The sounds of that night—the sirens, the panicked voices, running footsteps, the slamming of doors, my father's weeping, my own heartbeat; they're all parts of that memory I can't forget.
My Da and I got the call in the middle of the night. We were both asleep. His phone rang suddenly in the dark of our house, and it woke me up. I am not a sound sleeper.
I was awake before he came through my door to tell me to get dressed quickly. His face already told me it was bad news. I thought of my Mum while slipping on my sweater. I always remembered her throughout my waking life and dreamt of her often.
My Mum left us a year before for what she claimed was a business trip. She was gone for so long—three months—that we thought she had died. She didn't tell us where she was going or why. She left us in the cold of winter and returned in the spring, only to collect her belongings. That was when she told us she was moving in with another man. She broke my Da's heart, but she wasn't the kind of person you could stay angry at for a long time. Da still loved her even after.
The name of the man was Colin. I never heard him give his last name. We rarely saw him, but from what I did see, he was a decent man, always smiling and with a light in his eyes. His eyes were a strange colour. They were a deep blood red with slit pupils unlike any eyes I'd ever seen. When we were first introduced I avoided looking into them because they frightened me. He was quite tall, with ragged russet hair, and a face like an ancient Greek statue or what I imagined an old hero to look like. He always wore a pair of long, tear-shaped silver earrings. He was perfect on the outside in every way, and because of that I used to try to convince Da he wasn't from this world.
I don't remember the car ride to the hospital, but I remember running in with Da. He wasn't the one who told me we were there for Mum. I just heard one of the nurses mention her name.
And then I saw her on a stretcher—her face was badly bruised and covered in gashes; the gauze they had covered her wounds with was soaked through and through with blood. She looked lifeless. I remember falling to my knees and throwing up, and someone's strong arms around me—Colin.
His face was twisted with pain and sorrow, but he smiled at me like he always did. I stood up and pushed away his arms and sympathy. There were almost no scrapes on his face or anywhere I could see, even though they said he was in the car with Mum. I couldn't understand why that was.
A little while later the doctors came out of surgery with tired eyes and bloodstained hands to tell us the last thing we wanted to hear.
I shouted at Colin with tears in my eyes, "You should have died instead of Mum! You took her away from us! I hate you!" And my Da demanded I take back my words, but I ran into the room where Mum was.
Colin joined me after a few minutes, and I ignored him as he knelt beside her bed and held her hand, whispering about oaths with his eyes overflowing with tears, but his actions towards her spoke clearly to me. He loved my Mum, almost more than my own father. Before I left the room, I heard him faintly murmur, "I'm sorry I failed you, Master" or something strange of the sort. I quickly sat myself beside Da, who couldn't keep his hands away from his eyes.
Nothing anyone said helped to ease the pain.
Especially not Colin, with his stupid "I lost someone I loved when I was about your age too" speech. But I swallowed my anger and nodded along with his words, and suppressed the urge to hit him when he squeezed my hand.
And then he disappeared into thin air.
I thought I was going mad with grief, but everyone saw it too. He just started to vanish into silver dust from the feet up. He smiled sadly as he left, and mouthed something to me only I could hear.
"We'll meet again someday, l'il lass. You have your Ma's blood."
I didn't understand what he meant for quite a while.
The following morning was terrible. My father and I couldn't bear to utter a single word, for fear that we might fall apart, but I wanted to ask him about Colin, the mysterious crimson-eyed man who more or less ruined our lives.
But instead I attempted to search the Internet for unexplained disappearances like his last night. Nothing similar came up.
When I checked my phone, I saw I'd received a lot of kind messages from my classmates and teacher, but they didn't fill the emptiness inside me, and only made me feel sick.
I tried to talk to Da about Colin at dinner, but he mostly told me to leave it alone. All I got was his last name: MacSualtaim. For an Irish name, it was unheard of, and I already had my doubts upon hearing it.
