The Heart of Arima. Read online

  I swallowed and tried to concentrate on the willow twigs but my tears fell, splashing onto the thin stems. I heard Inés sigh and get to her feet. She picked up the willow and threw it in the bin. “We’re supposed to be helping her, not making her suicidal.” She smiled at me and took my hands. “Alors, are you going to tell me what’s wrong now?”

  The need to tell someone burned in my chest but I just didn’t trust Inés.

  “It’s the child isn’t it? It’s yours,” she said. I caught my breath and she nodded. “I thought so.”

  I bit my lip hard to try and stop the tears from coming and was gathered up in an embrace. “That’s why he threw you out. I really thought there was nothing you could do that could sway his devotion to you but that, Nina, that’s the one thing he can’t give you. It must be eating away at him.”

  I sobbed and pushed her away. “Not helping, Inés!”

  She put her arms around me again. “I’m sorry, Jéhenne, truly I am. I can see how unhappy you are but think of it ...a child! How wonderful. That is something to celebrate isn’t it?” She paused, looking at me intently. “You do want it?”

  I nodded but as much as I wanted it I could find little to celebrate. Whatever knowledge it was that made me believe this child had to exist was making my life a misery. I didn’t want a baby at nineteen, it had never been on my agenda but how could I live with this hanging over my head? Should I wait and see what happened, knowing that Corvus wouldn’t see me unless I let him kill the man who would father my son, or just get on and get it over with and hope, in time, that Corvus would forgive me?

  “How did he find out?” she asked, her voice gentle, as though she was afraid I’d run away from her if she spoke too loudly.

  “I had a vision, in the fire. He didn’t see but ... But he heard what I said. He knew it was mine.”

  Her hands smoothed down my hair and she hesitated, though I knew full well what she was going to ask next. It would be the only question she would want answering now and I was unlikely to have any peace until I told her. “Yours and whose, Jéhenne? Who is the father?”

  I shook my head.

  She gave me a grim smile. “You don’t trust me do you?”

  I laughed and wiped the tears away with my sleeve. “Seriously, Inés? You’re surprised?”

  She held me by the shoulders, green eyes serious. “I would help you if you’d let me. Give me another chance, please, Jéhenne. I won’t let you down."

  It was a funny thing but I generally found that everyone who wanted to help me usually had an ulterior motive, everyone but Corvus. Bloody hell, I was getting cynical. I decided to divert her for the time being. I did want to tell someone but could I really trust her?

  “Did Phil tell you about the magic he found around Georgette?”

  The sharp, green eyes narrowed and she sighed. “Fine, change the subject but we will talk about this again.” She returned to her pestle and mortar, grinding with a bit more force now and I knew she was annoyed with me. “Oui, he told me, and I told you didn’t I?”

  “You still think it’s Heloïse?” There were some harsh muttered curses and the grinding got fiercer and more violent.

  “Oui, of course I do. I thought it was her before and now your friend tells me that the magic that surrounded her looked like ours. What else would I think?”

  I took a new bundle of willow twigs and returned to stripping them. “I don’t know but ...maybe other people’s magic looks like ours too. It just doesn’t make sense, why would she come back and make herself known to you and then do something like that?”

  Inés got up and began pulling jars off the shelves as she hunted for whatever it was she needed next. They clattered and chinked as she moved them about. “Because nothing Heloïse has ever done has ever made the slightest bit of sense to me and she revels in making my life a misery.” I got to my feet and then leaped forward to grab a jar of Belladonna before it smashed to the ground.

  “What are you looking for?” I demanded, carefully putting the jar back on the shelf.

  “Horehound.”

  She was still crashing about as I looked to find the jar already out and sitting beside the pestle and mortar. I let out a breath and counted to ten. “You’ve already got it down.”

