Destined Read online

  DESTINED

  Pandorica Bleu

  IT’S SEPTEMBER AND autumn has just begun.

  A chilly wind rattles the windows as Gareth wanders through the empty hallways of his empty house, familiarizing himself with the confusing layout of his new home.

  He’d initially refused the inheritance. Having just finished convalescing from his service in the Indian Rebellion and with his physician making noises about the state of his heart, uprooting himself to England had been the last thing he’d wanted to deal with. But his great-uncle’s will was watertight, and so Gareth finds himself the owner and sole occupier of this rambling old estate in the Yorkshire countryside.

  It’s on the verge of falling apart, all ancient stone and sagging wood, its gardens just shy of being reclaimed by the woods that border the property on all sides. The house is almost silent now as Gareth walks through it, his own footsteps on the parquetry floor the only sound echoing through the darkness. He’s tired and ready for bed, having spent the entire day trying to clear out some of the more damaged furniture.

  His candle offers only a small circle of light, but Gareth doesn’t feel afraid. He’s lived alone almost all his life, notwithstanding his time in the army, and he’s used to these late-night noises-of old houses settling into the land like old men with creaking bones. After long years in crowded barracks, Gareth finds he enjoys the solitude.

  But there’s something more to it than that here, he thinks, trailing a hand over worn wallpaper as he makes his way to his bedroom. Almost as soon as he’d set foot in the foyer, not two weeks ago, Gareth had felt an odd sort of déjà vu, as though his coming here was an event that he’d somehow always expected.

  He’d frozen then, standing just inside the door. It was the middle of the day and the estate agent was long gone, but Gareth could have sworn he’d heard a noise coming from further inside the house, a strange rush of air that was somewhere between a gust of wind and a sigh. And it was almost as though Gareth could feel it as well as hear it, a cold wave passing through his body in a curious sensation, akin to walking into a spider’s web that you didn’t know was there.

  It was oddly comforting. Gareth was not a superstitious man but he chose to view it as a welcome, a sigh of relief from a long-abandoned house that it would finally become a home again.

  He arrives at his room and sets the candle down on the table. As he eases himself into bed, Gareth thinks that despite his misgivings about leaving Scotland, he could grow to become quite comfortable here. He closes his eyes and starts to drift off, the gentle patter of rain outside like an odd sort of lullaby.

  Exhaustion claims him quickly. If the candle flame flickers despite the windows being shut, he doesn’t notice it; if the whistle of the wind starts to sound more like a voice, he doesn’t hear it.

  Gareth is asleep in under a minute. He starts dreaming in two.

  *

  “ANOTHER CUP?”

  Gareth shakes his head. His liege lord chuckles.

  “That is not like you,” Lord Egerton says. His eyes gleam brightly in the firelight, and his smile is warm as he sets the pitcher down.

  “I do not think it would reflect well on you, my lord, were I to ride to St Albans still sluggish with ale.”

  “I suppose you are right.”

  Lord Egerton’s smile turns soft as they lapse into a comfortable silence. Gareth watches him as he stares at the flames licking the walls of the fireplace, his face half in shadow, his eyes downcast.

  For some reason, the sight moves him.

  Should I fall in battle tomorrow, he thinks to himself, should a sword pierce my heart, I would die gladly and with honor, knowing it was in service to you.

  When Gareth had first sworn fealty to him, they had both been so very, very young: it was just a silly joke, a promise between children. But then Reginald-and he was just Reginald then, not yet a lord, as his father was still alive and Reginald was just a boy-Reginald grew up and came into his title, and when he granted Gareth’s dearest wish and bestowed a knighthood upon him, the childish declaration became binding words of loyalty.

  They had grown up together, seeing each other through as many trials as they had triumphs; a constant in each other’s lives, steadfast and unwavering. Leaving for battlefields near and far was not uncommon for Gareth, having defended his lord and King many times over the course of his service. But something about this impending departure makes him feel oddly uneasy, and as he watches the smile on that familiar face start to fade, Gareth thinks the feeling may be mutual.

