The Endless Series book 1: The Fairys Bargain

Chapter Twelve: Louisa Endless

Chapter Twelve

My youngest memory of finding someone handsome happened when I was three. I remember being taken through the blue door in the garden, to faerie, with my Mother leading the way. That day, she’d taken time to dress. So often, she was in pajamas and her bathrobe that I half believed that was what she lived in.

For as long as she had been alive, she had been plagued by cancer. The doctors could never figure out how she survived as long as she did, but what the doctors didn’t know was that her father had had magic helping to keep her alive.

While a charm or a wish couldn’t wipe away the nasty disease, it could keep her alive long enough that she could have a sort of half-life. Long enough to marry my father, long enough to have me and my siblings.

Not long enough that she could escape Oberon, unfortunately. But my mother had known what she was doing when she was getting involved with him, and so had everyone else. But that hadn’t stopped her from making another bargain with him.

Because the thing about magic was, once you knew about its existence, it was really hard to let go of. To not use it to fix every, little problem that you had. For my family, that had been how we had fixed things.

No money? Make a bargain. Deathly illness? Make a bargain.

But magic was a band-aid, temporary, and useless when it came to things that mattered. But Moira Endless hadn’t cared about that. Magic was how she fixed things, including the insane bargain my grandfather had made on my behalf before I was even born in order to secure his fortune.

The bargain was made with Oberon, and it said that on my eighteenth birthday I would marry him and give him an heir. Mother had been determined not to see that happen. In the dead of night, she took me to faerie, where I gazed upon Oberon for the first time.

Mother took me through the forest, to Oberon’s castle. It seemed to be made of faerie, of bark, and vines, and earth. It seemed to be a living, breathing, thing, and as we neared it the vines shook like it was announcing our arrival.

“Stay close, Louisa,” Moira told me, squeezing my hand tightly.

Her own hand was frail, white, and bruised. The illness had taken a lot out of her. Between the illness and the magic. But even being sick, Moira was an imposing figure. She had dark hair, unlike me, and green eyes, also unlike me. I took after my father more, blond hair, and blue eyes.

We walked through the castle, aware of the court fae who stared at us as we entered but did nothing to stop us. Everyone knew that if it hadn’t been for her health, Moira would have been the gatekeeper, and gatekeepers were to be respected. As a future one myself, even tiny, I was still to be both feared and respected.

We determined who crossed through the gate or not, and faeries never knew when they would need a favor from us.

Moira did not stop until we entered the throne room”. Oberon was there, an intimidating figure, muscled, blond, wearing golden armor, and a long, red cloak. The first time I knew what attraction was, it was staring at the intimidating figure before me. Even at three, I knew he was not a figure to be crossed.

“Moira,” said Oberon, “what a pleasant surprise. Was I expecting you?”

“No, Oberon,” my mother replied coldly, “you weren’t expecting me. Those days are long over. But I had to come. I need to change the bargain.”

“The bargain’s already been changed once,” said Oberon, “I allowed you your freedom, because of your circumstances, but your grandfather still owes me.”

“I’ve had a son,” said Moira, “a young boy, and I have another on the way. The midwife tells me it will be a girl.”

“What are you suggesting?” Oberon said.

“I will be dead, either because of the birth of the child, or before I live to see the child grow. I can’t do anything for her, but I can do something for my daughter. The girls name will be Emma. Take Emma, in exchange for Louisa’s freedom.”

“Mama, who is he?” I’d asked in my small voice.

Oberon peered down at me, a smile on his face. “Little one, I am Oberon. King of faeries. I’m supposed to be your future husband, but it would seem that your mother has other plans. What do you want, Louisa? Would you like to be a Queen?”

I shook my head. “I want to be a gatekeeper, like my mother and grandfather.”

“Alright,” Oberon said with a nod. He looked at my mother. “I will accept your bargain, but we won’t seal it the old-fashioned way. We’ll seal it with the child’s blood, for it will be her promise to keep.”

Moira swallowed. “What will happen if the bargain isn’t completed?”

Oberon’s eyes changed color, from green, to red, to brown, to yellow. “You know what will happen.”

“They’ll be turned to stone, and we’ll lose everything?”

“Yes,” said Oberon.

“Alright,” said Moira. She knelt down so that she was eyelevel with me. “Sweetheart, Oberon is going to do something that will make all of your dreams come true. It might hurt a little, but when this is over, you’ll be able to be a gatekeeper. Do you understand?”

I nodded, and to this day, I don’t even know that I fully comprehended her words. Oberon took a small blade from off his person, adorned with rubies, and knelt down so that he was eye level with me to.

“Little one,” said Oberon, “look at me.”

I did.

“Hold your hand out,” he told me.

I did.

He took my hand. It was so small, compared with his large one. “Louisa Endless, do you solemnly swear that you will bring your sister to me, on her eighteenth birthday, so that she can be my wife?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. I’m going to cut you little one, it will only hurt a little bit.” He cut me, and I cried out in pain. But in moments, he had healed me, with a soothing, golden light, making it so that the cut was no longer there.

In that moment, I hated him. I hated him, and my unborn sister, and worse, I hated that I wanted him.

It made sense that now, in my late twenties, when I had fulfilled my end of the bargain, I had found myself in exactly the same predicament. I was in a horrible situation, all because of my sister.

A man had come into my life because of her, and now I found myself attracted to him. The minute that Ben Taylor had appeared, in my sister’s room, wounded, bleeding, I couldn’t stop myself from wanting him.

