Images of Kaylee assaulted Alburet. He kept his face blank as he tried to contain his emotions. “What I want you can’t give me, Mother.”
“Will you tell me anyway, child?”
The words came in a rush, pouring out before he could consider them. “I have a daughter, not by blood, who is broken back in the other world. The only thing I want is for her to be whole again, for her to be able to go back to being the innocent woman she was from before the attack. I want her to walk, to laugh and be happy as she once was,” his voice caught. “You can’t give me that, but it is the reason I came to this world to begin with.”
“To begin with? And why do you come here now?” Mother asked, stepping forward to meet his eyes.
“I have family here,” Alburet replied, his gaze trapped by the green eyes of the Mother as they seemed to swallow him. “I have a wife that I love, friends that I care for, which includes Bob and Tiny. I still hope what I’m doing will help Kaylee, but these others are now part of the reason as well.”
“You are broken child, did you know that?” She stood barely two feet away.
“What do you mean?” Alburet’s chest tightened.
“Let me show you. This is just one piece of your broken mind,” her words were barely a whisper as she stepped so close that her green eyes became all that he saw.
~*~*~
Seamus looked at his attorney, Moore Moorehead, seated across the table from him, “I didn’t know we had a meeting today, Moore.”
“We didn’t,” Moore said, his eyes serious as he looked at Seamus. “I didn’t come about your case, Seamus. I came on behalf of your father.”
“Dad? What does he want this time?”
“It’s what he wished to leave you,” Moore replied, his eyes going sad. “Your father died yesterday, Seamus. Your mother found him in their bedroom. I’m so sorry to have to tell you.”
Seamus’s face went slack as the words hit him like an anvil. “What? You can’t be serious, Moore! I talked to him three days ago. He was fine! He said he was getting better…” Seamus felt like there was a knife in his chest, stabbing and twisting where his heart should be. “This is a joke, right? Tell me you’re joking!”
“Seamus,” Moore said calmly from across the table. “Calm down, please. No, it isn’t a joke. I am sorry. Your father left instructions that I was to be the one to inform you in the case of such an event.”
Seamus felt cold all over, “But how? Why?”
“The doctors think it was another heart attack. We won’t know for sure until the results come back. He tasked me with giving you a letter that he had left with his will.” Moore placed a single sheet of paper on the table before Seamus. It was folded in half, with his name on it.
Seamus reached for it, his hands shaking while his chest tightened. He picked it up as if it was a snake about to bite him. He opened the fold and began to read the last words he would ever receive from the man he idolized above all others in life.
Son,
I know you won’t be happy to get this from Moore. Know he only does as I ask him, do not blame him for being the messenger. It is simply my time, the Lord has taken me home to be with your grandmother and grandfather. I never thought you would end up in a prison, more so after you took on the life of service as a guard. You always listened to what I told you and have been truthful and forthright in your life. God knows your heart son, and knows why you slipped to the path you’re on now. Know I don’t hold any bad will for what you did. You only wished to see a bad man pay for his sins, you should have known that is God’s place and not yours. Even so, you did what you did out of love for another and no father can be mad at his child for loving others, even if it costs them everything they hold dear. Before the end you need to accept a God, that is the only way to salvation, even if it isn’t the God I’ve tried to teach you about.
I left a message for your mother as well. I know she hasn’t talked with you and holds a grudge against you, because of my health. It was just coincidence that I had my first attack right after your arrest. She might come around in the end I hope, the Lord only really knows though. Know that even though she won’t talk to you, she still loves you deeply. She cries when she thinks I ain’t watching her, she sneaks into your childhood room and fusses with the sheets as if you might come home any day. So just give her time and space, I pray she will come around for you once I’m gone.
One last thing, I spoke with your friend David a few times since that day. He is thankful for what you did, as he agrees the scum that committed the crime would not have gotten what he deserved. I tried to help him see that God is the only true judge of the soul, but like you, David sees the world as the end of life and not having faith in something greater. Or at least he did, he has been coming back to his faith over the last few months. I will always love you son, and I’ll be waiting for you with the rest of the family beyond the Pearly Gates.
Your loving mortal Father.
Tears dripped onto the page as the letter shook in his quivering hands. “Why did you leave me now? Wasn’t it bad enough that I’ve…” He couldn’t continue, folding into a ball where he sat. The letter crumpled in his hands as he began to cry heavily. His whole body shook with his deep, ragged sobs as Seamus tried to accept that the man he admired most had been taken from the world.
“Sir, we are going to take him for observation,” a guard said as a group of them entered the room.
“Yes, of course.” Moorhead got to his feet, watching the guards unshackle Seamus from the bench.
“Come on, Seamus,” one of the guards said as they picked him up. “You need to help us, get your feet under you and we’ll lead you along.”
Chapter Fifteen
Alburet woke, his body covered in cold sweat. He was barely able to lift his head up off the softness beneath it. The effort made him pant. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, “Where am I?”
A hand softly stroked his forehead, “We be in a room at the Dark Lord’s castle, master.” Stacia eased his head back down to her lap, “Ya passed out in the throne room. Mother be sorry for what she did.”
“What I was shown, what was that? That wasn’t one of my memories,” Alburet told her. He could feel himself relax as she continued to caress his head.
“I can answer that for you,” Mother’s silken voice preceded her into the room. “I should apologize first, though. I didn’t understand the extent of the damage you’ve inflicted on yourself. What you saw was indeed your memory, Alburet, a true memory. You broke it away from your conscious and buried it deeply. All I did was reconnect it for you, though I was only able to do so partially due to other damage.”
“That wasn’t my memory, though,” Alburet told her, “Moore didn’t give me a letter from my father when he died. He told me my father died in the hospital from a heart attack. My mother didn’t find his body like that.” He felt an urge that the memory was true, though he didn’t want to accept it.
Mother sighed, “Child, your mind is fragmented. Fragmented by your own will, no less. What you think you know is not always true. What is true has been shattered and hidden away to keep the pain from your own mind.”
“It isn’t,” Alburet said angrily, “I can remember everything that has happened over the last five years without any problem.” He tried to sit up, failing as Stacia gently restrained him.
“Master,” Stacia said softly as she leaned over him so her eyes filled his vision. “Ya trust me. What she be sayin’ is true, ya mind is disjointed. Tha’ be where the nightmares are comin’ from. I have sensed it from ya ever since me change, but I did nay understand until now. While ya was out Mother an’ I talked.”