Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (59 page)

And she was also going there because an old
buddy of Pop’s had a job opening in his office at his tow truck
company. Pop recommended her (or, kinda, me) and called in a favor
to get her hired.

Unfortunately, I’d met this old buddy of
Pop’s a couple of times when I was young so he was going to get a
surprise when I walked in (but didn’t walk in) to meet him for the
first time and he would have a Circe who wasn’t Circe.

Pop said he would explain things after it
happened and his friend Buster got to know Circe. He thought this
was wise. My twin agreed. I didn’t bother arguing. Those two were
two peas in a pod and ganged up on me frequently and, frankly, I
didn’t have it in me anymore to give any lip. They wanted to give
Buster a heart attack? I wasn’t going to stop them.

I put the stamp on the envelope, grabbed the
other four I’d done and put them in my out tray which wasn’t really
an out tray, as such, since it would be my (now) fat ass that would
waddle out of the garage and put them in the mailbox at the end of
the block tomorrow. Still, I liked my outbox even if it was me who
dealt with the out as well as the in.

I started to switch off my computer but saw
Pop had settled in one of the two cracked, vinyl seats in front of
me.

“Darlin’, we gotta talk,” he declared.

Oh shit.

I didn’t want to do this. In fact, I’d
successfully avoided doing this for five months. I was hoping to
hold out for five more months or, maybe, fifty years.

“Not now, we’ll be late,” I told him,
hitting the button on my mouse to click the shut down on my
machine.

“Now, Circe, uh… the other Circe’ll
understand.”

Seriously, it was weird there being two
me’s.

I looked at him. Then I took in his look. It
was his determined look.

Then
I
determined we weren’t going to talk, now or
ever.

“Pop –”

Like it was since I was a child, Pop’s
determination when it came to him saying what he had to say
and
hearing what
I
had to say
was a lot more determined than mine could
ever be.

“Circe, darlin’, what gives?” he leaned
toward me. “You ain’t right.”

I switched off my monitor and declared. “I’m
fine.”

I started to get out of my chair when Pop’s
words arrested me.

“
Girl, do you
not
think I know heartache when I see it? Damn,
darlin’, I’ve seen it every day of my life for twenty-five years
starin’ back at me right in the mirror.”

My (now) fat ass plonked back into the chair
and I looked at Pop.

“
And now,” he went on, “I see it every time
I look at you.” He lifted a hand and knocked his knuckles on my
desk before sitting back and demanding, “So, no more foolin’.
What…
gives?
”

“Pop,” I whispered.

“Circe,” Pop stated firmly.

“Pop!” I snapped.

“Circe!” Pop clipped back.

Shit!

I stared at him. He took my stare and raised
it with an eyebrow lift.

Then I shook my head. “I don’t –”

Pop cut in. “You love that asshole.”

I blinked. Then the pain knifed through me.
Then I looked away.

After a moment, Pop muttered, “Shee-it. You
do. You love that asshole.”

I looked back at him.

He knew. Yeah, he knew.

We’d never discussed it. The other Circe had
told me her story in total (and it was worse than I imagined and I
imagined it being bad). I had not shared mine. She didn’t pry. But
she knew the Korwahk and their practices and she watched me like a
hawk, like my father did since I figured she’d shared (not to
mention I’d disappeared for months so he was gun shy). But she
didn’t pry. I’d seen those two with their heads together, starting
with a few times in the beginning when I came home but it was
growing more and more frequently lately.

They’d orchestrated this. It was a wonder
she wasn’t there browbeating me right along with Pop.

By the way, the other me could be annoying.
She was sweet and she was funny but she was also seriously
annoying.

“Circe, start talkin’ or I’ll talk for you,”
Pop warned.

“Yeah?” I asked sharply. “You and Circe, you
both think you’ve got it figured out, do you?”

