The Tessellation Saga. Book Two. 'The One' (15 page)

Slowly the sun
began to rise and Jed noticed the column of men and horses moving
inevitably toward them, he knew his parents and the villagers were
on their way. Many of the villagers had small children and if they
had spent as cold a night as he had, they would be lucky to have
survived. Hate filled Jed’s heart as he thought of the pain in his
mother’s face, the abuse Sámia had suffered and the beating his
brother had obviously taken, his hate turned cold and angry as he
realised it was all Gideon’s fault. Tears would no longer flow and
he swore to himself then, Gid would not, could not, be allowed to
live.

‘I’m goin’
Tobe, yer’ll be ok now the soldiers ‘r’ ‘ere …’ he said, turning to
face Toby, he smiled weakly, the smile not quite reaching his eyes.
‘I’ve got sommat I need ter do, thank you… fer being ‘er friend.’
He said as he took off running swiftly toward the trees and Green
Cottage, the home of Gideon’s grandparents.

The inhabitants
of the cottage slept as Jed crept closer and closer and the sun
hovered on the edge of the world ready to lighten up the day with a
soft golden glow.

As Jed passed
the newly dug soldier’s grave beside the barn, he mistakenly took
it for Mayan’s final resting place and kneeling on the cold hard
ground, he touched the frozen earth reverently, his heart cracked,
as he thought of his beautiful chestnut haired sister lying cold
and alone, deep within the bowels of the earth.

Strangely, his
own stone, his gift from Gideon, still offered him comfort and
support as it hung on the green leather thong around his neck; he
held it tightly in his palm as he watched the house. He knew Gideon
was inside, he could feel it. In his grief, it did not occur to him
to wonder, that if what Toby had said was true, then why was Gideon
here in Branton, instead of in Devilly with his real father. Still
kneeling reverently, he placed his palm on the frozen earth of the
grave.

‘Mayan love,’
he whispered, ‘Gideon will answer fer this…,’ he pulled his cloak
around him and sat to wait for the true morning to light up the
world. Then, he knew Gideon would die, but for now, he would sit
here, sit here with his sister and wait.

Deep within her
safe place, Mayan felt protected and loved. She did not want to
leave it and come out but somehow knew she must, she thought she
felt her brother searching for her but her barriers had stopped her
responding so sighing, she turned away from her brother and
returned to her vision of Gideon and the silver blue river. As she
looked at Gideon, he began to change and suddenly Jed was before
her sitting on the cold hard ground his head bent toward the earth.
She smiled as he pulled his cloak about his shoulders and then he
looked up.

Her heart
almost stopped, Jed’s face screamed death at her, such a look of
hatred and contempt. She had never seen him look this way before
and as if he felt her looking he smiled, his eyes cold and flat, he
was talking to her, telling her how he would make Gideon pay before
he died.
Pay fer what?
Mayan thought, still deep within her
dream, why would Jed want to kill Gideon. She shuddered in fear,
only it was not the imagined fear of the nightmare, it was real
fear, a solid tangible thing and it was fear for Gideon.
Frantically she began to claw at the walls she had built to hold
her safe. Slowly they began to break down, slowly, so slowly they
crumbled as she fought her way back from sleep until at last she
could feel Jed was nearby, her safety walls finally disappeared and
she opened her eyes.

She shook her
head to clear her jumbled thoughts and her nightmare evaporated
with the last vestiges of sleep. It was all right, it had all been
a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare, she knew this room and knew
today she was going to go shopping with Gideon’s grandmother,
today I am gonna choose me trousseau, me wedding things,
she
thought, smiling.

She climbed
stiffly off the bed wondering why she was aching and splashed clean
cold water on her face and neck before dressing quickly as she
attempted to shake off her sombre mood.
Nerves!
She laughed
at herself, as she walked quietly down the stairs.

As Mayan
entered the kitchen all eyes turned to look at her, the kitchen had
felt quite large before but now with so many bodies crowded around
it was positively tiny, most of the faces she knew but some she did
not, one thing was the same on them all though, they all looked
…concerned.

‘Mayan love,
‘ow yer feelin’?’ Gideon’s father asked as he came forward and
threw his arms around her.

‘Jed, leave the
girl be son, let ‘er settle,’ chided Jed’s mother gently. Mayan
felt the centre of attention as she moved to sit at the table. She
brushed her hand over her hair to pull it off her face and touched
a tender part of her skull; she winced at the pain and suddenly
understood.

