Hunter's Choice (21 page)

Hunter

I smiled and left Fallon, Jess and Aaron in
the barn. It had been a week since Aaron and Jess had performed and lectured
for the Bird Festival and Fallon had been here nearly every day with Aaron
since. Her mother had even come on Wednesday night to meet us and say thank
you. Jess insisted they stay for supper. Fallon had broken things off with her
ne’er do well boyfriend and had been much happier since volunteering at the owl
haven.

Her mother was even more impressed that
Fallon’s volunteer work at the haven could go onto her high school transcripts
and may help her chances of getting into University. The last week with
Jessamine had been pure bliss. The woman was a balm to my soul, soothing in so
many ways, her calm and gentle nature my addiction, if addictions could be a
healthy thing.

I put the tools I’d been using away when I
heard the exhaust and bass emanating from a car coming down the drive. I came
around the side of the barn and watched the black Honda hatchback roll to a
stop.

A boy matching the description Aaron had given
us got out of the idling car, gangster rap spilling out round him dirtying the
pristine atmosphere around it. I came forward.

“Yo, I’m lookin’ for my girl Fallon.” He said,
jerking his chin sharply into the air.

“I don’t believe she wishes to be found by the
likes of you.” I stated simply.

“I don’t care what the bitch wants. She’s mine
and I’m here for my property, you feel me?” he asked.

“Leave now, before I call the authorities.” I
pursed my lips. Fool child.

“I said get my mutha-fuckin’ girl out here
fool!” he jabbed his hands in my direction.

“Little boy,” I began, “Leave now, the girl is
not and has never been yours. She doesn’t want you here and you are not
welcome.”

“Yo you disrespectin’ me!?” he demanded.

I smirked.

“From where I am standing, I see nothing to
disrespect.” I turned to walk away… it was the wrong thing to do…

Jessamine

Pop pop pop!
The sounds were sharp and immediate, followed by a slamming car door
and the wash and ping of gravel as the car outside peeled out. My heart clouded
over with dread. Aaron, Fallon and I traded looks and dashed down the stairs
from the old hayloft. I was the first out the barn’s door and what I saw
stopped me in my tracks.  

Hunter lay face down on the drive, the back of
his white tank top flowering crimson. I screamed, a wordless broken wail and
scrambled to my knees beside him. I didn’t know what to do! I screamed and
screamed and prayed and Charlie came out of the house.

“Jess!? Jess what is it? Were those…? Son of a
bitch!” he landed on bended knee beside me and started doing things. I vaguely
remembered that he had been a medic in Vietnam, surely Charlie would know what
to do. I looked around, Aaron was on his phone, a glazed look in his eye
speaking mechanically into the line. Fallon stood to the side shaking.

“Jess, Jessamine!” Charlie barked. I looked at
him.

“Hold pressure here!” He pressed my hands down
and blood welled between my fingers hot and slick. I moaned and sobbed.

Please God, let him be okay. Let him be
okay, let him be okay. Gwydion, please hear me, please help me I don’t know
what to do!
I thought furiously and tried to do what
Charlie told me to do. I was shaking and fighting the rising swell of panic
inflating like a balloon in my chest, expanding painfully, squeezing everything
else out of its way.

Arawn, that’s the name of his death-god…
I remembered faintly then savagely wrestled that thought to the ground.
No. Hunter was not going to die. No. No. No. No. No!

You keep your damned hands off him, you
hear me Arawn! Not yet, not yet, not yet! You can’t have him yet!

I prayed furiously, tears dripped off the end
of my nose and splashed onto the back of my hand, sirens wailed in the
distance, too far in the distance.

Not yet Arawn, do you hear me!? Not! Yet!

Hunter

I lay on my back, the sun warming my face,
painting the insides of my eyelids with fire. I dragged my hand off the grass
and put it up over my face to block the searing light. I tried to remember what
happened and couldn’t come up with…

The boy, I turned around, a loud noise and
searing pain, falling into the void…

I sat up sharply and looked around. I was in a
meadow, jewel like butterflies flitting from flower to flower, glowing brightly
in the too-white sunlight. Fruit trees rustled in the slight summer wind. It
was comfortably warm, a perfect day. I looked down at my tunic and breeches and
groaned.

