The 13th Mage (12 page)

“Come with me son, it is time.”

“Come where?
Who are you?”

The man took his hand and led him towards a bright energy, a light.
The closer they came to the light the more he remembered of who he was and why he had been born.
He knew everything everywhere.
He was one with the universe.
He was the universe.

He realized, as everyone does, that his identity was no longer connected to him, he was no longer just Owen, but an infinite being.
As he stepped into the light his awareness became larger than the universe itself.

As the chill of the Irish evening engulfed his body he became aware of his existence on Earth once again, he had returned from the light.
He held his head in his hand
s
trying to retain what he had learned,
but it escaped him, like sand between his fingers it fled his grasp.
But at least now he knew what it was he had to do.
Not exactly what the witches had in mind, but very close.

He thought he heard voices, looked around and saw a rock smile up at him, he rubbed his eyes and
the smile
went away.

The Way of the Witch was enough to drive any sane person mad. With this thought he got up, made his way back to the hired car and to the airport.

On her birthday she got several cards from her old classmates, one from her mum and a parcel from Owen’s solicitors.

The parcel had a pink shawl, a card and a letter from the solicitors saying it was a present from Owen for the child.

The shawl was beautiful. S
he picked it up and spread it out. It must have cost a fortune, she thought.
Someone should have told Owen to buy a yellow one, that way she would be able to use it whether the baby was a boy or a girl.
Deep down she knew she would use it even if her baby was a boy.
It was too precious not to.
it was probably a family heirloom.

Jennifer was a very down to earth person, she was what witches would call an earthmother, a woman who can work and create life and instead of losing energy in the process, gains it.

She folded the letter from Owen’s solicitors, placed it back in its envelope and into her backpack, she would have to visit the solicitors at some point.
She didn’t want to, but she felt she had to.
The letter didn’t give her any contact address for Owen, maybe they didn’t have one. It basically said that he had left and if there was anything at all she needed
she should
contact them without hesitation.

Owen had left six weeks earlier, he had left a little note on the kitchen table saying he had to go on a business trip and that he didn’t know when he would be back but that it could take months.
The solicitor’s letter was a bit of a shock to Jennifer, she had always envisaged Owen being there when the baby came home from the hospital.
Somehow the news did not make sense.
Where had he gone and why was he not coming back?

She felt angry and let down.
Sean had left without a word, now Owen had left too.

The baby was due any moment and she had no way of letting either of them know.
She didn’t know why she wanted Owen to know, it was probably because the baby was his family, because they had spent most of the pregnancy together and somehow she had felt he would be there when it was born.
She had almost replaced him in Sean’s place, sort of.
Any hope of Sean’s appearance had left with Owen.

She felt bad about the argument they’d had that last day, felt that maybe it was her fault Owen left.

At least Owen had been kind enough to leave her a note.

She had thought about leaving herself, now that the baby was due any moment, but she couldn’t really leave the house unattended. Her mother couldn’t come over, she couldn’t leave the shop as it was her only income, they would need all the money they could get their hands on now, so Mrs. Crow had volunteered. She would be arriving the next morning.

Jennifer decided to find a solicitor who could advise her on the situation, after all there was no reason why she had to shoulder the financial burden of bringing up her child on her own. If she had found Sean’s brother, then finding Sean himself wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before, but the truth was she was hoping Se
an would come to her on his own accord
when he found out about the baby.

But he hadn’t. Now she was angry.
Owen leaving her like that had hurt her.
Her feeling hurt surprised her as she thought she despised Owen.
But when he didn’t come back after a week she realized he was really hurt by what she had said and that hurt her.

She could tell Owen had feelings for her, but he was too much of a gentleman to say anything.
What she hadn’t realized was that she had grown close to him as well.
Not as a lover of course, not Sean’s own brother.
But as a favorite brother or something.

She packed a sandwich, some fruit juice, her mobile and her
music
player.
It was warm for March so she only put on a light coat and left the house to find a solicitor of her own.

It didn’t take long to find one.

“There are two options; one is to give the baby up for adoption…”

“NO… I mean, there is no way in the world I would give up my baby,” she said to the heartless solicitor.

“And the other is to have the father accept paternity, in which case he is obliged by law to provide the child with minimal financial support.
Of course this will be difficult seeing as he left you, destination unknown.
The first thing to do is to locate him.
I will start the paperwork, fortunately there are government agencies nowadays that can track down just about any missing father in the country,” the woman said smiling.

Jennifer felt a wave of nausea for what she was about to do and the baby kicked her ribs in agreement.

“Yes, that will be fine,” she said handing the solicitor the name and last known address of the boy who was soon to be a father and the name and address of his brother.

On her way home she found it increasingly difficult to walk, she hadn’t been to any maternity classes but she had read enough to know that when women go into labor they get contractions and it hurts them.
That was why she didn’t realize she was in labor.
She felt no pain, and until her waters broke in front of the service entrance to the house, she didn’t know her baby was about to be born.

She stared down at the ground, feeling the warm trickle getting colder on the inside of her legs.

“Don’t panic,” she said to herself, opened the door and phoned the emergency services.

Two hours later she lay in the maternity ward with her new baby girl in her arms.

“Your name is Heather,” she said to the little red face that stared at her intensely.
Jennifer would have preferred to give her baby the father’s surname but it was obvious that he had never loved Jennifer like she loved him.
She had dreamed of a white wedding and the three of them becoming a happy family.
It was old fashioned, it was not realistic, but all she had ever wanted was to be part of a normal family.