‘Oh…Toby,’ she
vaguely remembered turning a corner and seeing Sonal falling down a
slope, Gideon, with soldiers holding his arms as he was being sick,
Toby leering at her and Gideon shouting run, then something dropped
over her, and she had fallen. She remembered the way her arms and
legs seemed locked in place and then Toby’s rancid breath washing
over her face, again she remembered the sharp piercing pain deep
inside and felt cold and alone until Gideon was there, sitting
beside her in a sunlit meadow beside a stream. A meadow she had
built in her head.

‘Toby raped
me…’ she whispered aloud, remembering everything clearly and
realising why all eyes had been on her and now suddenly were
anywhere but with her. The striking green eyes of a small
impossibly beautiful silver haired girl were the only ones that
seemed to empathise.

‘It will be all
right,’ they seemed to say, ‘It
will
be all right.’

Mayan let her
mind wander again over what she remembered, she sat quietly, her
hands protectively holding the teacup Gideon’s gran, her gran,
placed before her and she made a conscious effort to test out her
body as the other members of the party tried to talk normally
around her.
Apart from feeling tender an’ bruised an’ that could
‘ave ‘appened as I fell an’ hit me ‘ead,
she thought,
nothin’ seems to be wrong anywhere else. I’ll deal with the
ovver stuff anovver time, I’m fine,
her thoughts continued.
Toby had done his worst and she was fine, the absurdity of the
situation bubbled up inside her she began to giggle as the other
occupants of the room stopped talking and stared at her, her
laughter stopped abruptly.

Suddenly,
everyone was again talking at once; voices filled the room
attempting to fill the awkward silence. Mayan stood as the
pragmatist in her realised everyone here, whether she knew them or
not, knew what had happened to her, from Toby’s last attempt inside
his father’s barn and the subsequent hours spent with her loved
ones tiptoeing on egg shells around her she knew she had to stop
this now. All eyes were on her as she cleared her throat, whatever
they were expecting the tension and anxiety around the room
dissolved as she spoke.

‘I don’t seem
to know everyone, me name’s Mayan an’ I’m gonna marry Gideon,’ she
said in a rush. The green eyes of the silver haired girl seemed to
laugh with delight as smiles of relief beamed at her from around
the room.

‘That’s me
girl,’ called Gideon’s father.

‘How do you do,
young lady,’ from someone who looked remarkably like Sonal.

‘My brother
Varan,’ said Sonal, answering Mayan’s unspoken query. Mayan’s eyes
opened wide as she remembered Sonal’s tale of his family back at
Green Home but before she could comment Gideon’s father spoke
again.

‘This be Lemba,
an’ this…’ introductions and explanations carried on as Mayan
smiled acknowledging each and every person. She was interested to
see how Gideon’s father blushed from the neck clear up to his roots
as he introduced the other unknown woman in the room, Lemba’s
sister, Dotty.

‘I think I
remember you ‘elping me, mam,’ she said, smiling at Dotty, ‘when I
was brought ‘ome I mean an’ thank you,’ she added. Dotty reached
across and took her hand.

‘You are a
strong young woman, an’ you’re very welcome.’ She said.

‘Where’s Gid?’
Mayan asked, as she realised his face was the only one she really
wanted to see and could not.

‘Well Sonal,’
said Jed, his gaze turning serious once more, adding ‘where is ‘e?
My boy ‘ad best be all right out there…’

‘Don’t worry so
much, he will be fine, Jayse is with him.’ Sonal answered.

‘Less than one
day ago Jayse would ‘ave rammed ‘im with a knife ‘isel.’ Jed
grumbled, ‘why could I not ‘ave gone on this s’periment, after all
‘e be me own son.’ Sonal looked at his friend compassionately,
although he had answered this and several other questions along a
similar vein a dozen times.

‘Jed, you are
too close to the boy, he has to be allowed to travel as far as he
can, you know you would have held him back if had so much as
stubbed his toe.’ Jed grumbled into the teacup his mother
perpetually filled from a fresh pot.

‘Yes, but
Jayse…,’ he began to say as his mother stepped in.

