Authors: Rebecca Espinoza
Binds
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Copyright © 2013 by Rebecca Espinoza
Edited by Lori Sabin
Cover design by Okay Creations
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Formatted by Fictional Formats
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For Judy, Wow, Grammy, and Mrs. E.
This book would not exist if it weren’t for all of YOU.
The bell above the shop door jangled, announcing a visitor. Ophelia was seated in the middle of the floor, playing with the collection of antique Japanese Shishi dogs, something that she had been repeatedly told not to do. She looked up at the scrolled ironwork clock hanging behind the register. 8:43, seventeen minutes until her mother’s shop, Whimsy, would be open.
A tall man with dark brown hair dressed in a black business suit walked through the door. The man was thin but walked with the presence of a larger frame. In his late thirties, his face was handsome with a square jaw, clear pale complexion, and dark brown eyes that hinted at knowing something no one else did. Behind him, a boy, a few years older than Ophelia’s nine, hurried into the shop, and Ophelia was reminded of one of those small birds that follows around large wild animals she had seen on TV recently. The bird sometimes perched upon a hippo’s back, but the hippo never seemed to take notice if the creature was there or not. Didn’t really care, Ophelia thought.
The man glanced around the store, seemingly looking for help. His face puckered in distaste, as if he were lowering his standards just by breathing the air contained within the space. His gaze traveled over Ophelia dismissively. Her mother came through the beaded curtain that divided the store from the entrance to their home in the back and stopped. She saw the man and inhaled a deep breath through her nose.
“Oberon.” The way she said the name gave Ophelia the impression that it was a filthy word.
“Morgan.” The man took his hat off and held it over his heart; a condescending curl of his lips and then the hat was back atop his head. “I heard you were still selling baubles and trinkets, how nice to see the small business owner can survive in this country. Although, I’m sure these knick knacks,” he picked up a voodoo doll with the tips of his thumb and index finger, held it up with a shake of his head, and plopped it back down on the shelf, “don’t exactly fly out of here without some of your own personal type of intervention.”
“You break it, you buy it,” Morgan replied. She smiled, raised an eyebrow and the doll fell over, slid off the shelf and landed with a thud on the ceramic tile floor.
“I don’t need to be reminded of that, Morgan. I just spent the last twelve years with one of those types of purchases. Speaking of which, I didn’t see you at the service yesterday. I was sure you would want to say your goodbyes, she was your best friend after all.”
Morgan’s forehead puckered for less than an instant, long enough for Ophelia to take notice, before the aloof expression returned like a drawbridge that had never been let down.
“Friend or not, my goodbyes were made the day Mary said yes to you. If you expect me to believe that you were surprised when I did not come to her service, then you must think I am a fool. Why are you here, Oberon?”
“To see you, of course,” Oberon said as he stepped forward, laid his hands palms down on the counter, and leaned pleadingly towards Morgan. “I chose wrong, Morgan. I’ve known it every day for the last 12 years, lived with it every day for the last 12 years. And now I have the freedom to exonerate my heart, out loud, and to the person who has the ability to hold it. I came here as soon as I could.” He smiled a wolfish smile, clearly proud of himself for getting through the declaration of love without a chuckle.
“Your heart? Really, Oberon? You’re going to come to me with declarations of the heart? The fact that you are brazen enough to stand in front of me the day after you laid your wife to rest and tell me that you made the wrong choice illustrates that point. It wasn’t a matter of choosing wrong. There was no choice.” She walked to the front window of the store and turned the wooden sign around to indicate that the store was open. “Now, if you have no further business here, I will ask you to please leave. There are trinkets and baubles to be sold. Ophelia, please return those figures to their shelves.”
“Ophelia, is that your daughter?” Oberon turned to look at the child again, this time with a more appraising eye. “Her father was common, was he not? Does she possess any talent at all? My offspring,” he pointed to the boy at his side, the first time he had acknowledged him since walking into the store, “is quite useless. Twelve years old and still hasn’t come into any power. Shocking, really, that two full bloods would produce a common, but Mary wasn’t as powerful as I had hoped when I acquired her.”
Ophelia looked at the boy and saw that even though his eyes were submissively working holes into the floor, his fists were clenched and red with the effort. He looked up and they caught each other’s eye. His gaze was icy and she found herself feeling fearful of him, although she didn’t know why. She had never been afraid while in her mother’s presence.
Morgan was holding the front door, both in an attempt to prop it open for the day and to show Oberon his way out, but she abruptly slammed it closed, marched over to him and pointed a finger into his face. “You need not concern yourself with my child. As for yours, I would watch what I say if I were you. It may come back to bite you.”
She turned to Ophelia, “Phee, go inside the house and start on your chores.”
Ophelia had never been more relieved to be dismissed in all of her life, even if it was to do chores. She felt an urgency to get away from the boy. Sadness and anger draped around him like a tailored garment. She rushed through the curtain, the beads clinking and swaying behind her.
“Now, I ask you to leave and please, don’t come back. Your hunger for power will not be fed by me. Not now, not ever, Oberon.” Morgan gestured him towards the door again.
“You are a fool, Morgan, if you don’t see what we could be together, what we could do together…”
“No!” Morgan raised her voice. “All you can see is what you could do, what you could control! I told you already, years ago, and I will tell you now for the last time. I will never align myself with you, Oberon. Never. Now, as I already said, you need to leave.”
“I will leave today, Morgan, but I am not done, far from it. You are the most powerful Mage I have ever come across, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone even more so. When I find them, you will regret this. I promise you that. We could have ruled this world together. You have chosen your fate. Come on, boy.”
He turned on his heel and stomped out of the store, his son hurrying behind him. Morgan breathed a sigh of relief but thought twice and muttered, “
Oblivio
” under her breath. Her daughter was her life and she wasn’t taking any chances. She had done a great job of disguising Ophelia as common, but she would prefer that Oberon take no notice of Ophelia at all.
Oberon, stormed away from Whimsy that day, hell-bent on destroying the woman that he wanted to control more than anyone in the world. His thoughts would go to her with every decision he made from that point on in a constant obsessive struggle to become more powerful than her. He would, however, never think again about the little girl in the shop. He hadn’t paid her much mind to begin with and so it was a weak spell that bound his thoughts from returning to her. His son, however, thought of her often. Morgan made a mistake in Binding the father and overlooking the son with her spell. It was a mistake that one day she would pay dearly for.