Ink & Fire_A Havenwood Falls Novella by R. K. Ryals

Author:R. K. Ryals [Ryals, R. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939859570
Publisher: Ang'dora Productions, LLC
Published: 2017-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“You can’t be serious,” Eloise cries. “No. Absolutely not.”

I’m frozen.

I never knew my mother. She is a myth, this idea I’ve built up like a wall inside of my head.

She is memories I created for myself from nothing. She is warm arms that never actually held me. She is brave words I never got a chance to hear. She is loud, angry lectures I never got the chance to endure.

Memories built out of imagination.

Okay, I tell myself. Because giving myself permission first somehow makes it easier to say it out loud.

“Why would you even ask this of her?” Eloise cries. Her question opens into a long string of rants, protests, and objections, and even though I hear what she’s saying, it’s like white noise behind louder thoughts. I’m focused on only one word.

“Okay.” My voice isn’t loud when I say it, but it has the power to quiet the room.

After a long moment of silence, Eloise reaches for me, aghast. “Harper, you don’t have to do this. It’s not the same, channeling family. It’s,” she closes her eyes, and then opens them again, “It’s just not the same. You have no idea.”

The thing is, I’ve already given myself permission to be okay with this. Because, in the grander scheme of things, my feelings are small compared to the knowledge we need.

My head rises, my eyes finding the angel looming above me. “Okay.”

Lucas smiles. “Okay,” he replies. He touches my face, and I’m prepared for him to back away, my mind and body primed to turn to the table and face my fears, when he suddenly slides his hand into my hair, startling me. His eyes darken, his fingers tangling with the strands. Lifting my face, he lowers his head, takes a moment to search my gaze, and then kisses me. Deeply. Briefly.

He tastes like spring feels.

“For being brave,” he says when he pulls back.

The kiss stuns my aunt into silence. In truth, it does the same for me, not because I don’t know what it’s like to kiss Lucas, but because I sense something in the way he kissed me. Understanding, maybe?

Something feels different when I turn back to the table.

Flipping to a new page in the notebook, I reach for another pencil, mentally steeling myself against the destruction of something momentous. My mother is a fairy tale I created.

Memories built out of imagination. A house of cards dangerously close to toppling.

I inhale through my nose, the breath deep and fortifying. Mom, I call, and when I get no immediate response, I add, Karen Sinclair.

The house of cards crumbles.

The pencil slides across the page. Harpists harp harping. My Harper.

The words are everything I hoped for and everything I feared. Tears cloud my vision, and even though I want to walk away from this, I maintain my grip on the pencil. Unlike Lucas with the demon of fate, I don’t talk to my mother out loud. I do it in my head. I’m not brave enough to share everything. Not yet.

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