  “My lord?” he asks. His voice seems too loud after the prolonged silence. “Are you not feeling well?”

  Lord Egerton turns to face him. His mouth is curving into another small smile but there is a weariness in his eyes that he cannot hide-not from Gareth, not from someone who knows him so well.

  “I feel… I feel what I am expected to feel, Sir Gareth.”

  Gareth frowns. “And what is that, my liege?”

  Lord Egerton’s smile widens, though the expression in his eyes does not change.

  “You have been my friend, all these long years,” he says. His voice has gone quiet, and Gareth has to lean closer to hear him over the crackle of the fire. “Do you really need to ask?”

  And no, Garethrealizes, he does not.

  Always, before every battle, Lord Egerton would be at the castle gates to see him off. And always, before they parted, Gareth would see worry crease his brow and fear turn his eyes a darker shade of blue. And when he returned-and he always returned-Lord Egerton would be there again, waiting, relief flooding his face when his gaze found Gareth’s amongst the ranks of knights that rode in past the outer walls.

  “It will just be a battle like any other,” Gareth says, and doesn’t know why the words feel like a lie.

  “Indeed.”

  Lord Egerton nods, but Gareth can hear the uncertainty in the forced evenness of his voice, can see the concern in the straightness of his back and the stiffness of his shoulders. He opens his mouth to say something more but Lord Egerton stands, abruptly, draining what’s left of his own ale in one long swallow. Gareth stands too, and finds himself at a loss when Lord Egerton simply looks at him for a long, long moment.

  “My lord?”

  “My friend,” Lord Egerton says quietly, his gaze fixed on his empty mug upon the table. He takes a deep breath. “My dear friend,” he repeats, and looks up.

  Gareth meets his eyes. “Yes, my lord?”

  Lord Egerton opens his mouth and for one brief, mad moment, Gareth thinks his lord will ask him not to go.

  “Stay safe, Gareth,” Lord Egerton says, and offers his hand.

  “I will try,” Gareth replies. He hesitates, then adds, “Reginald.” He is rewarded with another smile, a truer one this time, and Gareth feels some knot in his chest loosen a little at the sight.

  His fingers slide over the warm skin of Reginald‘s palm and as he feels Reginald’s hand squeeze his, Gareth thinks again about the promise he’d made to this man as a boy. To defend his name and his land and his honor, to swear obedience to him in all things and to die before ever betraying him. He hadn’t understood then, as a child, what any of that actually meant.

  Now, as a grown man, he understands it perfectly.

  Fealty and honor, Gareth thinks, as he watches his liege lord leave. Fealty and honor, and courage and love.

  The next day, Lord Egerton isn’t there to see his knights off. Some part of Gareth had expected it but his uneasiness from the night before grows. More and more, his lord’s last words to him seem like a final farewell.

  And so when the blow does come, along the narrow streets of St Albans that run red with blood, Gareth is not that surprised. But he knows in his heart that he’d been wrong-that he
hadn’t quite understood what it meant to swear fealty to Reginald, after all.

  To die in defense of his lord was an honor, yes. But to die in defense of his friend was a far greater honor still.

  He falls. His armor hits the cobblestones with a deafening crash, but Gareth feels no pain.

  *

  GARETH WAKES UP with the sun in his face.

  He squints into the bright light, surprised that he’d slept in so late. He must have been more tired than he’d realized.

  He stands and stretches, wincing a little. Some remnants of a strangely vivid dream float at the edges of his mind but the more he tries to focus on them, the less he can remember, until even those few wisps of memory fade away to a vague sense of emptiness. He feels like he’s lost something, something important, but can’t recall what.

  He shakes the feeling off and moves to the table, intent on clearing last night’s candle stub.

  But the tabletop is empty, and the candle is nowhere to be seen.

  Gareth shakes his head. He must have left it outside, he reasons, on the hallway table, perhaps, just near the door.

