Marek (The Knights of Stonebridge Book 1) (19 page)

“Mom, hurry. He’s coming.”

Without stopping, Kitty grabbed the banister and dragged herself back up. She, too, could hear him stomping around above them.

Once in the kitchen, she tossed the knife on the counter as she searched frantically for her car keys. Where had she left them? Where was her purse? She been gone, what – a couple of weeks? But nothing was the same. When she’d gone back to Marek, it had been mid-October here, spring in his time. Somehow, she’d returned the night of Jake’s murder, in present-day March. How could she remember where her keys and purse had been months ago? She shook her head, a vain to effort to clear her confusion.

When she heard Jake coming down the stairs, she abandoned her search. There was no more time. “Forget it. Let’s go,” she said to Vanesa. They ran to the front door, and Kitty began undoing the locks. But just as she opened it, Jake came up behind her and slammed it shut. Vanesa squealed.

He tangled his fist in Kitty’s hair and dagged her towards the living room. “I said, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Let her go!” Vanesa beat her fists against him, but to no avail. He ignored her, continued to drag Kitty along until he threw her onto the couch.

“I said I’d kill you before I let you leave. Did you think it was just a threat?”

Kitty brushed the hair away from her face, only to stare into the barrel of a gun. As if from a distance, she heard Vanesa scream. She was vaguely aware that her daughter ran, still screaming, from the living room.

Run, baby. Run away.
She stared at the end of the barrel, trembling with fear. “Where did you get that?” They’d never had a gun in the house, never even owned a gun. “Jake, please. Think of what it will do to Vanesa if you kill me. Hasn’t she suffered enough already?”

“Of course she’s suffered. You’ve filled her head with all these lies about me. You’ve convinced her I’m a bad person.”

“Nobody said you were a bad person. You just need to get help.”

He didn’t say anything, just glared down at her, the gun still pointed at her.

“Remember when we first met? That party? I was drinking way too much. I was bound to get into trouble. You saved me that night, remember? Let me save
you
now.”

Jake’s condescending expression melted, thawing Kitty’s heart but only a tiny bit. She thought back to that night. He had taken care of her. Seen to it that she got home safely without taking advantage of the situation himself. She had loved him back then.

He stared at her for what seemed a long time to Kitty. Finally, he rubbed his hands over his eyes, but the gesture did not stop the flow of tears.

Kitty had never seen her husband cry. The sight was only a little unnerving. “Just let us go, Jake. We can talk about all this later. You need help. I’ll help you.”

He nodded slowly, fairly sobbing now. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“Please put the gun down.”

“I can’t take it back. I can never make it up to her, or you.” Jake dropped to his knees. “What’s wrong with me? She’s just a little girl. I – I don’t even know how it started.”

Nausea churned in her belly, but she forced herself to stay calm. “It’s a sickness, Jake. You’re sick. But there’s a cure.”

He shook his head. “Nothing will ever be the same. I tried to stop. I really did.”

Kitty almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“No, it won’t be the same. But it’ll be all right. Vanesa will forgive you. She loves you.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She does. You’re her father.” She cringed at the words. He still held the gun. She took a deep breath, swallowed hard. “I –  forgive you,” she said. Kitty realized she almost meant it. He was not malicious or evil. He was sick, and sorry. He wouldn’t call their daughter a liar. They could never be a family again, but their wounds would heal. One day, she would forgive him.

She also realized she no longer blamed herself for not recognizing that the abuse had been going on. She was not to blame.

“I’ve thought so many times of killing myself,” Jake said. “You and Vanesa would be better off without me.”

She couldn’t argue with that. But she said, “Vanesa still needs her father. No matter what you’ve done.”

Jake wiped his face with the sleeve of his pajama top. He’d gotten his tears under control, but his breath caught when he spoke. “I should just put us all out of our misery.” Once again he pointed the gun at her face. This time he pulled hammer back.

Kitty started to plead for her life, again. But over his shoulder, she saw something even more frightening.

Vanesa stood behind Jake, the kitchen knife she would use to stab him clutched in both hands, her arms raised over her head.

Kitty screamed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Pulling her knees up, Kitty pressed her feet against Jake’s chest and shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled backwards, waving his arms and trying to break his fall. He hit the floor, hard. Vanesa stood over him, her eyes glazed as if she was in a trance. She still held the knife over her head, ready to shove it down into her father’s chest.

Kitty threw herself at her daughter. She caught her by the wrist and wrenched the knife from her. The action seemed to knock Vanesa out of her daze, and she began to cry.

As Kitty comforted her, she suddenly remembered Jake on the floor. Glancing down, she found him sprawled nearby. He had dropped the gun when Kitty kicked him. It lay well out of his reach, but she decided not to take any chances.

