Page 37

Ghosts of the Past

Rafferty’s next real thought is to breathe. Reality, or what he perceived as reality, had formed around him once more. He had a body again and stood on a real floor. Pressing a hand to his chest, he felt a heartbeat and the expansion of his ribs. He was st ill alive.

Next, he noticed his hands, still real and a living color, instead of the dull, corpse-like gray of his demonic self. Yet, it was the sleeves that gave him pause. They were rolled up at his elbows with puffy sleeves over his upper arms. His hands hit his chest, feeling the large buttons, each stamped with the insignia of the king. Over it all was a coat of blue with red-and-white brocade, the livery of the king.

Shocked, he looked about the room and realized it was familiar. A small room that had once been above a tailor’s shop, where he had lived with his mother and little sister, cent uries ago.

He was home.

“This isn’t real, at least not in the way you would understand it,” Honey said. She stood next to him, dressed in a long gown with a sleeveless red-orange tunic, her hair gathered up under a wimple. Only a single strand escaped it, her normally honey-blonde hair having turned to a dark tendril, closer to his own coloring. “This is her dream. Remember that, so that you don’t get sucked into it.”

Rafferty remembered such dreams. They were always nightmares, really, memories of their lives before, and only the bad ones, the ones no one wanted to steal. It was why his memories with Helena had been so precious here. He hadn’t dared trade any one of them, even though there was much he could have done with such treasures.

“Who is this?” he asked, already knowing the answer, but his voice shook asking the question all the same.

“Who’s there? Who is it?” a creaking voice called out in familiar French. It was only then that Rafferty realized he had been speaking his mother tongue with Honey. “Monsieur Tomas? If it is about the rent… I will have it n ext week.”

“No, madame,” Honey said, stepping forward into the room. “We are just here to visit with you for a while.”

“Who is it? Who are you?” The form lying on a small bed at the far end of the room struggled to sit up. A ratty quilt co vered her.

“No need to get up,” Honey assured her, laying a hand on the frail woman’s chest to encourage her to lie back down.

“I do not want visitors. Go away. Leave me to die in peace,” the frail woman said, then she started coughing hard, the unknown disease in her chest shredding her lungs until she coughed blood into an already bloody han dkerchief.

Automatically, Rafferty went to the bedside where a teapot sat with water in it. He picked it up and pointed the spout toward her mouth, cupping her head. The frail woman recognized what was happening and took a long drink from the spout. She swallowed and coughed again, less violently this time, patting at her lips.

Looking up at her savior, her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“It’s… it’s me, Maman,” he said, his eyes blurring w ith tears.

Her narrowed eyes narrowed further. “No. No, you can’t be him,” she said, even as her fingers lifted up to cup his cheek.

“Maman, please,” Rafferty begged, even as she pulled away. “Please, I…” The tears escaped from his eyes as he dropped down to his knees beside the bed. “I’m so, so sorr y, Maman.”

Honey set her own hand on his shoulder.

“You can’t be my son. My son is dead,” his maman said, leaning against the wall so she could look out the small window beside her bed. There was nothing beyond it but void. She didn’t seem to notice. “I failed both my children. I am a wretch of a mother. Count yourself blessed you are no t my son.”

Rafferty furrowed his brows as he knuckled the tears away. “I don’t understand,” he said to Honey. “She died before I did. Her illness took her. What is she talki ng about?”

“Your son is alive, madame,” Honey said, raising her voice to cut through the continued murmurings of the s ick woman.

“No, no, he’s not. He’s dead somewhere. And I’ll never know what happened to him. I always feared it. That the gangs would take him away, or the army, or he’d just be killed in the streets for pocket money he doesn’t have, and I would never know. They would just drop his body in some common grave, and I would never see h im again.”

Her words shocked him. “I never realized,” he sa id softly.

“Realized what?” Honey e ncouraged.

“That my mother was so… afraid for me.” His throat thickened with regrets. “All she ever said to me was where was the money I had earned and that I needed to go out and get a job. I was the man of t he house.”

His maman continued to mutter her regrets, and he listened to each one, seeing and hearing her in a new way. “Oh, his toes. I loved his little toes. He was so lively and wiggled so. Oh, my baby son!” Her face melted into tears and wa ils again.

The world around them seemed darker, but Honey noted it without becoming alarmed. Rafferty could feel the cold despair itching at his skin. It wanted to sink into him, to feast on his energy. And he was tempted to let it, to do anything to ease his mother’s suffering.

“No, you do not have to do that. Stay present or you will be pushed out, but you are not obligated to give of yourself for her. She will not disappear just yet and it is a drop compared to what she needs. It will not help her to sacrifice yourself like that,” Honey said, as if she could hear his thoughts. Maybe she could.

“Then what can I do?” His question came out like a plea, filled with his self-contempt at hi s failure.

“Like I said, stay present with her. Hold space. We can only hope that she will hear our call and open up to us, but it must be her choice, or it means nothing.”

Then she turned once more to the frail being writhing in her hell. “Madame, I have news of your son.”

Rafferty’s maman perked at that statement. “You know of my son? You have seen him?”

“Yes, madame. He sends you a message.”

The sickly woman sat up in the bed, like she intended to leap from it. It was the most lively she had seemed yet. “What is it? Tell me!” she ordered with that sharp voice he remembered most clearly, as if she had the authority of a queen. He had found that tone grating in his youth, and he realized that it was another reason he had made the deal with Vassago. To get away from that h arsh tone.