  He gets dressed slowly, muscles still a little sore from the previous day’s labor. There’s much that he wants to get done today, but having slept till mid-morning he has less time than he needs to finish all that he’d wanted to accomplish.

  Distracted by thoughts of the tasks ahead, Gareth heads for the stairs and doesn’t notice that the candle stub isn’t in the hallway, either.

  *

  GARETH SITS OUTSIDE, watching dusk settle over the trees as he eats his supper. It's a simple meal of bread and meat and cheese, washed down with a little wine.

  He leans against the wall, the cool stone soothing the ache in his back. It had been another long day of hefting things about and he takes a deep breath, idly rubbing at his chest to ease the knot of tightness there. He’d managed to clear several more rooms and his tiredness is combining with the wine to make him feel quite relaxed-content, even.

  The evening is still and quiet, but something rustles the leaves of the overgrown hedgerow just to his left. Gareth dismisses it as some small animal using the garden as a shortcut, but then there’s a strange displacement of air around him and the temperature suddenly drops, and the next thing he knows, his glass is tipping over, untouched. Wine spills over the flagstones, red rivulets spreading out like veins, and then Gareth feels something brush across his hand as he goes to pick up the glass, even though he can see that nothing is there.

  He goes perfectly still and stays unmoving for a long, long moment. Then he reaches for the glass again, and again, there it is: the sensation of something trailing over the back of his hand, like a scrap of invisible silk.

  Gareth licks his lips. He doesn’t believe in wild tales of the esoteric or the macabre, but he’s always been a practical sort of man. If his senses are telling him that something is there, if he can feel and hear something moving around him-then there probably is something there, he decides, whether he can see it or not.

  “Hello?” he calls out.

  For an interminable amount of time, there is no answer. Gareth starts to think that perhaps he’s simply overtired, or that the wine was a little stronger than he’d thought.

  But then the breeze picks up and ghosts over his ears and the glass rattles loudly against the stones. And Gareth just manages to make out a single word on the wind, like a quiet sigh in the cool air:

  Hello.

  *

  GARETH SITS IN the front room, carefully cleaning an old parlor table he’d found gathering dust in a corner. It needed work but he’d seen at a glance that underneath all the grime, there was something beautiful waiting to be revealed.

  A dozen candles bathe the room in warm yellow light. The flames flicker occasionally, particularly when he gets a little rough with the cleaning brush, and Gareth ducks his head and hides a smile whenever they do.

  He isn’t sure who or what his mysterious house guest is-it isn’t always there, or if it is, it doesn’t always make its presence known. But Gareth has noticed that the more he tries to restore the old house to its former glory, the more it lets him know that he’s being watched: sudden gusts of wind in rooms with windows all shut tight, small tools going missing, his teacup suddenly shifting just out of reach.

  He supposes he should be alarmed, if not outright afraid, but Gareth finds he doesn’t mind knowing that he isn’t quite as alone as he’d thought. If nothing else, the presence or entity doesn’t seem malicious, just curious, and Gareth is content to let it watch him. Indeed, he’s even taken to occasionally talking out loud-not necessarily to the entity itself, just voicing his own thoughts, and these, too, often seem to get a reaction.

  Sometimes Gareth fancies he can hear words in the air, whispering through the walls like the first time he’d said hello, but the harder he tries to listen, the more the words seem like nothing more than his own imagination.

  Gareth scrubs hard at a particularly stubborn spot of dirt on one leg of the table. He flips it over to get better access but it’s heavier than it looks and it hits the floorboards with a loud thud.

  The reaction is immediate. The room goes pitch black as every single candle goes out.

  Gareth stills.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and a moment later, the flames spring to life again.

  Gareth sighs with relief. He’s about to return to cleaning the table when he feels an unnatural chill at his back.

  “That’s all right,” he hears someone say. “But please be a little more careful-I’ve grown rather fond of that one.”

  Slowly, Gareth turns around. His mind is oddly blank.

