Rosethorn
Authors: Ava Zavora
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
“I know I could be happy with someone else...But it was decided a long time ago. It was always going to be you."
From Morocco to Paris, Sera
has traveled the world over but she never forgot Rosethorn, the beautiful, abandoned mansion where she and Andrew used to meet for trysts. Until the day Sera found her mother's diary. Sera’s obsession with the shocking secrets it contained tore them apart and sent Sera fleeing to New York with a devastated heart.
10 years later, Sera revisits
Rosethorn, only to run into Andrew, all grown up now and handsomer than ever. Politeness gives way to a heated confrontation over their painful past. Yet unable to resist each other's lure, both surrender to the undying power of first love.
Fate has brought them together once again, but will
the wounds and tragedies of the past destroy Sera and Andrew's second chance -
forever
?
Rosethorn
is a breathtaking debut of love lost and found again that culminates in a stunning and unforgettable end.
ROSETHORN
by
Ava Zavora
For the nicest person I know – my mother.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Ava Zavora
All rights reserved.
First Edition
Spring was a season for regret and so it was then that dreams of her mother visited Sera the most. Sera grew older, but her mother remained young in her dreams, forever beautiful, forever doomed.
As her mother sank helplessly in dark, cold water, her long black hair like deadly snakes swimming around her face, Sera would dive after her, moving in that impossibly slow way in dreams, just a finger’s length from reaching her mother’s outstretched hand. Her mother was mouthing words over and over again, her face a white mask of horror.
In her sleep Sera could feel the water choking the air out of her lungs as she strained and could hear a disembodied voice shouting something she could not understand.
Always the same, that moment--overwhelming fear as the darkness swallowed her mother until the last burst of strength propelled Sera to grasp one pale hand. A brief triumph as the sunlit surface beckoned, tantalizingly close. But the hand she grasped was stronger than Sera and pulled her down into watery depths.
Her mother mouthed in anguished desperation, "I want to live. I want to live,” as she dragged Sera by the necklace around her neck, strangling her.
Faster than she could fathom, she herself was drowning in her mother’s deadly embrace, barely hearing the voice which had been shouting all along for Sera to let her mother go.
Wherever she was or whoever’s arms she was in, the dream would come of her mother drowning, coloring the days that came in its wake. This time she was with Chase and it took her a minute to remember where they were.
Myrrh and neroli wafted through the old wooden shutters of the riad. Sunrise in Marrakech. It must have been the early morning call to prayer echoing throughout the city which had awakened her from her nightmare. One of her favorite moments of the day was to stand by the window and watch the sun rise over the ancient mosques and citadel, her spirits lifting with the prayer to Allah.
Today, she felt submerged in her mother’s memory. She was unable to stir herself awake.
She turned to Chase and watched him as he slept, looking boyishly vulnerable with his tousled black curls, mouth curved in a slight smile. She loved the look of the thoughtful English professor about him, even if it looked out of place. She could spot him anywhere, even in a crowded bazaar full of snake charmers, monkey peddlers, and gaping tourists. He was as constant as the Northern Star wherever they happened to be.
She could wake him so that he would comfort her, as he used to whenever she had dreamt of that afternoon in Bled. That nightmare had been subsumed under the ones of her mother, as all her nightmares had lately done.
Troubling Chase with an old dream would ruin one of their last mornings in Morocco. She let him sleep as the dream's treacherous tentacles slowly lessened their grip on her, receding into fading night as the sun rose.
Out of habit, Sera felt around her neck for her old necklace then panicked momentarily when she felt a thin, unfamiliar disc instead. Though it was lighter than her old one, it felt strangely heavy.
After a few days by the sea, she and Chase had trekked to the Sahara before heading back to Marrakech. They had ridden camels led by Berbers and spent one night in a tent beneath the stars. When their guide had woken them early in the morning to watch the spectacular fiery sunrise over the sand dunes, Chase had surprised her with a gold necklace. It was shiny enough to rival the morning sun. A flat gold circle hung from it, engraved in Arabic calligraphy.
"Chase, it's beautiful!” she gasped, stroking the gold plate as he fastened the necklace. "Was this your mysterious errand yesterday? What does it say?"
Embracing her from behind, Chase kissed her neck and said softly in her ear, "It's a line from a poem by Qabbani, called Ikhtari, or Choose. It says,
'There is no middle ground between heaven and hell
.'" He turned her around so that she faced him. "Well, have you made up your mind? Do you choose heaven or hell for me?"
"I need more time, Chase." His face fell. "Moving to another country is monumental. I'd be even farther away from my grandmother than I am now---it's more complicated than just picking up and going."
He turned from her and stared out into the desert, away from the rising sun, hands in his pockets.
"I want to be with you,” Sera insisted. “I do."
"Then say yes. Enough of this relationship by e-mail and phone and only seeing each other every few months. We've been in limbo for two years." He paused. "Sometimes I think you prefer the romantic idea of us. Lovers meeting in Casablanca or Lisbon or wherever. Perhaps it’s more convenient for you that an ocean separates us."
"You're asking me to leave everything I know, everything I've built for myself. You can't possibly expect me to leap blindly---"
"Not blindly," he turned to her suddenly. "I'll take responsibility for you, if you'd only let me. You'll be free to write what you want, instead of piddling away on dross just to make ends meet. "
He reached for her neck, but instead of the gold necklace, his fingers found the silver one hidden underneath layers of clothing and brought it out into the light, as if it were proof of some guilt. It was dull from years of being worn against her heart. Next to the radiant gold, it looked pale and homely.
Uneasy with the way he was holding it, Sera gently tugged the old necklace from his fingers and put it back, away from view.
Noticing that she shivered, Chase pulled her to him and sheltered her with his arms. "I'm not going to disappoint you, Sera. Whatever it is that's keeping you from moving forward with me, please let it go."
She didn't unclasp her old necklace in front of Chase. She put it away later when she was by herself, with only a slight hesitation and no ceremony. As though it was of little significance, something she hadn't worn every day for the last 11 years, she placed it in her little velvet pouch of jewelry, to be lost among her jumble of earrings and bracelets.
She didn't intend on ever wearing it again.
*****
"Tell me again about how you and Marcello met," Sera asked furtively, although she was by herself in the market at Rue Cler, three blocks from Chase's Paris apartment. They had flown in from Morocco only yesterday.
Now she dawdled at the boucherie, blankly staring at the quail hanging from the ceiling, unable to decide what to cook for dinner, or anything else for that matter, before giving in and calling Elise. She was torn and needed to hear her old friend’s voice.
Elise laughed, a rich and throaty sound. "Oh, but I've told you that story of how we met many times. You're like a child with a bedtime ritual. Why do you need comforting this time? Aren't you supposed to be on holiday with Chase?"
"Then tell me, when Marcello asked you to move to Italy with him, and you'd spent only a total of two weeks together, was there any hesitation or did you just know? Weren't you scared? How did you know it would all turn out all right? You were placing your life in a stranger's hands."
"Ah," Elise uttered in understanding. "So, he's finally ready to take the leap, eh? And although you've wanted to be with this man for as long as you've known him, you're afraid to make that leap with him, aren't you? Oh, anak, I was terrified. Everyone told me I was making a big mistake. But I was 46 and Marcello was 49. The boys were grown. And we had waited for each other all our lives. So I took care of all the mundane concerns, packed my bags, and left."
"It sounds so simple the way you tell it." And impossibly romantic. Elise and Marcello were meant to be. The thought of Elise moving halfway across the world to be with the man she loved inspired Sera. If they could succeed, 15 years strong and counting, then she and Chase could as well.