velvet cushioned chairs and took a seat myself.

Liam, Rowan, and Raphael sat. Liam looked down at the box in his hands. He sighed then looked at me again and said cryptically, “The resemblance is stronger when you're like this.” Then he paused again before starting to explain, “In a manner of speaking, I've known about you for nearly five years now. Since shortly after my mother died. That was a rotten time for me. I was angry. Angry that she was dead. Angry that I was alone. Angry that I was King. I went up to her old rooms to see if I would feel closer to her there, but they were so empty without her that I only felt angrier. I was young.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean younger than I am now. I'm not trying to justify what I did I'm just saying that at twelve I wasn't old enough to get a grip on my feelings and control myself. I completely ransacked her room. I smashed everything that I could get my hands on, absolutely to pieces. I didn't leave anything in the room intact, and I'd be completely ashamed of myself, if I hadn't found these. I didn't feel so bad for myself after I found them because I knew that somehow, I wasn't really alone.” He opened the box and lifted out a stack of photographs. “I was very worked up at the time and I cried myself to sleep on the floor in the mess I'd made. When I woke, these were right in front of me in the shards of a porcelain ornament that had always been in the corner. I couldn't even remember what it had been before I'd smashed it but these . . .” He sighed and fingered the pictures. “I'd never seen images like these before. They’re so real. It's as if they were made by magic. I sat in the rubble and gathered them all up and looked at them for hours. I've always kept them secret. I figured that there was a reason that my mother had kept them a secret. I was fascinated by them.” Liam pushed the photographs over to me. “They're of you, mostly. I knew that you must be my older sister. I figured that you must have been taken away from my mother and that was why she was so sad sometimes. I don't know how she got them.”

He looked at me and was silent as I slowly flipped through the stack of photos. I'd looked at about six of them when I turned to Raphael and asked him, “Would you mind finding Lief for me?”

Raphael nodded understanding, and headed for the door.

The photos had come from my home and had, obviously, come from my parent's camera. They were typical family pictures. One parent behind the camera, the other holding, or playing with, a child. There were fifteen photos total. One for each year that my mother had lived after my birth plus two others. One that I remembered taking of my parents myself. I remembered holding up the camera and pressing the button. They hadn't known I had the camera in my hands. It was the spring I'd turned thirteen. We'd gone to the beach for the day and they were looking at each other. I remembered thinking that I hoped when I was older that I would love somebody like that, and that they would love me back. Funny thing was, that while I remembered taking the picture, I never remembered seeing it. And there was one other picture too, of later that summer, the beginning of my garden. I'd gotten my dad to help me put in a small pond and I'd grown a water garden. Fairy moss and water lilies surrounded by irises, hostas, venusta, and ferns. It was at the centre of a little grassy lawn which I'd then surrounded with white and blue flowers. Roses, borage, more irises. I'd tried to make it enchanted. Eventually I had made it enchanted.

I slowly looked at each picture, myself at three asleep in Fionnuala's arms, at four riding high on Gavin's shoulder's, a bright smile on my face and my hair a tangled mop of loose blond curls. It had been one of my favourite things, riding on my dad's shoulders. I was always pestering him for it, “Daddy, lift me high up!” I would say. It wasn't until I was eight or so that he'd finally told me “no”, although gently and with a smile at which point he'd admitted, “Yer mum says I carry you around too much and If I don't stop you'll never get used to walking on your own feet.” I always remember thinking that it was funny that somehow my Mum was the boss of my big strong Dad. That's how I thought of it when I was eight anyway. There was a picture of the three of us sitting on a blanket having a picnic when I was twelve. I remember Fionnuala giving the camera to a passerby to take the picture.

I was lost in the past, sitting at a table in another world. I felt like a mess but I also felt like I wasn't allowed or entitled to feel that way. So I tried to keep it in, or I did until Raphael returned with Lief following behind looking worried. Raphael hadn't told Lief why I wanted him. I looked up as they took seats and I pushed the little stack of pictures over to Lief. “Liam had these. I thought you might like to see what they looked like before . . .” I didn't need to finish the sentence.

It was a hard thing showing the pictures to Lief. He flipped through the pictures silently without saying a word. When he came to the one of just his parents, looking at one another in the sunset on the beach, he stopped and looked at it for a long time. His face worked. “Could I uh . . .” his deep voice came out rough. “Could I keep this?” He looked at me.

“They're Liam's,” I whispered.

“Yeah . . . Yeah, I forgot, they were your parents too. Stupid of me. Of course you can have it,” Liam said to Leif.

Lief nodded and swept his sleeve roughly across his eyes then got up to leave pressing the photo to his chest. “Thanks,” his voice came out rough again, then he headed for the door.

“Lief,” I said rising from my chair and he turned. I padded quickly towards him and got caught up in a gigantic bear hug that lifted me right of the floor as he buried his face in my hair for a moment and nearly squeezed the life out of me. Then he put me down rumpled my hair and left.

I went back to the table and thumped down in my seat. I looked at Rowan who smiled understanding and reached out and stroked my cheek.

“If I could have this one,” Liam took the picture of me alone in my garden out of the stack, “then you can have the rest. They said your house was burnt down right? These are all that would be left.”

I nodded and got too choked up to answer. Liam reached out and held my hand for a short moment then sighed, “I'm going to go and pretend to sleep now, cause the Trees and the Sea know I have enough on my mind to lie sleepless for the rest of my life. One question though. How did my mother get these?” He looked at Raphael.

“I used to sneak into Rhiannon's house through the attic window and pinch the photos from the envelopes of new pictures before Fionnuala had a chance to put them into albums. The older ones I had to steal from the albums. Sarah gave me a hard time for breaking into your house,” he looked at me apologetically, “But the pictures made Sulamith so happy that she let me get away with it. Did you find the lock of her hair I got?” Raphael asked Liam.

Liam, in answer, pushed over the box and there in the bottom was a slightly golden, brownish blondish loop of hair tied with a piece of blue ribbon. By the colour, I must have been about thirteen. Raphael smiled. “That took some doing,” he winked at me. “But it made her so happy.” He smiled. It was a happy sad, memory laden, love filled smile. Only Raphael could make a smile so complicated.

Liam said goodnight and Rowan and I went back to our room. I'm pretty sure that we all pretended to sleep that night.