“
What I got figured out, child, is that is
the first time I’ve seen you spit fire at me in five fuckin’
months. And
my
Circe could
spit fire when she had tonsillitis. She could spit fire at Larry,
who was six foot five, weighed three hundred pounds and had a meaty
fist bigger than her head. She could handle my crew of twelve guys
without them knowin’ they were bein’ handled. That fire, girl, it’s
been gone and Circe and me, your friend Marlene, we thought it was
because…” he stopped, his jaw flexed at the thought of me being
violated then he started again, “but it ain’t. It ain’t that. I
don’t see pain in your eyes from memories that are torturin’ you. I
see a different kinda pain, darlin’, one I recognize, one I know,
one that
lives in me.
”

“Can we not talk about this?” I asked
quietly.

“
No, we been
not
talkin’ about this for five months and you ain’t snappin’
outta it. Now tell me, girl, did you fall in love with
him?”

I licked my lips. Then I closed my eyes.

Then I opened them and whispered, “Yes.”

He tipped his head to look at the ceiling,
muttering, “Shee-it. Circe warned me this crap happened.”

“Pop –” I started but he tipped his head
back to me.

“So why the fuck you come home?”

I blinked. “What?”

“
You went to the doc, there was time. You
coulda had that kid you’re carryin’ taken care of…” I knew my eyes
flashed at the very mention of abortion when he pointed right at
me. “That. That right there. You
want
this kid. That asshole didn’t force that child on you;
you’re carrying it
for
him. You
made that baby and you liked doin’ it. Am I wrong?”

Oh God. Seriously. With my Pop, I didn’t
want to go there.

“Pop –”

“Answer me, am I wrong?”

“No,” I bit off.

“I fuckin’ knew it,” he clipped.

“Pop –”

He interrupted me again. “So why’d you come
back?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” I returned
swiftly.

“
It sure as fuck does ‘cause you, Circe,
girl, you…
you
are the
product of your mother and me. I didn’t love that one before death
and all this time after it for foolish reasons. I did it ‘cause you
got a love like that it does… not…
die.
And I’m tellin’ you, darlin’, I took that bullet instead ‘a
her, she would be lookin’ at you with that same dead in her eyes as
I’m lookin’ at you with now. The same dead that’s in
your
eyes as you’re lookin’ at me.
We Quinns, we don’t fall in love. We fall
in
love.
And you, girl, you’re
in love
so what I wanna know is, why the fuck you used up all your
magical power, pixie dust and shit and came home when you got his
baby inside you and you couldn’t know that you’d ever get
back?”

I couldn’t hold up against his words so I
didn’t. I just told him because I might as well get it over
with.

“He found out I wasn’t from his world.”

“So?”

“He thought I was… wrong. A changeling. He
thought I bewitched him. They’re different, primitive. But even
here… it’s only because you’re you and you’re my Pop and you love
the way you love that you got it with Circe and what happened with
me. Any other man, the Circe that came here would be screwed. Not
you. She was lucky. I…” I sucked in breath and finished, “was not
so lucky.”

“So he don’t listen?”

“He listened, he just didn’t believe
me.”

“So you told him and then what?” Pop
asked.

“I… well, I guess I spirited myself
away.”

“Right then?” Pop pushed and I blinked
again.

“No, um… maybe a few hours later.”

He shook his head. “Right, well, gotta
say, girl, as much as I don’t wanna give that asshole
nothin’,
this
I can see.
This shit… it’s fuckin’ nuts. Took me a few days to sort my head
out when Circe told me what was goin’ on. Thought you’d gone ‘round
the bend. You think for a second to give that asshole a day or two
to come to terms with this shit before you hightailed your…
pregnant
, I
might add… ass outta there?”

I stared at him and I did this because no,
no I had not.

He shook his head but his eyes never left
me. “No, you didn’t. Not my Circe.” He looked to the ceiling and
said, “Shee-it,” again before his gaze came back to me. “You’ll
never change. Always leadin’ with your heart, lettin’ your emotions
get the better of you and not thinkin’ with your head.”

I’d heard
that
before.

“Pop –”

He leaned forward again. “Girl, you listen
to your father.”

