Yield (19 page)

“But you can solve it,” Mrs. Clark announced.

Now Ames joined me in the sit upright like a two-by-four club.  He spoke for the first time since returning to the room.  “If you’re saying she has to endanger herself in anyway, it is no.”
              I scoffed at him speaking for me.  “I can speak for myself
dear
.”

His glare didn
’t work either.

“What is it I would have to do?”

“Remove your powers.”

“No way will I let you do this.” 
Hell no!
  

“How can you say that?  Having magic doesn
’t mean anything if we can’t be together anyway.  Why would you even think it?”

Facing each other, we forgot to remember someone else was there with us.

“I can’t let that happen.  You don’t know what could go wrong.”

“Stop being a man and be reasonable.  It is the only way.”
              Verdangit.  Not be a man.  I could show her how I was a man if I could get her alone and—

“Your grandmother can hear you.”

Crap!

“
Then don’t listen.  She doesn’t know what she is saying.”  I was at a last resort.  Emma really didn’t know what she was saying to me. Let her die and watch her do it was a big N-O.  She was willing to sacrifice all for me, so why is it so wrong to be allowed to do the same for her?

“Then you
’re obviously not listening to her.  She loves you, Ames.  Enough to give up her heritage.”

“Not if I can help it.”  Two females who haven
’t heard a word I said were just staring at me trying to change my mind.  They’re all the same in that respect.  So damn determined to get their way.

If I am some
witch/warlock/whatever I better get a friggin’ girl reader cuz’ I just don’t get them.

Emma didn
’t see the big picture.  This woman was so willing to take from her it made me uneasy and worried she had a bigger agenda.  Emma’s own sent her here to get help.  This made me wonder two things.  Did Mrs. Ryman really know the consequences of what she was sending her granddaughter to do and did Mrs. Clark, my own, misguide both of them. 

Worse, the determined look in Emma
’s eyes was so damn desperate I didn’t know how I could deny her.  She wanted to be with me as much as I did her and it hurt like hell to know that.  I used one small edge to help my conscious.

Like a beacon, I asked my grandmother something with her magical telepathy.

Will
Emma
really
lose
her
magic
forever
if
I
let
you
do
whatever
it
is
you
intend?

Her eyes had been steady on Emma until I directed this to her.  She slowly slid her eyes to mine. 

“My dear grandson, if she is so willing to do whatever, then you should be grateful.   Nothing, and I mean
nothing
, can take what doesn’t want to be taken.  My unfortunate life taught me that.”

“Just stop.  Both of you.”

I shot both hands in the air trying to stop for the traffic light that wouldn’t turn red.  They were definitely related.

“
Look Ames.”  I leaned my forehead to his and looked him in the eyes to show I needed his undivided attention.  “I know you’re scared.  I am too.  But I have to do this.  I don’t have to even think about it since I never wanted the powers anyway.  This is an easy decision for me.”

“Emma,” he dragged out my name eliminating the rising anxiety I was trying to hide.  “You don
’t know what might go wrong.  She hasn’t even told you how yet and you’re just saying yes.”

“What.  Cuz
’ you think it might make me have amnesia or forget that I love you or something?”

“Maybe.  But more that it will hurt you in some way.” His eyes dilated at my words. They always did when
that
word was used.

“It is a possibility.  I won
’t lie.” The first that Grandma Clark spoke about the subject.

“
See,” he begged.

“Tell us more first.”  I was determined this would work.

Mrs. Clark told us how there were many goblin kings of the past that were not from the Cahn family.  When my grandmother told her about the supposed curse, she traced her own research back to the various kings.  When it was obvious it wasn’t a name that was attached to the curse, but in fact the female’s causing the problem with their powers, she vowed to help keep us apart to keep the powers separate.   Goblin king’s at least ten generations back married a human witch in various realms.  To break the line, the goblin king needed to NOT marry a witch.  This is what the big plan was.  It was sure sounding like a huge hatched plan for some “greater good” and nothing to do with separating two people who loved each other.  At least I know it wasn’t something against us personally.

Then she told us about a girl who once tried to remove her magic and it went wrong.  Very wrong.  Instead of removing them, she became a conduit like myself but more potent in the results category of magic.  When the ceremony was performed, she released magic to see if it worked and ended up electrocuting everyone in the room. 

They all died.

“Okay,” I said, “So that is the worst case scenario.”

Ames coughed.  Bonehead.

“What is the sunny side of this?”

“The ceremony is more intensity than actual pain.  If the person removing the magic or the person having it removed is interrupted during the process, then it could be null and void.  If none of that happens, then all is well and you go back to your happy ever after.”

