Chapter Eleven: Clark Endless
2334 Words
Eleven
An alarm woke both Bradley and I up. It rang out through the estate, shrieking, complete with blinding, flashing, lights. The door to the library opened, revealing a frazzled looking Louisa carrying a crossbow.
“There’s an intruder,” Louisa said, “come on. I need your help.”
She tossed a sword to me, which I caught somehow without injuring anyone, including myself. To Bradley, she tossed a bow and arrow. Together, we ran through the estate, to the back yard where the maze was that had the entrance to faerie.
Standing there, was a familiar, scrawny looking, American fantasy novelist. Ben Taylor had come to England, and he had very nearly entered faerie by himself. “Ben Taylor?” Louisa demanded. “What the f**k are you doing here?”
He glanced back at us, putting his hands up as if he were worried he was under arrest. “I…I kept on dreaming about this girl, and the dreams led me here. I had to see her. I had to see if I had made her up or not.”
I could feel Louisa and Bradley’s gazes on me, looking for some sort of idea as to what should be done. “You’re right,” I said, “Emma Endless is our….”
I paused, unable to finish saying the sentence. I had never, not once, considered Emma to be my sister. Even saying it now seemed wrong. She was always the girl that I loved.
“Our sister,” Louisa finished, “she was your fiancé.”
Ben grimaced. “The potion that you gave me, it worked for a day, and then I started remembering. It was like there was an ache in my chest.”
I hated him. I hated him and admired him for loving Emma that much that he wouldn’t even let magic get in the way. “She’s been stolen away by the faerie King, because of a bargain that our family had.”
“We’re supposed to be together,” said Ben, “I love her.”
Bradley chuckled. “You might have to get in line. My dear sister is quite popular, it seems. Louisa, knock him out or something.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “I am not knocking him out. He hasn’t done anything besides be in love with Emma. There’s no crime in that. Unfortunately, since everyone seems to be in love with her.”
“Is that bitterness that I detect, Lou?” Bradley asked.
“No,” Louisa said, “not at all. I love our sister dearly, and I want her happy. I’m absolutely thrilled she has three men all vying for her attention.”
“Three men?” said Ben. “Who else is after her?”
“Our dear, adopted, brother Clark. Family love, it runs deep,” said Bradley, smacking me on the shoulder.
My fists clenched, and for one second, I pictured myself punching Bradley but I didn’t think that would make a good, first impression on Ben. Instead, I laughed, “You’ll have to excuse my brother. He seems to think that we’re all living in a Shakespearian play. Of course, I don’t have feelings for Emma. That would be ridiculous.”
Bradley looked sideways at me, and I elbowed him in the chest, making him double over in pain. “Right,” Bradley wheezed, “just some British humor for you there.”
“What do you remember?” Louisa asked. “From your time spent with Emma?”
“I remember everything. Especially the stab wound.” He raised the shirt that he was wearing, revealing a surprisingly muscled chest.
Louisa’s eyes widened at the sight. The wound from the knife where Ben had gotten stabbed had, instead of disappearing, turned a horrible, black and blue color. “No,” she whispered.
“It’s a bruise,” I said, “what’s wrong with a bruise?”
Louisa lowered her crossbow, and walked towards Ben, touching his chest so that she could examine it. Bens breath hitched at her touch.
“This isn’t a wound,” Louisa said, “not in a traditional sense. Clark, who threw the blade?” She looked at me.
I stepped back. “I’m not answering that.”
“Why not?” Louisa asked. “Do you have something to hide?”
“No, in under normal circumstances, I would tell you but there is crossbow within reach. I’m not telling you about that with a crossbow within reach.”
“Was it you?” Louisa looked at me as if I were a murderer.
I put my hands up. “It wasn’t me. But you won’t like the answer anymore.”
“It was Oberon,” Ben said, surprising me.
I raised an eyebrow. “How do you remember that?”
“He wanted me to remember,” Ben answered, “he wanted me to remember Emma, and me to remember you. Because you let that blade hit me. You jumped out of the way before it hit you.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I told him, “something…. something whispered to me. Something told me what was going to happen, so I moved.”
Bradley winced. “Brother never start talking about voices in your head. That’s never a good thing.”
“I’m not kidding!” I insisted. “I didn’t even know that you were in the way until the last minute, Ben. If I had seen you there I would have saved you. You mean too much to Emma for me not to. Emma would have killed me if I’d let Oberon so much as touch you.”
“That, you’re right about,” said Ben, “and where is Emma? Has she really been married off to some faerie? Why didn’t you stop her?”
“It’s complicated,” said Bradley, “our family had a bargain with him. There are repercussions for not following through. In our case, we lose our home, and we get turned to stone. The entire estate was created by faerie magic, and if we don’t hold up our end of the bargain, we lose everything.”