Jennifer’s own father had left before she was seven and her mother had always warned her of men’s promises to get girls into bed and the unwanted pregnancies which followed.

Tears run down her cheeks.

If only she had hadn’t been so horrible to Owen, at least he would be here now.
Maybe he could have told Sean how beautiful the baby was and Sean would have decided to come back to her.

“Miss Stone?” Asked a rather stiff looking black haired woman, “I am the hospital social worker, I have been told that you are unmarried, is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“In that case I will have to retain you here until someone can visit your house and evaluate whether it is a suitable habitat for a newborn baby,” she spat out and left the room, leaving Jennifer speechless.

She wondered if they could do that, if they could make her stay in the hospital against her will.
She reached over to her backpack and searched for her new solicitor’s phone number, then she remembered that she had never actually taken a business card.
She had walked in from the street and couldn’t even remember the solicitor’s surname.
Her hands fell on the letter from Owen’s
solicitors.
Placing her new baby back in her cot she pulled herself out of bed and picked up her mobile
phone
.

Jennifer’s call had taken Harry by surprise, she sounded like a quiet, educated and hard working girl, not the type who would get herself pregnant.

It wasn’t Harry’s policy to make house calls but this time he made an exception.
Apart from the fact that this girl seemed to have become very important to his friend’s grandson, she sounded terribly upset on the telephone.

“Jennifer Stone?” He asked the red haired girl on the bed by the window, her eyes were so swollen with tears he could hardly see their color.

“Oh, I am so glad you are here Mr. Johnson,” she said and went on to tell him all about her baby and the father, and the other solicitor and the social worker.

Harry was very uncomfortable with emotional outbursts, but made an effort to comfort the girl and calm her down long enough to make head or tail of what she was saying.

He handed her some more tissues from the box by the girl’s bed and patted her hand.

Later, as the sobs and tears slowed down Harry thought it was time to clear the growing doubts from his mind.

“Did Owen know this was not his baby?”

Jennifer’s eyes widened, “of course he did.
I mean, it couldn’t possibly be his, we never, well, you now.
I only worked there, we were not lovers.”
She looked back at him full of sincerity.

Answering his next question before he uttered it she added, “it’s his brother’s baby. Sean.”

This took Harry by surprise.
As far as he knew Owen didn’t have any siblings he was an only child.
But of course there might be an illegitimate brother somewhere; he would have to look into it.

“Well, the first thing we have to take care of is that social worker, and then we can worry about the financial aspect of the situation.
I am sure there is n
othing to worry about. Y
ou will have special tax allowances now that you have a dependent and I will arrange for a raise in your wages as soon as possible.
I am sure Owen won’t object.”

Harry was sure Owen wouldn’t object, not after their last conversation, but he didn’t at all think it was suitable for the girl to stay in the house as housekeeper considering the situation.
He would let a couple of months go by and if Owen didn’t get in touch then he would take matters into his own hands and release the girl from her duties.
After a
ll she had admitted it herself;
the baby was not Owen’s.

He got up and put on his coat.

“Feeding time!” said a nurse pushing a plastic cot along toward Jennifer’s bed.

Jennifer reached into the cot and pulled out a pink bundle.

“Say hello to Mr. Johnson, Heather,” she said softly into the bundle.
She unwrapped the pink shawl uncovering the newborn.
Harry got the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized by that little face.
He put on his glasses and leaned forward with a smile.

“Hello there young lady,” he said as a little hand grasped his finger.

Black curly hair and a pair of eyes pierced him with the same intensity he had first seen on Owen’s grandfather then Owen himself.

He felt a cold shiver travel down his spine.
There was no mistaking it, this was an O’Neil child.
Unable to hold the stare he looked away as
he had done every time the O’Neil’s had looked into his eyes for more than a few seconds.

He pulled away and looked at Jennifer in disbelief.

“No.
I mean, I know what you are thinking, but she is not Owen’s.
I promise.
They are identical twins, Sean and Owen, I was really shocked the first time I met Owen because of it, I even fainted, but Owen is not Heather’s father.
I promise.”

She pulled her baby into her chest, “it’s silly to think… Oh God, I could never… I mean, not Owen,” she added blushing uncontrollably.

On his way back to the office Harry was able to think things through without the distracting emotions of the scene at the hospital.
There were tw
o things that bothered him most. O
ne was the fact that the Stone girl was obviously lying to him with regard the paternity of her child, when she had everything to gain by admitting it.
The other was Owen’s departure before his daughter’s birth, why where they both acting in such an unusual manner?
The obvious explanation was that Jennifer was telling the truth, but he only had to look at the baby to know it was Owen’s child.
Twin brother indeed, he thought.
She must think he was a fool.

He would get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did.

As she looked into the blue eyes of her newborn daughter she felt a deep knowing. It didn’t matter that the father was an irresponsible thief, Heather was a dream come true for Jennifer, and she was the most perfect being in the universe.

Thanks to Mr. Johnson’s interference at the hospital Jennifer was allowed home the next day.

She arrived at
Oak Place
alone with her baby.
Inside the house Mrs. Crow was waiting with the tea ready and the house warm enough to receive the baby.
At first Jennifer wondered how the old lady had managed to let herself in, but Mrs. Crow had told Jennifer in many
occasions that Owen was a very good friend of hers, so she didn’t think any more of it.
She probably had a spare key.

“Heather Stone, what a lovely name.”

“Yes, it just came to me.
I hadn’t really thought about names, she wasn’t really due for another week.”