No we were supposedly already doomed, remember?  She made it sound like a slice of lemon pie on a summer day mixed with a glass of strawberry lemonade.  Add this and a little of that and “
Vwaa-laa!”

I turned to Ames, “What do we have to lose?”

Again with the lack of brain cells.  I loved her for her intelligence, but her insane decision making skills as of five minutes ago have me wondering if she was an Emma imposter.  Look-a-like.  The real Emma would never be this forthcoming at the slice of a moment
’s notice life threatening event.  She would shy away, let me talk her into it, and then say something sarcastic to cover her hesitation.

And the lady didn't sound right. She could be making it all up. I didn't see a book telling us all this.

“
You.
  I could lose you.”

“And in twenty-four hours Ames, I will lose you.”  She stood, pulled my shirt up to make me stand, and pushed me in the hallway away from prying eyes.  But not ears.

She got right up in my face like she might indeed hit me or something.  Pushing me against the wall, I held my hands out to balance with no where to go.  Not one person had actually cornered me like this in my life.  Oh, I was feeling the heat.  And it wasn’t from anger.

“You tell me no like I
’m a child, yet you offer yourself up for sacrifice.  If we do this together, then we do this whole thing together.  Whatever happened to ‘I will if you will’?”

Her eyes widened, then closed.  A breath of mint and tea mixed made it over to me making we want to just shut us both up and hide in a hole somewhere to consume her whole.  She was full of the same desire I was holding in, but to me it felt like I was on a time clock for getting enough of it.  Instead, I told her exactly what I thought we should do. “If you
’re saying we will both go through with it, then the answer is yes.  The treaty is still there regardless of what we do today.”

“I didn
’t mean you have to give up your magic too.”

She would try to get me to change my mind and ignore the treaty reminder.  “I didn
’t even know it was there until half an hour ago.  Giving it is nothing compared to you.”

“Same here.”

“Then the decision is made.”

“Guess so.”

I couldn’t resist my next statement after winning the argument. Well, not entirely winning it. “I like that you’re feeling the same thing I’m feeling at a time we both should not be feeling it.”

Her heat soared in her cheeks. 

“I guess sharing this magic thing and ability to read feelings will probably go away?” she said shyly.

“But the feelings won
’t.  I don’t think it’s possible.”

She smiled and gestured for us to return to the big bad wolf
’s granny in sheep’s clothing.  She lied to me all these years and I never even knew her. She doesn’t get my sympathy card or my time unless it is to save Emma.

“I will find a way to make that treaty void, Ames, but it isn
’t half as important as making sure we are both safe.  Somewhere all this got mixed into a story that’s jumbly and confusing and I don’t know who is lying and who is honest.  If the treaty or letters point to this stupid curse and it is somehow real, then they can take the magic away.  That problem is solved and the ancestors can party.  But if they try to take you away to, well, I can’t deal with that.  I just now for the first time in my life feel like I’m living. I aim to keep it.”

My
lip trembled before I kissed her right there in my grandmother’s house.   She kissed me back with everything she had and silently followed me back to where the lady sat waiting like a patient wolf in wait.  I wasn’t so sure about my first impressions of the lady, but she had the answers I wanted.  If it was real.

The second we sat she started in.  “It is the reason I will help
, Ames.  To save her saves you.  If you can’t see that, I am sorry.  I haven’t been the best grandmother or mother in the past, but I am trying to make amends.  If not for you, then I will say it is to save this girl who seems to have made you into a better man.  Wherever her life turns, it will be good for her too.  But you are not replaceable.”

She
’d watched me for years.  That’s what she was hinting at.  “You don’t get that privilege.  And she will have a better leader than I ever could.”

“So it seems.”

Emma gave me a dirty look.  I frowned at both of them and sat back on the sofa.  I should have brought Wicker for backup. 

“Have you ever known or seen any of the goblin realm make illusions?”  My grandmother asked.

Crap, no.  I thought it was a king thing my father never lived long enough to tell me about.  “No.”

I think I sounded like a petulant child sulking, but who cares. 

“It is her magic handed down to you.  Your eyes.  And I would guess other things.  I’d have to know what others like yourself in the goblin realm can do to distinguish the difference.”

“You know nothing about
my
people,” I spit out making myself angrier for answering her.  Soft fingers formed around my bicep and pressed in.  I calmed instantly.  “Never mind.  Just move on.”

“The others do not age fast, make objects move and change, even heal faster than humans.  But nothing like Ames.  And the kiss he performed made the two of you a sealed deal.”