Again, Honey was not offended. She only smiled serenely and sweetly, much like her name, and curtsied to the lost soul. “He is a cook in the king’s kitchen , madame.”

His maman’s mouth opened and closed several times, the news something too fantastical to automatically deny it. Then her eyes snapped to him, still kneeling beside her on the floor.

Rafferty laid a hand against his chest, gripping at his livery. He had been so proud to wear the king’s colors. It should have been impossible for someone like him to have the honor to be one of the king’s cooks. An honor only made possible, again, by his deal wit h Vassago.

As his mother’s eyes roamed over him, she seemed to finally see him. Reall y see him.

Then her hand leapt to his cheek as quick as a slap, cradling it. “Mon c?ur,” she said, her voice cracking with warmth, sadness, and hope, all wrapped into that one term of endearment. Her other hand joined the first, holding his face, pulling him closer. “I t is you?”

“Oui, Maman,” he answered, holding one of her hands, so much smaller than his own. He had been barely thirteen, maybe fourteen, when he had run away from home. His hands had been the same size as hers then.

She examined his livery closer. “And it is true? You are a cook in the king’s kitchen? Th e king’s?”

“Oui, Maman. I… I am.”

“Oh, my baby. My baby!” She kissed his nose and his cheeks, making him blush even as he hungered for the familiar ritual. How had he forgotten that his mother used to do this to him even when he had got ten older.

“Are you proud, Maman?” he asked, the question a plea for approval that he had longed for. It was only now that he realized he had longed to return home and show her what he had become. He had feared what she would say about him aband oning her.

“Oh, yes. Yes. You are a man now! You a re happy?”

“Yes, Maman, I was happy. I wanted you to be proud of me.” His voice thickened again. “I am so sorry I abandoned you. I’m so sorry.” His tears came again. He could not hold them back. His head dropped into her lap, and he wailed his pain, guilt, and grief into the worn-out bed, smelling of old hair and b ody odors.

It was only after there was nothing more to scream or cry that he realized that his mother’s fingers threaded through his hair, brushing it back, and she hummed a wordless lullaby, a piece from some opera she had heard once and loved. Rafferty had never known what it was; the opera had been a failure and forgotten by all except his maman.

When he lifted his head, she brushed away the tears from his face, smiling warmly. “There. There now. All is well, little chil d of God.”

He shook his head. “No, no. I am not… I am not a child of God anymore, Maman. Not after what I did to you. What I did to you and…” But he couldn’t remember his sister’s name, not any more than he could remember his mother’s or even his own original name. He had lost those memories long, long ago. “And… m y sister.”

“No, no,” his maman said, continuing to pet him. “That is not your fault. Not your responsibility. I am your maman. You are my child.”

“But… but y ou said…”

“I was wrong,” she answered, setting a kiss onto his forehead. “I was afraid. I did not know what to do for you. I wanted so much for you both, to be happy and safe and fed, and I failed.”

He hadn’t noticed the darkness retreated from them until it encroached again, eating up the world around them, stabbing through and punishing his maman. “I failed my children. I sinned, and God has abandoned me.” Her words degraded in to a wail.

“No, Maman! No, I am fine. I am a cook in the king’s kitchen. I am fine. I am happy.” He grasped her hands, pulling her back t oward him.

The darkness paused as she heard him this time. “A cook in the king’s kitchen?” she repeated.

“Yes, yes. I am happy,” he insisted. “I live a f ull life.”

She touched his cheek again. “You are? You a re happy?”

He wanted to say yes, but it sat too heavy in his heart. He could not hide it from his maman.

“What is it, my baby?” she asked.

“There… there is th is woman.”

Understanding washed over her face, mixed with joy. “You are in love?”

He couldn’t lie. “Yes. But I do not deserve her,” he admitted. “I have done horrible things. I have ruined her life by simply being in it. I have nothing of worth to offer her, and I have even had stray thoughts from her. She is my savior, yet I cannot bear to look at her. I am a faith less man.”

“Then return to her. Beg her forgiveness and spend the rest of your life being faithful and true. Be the man I know you are,” his m aman said.

“It is not that simple.” The words tasted wrong in his mouth.

“No, it isn’t. But that is what makes it worthy,” she said, tipping his chin up so his gaze met hers. “But if you do not want her, then le t her go.”

“But she is my savior, I owe her…”

“Oh child, I do not want that for you,” she said so gently and sweetly it silenced him. Her eyes even smiled into bright crescent moons. “I want you to find a trade, meet a nice young woman, have children, live a long, peaceful, happy life. And light a candle for your mother every once in a while. Both of you.” She looked up at Honey and took her hand, squeezing tightly. “That would be enough fo r me to…”

Maman stopped, words failing on her lips. Her gaze went long, looking past him.

“I see it now,” she said, her voice softening a nd serene.

The darkness melted away and the room dissolved with it. They were returning to the beings they always had been, even as her voice continued to speak. “I understand now. I see. Love …” The last wasn’t a word, yet the feeling reve rberated…

…reverberates through Rafferty. She is gone. She dissolves and rejoins the light, brighter than ever. The other dark orbs move away from it, shunning the light as it pours in and consumes her. No. Takes her back, embraces her, and she returns to what she has always been. She still exists but she is home now.

Rafferty wonders why he does not do that same.

Honey is beside him, embracing him once more.

He knows it is time to return.