  She turned around and huffed in annoyance, leaving all the jars scattered over the work surface as she returned to her work. I started tidying up and replacing the jars on their shelves. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” She smiled as she ground the horehound with enthusiasm, it wasn’t a pleasant expression and I was very thankful that it wasn’t aimed at me.

  I picked up a kilner jar that looked to be full of tiny, crooked sticks and then shuddered as I read the label vers de terre. Ugh, dried worms. “Look, why don’t you let me go and speak to her before you do anything rash. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding?” I added hopefully.

  Inés said something unrepeatable before picking up her coffee mug and heading for the kitchen. She paused in the doorway and looked at me, her eyes full of anger. “Do what you want, Jéhenne, but she started it and this time ...I intend to finish it.”

  Chapter 15

  The address that Heloïse had given me was actually in the same commune as the one in which Inés lived. Despite that fact it took me forty minutes to find it. It was tucked away down an unmade road which my car took exception to. After making it a third of the way down I gave up and walked. It was the kind of place that required a four by four for access. The narrow track wound through thick woodland and eventually arrived at a tiny stone building. It was very high here and the back of the house faced out over a wonderful view of woodland and rolling hills. Autumn had come very late this year and many of the trees still held their leaves even now, clothing the landscape in rich, earthy shades of bronze and gold.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I jumped at the voice behind me and turned to see Heloïse emerging from the woodland behind me holding a wicker basket. She looked very much a part of the landscape; her chestnut brown hair gleamed and she wore a belted wool top and long skirt in shades of moss green.

  “Very,” I agreed, “and very hard to find.”

  She smiled and the green eyes, so like mine, were full of warmth. “I find I prefer to keep myself to myself.”

  I followed her to the cottage and she let me in. It was small and simple and very cosy. What furniture there was, was old and well cared for, polished to a deep shine from years of use and love. Throws covered all of the soft furnishings in burnished reds and browns, and it felt very much as if the landscape outside had been captured in cloth and draped about the room.

  I had often wondered why Inés chose to live so simply, in such a small property when I knew she was very wealthy. I had come to realise that firstly, a small property is more easily defensible. It really wasn’t difficult to place a ward around a small house. Secondly, the modern world was something that she didn’t welcome. She had seen too much change over her lifetime and so she clung to a simpler time within her own home. The comforts of central heating and many other modern appliances were simply a reminder of how much time had passed and sometimes that was something she wanted to forget. I suspected that Heloïse was of much the same mind.

  The scent of magic and herbs that had become such a familiar part of my life clung to the air and welcomed me, along with Heloise’s warmth in ushering me to a chair by the fire and making tea.

  “I’m so glad you came, Jéhenne. I began to wonder if Inés had convinced you to stay away from me.”

  I shifted slightly uneasily and tried to smile at her.

  “Oh,” she grimaced. “D’accord, what is it I’m supposed to have done?”

  She carried an old wooden tray which she set on the low table between the two arm chairs. I watched her pick up a big brown teapot and begin to pour as I wracked my brain for a way to put this that wouldn’t offend her and give me a new enemy.

  “You’
re not being accused of anything,” I said carefully and she snorted as she picked up the milk jug. She gestured towards me and I nodded so she topped up my mug.

  “You may not be accusing me but I have no doubt Inés is already plotting my downfall. Sugar?”

  I nodded and she stirred in a generous spoonful and handed me the mug.

  “Alors, let’s have it then,” she said.

  I explained about Georgette and the potion and Phil’s assertion that whoever had done it had magic that looked like ours. She sipped her tea, elegant hands with long fingers wrapped about the mug. She wore an unusual ring with a large tiger’s eye stone and I wondered if it had magical properties like my own moon stone.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it, Jéhenne, you have my word.” She looked at me carefully. “Do you believe me?”

  I looked back to see an expression that appeared totally sincere, there was a warmth about Heloïse that Inés lacked. Inés was hard and prickly and difficult to get to know and as much as I knew she loved me, I didn’t really trust her. “I want to believe you.”