I tried squeezing her hand to make her stop.

“How do you know about the goblin
’s kiss?” Emma asked her.

“My dear, I know many things.  I have to.  My daughter, Layla, married into them.”  She turned to me.  “That kiss could mean many things.”

I swallowed my own fears.  I’ve wondered as much, but unless she was telling, I wasn’t asking.  Perhaps that was stupid of me, but I wasn’t ready to admit I’d set Emma up for fate worse than falling in love with me.  Or...at least I think she is in love with me.  I feel like she is.  She said it before.

“I regret ever telling your mother to leave.  I will live with that sore mistake the rest of my life.”  She looked up to the painting at her husband and I forgot about doubting Emma
’s love for me.  It was evident in the painting the man was in love with the woman.  His eyes were in a deep trance with only her in his sights.  I knew the feeling.

“What happened to him?” Emma asked her.

“When I told him what I was, and what his daughter was, he couldn’t take it.  Not able to hide the pain or the secret of telling Layla she wasn’t welcome here if she married that man, I lost them both.  Jack left me to find her when I told him the truth. He never found her because he didn’t know where to look.  I haven’t seen him since.”

She wasn
’t the only one alone out there.  Ames needed me and I needed him whether admitted or not.  Family is family no matter what.

“I lied to Mrs. Ryman about him being a warlock so that she wouldn
’t start digging up what to do.  She thinks it skipped a generation.  We had two goblin heirs full of magical potential. Then Emma’s mother panicked when Emma had powers so young and Mrs. Ryman panicked right back.  She wanted to make it so Emma would never be in the goblin realm.  We were all futile in our endeavors.   I will right all my wrongs now the best I can, though I can tell that it will never be enough in your eyes.  I didn’t know I’d lose her.”

I thought she didn’t know Ames was born till later?  The two grandma’s need their facts sorted.  Perhaps they were just being
mothers when she made bad decisions years ago.  Aren’t we all fallible in the long run?  It was all a little twisted though. 

“You should have thought before you did such a thing,” he yelled at her.

Without a care I shouted at him, “And you take a moment to think about what you were doing when you killed all those people for Joshlin.  Judge not Ames where you be judged.”

He looked at me with horror.  If I didn
’t know how much he regretted his past, I’d have thought he was going to aim that same lethal ability at me.  His face said many things in that instant, but his mouth said, “You’re right.”

Wow didn
’t cover the emotions coming over me.

Grandma Clark said it though.  “If it wasn
’t evident how much you’re in love with this girl before, it is with just those simple words.  I do believe you are a miracle to more than just one person’s life my child.”

I swallowed the loose air.  “Not really.  I just know Ames well enough that he wouldn
’t condemn another for their past if they really feel remorse for what they sometimes couldn’t control.”

The woman squirmed a bit. 
“Well said.  I do believe your grandmother was right about one thing.  You will make a wonderful queen to both realms.  Too bad you can’t run for president.  We need someone like you.  Democracies are overrated.”

“No, democracy is understated.  Too many and too little both hurt the population.  Instead, separate the masses and have their own rules, but respect their right to have them.”

“Like I said, you’d be great.  In any way.  I am proud to have you in my family.”

My chest shot out.  She just said...family. 

“Yes.  If Ames will allow me, I’d like to keep in touch with you both even if the tides change down the road.”

Ames didn
’t answer, but he didn’t say no.

“Why again can
’t our magics be combined?” I asked.  The letter said not to marry a Cahn to break the curse.  What if we are both witch and goblin.  “I thought the others were witch only.  We are both.  Both of us.”

“
Correct.  The original curse could possibly be lifted.  Only when it is combined with coven magic and goblin it seems to make you two over powerful.  Two can be considered over powerful and I cannot let that happen?”

“Why not?” he asked suspiciously to his own grandmother.

She ignored his tone of voice and said, “Simply because it isn’t safe.”

Safe to who?

Alone, he and I talked.  Some of the facts were mixed, but it seemed inevitable that one of us should at least try.

Apparently all the stories weren
’t completely wrong.  Down below the kitchen was a basement.  In the all concrete walled room were shelves of items and liquids and many things I couldn’t name.

“I thought that our kind didn
’t need potions and spells anymore.”

“They don
’t. For everyday life.  But you’re basically asking for something like immortality.  It’s a little more complicated and takes a considerable amount of luck.”

“First of all, you can
buy
immortality?  And second, how is luck involved?”

“Yes, it can be bought.  And you can only call it luck to find any amount of gruroot
for what you need, dear girl.”