“No!” I roared furiously.

“That is not the reaction we are accustomed
to.” An amused, musical, female voice said from my right. She spoke in the old
tongue and I blinked.

A copper haired, lovely woman in a white
homespun gown lounged upon a stone. Bare toes peeking from beneath her gown, a
crown of flowers upon her brow. Fierce green eyes raked over me.

“B
ébinn
?”
I asked.

“Well met Heliwr.” She smiled and grief axed
me in my chest, cleaving me in two. Her smile turned into a frown.

“So I have passed beyond the veil then?” I
asked.

“Not quite, you are in the spring meadow, the
summer fields of
Annwn yet await. You
fight, cling to the mortal coil. I would know why.” She crossed her arms and
raised a brow.

“Please
B
ébinn, I would speak with Arawn, I beg you!” I reached
out a hand beseeching.

B
ébinn laughed, a high sweet
sound that was but bitter broken glass to my ear.

“Why ever would you wish to
speak with my husband?” she was baffled and I tried valiantly to collect my
scattered thoughts, pressing a hand to my brow.

“I beg of you!”

“Not until you tell me why
Heliwr!” she had a stubborn set to her chin and I sighed.

“I cannot leave the mortal
plane.” I said.

“Why ever not?” she asked.

“There is a woman there…” I
said and I told her of Jessamine.

“She is to me as the moon is
to the stars, she is my one. I cannot contemplate an existence without her. She
saved me, and I in turn saved her. Together we are two halves of the same
whole.” I looked up to her, pleadingly, not even bothering to disguise the
tears in my eyes.
B
ébinn’s expression
softened.

“We do not always get what we
want Heliwr.” She reminded me gently.

“Do you not think I know
that!?” I asked. I pounded a fist savagely against my chest.

“I am the only born son of
Llew Llaw Gyffes
! You know my
story…” I challenged her then, pointing a finger in her direction, the anger
and bitterness rising in my throat like so much bile.

“…and in knowing my tale,
have you ever known me to have
ever
gotten what I wanted?”
 
I asked quietly.

“Perhaps not what you wanted, but what you
needed?” she said back.

“I need Jess.” I said with absolute certainty.
B
ébinn cocked her head to the side and
considered me with a sweep of her gaze.

“What do you want from me
Heliwr?” she asked, tone gentled.

“Persuade your husband to
hear me out. Just listen to what I have to say…” I pleaded.

She nodded finally, and transformed
into a white dove, taking wing across the meadow and out of sight. I closed my
eyes and prayed to every god and goddess I could think of that Jess was safe,
that she was well and that I might see her once more.

Jessamine

They had taken Hunter by ambulance to a nearby field and had
airlifted him to Harborview Hospital in Seattle. I hadn’t been allowed to go
with him. Instead I had agonized through the almost two hour drive from Sequim
to Seattle. John had driven us, and by us I mean me and Charlie. Aaron and
Fallon had been taken into protective custody. Fallon had said it was Jordan’s
car speeding up my drive while I had stood in numb shock.

I had paced in the Hospital’s waiting room for a further
four hours while Hunter had been in surgery and then recovery. Now I sat
mutely, a dried out husk at his bedside and waited. The doctor’s had said that
he had lost a lot of blood and sustained some pretty horrible injuries to his
insides. His heart was okay, but one of his lungs had taken a bullet.

Hunter was in a coma while they waited to see if he would
make it.

It was a big if.

I hadn’t moved from his bedside, and I wouldn’t until he
woke up. I wiped errant tears away while Charlie and John talked behind me in
hushed tones about what to do. Hunter’s blood was still on me, my clothes and
under my fingernails.

John tried first.

“Jess?” I raised my chin to acknowledge that I’d heard him
but my eyes were glued to the tubes taped to Hunter’s face.

“Jess come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” He gripped my
elbow and tried to get me to stand.

“No!” I ripped my arm savagely from his grasp.

“Jess, come on now.” He tried again.

“No! I’m not leaving him.” I sobbed and he stilled. Charlie
too. I hadn’t even noticed the words had come out clear.

“Jess,” Charlie this time.

“Jess come on, you need a change of clothes, a shower,
something to eat. The hospital will call us if anything changes.” I huddled in
on myself miserably, refusing to budge.