  She smiled and there was sadness to it. “Quite right, I’m glad that there is that much at least. It is a difficult thing to trust others in this life, more often than not you come to regret it but ... But still, sometimes you just have to take the chance because it is simply too lonely to do anything else.”

  I nodded, knowing she was right as my eyes fell on an old black and white photo. I got to my feet and picked it up. It looked to have been taken before the First World War, judging on the clothes, and showed a young woman who looked remarkably like Heloïse in a wedding dress. The man with her was tall and very broad, with long white blond hair. The lines of his face were harsh and uncompromising and his expression fierce but his eyes were full of adoration for the woman at his side. “Your ...grandmother?” I asked with a wry smile.

  She laughed and held out her hand to take the photo from me. “Why of course, Jéhenne. There’s quite a resemblance isn’t there?” She touched the man’s face in the photo and there was such reverence in the gesture I knew that he was dead ...and that she had loved him very much. “This is Orin, my husband. He died nearly eighty years ago and some days I still expect him to walk through the door.”

  “You miss him?”

  Her eyes glittered and she nodded. “Every day. You know I took every precaution to protect myself from such sorrow. I avoided mortal men, I never wanted to be in a position when I would lose the man I loved, to watch him grow old and fade away, leaving me behind. When I met Orin I knew he was everything I had searched for. He was dark fae; a warrior, big and powerful and immortal. Except there are few amongst us who are truly immortal, we can all be ended in the right, or wrong, circumstances.”

  She flicked her fingers as the light had begun to fade, and a dozen candles around the room sparked into life.

  “What happened?”

  She shrugged. “He was older than me, a powerful man and men like that have enemies. One night one of them got the better of him. I thought my life was over.” She stopped and brushed away a tear and I reached forward to touch her hand. She grasped it and squeezed. “I’m so happy to know you, Jéhenne, truly.”

  “I’m glad too,” I said, and I meant it. “How did you get over it? How did you carry on without him?”

  “Because of Torre.“ She smiled, and it was a good smile, full of warmth and pride.

  “Torre?”

  She got to her feet and crossed the room to pick up another photo frame and came and sat back down, handing it to me. It was a photo of a man in his early thirties; he looked very much like the man in the first photo, long white blond hair and harsh features, handsome but rather forbidding and with Heloïse’s sharp green eyes.

  “Our son, Torre. He was just a boy when his father died but he gave me a reason to go on, he is my pride and joy, though he would cringe to hear me say so.”

  “You ... You have a son?” I felt a strange feeling growing in my chest, staring at the photo of the man she had brought into the world and then back into eyes so full of happiness to be speaking of him to someone.

  “Yes, and for every day I miss his father I thank the gods for giving him to me.”

  My heart was thudding, a dull, heavy thump, like the weight on a metronome, ticking inevitably to the conclusion of the music. “You don’t regret it? You wouldn’t ...I mean I know you had no choice but ... But if you did, you wouldn’t rather have his father than him?”

  She gasped, shocked at the question. “I’m sorry,“ I said. “I know it’s an awful thing to ask but ... But I have to know.”

  Her eyes widened but she answered me. “I miss his father every day and I know I will never love anyone again the way I loved him but ...no, I would not give up my son for anything, not for any price. I would do anything for him, to keep him safe.”

  I nodded, the tension that had been in my chest ebbing away with her words. It wasn’t exactly the same situation but it wasn’t so different either. It was the right thing to do; it was what I had to do.

  “Jéhenne? What is it?”

  I shook my head and then gasped as I turned my head to the fire to see a vision forming in the flames. I leaped forward and grabbed a log, throwing it into the embers in the hope it would smash the vision, shattering the image before Heloïse could see but the flames just burned higher, brighter ...the picture clearer than ever before. I got to my knees before the flames and I heard Heloïse gasp and move to kneel beside me.

