Remembered (22 page)

“What are you implying, exactly?” she questioned, feeling
anger flare up inside.

“I am implying nothing,” he answered. “I merely asked you a
question. It’s quite simple; where have you been,
dear
sister-in-law?”
There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice.

“What is it to you where I’ve been?” she replied curtly.

“What is it to me?” he spat, rage flaring in his eyes. “How
dare you ask me that?”

“Markum, leave her alone,” Max threatened, standing up from
the table.

“Sit down, Max,” Cora scolded.

“That’s enough,” Tol piped in. “All of you.”

 He spoke with authority, but Annie was not about to let
this go. “Please, forgive me, Tol, but I would appreciate it if Markum would
enlighten me of my offense.” She turned back to her brother-in-law. “What have
I done to you?”

He put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “You have
done nothing to
me
. It’s what you’ve done to my brother that I take
offence at,” he said with obvious contempt.

“Don’t be a fool, Markum,” Zifini warned.

“Stay out of this, Zifini,” Markum snapped. “It was for your
benefit, also, that I had to haul him to the stables and tie him up like a
beast.”

“What?” Annie asked, sure she must have misheard him. “What
did you say?”

“Please stop this, Markum,” Sara begged.

“It’s not important anymore, it’s in the past,” Tol
addressed Annie.

“Tell me, Markum,” she said, ignoring Tol.

“He spent two days tied in the stables with the animals,”
Markum said between clenched teeth, leering at her. “When you left, he went
insane. His mad ranting’s upset mother and frightened Zifini. And he couldn’t
be trusted not to hurt himself.”

“Markum, please stop,” Zifini begged.

“Again, stay out of this,” he said louder. “It was me, not you,
that held his arms behind his back when he tore at his own flesh.”

“What?” Annie gasped in horror.

“Yes, you heard me right,” Markum seethed. “He tore at his
chest with his nails, for what, I don’t know, maybe in an attempt to rip out
his heart. This was after I hid all the weapons in the house.” Markum’s anger
seemed to dissipate slightly, to be replaced by profound sadness. “Then, when
it became obvious to me that I wouldn’t be able to reason with him, we had to
go to the Citadom for help, to the very bastards that threatened to arrest us
not a month before, or so we thought at the time, at least. So, tell me,
Annella, what was it all for?”

She broke down in tears yet again. The thought of Kellus in
so much pain was too much to bear. “I didn’t leave him,” she said. “I could
never leave him. I was taken from him, from my family. How could you think that
I would just walk away from him…from them?” she added, nodding towards Max and
Cora.

Cora slid out of her seat and walked to Annie. She placed
her arms around Annie’s shoulders from behind.

“I don’t know you, woman,” Markum answered. “I don’t know
what you’re capable of.”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Tol yelled. His hand smacked down on the
table, causing everyone to jump. “You know your brother is no fool. Trust his
judgment.”

Sara was beside Annie, handing her a handkerchief, dabbing
at her own eyes with another. “Perhaps it’s time for you to tell us what
happened, if you can, that is,” she said.

“Let’s have dinner first,” Tol suggested. “Then we can hear
Annie’s story.” He looked at his son. “Is this alright with you?”

Markum took a deep, calming breath and nodded.

When dinner was finished, Annie began to tell them all she
could remember. “I sent Max and Cora to town for supplies on the afternoon it
happened. Kellus and I were excited to have some time alone. Foolishly, I asked
him to go out back to feed a stray cat, and decided to change my clothing
before he returned.”

“Why?” Zifini asked.

Annie looked down, embarrassed to admit the truth. “I wanted
to look pretty for Kellus when he returned.”

Sara put her hand over her heart and threw Annie a pitying
smile.

“I had just stepped out of my clothes and into a dress he
liked, when I heard the front door open. I vaguely registered that the
footsteps sounded different, but was engrossed in fixing my hair. And then a
hand was over my mouth and nose, with a cloth soaked in some kind of poison or
sedative. I passed out.”

“Your clothes! Oh, poor Kellus,” Zifini cried, putting her
hand over her mouth.

“What, Zifini?’ Annie demanded.

