“You up for playing?” Joseph asked his older clone with anticipation in his voice.
“Always.” William took the guitar case from Cora and she clapped her hands eagerly before taking a seat beside her husband.
I looked at William inquisitively as he withdrew the shiny acoustic guitar from its case. He smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. “I play the guitar. It’s kind of a family thing,” he explained, as he began strumming at the strings.
“Is there anything you can’t do?” I asked, hypnotized from the way his hands moved with fluidity over the guitar.
Joseph laughed under his breath, and William elbowed him.
“He’s not very good with the ladies, and it appears he no longer has a career in espionage, either.” Patrick chortled, as he made his way back from the kitchen, a stack of cookies in his hand.
“I’d beg to differ with you there,” I retorted, before I remembered William’s father sitting quietly behind us. I flashed red.
“Does that differing come from all of your extensive experience in those two areas Miss Dawson?” Patrick retorted back, before stuffing a whole cookie in his mouth.
“Don’t worry, Bryn. He’s got a full mouth, so he’ll shut up for a few seconds, and then he’s got at least five or six more of those things in his hand,” Joseph encouraged me, and with the gentle lamplight thrown across his face, he looked more like William than ever before. “So you can look forward to another fifteen to twenty seconds of silence from him. Why do you think we keep so much food on the table when he’s around?”
Patrick swallowed and smiled in mock thanks at his youngest brother. “HaHa.”
“Come on.” Charles stood up, and came to a standing stop beside Cora, a rusted harmonica in hand. “Are you boys going to argue all night or would you like to play anytime soon?”
With that, the two, dark haired brothers nodded at one another, and broke into a light, fast-paced song. Charles’ harmonica tuned in a few notes later, followed by Cora’s sweet voice.
Amazement exploded over my face as I watched William and his family consumed by the music they created together. They played with the skill of a musical group people would pay to see . . . although I guess they’d had a few extra decades to perfect their melodies than most. I couldn’t repress the involuntary swaying of my body, keeping time to the steady beat coming from the foursome.
Nathanial, having retrieved Abigail from the interior of the house, escorted her to a make-shift, grass dance floor in front of the Hayward quartet, and Nathanial led her in a cheerful swing-like dance. Abigail’s face was alive and glowing in the arms of her husband. A twist of sadness stabbed me when I was reminded I may never glow in the arms of my husband while we danced beneath a star-blanketed sky if William and I were not granted a Union.
The song grew livelier, and with it, my body moving to the music.
“May I have this dance?” All signs of the cookies formerly held in them gone, Patrick’s hands extended towards me, and he winked devilishly at William.
“Sorry brother. You snooze, you loose. You don’t get to dance with the ladies when you’re stuck behind the varnished wood of a musical instrument.”
William rolled his eyes at Patrick, and then nodded at me in encouragement, never missing a note.
I grabbed hold of Patrick’s hands, an expression of mock reluctance greeting him, and smiled wryly. “You may have seen my waltz a couple nights ago and are under the assumption I can dance, but the dance lessons my parents paid for me to take as a clumsy twelve-year-old only included the waltz, and I’m afraid I’ve got two left feet when it comes to anything else,” I admitted to Patrick, not really caring how many times I stepped on his feet—more caring about the fool I’d make of myself in front of everyone else.
Nathanial and Abigail continued their flawless dance across the uneven dance floor, continuing to set a bar I’d never come close to.
“Watch and learn.” Patrick pulled me towards him, having reached our designated spot from where to commence the dreaded dance to come.
He attempted to lead me to the left, and I went right. He tried pushing me backwards, but I went forward—crunching one of his feet for what would be the first of many to come if he continued to feel the need to make a fool of me in front of his family. I heard the snicker of two Hayward brothers when Patrick winced from the first onslaught of my clumsy feet.
“Gosh . . . haven’t you ever heard you’re suppose to let the man lead?” Patrick complained loudly enough for all to hear.
I burst into laughter when I realized the thirty or so seconds we’d been “dancing”, we hadn’t moved from the spot we’d started—his movements being thwarted by my opposing movements.
Cora’s voice faded from song when she joined in with my roaring laughter.
“It’s all in the leading.” The voice that could summon a million separate physical and emotional reactions in my body, murmured softly beside us, as I noticed a companionless guitar leaning up against the bench beside Joseph.
William nudged against Patrick, attempting to break his hold on me, and when he stubbornly refused to relinquish, I slipped my hands from his, and placed them to where they naturally fit—where they’d been created to fit.
“Never send a boy in to do a man’s job.” William winked at me, while a dejected Patrick made his way back to the trio of musicians.