  I could see myself, I was sitting outside on the grass and it must have been in the spring time as there were apple blossoms scattered around us. I was sitting with the child on my knees, bouncing him up and down and he was squealing happily and giggling. I looked happy too. We couldn’t see his face as he was turned away from us but he looked to be about eight months old. His hair was thick and dark now and I ached to reach out and touch it, to see if it was really as soft as it looked. I felt Heloïse take my hand.

  “You will have a son too.”

  I turned to see her smiling at me and couldn’t help but smile back. We both looked back into the flames. The me in the vision turned the child so that he was facing us and I heard Heloïse exclaim as she saw his beautiful golden eyes.

  The picture faded, leaving me with a terrible longing for my son. I missed him so badly it was like a hole in my heart, like there was a piece missing but it was ridiculous to feel that way when he didn’t even exist yet.

  I looked up at Heloïse. I guessed now I would find out if I could really trust her or not.

  “Corin! Corin’s the father!” she said, sounding quite breathless. “Oh, Jéhenne, your son will be a king one day!”

  I got to my feet a little unsteadily and sat back down in the armchair. “I ... I guess.” I shivered despite the heat from the fire and Heloïse picked up a throw and draped it over my shoulders.

  “Visions sometimes take it out of you.” She smiled and rubbed her hands up and down my arms and as she did her eyes fell to the tattoo around my neck. “Oh, Jéhenne.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Heloïse. I don’t want to be with Corin, I love Corvus. I’m supposed to be with him, I know I am but ... But I know I have to have that child and not just because I want him, and I do want him, so very much.”

  Heloïse nodded. “Yes, the child is fated, he’s important.”

  “You felt it too?” I grasped hold of her hand, so grateful that she could confirm what I had suspected. She squeezed my fingers.

  “He is not just any child, Jéhenne. He has a purpose, a destiny.”

  “You’re sure there isn’t any other with eyes like that though, Heloïse? They couldn’t happen naturally, a quirk of nature, there couldn’t be another explanation?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Every child has a father, Jéhenne, and you know it isn’t ever going to be Corvus, no matter how much you may want that. Knowing that, is Corin such a terrible prospect?”

  I became suddenly v
ery interested in the pattern on the throw around my shoulders. No, Corin wasn’t a terrible prospect, far from it.

  “To answer your question though, no, there is not another creature in this realm or any other with eyes like that. There are rumours about him you know. They speak of the legends about those with eyes like that.”

  “I know, he told me.”

  “There are some who say he hides his power, that he is touched by the gods and will be the very greatest king of the fae. Imagine, to have a child with a man like that. Imagine what your son would be.”

  I remembered how Corin had warned me in the summer. He had told me he could see my potential, it was one of his talents to see power in other creatures, and he could see that I had the power to become the greatest witch there had ever been. Was that why our son would be important, because he would combine our powers? He had warned me not to tell anyone about it, not even Inés. He said that if people knew, they might try and kill me before I became too powerful to fight. Was he speaking from experience?

  “But I don’t want his son.”

  She shrugged. “The vision was telling you something, Jéhenne, it was giving you a message. We both saw how important he will be.”

  “What if I’m reading it wrong though ... What do I do?” I pleaded. “I want Corvus, I want to be with him but now ... Now he knows about the child and he won’t see me. He wants me to give him the name of the father so he can kill him before it happens and you know I can’t. How can I expect him to forgive me if I go through with it? I don’t know whether I can face an eternity of living without him.”

  Heloïse sat on the arm of the chair and reached around me, pulling me into an embrace and I laid my head on her shoulder. “You are a Corbeaux, you are stronger than you can ever imagine, Jéhenne. You will face the future because there is no other choice and when your son is born he will fill the space in your heart that Corvus has taken.” She stroked my hair and I closed my eyes, wondering if such a thing was possible. “From everything I have heard of the vampire, he loves you above all else. Give him time, I think in the end, when he comes to understand, he will forgive you.”