Things Impossible.

This story is the third in the Kingdom series. Read “The Doors” first, then “Tea”.

When he opens the door, Jane is standing there. His heart kicks him so hard he can hardly breathe. Stare at her forever, like a mindless idiot. Watch her slowly turn red, then shake her head and look away.

What is he thinking?

“Oh, forgive me Jane, please, come in. I was just surprised to see you, I am surprised. I hope it isn’t too hard on you to see me again, and the house.”

A slight smile, a slight tilt of the head, she is nervous, he can tell.

“Will you have tea? I have the new one, though I haven’t tried it.”

“Oh, no tea, please. Just a glass of water.”

He settles her on the sofa and goes to get some water. A fresh bottle, he pours half in a glass and brings it to her, keeping the rest for himself. The bottle sits on the table between them, the Royal Blue label glints in the light from the window and speaks for itself. She puts her glass down.

“Tom, please, can I have a glass of wine? Do you have one open? I don’t care what kind, I just need something stronger than water right now.”

He looks up at her, his own thoughts immediately shelved, what can he read in her beautiful face? Something that raises all his small hairs. Without a word he opens a fresh bottle of wine, it too is rich and revealing. She holds her glass in her hands, looking down into its ruby depths like she is looking for what needs to be expressed. After a while she lifts her eyes to him, so dark they seem black, a look he has never seen in them.

He smiles gently.

“Not without drinking it, I’m afraid. The courage is in the bottom of the glass. You don’t need it with me anyway, you know this. Do you need to talk about Rowan? I know you have a few friends but I’m not sure how much use they would be with grief. I’m here for you Jane, drink up and talk to me.”

She gulps obediently, tasting nothing. A shudder, a plea, “the garden is so lovely, could we go out outside and talk”?

She picks up the wine and leaves the water, the French doors open for her like she is the lady of the house. Yes, she remembers this too, with Rowan behind her insisting they opened for him, to tease her. His laugh, the strong arms coming around her waist, the nip on the nape of her neck that he didn’t bother to hide. She falters a second, memories crushing her, reaching out a trembling hand. He takes it and helps her to a chair, keeping his own tremor under rigid control. Look down at her lovely head, the black hair loose and tumbling, remind himself that nothing has changed. Women like her are not for him, he has long known this, he has no fire, no vitality. Rowan was the one they were drawn to, with his impossibly perfect physique, his handsome face, the hint of Royal in the blue of his eyes.

When he sits facing her he doesn’t have to express his pain, they meet eyes and wonder that someone so alive could suddenly not be. He sees her start to breathe a little faster, her skin pales, he almost leans in to her, surely she is ill. She shakes her head, then stands suddenly, pulling him up too, she leads them out into the open grass and they lie flat on their backs like children. The piece of sky that is his looks down on them.

Hilda, his lovely slave, hurrying out with some blankets. Jane shakes her head, he sends her back in and they lay back and feel the grass on their skin. He is worried sick but knows better than to show it, worry is like fear, one has no notion of it in the Kingdom. How one does this he has never known, since both have assailed him since birth. Just as well he is quiet by nature, his eyes the blue of a frozen river, they reveal nothing unless he lets them.

She is quiet, can she really talk to him?

He is remembering his brother, in love with this woman, like he loved all of them. Did he even see how different she is? Not the hair and eyes, the skin, anyone can read exotic in her, and this kept away many but fascinated Rowan. Did he have any idea that she is a Thinker? How long has it been since one was seen? Who can remember? Only other Thinkers and they are impossible to find in the Kingdom. When they surface they are taken into the palace and never seen again.

The Thinkers run the Kingdom, serve the King with life and limb, and are under such strict breeding rules that they can only mate with the King’s permission. Under supervision. They are locked up, palace or not. Some say the pity payment to the mother is outrageous, but the odds of having one are astronomical. Tremendous honour in serving the King, a Thinker is both a treasure and a taint to his family’s house.

How does one live in such a lovely package and it still remain a secret? Did her family know? Does she have family? Rowan was never interested in things like that, it was all sensations with him. The challenges, the risks inherent in being seen with such a dark haired woman, he handled them like he handled everything, capably, with flair and finesse both, so how could you be jealous of him?