Oh shit. He was worse than Diandra when he
had something to say.

He kept at me. “I do not want to lose you.
I’ll tell you that right now, you go again, it would break my
heart. But you go, I would know you went and that grandbaby of mine
would have his daddy and you…
you
would have him too. And I can see by that dead in your eyes
that if you went back, you’d have what I had, what I’ve held
precious all these years, what I had with your mother before she
was lost to us. And I know this, darlin’, I had to go to a whole
other fuckin’ world where primitive people lived and I had to piss
in the trees and take a shit by a river, I do not fuckin’ care.
Your mother was there,
that
is
where I’d fuckin’ be.”

My eyes filled with tears and I whispered,
“Pop.”

“And I’ll go on to tell you this, it would
be a hard drive, the hardest in my life, but you want me to take
you, I’ll drive you to that witch and I’ll hug you hard before you
go but you’ll go knowin’ that even though I’ll miss you, I’ll be
happy for you, knowin’ you had what I lost.”

I closed my eyes and looked away.

Then I said to the wall. “You don’t get
it. He… it was… the whole thing was hard, being with him, adapting
to that world, but I stuck by him.” I looked back at Pop. “I stuck
by him with every trial thrown at me and when I say that, Pop, I
mean I watched women plunging knives in their stomachs and men
having their legs cut off and heads sliced clean from their
bodies.” Pop’s eyes got big but I kept going. “And I took a man’s
life… well, one and half men actually but… whatever. I stuck by it.
I stuck by Lahn. Through everything that world and
he
threw at me. He had one trial,
Pop,
one
and he
didn’t have to witness anything that turned his stomach, he didn’t
take his first life, he didn’t get betrayed by someone he cared
about and nearly lose his life because of it. He just had to
believe in me. Simple. Just believe in me. He didn’t.
He
killed what I felt for him. He
killed it
dead.
I don’t
have the power to go back and Circe doesn’t have the power to send
me. And I’m not going to that witch, Pop. I’m never going back.
I’ll miss it, I made friends, I had a pet tigress who could talk to
me and I was a fucking
queen
for God’s sake. Life was strange and it was insane but it
was also good. But I’m not going back. Ever. If what he killed in
me never comes alive again, so be it. I’ll have what you had and
I’ll make do. I’ll have his child and just like you, that’s going
to be good enough for me.”

Pop stared at me and I held his eyes.

Then he came to the realization he’d come to
often in my life and that was the fact that when I made up my mind
about something, when my heart led me down the path I was
determined to take, he wasn’t going to be able to sway me.

I knew this when he asked, “You were a
queen?”

I closed my eyes, sucked in breath then
opened them. “Yes, the true, golden warrior queen of the Korwahk
nation.”

He blinked then muttered, “Holy fuck.”

“Damn straight,” I muttered back and, fuck
me, I did it proudly.

He kept staring at me. Then he asked, “Girl,
how do you kill half a man? They got half men there?”

I relaxed. Then I grinned.

Then I said, “Pick me up for Circe’s party,
I’ll tell you stories on the way there.”

He shook his head as he stood, muttering,
“Not sure I wanna know.”

This was probably wise.

His eyes came to me.

“But I’m gonna listen,” he said softly.

Yep, that was Pop. He’d always listen.

“Then I’ll tell you,” I said softly
back.

He nodded. Then, “His name was Lahn?”

I clenched my teeth to battle the pain. When
I had it in check, I nodded. “Dax Lahn, king of Korwahk and the
mightiest warrior of the Korwahk Horde.”

Pop’s lips twitched. Then he noted, “Girl,
you aimed high. Proud ‘a you, catchin’ the eye of a king.”

I rolled my eyes.

Pop moved to the door and I opened the
drawer with my purse in it. As I was standing, I noticed he hadn’t
moved through and I stopped and looked at him.

“You sure, darlin’?” he whispered.

I nodded. I was sure. Very sure. It hurt,
every day,
all
day.

But I was sure.