“When Kellus returned to find the clothes you wore that day
discarded on the ground…well, you can imagine what he concluded. What we all
concluded.”

Poor Kellus, indeed. This was getting worse by the moment.

“I wasn’t violated,” Annie replied quietly.

Max threw back his head and let out a loud sigh of relief.

“Who was it? Where did they take you?” Cora asked.

“I didn’t see their faces. My eyes had been blindfolded when
I came around. I know there were two of them, a man and a woman. The woman
wanted to kill me, I don’t know why, but the man had another plan. He said he
had learned a spell or something that would banish me far from here. He began
pushing something heavy onto my chest, chanting a spell. The only thing he
accomplished was to make my clothes bigger.” Then she realized the truth.
“No…wait… he wasn’t making my clothes bigger, he was making me smaller. I was
becoming younger. Maybe the spell was supposed to return me to a time before
birth. Maybe his spell was working. At any rate, I thought I was going to die,
so I focused with all my attention, and somehow, managed to escape to a place
called New York. I don’t know how to explain this, but I know now it was me,
and not the spell, that caused me to cross over.” She looked around the table
and was very grateful that no one looked suspiciously at her. Even Markum
showed only interest. “I appeared in a place called New York, as a six-year-old
girl, with no memory of anything here, not Cora, Max, or Kellus—nothing. I
lived almost a whole life there. And then, a few weeks ago, I started dreaming
of Kellus, though I still didn’t remember him at the time.”

“Why do you think the dreams only started then?” Zifini
asked.

Annie shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but they began when
I turned the same age there that I would have been here. It’s like I caught up
with my real self, perhaps.”

“How did you get back?” Sara questioned.

“I took a trip with a friend today, to a place that’s
ironically considered very magical in the other world. I heard a desperate
voice calling my name and saw a strange swirled pattern in a field, like a
doorway, so I walked through it…” Something else occurred to her. “I think that
it was me that created that doorway, somehow.” She felt sure this was the truth
as she spoke it. “My subconscious had overridden my conscious mind. I was
determined to get home.”

“Kellus always believed that you would come back. He was the
only one among us that did not believe you were dead. We thought it wishful
thinking on his part, but he insisted that he could feel you,” Max said.

“Kellus knew I was alive?” she asked.

“After the searches were called off, you went down on record
as dead. This brought on a terrible four or five days for him, as Markum so
politely informed you,” Tol explained. “But as time went on, he told us that he
was sure you were alive. He said that if you were dead, he would know it at
once, that he would feel it.”

They sat in silence, pondering.

Finally, Sara spoke. “So we have no idea who took her.” She
addressed on one in particular.

“Only that the man was named Lionel,” Annie offered quietly.

Gasps erupted around the table. “What?”, “Are you sure?”,
“Why did you not tell us sooner?”

Markum’s voice was the loudest. “Bastards!” he yelled. “They
swore to us that they were not involved with that incident. It has to be
connected.”

“I agree,” Tol responded. “It’s too much of a coincidence
not to be connected.”

“What are you talking about?” Annie asked.

“The incident that occurred while you and Kellus were on
your honeymoon, when a peaceman came here and threatened to arrest us, arrest
Kellus if he did not denounce you,” Tol replied.

“I remember…what about it?” Annie questioned, confused.

“When Kellus had his bad spell, we were left with no choice
but to send Zifini to the Citadom for help. We thought that Kellus should be
sedated. Nordorum accompanied Zifini back,” Tol explained. “He said that he was
neither surprised nor upset to hear that the two of you had eloped, although he
seemed sincerely grieved by your disappearance. He assured us that he was aware
of the way you and Kellus felt for one another for some time, even before
Kellus had failed to return to the Citadom.  He all but swore to us that no one
from the Citadom was given authority to come here in search of Kellus, and most
certainly not to threaten to arrest innocent people.”

Cora interrupted. “Nordorum told us that he sent Kellus to
our house, to care for me, after my surgery, intentionally. He hoped that if
you and Kellus spent three days together, you may be compelled to give in to
your feelings for one another, which you did. Noticing the change in Kellus’s
mood after the assignment, Nordorum expected Kellus to come to him and ask for
permission to leave the Citadom. When Kellus didn’t, Nordorum was going to
relieve him of his vows upon his return from his two-week leave.”