Ben was tall, lithe, and boyish. There was something inexplicably charming about him in a Jim Halpert kind of way that left my legs feeling a little wobbly each time I saw him. Even though I knew damn well that I shouldn’t have.

But also, I had a duty to my family to make sure that Emma followed through with her end of the bargain Mother made. So then, wasn’t it my duty to distract Ben? To make him forget all about my sister?

Or did I have a duty to my sister to find a way for her and Ben to be happy?

What about my position as gatekeeper, to keep humans safe from faerie influence?

I didn’t know. What I did know was that Ben Taylor was behind me, completely at my mercy. I had access to the witch that could save him from the curse, or I could let him squirm a bit.

No, Louisa.

I couldn’t do that to him. I was the gatekeeper, and I had a duty to keep him safe from faerie influence. Even if it would have been fun to not do anything, simply because he was my sisters’ former fiancé, and it would be nice not for her to get everything for a change.

“Where are we going?” Ben asked.

“To see the witch,” I answered.

Ben paled. “You were serious?”

“It’s never a joking matter when witches are involved.”

Ben shook his head. “You know, when Emma told me her sister was serious, I thought she was exaggerating. I see now that she wasn’t.”

“I’m the first female gatekeeper in over a century. It was supposed to be my mother, but her illness made it so that she wasn’t up to the task. I take my job seriously because if I don’t, the faeries would destroy everything. Not only us. But the world. If I don’t take things seriously, things like you getting cursed happen.”

Ben chuckled, “Well, excellent job with you did.”

I stopped and glowered at him. “Clark was the one who did it. Not me. If I’d have been there, you wouldn’t have been cursed.”

“Why weren’t you there?” Ben asked.

“Because I was busy taking care of my sister,” I told her, “which is what I do as gatekeeper. I take care of people.”

“Not very well, if your sister has been married off to a faerie against her will,” Ben challenged, “we were in love, you know. We were getting married.”

“It wouldn’t have happened,” I insisted, as I pushed through the back doors of the Endless family estate, “eventually, Emma would have felt so guilty about not telling you the truth that she would have made you forget. Even if you did get married, it wouldn’t have lasted, and if it did, you would have constantly been on the run from Oberon. Or Oberon would have turned you both to stone. That’s his thing.”

“Why?” Ben asked.

“Where do you think garden statues come from?” I said. “They’re a useless thing, and the only reason they exist is because someone pissed off a faerie.”

Ben gulped. “That’s horrifying. Hey, what exactly does a curse entail? Because you’ve been a little vague about that.”

I stopped walking and turned around to face him now. We were in the dining room of my family home. A large, intimidating room, with a long table that looked like something that would have served Henry the Eight and probably had at some point. “You know when you have those years where everything that can go wrong does go wrong?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Everyone has those at some point.”

“It’s like that, only there’s no way to break it unless a witch breaks it for you. If it isn’t broken, eventually, it will kill you. Or I’ll have to kill you. With the crossbow.” I looked up at him and gestured to the crossbow in my hand.

He swallowed. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“I don’t kid. Look at the wound on your chest. It’s already…. growing.” I made the mistake of looking down at his chest, which was still shirtless, his t-shirt balled up in his hand. The wound was black, and gnarly, like a poison that had spread.

He covered it up with his hand and winced as he touched it. “Okay. Okay. Can’t we, I don’t know, cut it out or something?”

“No,” I answered, my voice cold, “if the curse isn’t stopped, it spreads. It has to be vanquished so that way no one will do anything with it. Otherwise it spreads, turns into something awful. Where do you think war comes from?”

“The blind ignorance that men in power is always right?” Ben suggested.

I chuckled. “Partly, but they’re helped along the way by loose curses. Come on, Ben Taylor. We’ve got a curse to put to an end.”

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“You just did,” I said pointedly.

“Right. Well. Why do you keep on saying my full name?”

I took a breath. “Because, I have to keep my distance. If I don’t keep my distance, this could go very, very bad. We’re going to get you de-cursed, we’re going to make you forget all about faerie, and my sister, and for that reason I have to be professional. Because of that, you’re going to be Ben Taylor. Ben might make you think that we’re friends or acquaintances, neither of which are something that we can ever be.”

“Why not?” Ben asked. “I’m in love with your sister. I wanted to marry her, I still will if we can figure out a way to defeat Oberon. True love wins everything, doesn’t it? At least that’s what the stories all say, and that’s got to come from somewhere.”

I laughed bitterly. “Of course my sister would have to fall in love with an optimist. I’ve seen true love, Ben Taylor. What my sister and you had….that’s not true love.”

“Why not?” he said. “I came here, willing to risk everything, without even knowing what I would find. Isn’t that the definition of true love?”

“True love means honesty even though it hurts,” I said, “Emma wasn’t honest with you even though she knew that there was a chance that you could have gotten hurt. You don’t do that with someone you love.”

“I disagree,” he told me, “in her own way, she was trying to keep me safe. Because if I knew the truth, she knew that I would have fought against Oberon to try to keep her from marrying him.”

“Well, then you’re a fool. Come on. I’m not here to argue. I’m here to keep you safe. Come with me if you want to survive, or stay here if you want to die.”

I started walking, my crossbow slung over my shoulder. I didn’t hear anything at first but after a moment, I heard footsteps, and Ben followed along side me. His shirt was back on I noticed, covering the gaping wound where the curse was.

Pity.

I liked the view.