‘Jedadiah, you
know yer Da and I love yer, now you listen ter me, Jayse ain’t the
same boy as rode in with them soldiers, he… he’s kind an’
thoughtful, the kind o’ boy me an’ yer Da would be proud to call
our son, an’ iffen ‘e was our son ‘e’d be yer brother an’ Gid’s
uncle. So stop bein’ ser jealous and trust ‘im.’ Jed looked at his
mother as she fussed and fretted, ensuring everyone had everything
they needed and he could not remember the last time his parents had
entertained this way. Yesterday they had both been badly assaulted,
his father Gideon, still bore a fat lip and a beautiful shiner not
yet even trying to heal, the black and swollen flesh keeping the
old man’s eye firmly closed, this, a gift from Toby that Jed would
someday repay. Dotty and the twins had both offered to heal the
obviously painful wound but the old man had refused.

‘Mrs Green
don’t care much fer magic an’ such,’ he had said stoically.

Jed himself had
to agree the young soldier, Jayse, did seem to like his parents and
had even tried to help him. Ruefully he admitted to himself what
his mother had accused him of, he was jealous. He had not been here
when his parents were being hurt and he had not been here to help
them pull the pieces together after the dead body of the soldier
was discovered in the house. Jayson had been a calming influence
over all the chaos and grudgingly, Jed gave him credit for behaving
exactly as a son would have done, as he himself would have done if
he had been here. For the moment, he knew the young man was
sleeping in the barn but his mother had already said when the
family left again after the visit, Jayse was going to stay on and
help around the cottage.

‘Hhruuump,’ Jed
said aloud as his thoughts continued in a more amenable manner,
they do need someone ‘ere now they be older, an’ they do seem
ter like ‘im,
he stood and crossed the room. ‘I be sorry ma,
yer right, I gave the lad no credit an’ I were jealous…’ she
squeezed her son tightly, a tear in her eye.

‘It’s all gonna
be fine boy,’ she said, ‘now don’t yer worry so.’ Jed smiled and
turned away from her before returning to his chair and anxiously
looking out of the window, unconsciously resuming the position he
had taken before Mayan had walked into the room.

Mayan crossed
to Jed the inevitable teacup in one hand and a plate of toast in
the other.

‘Jed, where’s
Gideon, what’s goin’ on outside?’ She inquired, as she sat beside
him and she too peered through the misty glass.

The day outside
appeared cold and crisp once more, though there seemed a little
more sun around than there had been. She could see the barn from
the window and the ivy thriving in the cold looking like a living
wall as it grew completely over one side of the huge building.

‘S’periment,’
muttered Jed with a growl, adding, ‘ter see iffen Gid’s illness is
because ‘e’s away from the Forest, or Green ‘ome wood anyways.’ Jed
answered her, his gaze still fixed on the other side of the glass.
‘Sonal can explain it better ‘en me,’ he added as Sonal came to
join the two at the window. Sonal touched his friends shoulder in
an effort to comfort him.

‘We think,’
Sonal began, ‘it’s the house here and the Forest at home that has
stopped Gideon from being ill before this,’ he looked at Mayan
closely her confusion apparent. ‘It’s like this,’ he began again,
the whole room seemed to still, each person listening intently, for
some, they had heard the explanation a hundred times but still they
listened. Jed turned briefly to look at his friend. ‘We think we
know who Gideon’s actual birth parents were,’ he said, laying his
hand across Jed’s shoulder once more. Jed turned back to the
window, his face unreadable. Sonal stopped his love and concern for
Jed preventing him from continuing their theory. He turned to his
brother with a pleading look, Varan as intuitive as ever
continued.

‘Well, we know
King Gath and his forebears were able to do magic, we also know how
Gideon was born, apparently those of us who were here saw it the
other evening.’ Heads nodded and smiled sadly, remembering the
vivid dreams of the young pregnant girl running through the woods,
as he spoke he used his fingers to emphasize his speech exactly the
same way Sonal had done the day before.

‘We know Gideon
was ill, that something happened to kill the soldiers in the woods…
and that something was generated from Gideon. Dotty, Rhoàld and I
are all able to feel magic in varying degrees. We could feel that
Gideon was the source of the magic and it was powerful, have no
doubts upon that, dangerously unstable in fact. We know that Gideon
has spent most of his life in and around Green Home Forest. We also
know he never had so much as a cold before leaving the forest area
and here, Gideon’s grandfather has spent years building this house
out of wood and stone
all
brought in from Green Home. We’ve
looked at the way Jayson has changed from being here in this house,
at how Gideon has seemed to recover quickly once he is here within
the confines of the house and gardens.’ Mayan listened to Varan,
unsure of what it had to do with any experiment.