The idea of him dying while sky diving is quite unthinkable, but no one questioned it. Suddenly the family home was his, in all its quiet splendor, full of so many things he had no need for. Slaves, too many now since he had his own. He expected them to be taken up and placed elsewhere, but so far he had heard nothing. He wanted to prompt them, but one didn’t address the Kingdom, one waited to be addressed by it.

They spent time in the kitchens, mocking him for his lack of arrogance, drinking his wine. Like extended family you hated but couldn’t get rid of. A hostile presence in his own house, how was this even possible? These were the kinds of questions that tortured him, in a world free of fear, a safe world, why didn’t he feel it?

He tried to picture his parents, a constant presence for so many years, reassuring, as long as he could look up and see his mother smile at him, the world couldn’t be what he feared. There it was again, that word, fear. How did he recognize it in the first place? Since it wasn’t supposed to exist. Yet he felt it, writing itself into being in the depths of his guts.

A shake of his head, she turns to him, he smiles to reassure her.

She sits up and drinks straight from the bottle. He watches her throat as it moves, a pulse there that beats far too fast. How he wishes he could calm it with his lips, his careful fingers, he would make an altar of it. She passes it to him and lays down again, turning on her side to face him, hugging herself. He turns his head to find her eyes, his face a perfect mask of patience, boundless, trying to contain the oceans of it he has for her. The vast readiness in his heart to listen and fix, not even darkness could hide it. Wait. Always the best way, what must come, will.

“I loved your brother, Tom, but I wasn’t blinded by him. You might think I was, but I knew it was a game for him. I am not the keeping kind, I have always known this. Loving him was like loving fireworks, so powerful, so bright, it would have gone out soon enough. What did I care? While I had him he was mine and I have the scorch marks now, nothing can take that away from me.”

It takes everything he has to keep his face clean, to catch the tiger as it leaps and cage it. There is nothing needed for such words, let them stand alone in the sweet silence. If something senses light, if it finds just enough of what it needs to start reaching up, out of the dark earth, he lets it.

Her face so serious, no tears, no doubt she has shed enough of them. He waits. What his heart has long held has nowhere else to go.

“You have to listen closely now, Tom. This is very important, I will keep my voice low. Can you hear me clearly? “

A wry smile, he could hear her whisper in his sleep. He nods slightly, intrigued.

“You remember the service for Rowan, with the urn of hair clippings replacing his ashes, since his body was never found. Think back, there were two priests, which was odd, no? I thought so. One of them came to me with Rowan’s bag, from his hotel room, his effects, he called them. I took it home with me, thinking I would never want to look at his things, I could see his papers sticking out of the side, it made feel so sick. I was a wreck, Tom, feeling things we aren’t supposed to feel.

“I have never seen anyone cry, but I did, for days. Am I the only one grieving? Do you miss him? Did you love him? It sure looked like it, please tell me that was real. The feeling, I don’t care who it was for, tell me you felt, hard, not the idea but the feeling- ah! I’m sorry, so sorry, too many things in my head and I wasn’t ready for them, and it’s so much worse because his friends are fine. I am expected to move on now, but I can’t.”

A gentle hand on her shoulder, the tension thrums through her, he shushes her softly.

“I did love him, I would have done anything for him, he was the sun to my shadow. Can you conceive that I might like it in the dark?  I miss him, he filled this house all by himself.”

He does not speak of his heart, which has been hers since he first saw her. He is here to help, not burden her. To be safe, he takes his hand off her shoulder. She sighs and closes her eyes briefly.

“What did you find, when you looked in his bag?”

Her eyes fly open.

“What did you find that brought you here?”

She holds his eyes while she pulls a piece of paper from her sleeve. Rolled up like a scroll, he can see raised letters, smears of charcoal, he recognizes it as one of his brother’s etchings, torn from his sketch book. She passes it to him, he lays it on the ground between them, so the sun can shine on it.

A coat of arms, elaborate, familiar. Words that send a terrible chill through his heart. His brother’s name, some lines without meaning, all that matters is the one. To Meet The King.