Still holding Vanesa’s hand, Kitty moved around him and picked up the gun. As if watching from outside her body, she stood over her husband, the gun pointed directly at his head. She could kill him now. She could say it was self-defense, that she was protecting herself and her daughter. She could extract revenge for what he’d done to Vanesa.

“Mommy –” Vanesa began to cry in earnest.

Kitty’s hand, the one holding the gun, began to shake. She had killed one man to protect another, caught up in the moment, without thought. But could she kill a man with such premeditation, even one as deserving as Jake Petty? She remembered her revelation from earlier. He was not evil, he was sick. She would never be able to forgive herself for what she had let happen if she could not forgive him first.

She picked up Vanesa and sat down on the couch, cradling her in her arms. Setting the gun and the knife on the cushion next to her, Kitty ignored Jake, lying at her feet, sobbing like a little boy, and rocked back and forth with Vanesa on her lap. She’d not done that since she was small. Now Vanesa was ten years old and no longer a baby.

But to Kitty, of course, Vanesa would always be her baby. She continued to soothe her until she ceased crying. Jake’s tears had subsided, as well. The three of them sat there in silence.

Kitty jumped when Jake climbed to his knees. He crawled over to her and put his head on the cushion next to her. At first she recoiled, but remembered her decision to forgive him.

Without looking at them, Jake said, “I’m so sorry, baby. I never meant to hurt you.”

Kitty was not sure who he was talking to, but it didn’t matter. Vanesa leaned over and stroked her father’s head.

“It’s okay, Daddy.”

Finally, he looked up at Kitty. His eyes were swollen and his face streaked with tears. “It’ll never happen again.”

Forgiveness was a bad-tasting medicine. “I know.”

Carrying Vanesa, Kitty stood, collected the weapons, and went to the phone in the kitchen. She sat Vanesa on the counter, put the knife and the gun next to her and dialed 9-1-1.

***

For the second time, blue and red lights flashed outside Kitty’s house. The first time had been when Vanesa had killed Jake while he slept. Thankfully, now that had never happened. At least this time, the outcome was that her pedophile husband was on his way to jail instead of the morgue, and her daughter would not have to spend her life coping with the murder of her father. Kitty and Vanesa sat on the front steps, huddled beneath a blanket, March having yet to bring warm nights.

“Mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“What’s going to happen to Daddy?”

With her palm against Vanesa’s cheek, she pulled her face up to look up at her. “Honey, you know that none of this was your fault. You’re not to blame for anything.”

Vanesa swallowed hard, but said nothing.

“What Daddy did was wrong. He knows that. He’s sick, and we’re going to find some doctors who can help him get better. It’s not just wrong, either. It’s against the law. He’s going to have to go to jail, probably for a long time. But we’ll visit him, if you want to.”

Vanesa nodded but remained silent.

They sat together, saying nothing, watching as the crowd of neighbors grew. The barricade of police cars kept most of them at a reasonable distance, but Kitty still felt their eyes on her. She heard their unasked questions. But she felt no need to meet their gaze, much less go out and speak to any of them.

Jake sat in the back seat of one of those police cars. He kept his head down. She wondered what he was thinking. He had expressed remorse. Thank God for that. He would not deny his actions, he would not dispute Vanesa’s accusations. He would take responsibility for what he’d done. She had to at least respect the courage it took for him to do that.

She clutched Marek’s crucifix.

She would never again see the man she loved so much. By now, he’d been dead nearly eight hundred years.

Kitty felt the sting of tears at the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away. She would wait until later, when she could cry in earnest, alone with her memories of the time she had spent with Marek in his world, in his time.

His loss suddenly overwhelmed her, and she wondered if her tears could wait.

CHAPTER NINTEEN

Seven months later, Kitty visited Jake in the Maryland State hospital. He had spent four months in jail before being transferred. He would remain at the hospital for several more months while psychiatrists picked his brain and completed their case studies on him. After that, he would be sent back to the state prison. Jake Petty would not see the outside for many, many years.

She lifted the receiver, stared at him through the thick glass.

“How’s Vanesa?” It was always the first thing he asked.

“Good. She started school last month.” Vanesa was now in the fifth grade.

Jake shook his head. “Is it that time of year already? Time seems to stand still in here. They won’t even let me have a calendar. I wish they’d let her come and see me.”

“That’s not going to happen, Jake. One day, but not for a while.”

“I want to tell her how sorry I am.”

“She knows.”

He stared at her, a longing expression that made her skin crawl. “How are you?”

Kitty shrugged. How could she tell him her heart ached for another man, a man who lived in the past?

“I miss you, baby.”

She cringed when he called her that. “Our divorce is final,” she said.

The color drained from his face. He couldn’t be surprised. He knew she had filed the motion almost as soon as the police car had driven away with him in the back seat.

“I sold the house, too,” she said.

“How did that go?” His voice cracked, but he did not seem surprised.