“That includes marrying your sister off to a random stranger from another world?” Ben looked appalled, and if it hadn’t been that he was in love with Emma, I would have liked him. “Screw the estate! This is Emma we’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry did you not hear the part where the faerie King turns us to stone?” said Bradley. “I love my sister dearly, but I’m too beautiful to be turned into stone. Everyone deserves to stare at my beauty.”
Ben blinked. “What the hell is this place?”
Louisa shook her head. “This place is a world where real-world rules do not work. Don’t judge what you don’t know, Ben Taylor.”
He was still shirtless, and she was still standing next to him. Something strange crackled between them. I shared a look with Bradley, who looked back with the same alarm, and worry. There was something between them.
Uh-oh.
Ben looked back at Louisa. “I don’t care about your rules. Family is family. You don’t leave someone that’s your family behind, especially when there’s an evil faerie involved.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “He’s not evil, not exactly. He’s a trickster. That’s what he is. You had better be nice, Ben Taylor, or I’ll leave you to your fate. The wound that you have, it isn’t a normal wound. It’s a curse, and in order to get it out, we’re going to need a witch. A witch that I happen to be friends with.”
“A witch?” Ben’s voice was incredibly high pitched, clearly terrified by everything that was going on around.
“Dude aren’t you a fantasy writer?” said Bradley. “Shouldn’t this be like a daydream come true for you?”
Ben sputtered, not knowing what to say. “It’s…it’s one thing to write about this stuff, but I never thought any of it was real.”
“Well, it is real,” Louisa told him, “it’s real, and you’d better learn to deal with it because this is my sisters world. If you aren’t able to survive it, maybe you’d better think about letting her go for someone who can. Because she doesn’t deserve anything less than heroic.”
I wanted to punch the air heroically, and shout, yes, Louisa! Right on! Except that I didn’t think that would be appropriate. What’s more, I strangely felt bad for the guy. He had thought that he had fallen for a nice, normal, girl, and instead he would up with Emma and all the crap that came with being an Endless.
“Right,” said Ben, “right. This…. this is for Emma. What do we have to do fix the gaping wound thing, and to get her back?”
Louisa smiled. “Those are two excellent questions, Ben Taylor. You might just survive us yet. The first, is I have to call on a witch, and the second is…. well, that’s something we’re going to have to do some research into. Come on inside. We’ll get a salve to help with the pain of the curse, and we’re going to put you somewhere that we can keep you safe. Curses are tricky bastards, and we don’t want you falling into a well or something.”
“I’m a grown man,” Ben grumbled, “I’m perfectly capable of handling myself.”
“Do you know your way around the estate?” Louisa asked.
“No,” he admitted, “but I---”
“Do you know how to stop the enchanted suits of armor from attacking you?”
He blinked. “You have enchanted suits of armor that attack people here? What kind of place is this?”
“The In Between,” Louisa explained, “we guard the entrance to the faerie realms and here, the rules of the mortal world do not apply. Don’t try to make sense of it. It will just drive you mad. Come along, Newb.”
“You scare me,” Ben said seriously.
“Good,” said Louisa, “if you’re scared, you might survive.” She picked up her crossbow, and started walking back to the estate, with Ben following behind.
Bradley and I watched them go, stunned by what had happened.
I looked to my brother. “Was it me or did they seem to…. well….”
“Have a thing?” Bradley said.
I nodded.
“Definitely,” said Bradley.
“This is going to be bad,” I muttered, running my hands through my hair as I tended to do when I was anxious.
“How?” Bradley asked. “The way I see it, this works out for you.”
“We don’t know that Emma has feelings for me, we don’t even know that we can make it, so she can escape Oberon. All we know is the last time we saw Emma, she was crying on the floor about her engagement to Ben. Emma’s had enough heartache. She doesn’t need her fiancé falling in love with someone else.”
Bradley looked at me with a glum expression. “I absolutely abhor how moral you are. Sincerely. Can’t you do something selfish for once in your life? It would make things so much easier.”
“Selfishness isn’t easy,” I replied, “it’s just a quicker path. I love Emma, and I won’t let myself be selfish with her. Even if that means that I don’t get to be happy in the long run, all I want is her happy.”
Bradley patted me on the shoulder. “I will say this. If Emma does love you, she couldn’t do better. You’re an alright guy, Clark.”
“Yeah well…. let’s just hope that Emma sees that at some point.”
“This is the world of faerie, mate. If anyone can make a happy ending happen, it’s us. Don’t worry, brother. We’ll figure something out. I promise.”
The thing about Bradley was for all of the trouble he seemed to get me into, he always managed to make me feel like I could do anything. He had this eternal optimism that things would turn out right, something I had never been able to understand. But if Bradley believed that things would be okay for Emma and I, I believed it too.
I had to.
Because if I didn’t, it might kill me. I couldn’t let that happen. Because any world, for the living, or the dead, without Emma in it was not a world that I wanted to be part of.
- Writer
