The Goblets Immortal Beth Overmyer (highly recommended books txt) 📖

“Our things?” she parroted. “I don’t nay have no things.” It wasn’t said with sarcasm or heat. She sounded confused. “Never did have no things.” Silence. “Ah, but I did have a dog once,” Slaíne said after a moment. Aidan looked at her, but was scarce able to make out her silhouette in the dark. “Well, it weren’t really my dog, but he liked me much better than the Four.” She let out a heavy breath. Her fingers snaked through the grass, back and forth, back and forth with a slight whisper, as if she were still petting the creature’s back. “Woke up from a real deep sleep one night. There were smoke and screams and curses. And all I could think about, where’s the dog?” She went silent here, and Aidan wondered if he should ask her what happened. As it turned out, there was no need. The girl offered the remainder of the story up herself. “Found him the next morning, burned to a crisp. Were a silly thing, but that’s what, you know, Jolted me.” By the light of a star, he caught the glint of the whites of her eyes, wide and glassy.

That caused Aidan to shiver. “Jolted you?” he repeated, by and by.

Slaíne didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.

Aidan drew his arms about himself, the spring breeze raking against his sweat-drenched clothing. “I take it that you have a history with the Goblets Immortal as well.” Releasing himself from his own embrace, he lowered himself to the ground and lay with his hands flat at his sides. “How—”

“Me mother drank from the Drifting Goblet. Must have. Or her mother before her did. It’s the same sad tale.” Another heavy sigh and she moved nearer. “Girl finds herself kidnapped by strange cult. ‘Drink of this’ says such and such a so-called friend. The girl, soon realizes she is with child. They knew before she, and it don’t matter how much she might object to a strange child, the Goblet she drinks from.” She paused in her narrative, and Aidan thought it appropriate to ask,

“And Meraude was one of the children from the Circle, too?”

Slaíne moved closer still and froze. “That is the queer thing of it. Nobody rightly knows, or won’t tell me. Could be either. There aren’t many of us left that she hasn’t slaughtered.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Here we are.”

Aidan wrinkled his brow in thought, and soon turned to Slaíne, reaching in the dark that he might touch her and find relief from her nagging Pull. He gave up after a sore moment, and continued. “Why is it, do you think, that we have crossed each other’s paths? If there are so few of us, then what are the odds of our having met so?”

“Not good,” Slaíne admitted. They were silent after that, each lost in their own thoughts. And slowly, ever so slowly, Aidan found himself relaxing into sleep’s embrace, though the night was cold. It was irresistible. It was inevitable, as inevitable as breathing.

Chapter Thirteen

In this vision or whatever it might be – Aidan couldn’t decide what to call these mind-wanderings into the past – there was a woman. She was at once familiar and unfamiliar. The stranger paused before saying with a smile, “Well, Aidan. Are you not happy to see your auntie?”

Aidan rejoined that he did not recall being in possession of any such creature.

The woman, birdlike in visage and in dress – and giving off the air of one who would take flight at the slightest provocation – smiled her raptorial smile and said, “Why, nephew, you do not recall your father’s sister?” She tsked and fussed and, spreading her great arms out like bright plumage, demanded that he come forth and embrace his long-lost relative.

Aidan was not deceived; this woman was not a memory. He had never seen the likes of her in his life. Nor was this a dream, as his prickling shoulder warned him. “What are you?” he said coolly. “And don’t lie to me.”

The wing-like arms dropped, and with it the pretense. “Aidan, of course you would not know me. And you are right on one score – this is not a dream nor a memory. On another score, however, you find yourself quite incorrect. I am your aunt….”

Aidan’s mouth worked a few times before closing again. He shook his head. His father did not have a sister. He would have mentioned – should have mentioned.

The woman, as if reading his thoughts – perhaps reading his thoughts, indeed – twinkled her eyes at him and said, “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”

If he weren’t suddenly so afraid, he would have scoffed and demanded that she leave him and his head to himself right there and then. However, a creeping dread crawled up his spine, and he resolved hat, whoever she might be, he would not trust her.

She tsked again. “Really, nephew. Don’t be so taciturn.” She sniffed delicately. The room in which she sat and he stood at a respectful distance was his childhood bedroom. There was the four-poster bed, the nightstand, the stone fireplace and the iron poker. It felt so real, he could feel repulsion to the metal, and the metal to him. The woman laughed in the white velvet loveseat upon which she sat.

As Aidan watched, the scene shifted. They were downstairs in the library. Now they were in the kitchen, where Molly, his nurse, was stealing scraps from the table. She looked at him once, then went back to her rummaging. Lastly, they stood outside a burning barn behind a young boy with dark locks, screaming for his parents as the very earth trembled.

Aidan turned in this vision and asked the woman, now standing, “What are you?”

Smiling, she tapped her nose. “I am shadow. I am shade. You are the door. Open, my son. Open your eyes.”

He awoke and nearly jumped out of his skin. It took