“I still don’t understand,” Annie said flatly. “What does
this person, Lionel, have to do with the Citadom?”

“Lionel is the Under Master, the next in command to
Nordorum,” Tol explained. “Did you not know that?”

“He is?” she gasped. “No, I don’t believe I ever heard his
name before. Maybe Mr. Wellum mentioned it, but if he did, I had forgotten. So,
the Under Master is a criminal?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t trust Nordorum either, not for a
moment,” Markum butted in. “They could be working together.”

“I disagree, Markum,” Tol said. “Nordorum has always been a
righteous man in my eyes.”

Markum shook his head. “We don’t really know him, though, do
we? He came here to check on Kellus, and within three hours, had convinced him
to return to the Citadom, filling his head with nonsense about how training
would take his mind off the pain.”

“I believe Nordorum spoke the truth,” Tol replied, “Kellus
has fared much better there than he did here.”

“That was merely time, father,” Markum argued.

“How is he now?” Annie asked timidly.

“Kellus?” Markum questioned, raising his eyebrows.
“Completely broken,” he said bluntly, giving Annie a dry look.

“That’s not true, Markum,” Zifini interjected. “He’s much
better,” she said, turning to address Annie.

“He’s suffered much, unfortunately,” Tol said. “He has good
days and bad, which is to be expected.”

“I don’t understand,” Max said, changing the subject. “Why
would Lionel want Kellus and Annie apart?”

“Nor do I,” Markum agreed. “First he arranges a fake
peaceman to harass us, and then he kidnaps Annie to have her banished to
another world.”

“I think I know why,” Sara said in a flat voice.

Six pairs of eyes darted to her.

“Tol…that prophecy…” she said, looking at her husband.

“Do you think that could be it?” Tol asked.

“What are the two of you talking about?” Zifini asked,
looking back and forth between her parents suspiciously.

“There is a prophecy about Kellus,” Sara announced.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Markum asked
incredulously.

“Why weren’t we told of this sooner?” Zifini demanded.

“We didn’t believe it, did we?” Sara said, looking to Tol
for back-up.

“What was it?” Cora asked.

“Years ago,” Sara began, “before any of you were born, there
was a master at the Citadom named Nephlus. Nordorum was Under Master at the
time. Nephlus was a direct descendant of Contitus, the great one. He was the
last of the line of Tur, to be exact—”

“The children of Tur…they were the descendants of Contitus,”
Zifini interrupted.

“Yes, that’s right,” Max added. “Tur was Contitus’s
surname.”

Sara nodded. “One day, for no reason at all, Nephlus decided
to leave the Citadom. He wandered into the mountains and became a hermit. They
say he went slightly mad, eccentric.

“Two days after I gave birth to Kellus, Nephlus came to
visit me,” she continued. “You can imagine how surprised I was; I had never
been acquainted with the man before. He explained that he had something of
great importance to tell me. However, when he entered town on his way to see
me, he met Lionel—who was just a regular peaceman at the time, but one that was
enthusiastic. Lionel, I’m sure, was curious as to where the old mad peaceman
was going and asked to escort him.

“After they’d spent a good deal of time here, Nephlus told
Lionel that he needed to speak to me privately. Lionel left, or so we thought.
Your father, Tol, found Lionel kneeling outside the backdoor, eavesdropping on
what Nephlus told me.”

“What did he tell you?” Zifini asked.

“Nephlus explained to me that he had prophetic dreams. His
ancestors would appear to him and relay messages, most of which were petty,
minor stuff. However, the one regarding Kellus was of great importance.
Nephlus’s great grandmother had appeared to him in a dream the night before.
She said:
‘The love between Kellus and another, their bodies joined as one,
will create the Great One’
. Nephlus interpreted that to mean that Kellus
will someday father a great peaceman or hero, someone like Contitus, another
Great
One
.

“It would seem that perhaps Lionel believes this to be
true,” Tol cut in.

“I think that Nephlus was the name of the person that Lionel
received the spell from,” Annie said, remembering her ordeal in Dr. Lewis’s
office.