The Violet Line (26 page)

“
You’re stuck?” He repeated my words, confusion evident on his face. “Stuck in what, Jade? The window; I mean it’s not that small, but you’re not that big a cailín that you could get stuck. Sure, just move back a bit and you’ll fit in there no bother.” He spoke with a smile on his face, as though he had explained away all my problems.

“
Lorcan, I’m not stuck in the window; well I am, but it’s not because I won’t fit back in through it. I seem to be stuck in the rose bushes; every time I move, they tighten up on me and I don’t seem to be able to get out of them. Do you think you could help me or maybe get Emily to help me? I really don’t fancy being stuck here for the rest of my life!” My voice was sharper than I intended but that didn’t stop Lorcan from looking at me strangely before exploding with laughter.

“
I-I can’t believe... you... got stuck.... in Emily’s Roses....” His words were interspersed with peals of laughter. Childishly, I stuck my tongue out at him as he stood laughing.

“
Seriously, Lorcan, it kind of hurts. Help, please.”

“
Ah alright; so, two minutes.”

I could hear him as he thundered into the house. He never walked anywhere quietly, it seemed; he barrelled. I could hear voices downstairs before two sets of steps hurried up the steps. Emily burst into the room followed quickly by Lorcan, who had a scone in his right hand. With the limited mobility I had, I could just make out him munching it as Emily hurried over to me.

“
Jade, how did you manage this.” Her voice was softly scolding as she spoke before leaning down close to the roses and whispering to the bright blooms. I watched dumbfounded as one by one they recoiled back to their original places around the window and I was set free. She helped me back in the window before insisting on examining the marks they had caused.

“
What are they?” I asked, still surprised by what I had witnessed. Lorcan sniggered in the corner as he devoured the last crumbs of his scone before beginning to choke. Emily hurried over to him and pounded him swiftly on the back as he turned beetroot in the face.

“
Lorcan, what have I told you about scoffing them down like that? You’ll choke yourself to death. It serves you right for laughing at Jade; she doesn’t understand the things here. I thought you were more sensitive than that; it was why I chose you.” She spoke to him sternly, as if he was only a misbehaving five-year-old and not a young man in his twenties. I covered my laughter in my hands as he hung his head, the colour on his cheeks becoming more and more pronounced with every word she spoke. He finished up his coughing fit and she turned back to me.

“
Well, as you can see, they’re not like the roses you have back home. They actually work a little bit like a burglar alarm; if anyone tries to break in, which happens very rarely here but it still happens, they simply wrap themselves around the person until they can’t move anymore and hold them until we return. I find it very handy and they are so pretty to look at, but they are very defensive and don’t like to be touched at all, as you have seen. Anyway, would you like to come down? I’ll get you some plasters and we can have a bit of a chat. I think you’re in need of it, dear; you’re very confused and I don’t want to be the source of your confusion anymore. I made some scones and I have the kettle boiled.”

I nodded. I wasn’t ready to talk just yet. First, leprechauns; then she tells me she’s my mother and the person I thought was my mom all along is really my aunt; now rose bush alarm systems. This day really couldn’t get any weirder. She watched me with a concerned look on her face and I could feel her worry for how I was handling all of this rolling off her in waves; I was even worried about how I was handling everything.

“
I’m ok. I’ll be down in a few minutes, just going to pull my trainers back on,” I told her. She simply watched me as though she would add something but instead changed her mind and left the room quietly.

“
You know, you really should be nicer to her; she’s lovely and she makes the best scones ever. Not even my mom can compete – and she’s a leprechaun; it’s bred into her.” He surprised me when he spoke. I’d forgotten he was there; I was so caught up in my own thinking.

“
Don’t start on me, you. I’m sure she’s lovely, but I don’t know her. How am I supposed to immediately like someone if I don’t know them? I need time to sort it all out in my head before I can go accepting things you know. It’s a lot to take in; it changes everything.”