William’s eyes sparked, and I surrendered to him while he led me around the lamp-lit, grassy ball room. Despite the absence of the formal wear, the impressive symphony, and the extravagant gold and crystal around us—this dance was on a whole different level than our first. There was a sensuality and intimacy clinging to our skin, and in this defined dance—where William led an impossible partner to look semi-graceful in front of the family he loved—I allowed myself to believe everything would be alright.
We were so obviously meant to be together, how could anyone—having seen us together—deny it? Charles seemed amiable enough towards me, and the Council would surely take into consideration their Chancellor’s opinion and grant us the Unity we both yearned for. I allowed myself to hope for that happy ending I’d doubted life had in store for me.
I lay in bed later that night in William’s room—after he tucked me into bed, promising to return after his father had retired for the night—with my mind affixed as usual on the man supposedly sleeping two rooms down from me. Patrick’s room was conveniently located between the two of ours, and perhaps Charles didn’t realize, or want to recognize, that every member of his family had been privy to William and I sharing a room only one week past; and Patrick would be the least likely one to stop a future account of this happening.
Cora and Joseph had retired to their own home several acres away, as had Nathanial and Abigail, after the music and dancing had continued hours after the first cover of darkness. I was alone in the house with the three remaining single Hayward men, and when I’d asked William earlier this evening why his father had never been United in his Immortal life after their mother had been killed in their Mortal lives, William answered me simply.
“There is only one other created for you. Once they’re gone, what would be the use in pretending?”
I understood his explanation completely.
I heard Patrick settle into his bed a room away from me with an overemphasized yawn. “Goodnight, Bryn.” He knocked on the adjoining wall. “Sweet dreams. I’m sure William will understand when it’s me you dream of tonight and not him, after our lovely dance this evening.”
I didn’t get sucked into his ploys and remained silent, although I heard a loud pound on the wall farther down from me—probably William’s warning to his younger brother to shut up.
With the momentary bantering ceased, and all the lights out, I had nothing left to focus on but the images of William running through my mind, and as each beautiful image played through, I swore I heard with increasing sensitivity, the regulated breathing of him two rooms down. It was like a dark form of torture—or a test of willpower—tempting me to tear through the two doors and twenty or so feet keeping us apart.
I heard him shift in bed, and sigh deeply, and that was it . . . I couldn’t take it anymore. I was either going to fling myself through my door and tear into his room throwing myself on him in the same second, or fly out the large open window in my room and run. Run like I had that day at John’s estate. The smarter, more rational self within me decided upon my fate.
I’d run.
I was still in the jeans and sweater Abigail had lent me—probably begrudgingly, after Patrick and William arrived with me in tow, wearing nothing but a silk nightgown. I leapt through the window, and rocked back on my heels, preparing to throw myself into the mercy of the growing energy in my legs. It was a soft, rolling noise that distracted my attention and drew my eyes to the stable.
I jogged to the stable, depleting some of the infinite stores of energy in my legs, and walked through the open door and down the long row of stalls. I found her several stalls in, resting in the billows of straw below her. She raised her head to look at me when I slid the gate open and walked inside, but remained lounging in the straw so I decided to join her. She lowered her head after a few seconds and seemed perfectly content to have me beside her—new and unwelcome guest as I was—comforting her with my caresses.
I’d started to lull into the beginnings of sleep, when two sets of heavy footsteps entered the stable. I debated upon standing up and calling out a greeting, but didn’t have time to act upon it before one of them spoke.
“You have me alone now, Father. Just what is so important you have to say to me in such private conditions?”
I gasped silently when I heard the voice I loved most.
“You know what this is about, William.” Charles’s voice remained calm. “This is about her.”
“What about her?” he said, and from the tone, I knew his jaw was clenched.
“We all know what you two want . . . your hopes of being United—”
“Our hopes?” William asked with incredulousness. “What do you mean by hopes? That it’s merely nothing but that—a hope and nothing more?”
“When Nathanial reported back to me what gift he believed Bryn to possess, I was worried—”
What gift? I thought to myself. I didn’t think one had manifested yet, and while I thought I’d be relieved—after my apprehensions I would be the one mutant Immortal not bequeathed with a gift—I felt a knot forming in my stomach instead, at what this gift could be. From the gravity in Charles’s voice, I guessed it was less than ideal.
“And after you and Patrick’s account as to what happened to the Councilmen when they were trying to take her life—”
“What are you saying?” William’s shouted. I could practically feel his body quivering from his anger.
“If what you say is true, and she was able to cripple—if not nearly kill—seven, senior Immortals.” Charles breathed in heavily before continuing, “She is the strongest Taker in known existence.”