“Actually, the house sold pretty quick, the location and all.” He nodded. “After all the bills and stuff, we cleared about four hundred thousand.”

He raised his eyebrows at that and let out a slow whistle. “Have you bought another place?”

“No, not yet. I rented an apartment near the Academy, until I figure out what to do next. I might just put it all away for Vanesa…for college or when she gets married – something like that.” She sat through several moments of uncomfortable silence. Finally she asked, “How are
you
?”

Jake cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

Kitty smirked at him. “How are you really?”

For several moments he said nothing. Finally he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They have me on suicide watch.”

If he wanted sympathy from her, he would not get it. “Killing yourself wouldn’t do anyone any good.”

“I can’t think of anything else except what a horrible thing I’ve done. I just hate myself. I don’t deserve to live.”

“Maybe not. But Vanesa doesn’t deserve to live with the guilt.”

***

Safe and happy were not the same things.

Every morning Kitty waited until Vanesa got on the bus before she left for work. Their apartment was just a few miles from the campus of the Naval Academy. The building where she worked as an accounting technician was on the far side, but it still only took her a few minutes to make the trip each morning. Even better, she was able to be home when Vanesa got off the bus.

That was it. Get on the bus, go to work, drive home from work, get off the bus. Kitty at least managed to get in a three or four mile run every morning and continue her self-defense classes two nights a week. The training made her feel closer to Marek. She often reminisced, usually during sparring class, about the time she tried to teach him hand to hand combat, which in turn led to her getting pummeled when she wasn’t paying attention.

After Vanesa went to bed, Kitty would spend hours on the internet researching the Stone family. She learned enough to know that Marek’s descendents still lived in the bustling port city of Stonebridge. More than once she entertained the idea of going to see them. Maybe if time-travel was possible, so was reincarnation. Maybe Marek’s spirit had been passed down and there even now lived a man with his soul, his heart.

But that dream remained as such. There could be no other Marek Stone. His great-whatever grandsons may have inherited much from their forebear, but it would not be him. One day she would visit, seek out those mementos he had promised her.

She discovered that over the years, the family brought great wealth to the tiny village until eventually it grew to a fairly large city. The Stones were well-loved. Several had married well, increasing the family’s wealth until Marek’s descendents had been bestowed with numerous titles.

She found one post after another regarding Marek’s brothers. Thane, as popular on the tournament circuit as any of today’s rock stars, lived to the ripe old age of eighty-seven. Remi had become an outlaw, and Kitty could find no reference to his fate. Adin always the scholar, made a name for himself at the University of Paris while his twin, Vale, had been lost during the crusades. In 1211, Bryn, as head engineer, began construction on a new cathedral at Reims in France.

But by far the most difficult to read were the articles about Marek himself. He had married a wealthy woman the same year Kitty left. The pain of that stung more than she would have thought. Little was mentioned of his wife except that the two of them had raised two daughters and two sons. Kitty knew one of the daughters was Bria. She smiled when she thought of the precious little girl who could have been her own daughter. While she certainly couldn’t begrudge Marek a family, she was more than a little jealous that he’d married and impregnated his wife so soon. He could have at least waited a little while.

One night just before Halloween, as she sat staring at the computer screen, she heard medieval music coming from the living room. Skeptically, she followed the sound until she found a commercial for the Renaissance Festival in Crownsville blaring from the television. She sat on the arm of the couch, watching the commercial.

Had it really been a year? Kitty swallowed the lump in her throat. This time last year, she and Jake had taken Vanesa to the festival for at least the fourth or fifth time. They had dressed up as usual. Vanesa had looked so adorable, and she loved everything: the chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick, the music of the
Mediaeval Baebes
, the
Punch and Judy Show
, and especially
Fight School
.

Kitty gave up trying to hold back her tears and nearly choked on the sob that sprang from her throat. Tears streamed down her face. She slid to the floor and knelt there next to the sofa, arms wrapped about her waist, rocking back and forth. She cried like she had never cried before.

***

On Saturday, Kitty took Vanesa to the Renaissance Festival. Having gone trick or treating the night before, they ate a huge breakfast of Tootsie Rolls, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, caramels with cream in the center, Mary Janes, and peanut butter toffee wrapped in either black or orange wax paper. These hearty breakfasts only came twice a year, the morning after Halloween and Easter Monday.

The sun was high when they got to the fair. It was surprisingly warm for the first of November. Unfortunately, that told her nothing about what to expect from the coming winter. A warm fall could mean an equally mild winter or snow every other week until spring break.

A teenager guided her into the next available parking spot, a long walk across the dusty field to the gate. Vanesa jumped out of the car, before Kitty even put it into park, and started bouncing around.

“Mom, look at what she’s wearing.” Vanesa pointed out a little girl with a circlet of flowers crowning her head. “Can I have one of those?”