He studied me carefully before he spoke. “Jade, you’ve always known this. I mean honestly, where did you think you got your gift from in the first place? Your mother is not gifted that way at all; she’s entirely human. You, on the other hand; you’re not. The sooner you can accept all of this, the better it will be for you. But you don’t have a whole lot of time; you can’t stay here for long periods of time. You’ll understand more if you talk to Emily; she can tell you. I’m not allowed to; I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I hate it, you know.”

I so badly wanted to question what he meant about not being able to stay here for very long, but I couldn’t because I knew he wouldn’t answer. So I chose to ask him the question he wanted me to ask. “What do you hate, Lorcan?”

“
All this secrecy stuff; it gives me a pain in my stomach.” He spoke with a scowl marring his handsome face. “When someone swears me to secrecy, well, that makes it worse; then I really want to talk. I know I can’t, but I really want to. It’s so unfair. I think it would have sounded better coming from me anyway; I’ve been told I have a way with words. I make it easier for people to understand really difficult situations.” He smiled at me. “You know that’s why I came over here now. I was hoping I could help to make you understand; you know make the knowledge softer. I’m not saying that you’re stupid or anything, just that I could break it down easier for you.”

I stared at him incredulously. “Did you just insinuate that you think I’m stupid?”

“
God no, I’m not nuts. I said the opposite. Wait...”

I stood watching him, expecting him to come out with some explanation for what he had just said. My impatience won out. “Lorcan, what?”

“
Can you smell the fresh scones and butter, because I can I think.” In the blink of an eye, he had darted from the room and I could hear his boots clattering down the wooden stairs; I had only witnessed him moving that quickly when the vampire in ‘The Wreak-Room’ had lunged for him. I sighed; Lorcan was an enigma I was never going to be able to figure him out. He constantly changed from moment to moment and half of the time, I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or joking. He hurt my brain, I decided. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I pulled my trainers out and began pulling them on. He was right about one thing; I could smell scones and butter. Their scent caused my stomach to growl appreciatively and I hurried as I tied my laces.

As I laced them up, I pondered over the dream I had. It had made no sense to me. Why couldn’t I hear Sam when he spoke to me and why had my hand gone straight through him when I had reached out to touch him? Perhaps the council’s terrible persuasion they had planned for me was to actually kill Sam, but that didn’t feel right; it still wouldn’t lead them to me and they were all about that. The beginning of my dream hadn’t really felt like a dream; it was more like a repressed memory that I could never unlock until I was given the key and told the truth. It hurt to think that my parents could so easily have given me up when I was a baby. True, my mother had seemed upset by it all, but she didn’t have to do it. I could have grown up here. What would have been wrong with that?

Maybe they didn’t want you, a little voice answered in my head but I did my best to squash it down. I didn’t know anything yet; I couldn’t simply go wildly jumping to conclusions.

Is it really jumping wildly to conclusions, the voice insisted and I blocked it out, thinking instead on the final part of my dream. It had reminded me of an awful nightmare, a nightmare that had seemed extremely real; it was too weird to be real. It was probably just my brain’s way of coping and dealing with all the stress of the past while. It tossed up the very worst case scenario, me being turned into the vampire’s dark queen. It dawned on me then. That had been me as their queen; that was what I would be like. It frightened me to think about it. I decided to go ask Emily everything she knew about what was happening to me and the prophecy and whether she could help me find Sam or not. I began to think up my first question as I made my way down stairs and into the kitchen.

Chapter Twenty Six

Sitting in the warm kitchen, I held the mug close in towards my chest as I observed Emily pottering around. Lorcan sat in the corner on the sturdiest looking chair in the room happily munching on whatever she passed his way; his appetite was insatiable. Finally, she stopped buzzing around and returned to the table, a mug of steaming tea in her own hands. Sitting down opposite me, she watched my face intently. Finding the scrutiny unbearable, I began to frantically twirl my hair around my fingers. I couldn’t meet her probing gaze so I chose to stare into my half empty cup.

