Esme’s eyes flared wide as she backed toward the door. Her scales flushed to a deeper shade of blue. “I only tell you these things so you know the truth. Without the truth, ye cannot make wise and logical decisions.”
Hannah staggered toward the mantel and pulled Taggart’s urn into her arms. Have mercy, but her head pounded like a fiend. She clutched the carved ivory box to her chest and slid down to the floor. Eyes squinted almost shut, she glared at Esme while bringing up her knees to support the box. “I pity you. Pity you and your pathetic logic and I hope someday you figure out what to do with your heart.”
Esme lifted her snout. “From what I have observed, my logic is far superior to your love.” She flounced from the room and slammed the door behind her.
“I thought she would never leave us alone,” Hannah said to the urn as she settled it more comfortably in her lap. For the thousandth time, she stroked her fingers across the carved images across the lid. With a bitter laugh, she lingered on the one panel that looked painfully like Taggart’s profile. “If I keep this up, all the pictures they carved of you are going to be worn away.”
The smooth ivory warmed to her touch. It brought her calm. A calmness she sorely needed. Her fingertips tingled as she stroked the lid; when she noticed the odd sensation, she shifted positions. “I must have a nerve pinched or something.” She rolled her shoulders while shaking her hands then suddenly realized her headache had completely disappeared. She stared down at the box while massaging the back of her neck. Surely not. It couldn’t be. Her headache must have simply run its course; she puked, and it went away. Like usual. How could Taggart heal her from the other side?
26
She stepped out of the lily-scented water and reached for the heated towel waiting on the steaming rocks. “I have made my decision and I will say I feel much better now after settling on it. I would appreciate it if you two would support me.” Hannah listened then glanced at the silhouettes of Isla and Septamus showing on the rice paper divider as they waited on the other side of the room. She had known they wouldn’t like what she told them, but as the old saying goes, they would get over it. While blotting the moisture from her legs, she smiled as Septamus cleared his throat. She had known he would be the first to fight it.
“She cannot possibly do that. Can she? Take his remains back to Taroc Na Mor? The portal has yet to be fully repaired. And besides, it would not be proper for his remains to be on the other side.” Septamus paced in circles in the center of the room. He scratched behind a horn, then turned toward Taggart’s remains on the mantel.
“Apparently, she can do whatever she wishes.” Isla followed right behind him, her tail swishing harder with every step.
“I can hear you,” Hannah called out. “And I can see you both through this thing. The light is on that side, remember? Did you forget I was still in here?”
“I forgot nothing,” Septamus snapped. “I assumed we spoke low enough so you could not overhear.” He motioned for Isla to move closer to the door and farther from the screen.
“And I am still watching your outline through the rice paper. Actually, it is almost transparent.” The stodgy old Draecna needed to realize her decision was best for all concerned. “Besides, what difference does it make if Taggart’s remains are in Erastaed or Taroc Na Mor? You two have an entire country to rebuild. I would think you have a lot more to worry about than an urn full of ashes.”
“The people need to pay their respects,” Isla admonished in a reproving tone.
Hannah yanked on a shirt dress that hit her below the knees and marched around the screen. “The people have taken enough from me. Do not stand there and tell me to give them one damn bit more. Understand?” How dare they lecture her on what the people needed. As far as she was concerned, the people had taken everything she had.
Isla blinked, backed up a step, then laced her ornate claws across her tiled belly. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps we could build an image or something for the people to visit in memory of Taggart.”
Hannah nodded. “Fine idea.” She went to the wardrobe, gathered more clothes, and piled them on the satin-pillowed bed. “I am concerned about William, though. I worry about leaving him behind. He is still very young and immature.”
“William has matured more than you think. The revolution aged him quickly. He has fire now. It is time to put some distance between the two of you. It would be the same if he had known his natural mother. The time of separation has come.” Septamus resumed his uneasy pacing.
“But I will never see him again,” she quietly added.
“How can you possibly know that?” Septamus gave her a stern look. “You possess the years of a Draecna now and we are sworn to repair the portal. Taroc Na Mor is the ancestral home of us all and in several hundred years there will be a new batch of eggs ready to replenish the nursery. The portals of time must be maintained.”
“At least now we have an immortal Guardian,” Isla said with an approving tip of her head. “Why didn’t we think of that years ago?”
Hannah plopped down on the end of the over-stuffed settee. “I never thought I would end up being a bitter, broken-hearted old woman in a castle full of lizard eggs.”
“What did you say?” Septamus asked.
“Never mind.” She turned and started scooping up clothes and shoving them into the bag. “It does not bear repeating.” So this was her destiny. Matriarch over the keepers of the portals. She wished Granny had warned her properly. It sounded like a lonely way to spend the next several thousand years.
Since Sloan’s death,the entire world of Erastaed had greened, as though the realm itself exhaled in relief. Hannah, Septamus, Isla, and William looked out across the blossoming valley at the deep blue River Ursayus as it glistened its way out to the sea of Muandalel.
A warm breeze gently ruffled Hannah’s hair, reminding her how Taggart always enjoyed combing his fingers through the strands. Her throat ached with the threat of another onslaught of tears. No more. She had promised herself no more. Yet another reason she needed to leave. This was Taggart’s world. She could not live here without him. The sooner she left this place the better. She stood a better chance of learning to live with his loss back at Taroc Na Mor.
“Is it time yet?” She glanced at the horizon, then turned to Isla.
Isla cast a narrow-eyed study at the sun, then turned and eyed the rising of the second moon. “Almost. The two almost share the sky. We have but another moment or so to wait.”
She turned back to Hannah and offered a toothy smile as she gently touched a claw to Hannah’s cheek. “I shall miss you, my brave daughter. Take care of yourself until it is time for us to meet again.”
“Thank you for everything.” Hannah swallowed hard and hugged Isla’s claw to her cheek.
“Take care of yourself, Guardian,” Septamus said. “And do not doubt that wewillsee each other again.”