“Let’s give her a minute.” Charlie said over my head. John
grunted, in agreement or distaste or what have you, what I couldn’t tell you. I
didn’t care. I couldn’t even muster a care for my owls back home. For that I
felt a small pang of guilt, a laugh bubbled in my throat and burst upon my lips
in a fresh sob.

“Please don’t leave me.” I whispered and squeezed his hand.
It was warm in mine, but his color was off. His usual sun kissed bronze wasn’t
warm and alive like usual. Instead his tan just sort of sat on his skin which
was marred by a waxy pallor.

I sniffed and wiped at my tears with my other hand.

Please don’t take him away from me…
I prayed at
Arawn.

“Gwydion, where the Hell are you?” I muttered.

“Right behind you.” Hs lyrical voice intoned coldly.

I put my feet to the floor and stood, turning so I could see
him. He looked as he had in the wood, young and clad in the same black outfit.
I sniffed, eyes welling with tears that spilled hot and fresh down my cheeks
and the cold silver of his eyes softened a little around the edges.

“H-how could this h-happen.” I hiccupped.

“I am not wise to the ways of men. I haven’t been for a long
time.” He said softly.

“Save him?” I asked gravely.

“I cannot, he is in the spring meadow, on the edge of
Annwn
. He is in Arawn’s hands now.”

He sighed. I sobbed.

I turned to look at Hunter and my legs turned to jelly,
spilling me back into the chair at his bedside. Gwydion’s hand gripped my
shoulder and I took Hunter’s hand between my own.

“H-he has to live…” I said tonelessly voice brittle.

“It will be what it will be.” Gwydion murmured and stayed
behind me. I laid my head on the bed, lips pressed to Hunter’s hand and
murmured my prayers to Arawn, a god I did not know, for mercy…

Hunter

I did as B
ébinn asked and
waited. The sun did not move in the sky, the temperature never grew too warm or
too cold, the breeze was never anything but pleasant. I sat upon the rock, eyes
closed head bowed and willed Jessamine to be all right. I prayed to my family to
look after her. A shadow passed over me and when it did not immediately move I
looked up.

Arawn was ever a cutting
figure, he wore neither white, nor black though his long hair and trim beard
were black and his skin a pale marble white. His eyes were golden and deep,
grave where they rested upon me.

“You are neither here nor
there Heliwr, why do you resist my final call?” his voice was bass and deep and
held the belling of the hounds in full hunt.

“Her name is Jessamine.” I
said and Arawn’s chin rose a notch, his nostrils flared and he breathed in
deeply through his nose.

“Long has it been since I
have been prayed to,” he said, “yet here you are and a woman’s voice invades my
waking dream. At first she demanded, then she begged and still, now, she
pleads.” He looked down his nose at me.

“She is a good woman, when I
first saw her I thought her to be your wife,
B
ébinn, come to fetch me here.” I smiled wanly.

“You wish me to spare you?”
Arawn asked.

“I wish for more than just
that,” I looked up at him, “I wish for a life with her.” I said.

Arawn’s eyebrows rose.

“I asked my father’s uncle,
Gwydion fab Don…” Arawn spat on the ground and I winced but pressed on, “to ask
a boon on my behalf.”

Arawn threw back his head and
laughed.

“A worse emissary you could
not choose!” he crossed his arms and I blinked.

“There is no love lost
between Gwydion and myself. Long has he vexed me boy.”

“That’s Gwydion for you, he
vexes everyone.” I said dryly.

“What of this boon?” Arawn
asked, curiosity shading his tone.

“I was going to ask you make
me mortal. I wished to age as Jessamine does, have a life with her, grow old
with her, die with her…” I stared at my hands.

“There are few of us old ones
left.” Arawn drawled.

“I am aware.” I said.

“What you ask of me, it
requires great power.” Our eyes met and I could see his indecision.

“Less now, I would think.” I
held out my hands so that he might take in our surroundings.

“Your father’s blessing and I
might do this.” He nodded judiciously and my heart sank.

“I…”

“That is my condition Heliwr
fab Don.”

I closed my eyes and let out
a breath. I nodded finally.

“I will summon him then,” he
turned and I wondered just how I would do this.