Setting her purse on top of the car, Kitty opened her wallet. Three twenties, a five and several ones. She should have taken out some cash, but that would have meant dipping into her rent money. It was due on Monday and she couldn’t afford to get behind. She had taken almost all the money from the sale of the house and put it into a simple savings account until she found the best investment.

“We’ll see. Let’s go.”

A group of twenty-somethings passed wearing their best gothic ensembles. One girl even had satyr horns atop her head. Kitty smiled, imagined they didn’t dress much differently on any other day.

A long line snaked around the courtyard in front of the ticket booths, but it moved quickly. As soon as they passed through the gate, Vanesa grabbed Kitty’s hand and pulled her toward the costume rental hut.

Kitty knew from experience that the costumes were not cheap, even to rent. “Honey, look how long the line is. Let’s go have a look around. We’ll come back later when there’s not such a long wait.”

Vanesa poked out her bottom lip, but she stopped pouting as soon as they stopped at the cart hawking cheesecake on a stick. Kitty got one for them to share, took a single bite and gave the rest to Vanessa.

Next stop – drink. Kitty would have to have mead
now
, so she’d be able to drive home later. Last year she’d had only had two or three throughout the day thinking it would be like drinking beer. Jake had practically had to carry her to the car. But even that had not compared to the potency of the honey wine she’d had at Stonebridge.

She passed on the souvenir mug and took it in a plastic cup. Closing her eyes, she took a sip and let it slide across her tongue and down her throat. The fermented honey warmed her. It combined with the sounds and smells around her to open the flood gate of memories she tried every single day to keep at bay.

Kitty opened her eyes and took another big sip. She would enjoy this, revel in those happy memories instead of begrudging what she no longer had.

“What shall we see first?”

Vanesa bounced on her toes. “
Fight School
.”

Opening up the program she’d received as she passed through the gate, Kitty saw that the show did not start for another hour and a half.

“We have a while to wait. They’re doing jousting now. Let’s go see that.”

After several minutes maneuvering through the crowd, they managed to secure seats on a bench near one end of the jousting field. King Henry the VIII sat on the balcony at the other end. One of his wives sat next to him. Kitty wasn’t sure who she was supposed to be. Each year the storyline for the fair changed. She’d have to read the program later.

Each time
their
knight passed, Kitty and Vanesa yelled, “Huzzah!” whether he knocked his opponent to the ground or fell from his own horse.

As soon as the joust was over, they made their way to the Market Stage to watch
Fight School
. Four men put on the most hilarious show educating the audience on various forms of weaponry from the broadsword to the rapier. The show was the same every year, but Kitty never tired of it. The men were so cute and comical, theirs was one of the most popular shows at the fair.

After the show, they were both hungry. Vanesa would have nothing but broccoli and cheese soup in a bread bowl. It was her favorite thing, not the soup but the bowl. She looked forward to it even more that the chocolate-covered cheesecake. As she watched her eat, Kitty wondered how Vanesa would have liked life in the twelfth century. If she liked the bread bowl, she would love a whole plate made from bread. The thought made her laugh. It was the first time since her return she’d let herself imagine the two of them living during Marek’s time.

Kitty froze with her turkey leg halfway to her mouth as an idea struck her.

Vanesa had finished her soup and had nearly eaten the entire bread bowl. When she finished she looked up at Kitty. “Can we get a costume now?”

She looked down at her daughter and lowered the hand holding the forgotten turkey leg. As Vanesa looked up at her, Kitty began to nod slowly.

She was going back.

And she was taking Vanesa with her.

“Let’s go around this way. There’s a whole row of shops selling clothes.”

“But the rental place is by the gate where we came in.”

“How about we
buy
something instead?”

They worked their way through the crowd to the Queen’s Path and went into the first shop. While the sales lady fitted Vanesa with a tapestry bodice, Kitty set her purse on the counter and pulled out every credit card she had. She used her cell phone to check the remaining balance of each one.

When Vanesa was fully attired, Kitty took her turn. She held her arms out while the woman laced her up both sides and explained how to care for the garments. Kitty barely listened, looking around at the other clothes for sale. She realized that everything in the shop far outdated the clothes she’d worn while at Stonebridge.

Still, she bought them each three bodices, several skirts, hose, shoes, and a long cloak. They continued on to the next shop and the next until Kitty and maxed out each of the credit cards she had with her. Then she used her check card until there was little cash left in her checking account, not that there’d been much to start with.

“This way we can wear a different costume every time we come,” she told Vanesa when she asked about why they were buying all these clothes.

When she had exhausted all her resources, they each grabbed a Steak on a Stake and watched part two of their favorite show –
Fight School: Reloaded
. As the daylight dwindled they trudged back to the parking lot for the tedious task of finding the car. It had been a glorious day, and Kitty vowed that no matter what else happened, she would see that Vanesa had more fun. No more living as a recluse.