  Standing behind him is a very tall man, well-dressed and quite transparent, the edges of his form fading away to nothingness. He ripples a little, as though Gareth is seeing him through a sheet of water.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Gareth says slowly, and stares.

  “Oh, you can finally see me?” the man asks, sounding quite surprised but more than a little relieved. He just stands there, seemingly at a loss, before visibly gathering his wits. He holds out a hand. “Gareth, is it not?” he asks politely. “My name is Roland.”

  Gareth goes to take the proffered hand but it passes through his own like a cloud of smoke, the phantom touch feeling like ice in his bones.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” he replies, shivering a little, and despite the sudden cold and the strangeness of the situation, Gareth finds himself starting to smile.

  Roland smiles back.

  “Likewise,” he says.

  *

  GARETH LAYS IN bed and stares up at the ceiling, watching a patch of moonlight creep across the plaster as the night wears on.

  For the past few weeks, Roland has been spending almost every evening with him. He kept a close watch on Gareth’s progress with the table and continues to hover nearby whenever Gareth starts on a new project. It should be disconcerting but for some reason, it isn’t.

  After initially being a little reserved, Gareth has discovered that Roland is excellent company-well-read, intelligent, and in possession of a certain dry wit. He even helps with the house sometimes, as much as someone in his state can-zooming off into the shed to check for tools or letting Gareth know about things he’s found in other rooms. He has a good eye and a fondness for antiques, and sometimes he looks so pleased when he finds something new that Gareth can easily imagine the way his face would flush with excitement, were he still alive.

  Roland, Gareth muses. He certainly didn’t look like what Gareth expected of a spirit or a ghoul or whatever he actually was. He simply looked like a man, young and handsome and a little lost too, sometimes, when he didn’t think Gareth was watching him.

  As Gareth finally starts to fall asleep, he wonders how Roland had died.

  Just before dreams take over, he wonders why he isn’t sure if he really wants to find out.

  *

  A ROAR OF applause follows in Raquel’s wake as
she runs offstage and into the little dressing room behind it. She’s laughing, eyes bright, as breathless and flushed from the audience’s appreciation as much as from all the singing and dancing.

  Norma grins as she watches her practically bouncing up and down with excitement, kicking the door shut as she hurries over.

  “That means they like the act, right?” Raquel asks. “That’s what this means?”

  Norma puts her hands on Raquel’s shoulders and catches her eye.

  “Raquel, darling-it means they like you.”

  Colour floods Raquel’s face and she ducks her head a little, somehow looking both embarrassed and pleased at the same time. The sight makes Norma’s heart skip a beat and despite her better judgment, she can’t stop herself from raising a hand and tracing the curve of Raquel’s cheekbone with her fingers.

  Raquel inhales sharply at the touch. Her eyes dart nervously from side to side but she doesn’t pull away.

  “I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn't found me,” she says. This close up, her eyes are so bright, so blue-such a stark contrast to her dark hair and pale skin. “I’d still just be singing in a field on my parent’s farm, out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the cows for an audience.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Norma replies. She brushes a stray lock of hair from Raquel’s face and tucks it behind her ear. Raquel shivers a little and Norma smiles. “You’d have found your way to the city somehow. And any speakeasy would’ve taken one look at you and given you a spot in a flash.”

  “I think you’re forgetting what I looked like back then,” Raquel says with a laugh. “Dirt on my nose, hair in a bun, wearing some hand-me-down overalls that didn’t even fit me right.”

  Norma stares at the perfect cupid’s bow of Raquel’s mouth. Her lips are painted bright red for the stage and she knows the lipstick tastes horrible, but she finds herself craving it all the same.

  “You’re beautiful,” she says, without really meaning to. “Then, and now.”

  Raquel goes still. For a second, everything just stops: the noise of the crowd and the frenzy of activity outside; the push and pull of what Norma desperately wants and what she knows she’ll never be able to have. It all just fades away and the whole world is shrunk down to the space of a tiny dressing room, to just the two of them, standing a handful of inches apart.