“
Do you read tea leaves?” Her voice when she spoke still startled me, causing me to jump and almost spill the tea. “Jade, relax; you’re safe here, you can be assured. They won’t find you; they can’t even trace you with Sam here.”

“
How do you know about what’s going on? And why did you ask me if I can read tea leaves?”

Laughingly, she gestured towards the cup I held so tightly against my chest in one hand. “I asked you about the tea leaves because you stared into that cup like it held all the answers to your future. The other answer is slightly more complex. I thought you would have wanted to know more about where you came from first though; you know, we haven’t discussed anything since I dropped that little bomb-shell on you. I am sorry, Jade; I thought it would be better to blurt it out instead of trying to hint around it all not really knowing how to tell you.”

She looked at me sadly and somehow seemed older than her youthful appearance. I had an overwhelming urge to walk over to her and hug her, but I was afraid; this was the woman who had given me up all those years ago after all. I sat silent, not knowing what to do so I decided to ask her the one burning question in my mind.

“
If I am your daughter, then why did you give me up? No contact. I didn’t even know that who I thought was my real mother wasn’t. Didn’t you think it was important for me to find out about where I came from, who I really was? Where my powers come from? Did you not think I would need help with them? I haven’t been able to get close to anyone until Sam. Any friends I had when I was younger, I frightened away; nobody wanted to really know the freak girl. Was I really that bad you thought it was best to abandon me? Was I such a disappointment?” I hadn’t meant to have a rant but the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I knew my words hurt her; I could see the moisture gathered in her eyes. But I wanted her to hurt; needed it, in fact. I wanted her to feel even a tenth of what I felt right now.

“
Jade, god, you were never a disappointment; you could never disappoint me and I never abandoned you. I watched your every move; your hurts were my hurts. I wanted to help you with your powers, but I wasn’t allowed to intervene, the rules of the fey, they wouldn’t allow it. I know that you’re upset; it’s so much to take in. But at least you’re here now and we can finally sort things out.” Her voice sounded hopeful as she spoke to me. I wasn’t convinced but the least I could do was listen to what she had to tell me.

“
Okay then; so you didn’t abandon me, but you still left me with no contact, no indication of what was happening. You can’t just expect me to accept that and move on.” My voice remained rigid; I needed it to stay ahead of my emotions.

“
No I don’t expect that, but I would like a chance to explain, if you’d be willing to listen.”

“
I’ll listen but I’m not making any promises.”

She smiled. “Where would you like me to start?”

I wasn’t sure where the best place was or even if I wanted to hear it. The beginning was always a safe bet but in this case, I didn’t know how helpful it would be to my situation; but at least it was a start. “At the beginning; it may or may not be helpful to know the full story and not just from when you gave me to my mother.”

She flinched as though I had slapped her. In a way I supposed I had, but that had been unintentional, simply a slip of the tongue. I still thought of her sister as my real mother and in many ways she was; she had raised me and been with me every step of the way. I could never forget that she had never let me down and even as I’d developed my powers, she had tried her best to help me, comforting me when the children at school bullied me or even just talked to me when I felt as though I was completely alone in the world. She was my best friend and my mother all rolled into one neat little package and even if she wasn’t my biological mother, I wouldn’t just wipe her out of the place she had earned through all her hard work and dedication of raising me. I didn’t want to intentionally hurt Emily though, not in this way anyway, and I did want to hear her reasoning for what had happened.

“
I’m sorry, it sort of slipped out; it’s just strange,” I apologised.

She nodded at me once, but I knew I had hurt her. Glancing over at Lorcan, he shook his head at me and I could see the disappointment on his face, making me feel even guiltier.

“
Well, Jade, as you can see you’re my only child. I never did have another; I couldn’t handle the heartache of losing another child. You see, before I had you, I suffered four miscarriages. I never knew they were coming; it was the only area that my powers to see into the future couldn’t help me.