After searching for it, I read that the only recorded person with the name was a legendary Irish hero. Cúchulainn or something. With no new leads, I decided to call it quits and went to bed.
I could hear my father talking to himself, or what I presumed he thought to be someone else, though I could hear nothing in the silences between his the sound of his voice.
That night I dreamt of memories of Mum and Colin's disappearance. I had the same dreams for a long time.
Monday reminds me that school was still a real thing that existed, and the ordinary, repetitive flow of classes and note-taking and homework coaxes me back into everyday life and normalcy.
But the nights feel drawn out. I spend them lying and staring up at the skylight, having been awakened by my vivid dreams, and listening to Da have a conversation with the empty air way into the dawn.
Saturday morning, we drive all across town to the edge of the forest to Mum's house to sort through her belongings. It's the fourth time I've been to Mum and Colin's house. It's a large town house, made mostly of cream-coloured bricks, with doors and windows lined with intricate swirls of powder blue plaster. The wooden roof is a pretty, deep brick red. It looks almost like a castle, and I can't believe only two people lived in it.
We enter through the main door quietly, as if afraid to wake some terrifying thing up. I have never been upstairs. The few times we've been over were to help carry boxes of Mum's things inside, and to have a nice lunch or dinner with her and Colin.
The furnishings are most likely antique and are as detailed as the exterior of the house itself: a couch with a polka dot pattern in beige and a leaf-like mahogany trim; a jewel-coloured Persian rug with tassels that resembled spun gold; faded red and white striped wallpaper, peeling in some places; curving powder blue baseboards; a huge crystal chandelier with silver accents. All throughout the house there's a sophisticated air.
I ascend the spiraling white marble stairs, gaping at the old tapestries of unicorns, ladies and knights as I made my way up.
Right in front of the stairs is a spacious bedroom, the master bedroom, it seems, and I walk across it and draw back the dusty curtains, coughing a little as the layers flew from them. The balcony overlooks the trees in the forest and the garden outside.
I still don't know how my Mum could afford a place like this.
Observing the various objects displayed on the dresser, the curvy white vanity set, and the side tables of the tall king size cherry bed with its wine red blanket and throw pillows, it looked like this was my Mum's room alone.
In the bathroom, it looked the same: only women's beauty products and clothes could be found, and not even the walk-in closet—so large it could have been a separate room—contained men's clothing or anything to indicate my Mum was living with someone.
It was all very strange.
What was stranger still, was the blue room all the way down the hall, the only room that appeared touched by human hands. It was clearly Colin's room.
Against the corner is a simple full size bed with the sheets still in disarray and various men's clothes strewn across it; a business-like desk taking up space from wall to wall, but all covered with a thick layer of dust from no use at all. The half-open window lets in the sounds of bird calls and the gentle spring air. A half-used pack of cigarettes sits on the windowsill along with an ashtray filled to the brim with cigarette stubs, and a Zippo lighter. An empty, dusty book shelf stands beside a huge amplifier with a scuffed-up trans blue Les Paul plugged into it that's lying in a corner. And next to the bed, there's a little shelf bursting with records, and sitting on top, a turntable with a record by The Strokes paused a little over halfway.
Colin was clearly very messy and very musical.
I step over a fallen stack of vintage Playboy magazines, clothes, and shoes to get to the bathroom, which doesn't have anything of my Mum's in it.
Making my way back out, I think about the possibility that Colin and my Mum didn't choose to live together because of love. So what other reason could they have done so for? My Mum had us, her family, and chose to walk away even still.
I hear my father calling for me from downstairs, and come down as quickly as I can. I don't see him anywhere in the kitchen or the living room and dining room. As I'm about to open the door to the garden, I hear him shout that he's in the garage.
I find him hunched over a large cardboard box. Peering into the box's contents, my eyes widen. Old leather-bound, jewel-encrusted tomes fill it, along with the occasional Kerry green corkscrew bottle of some unknown liquids, labeled in a golden script of unknown language.
"What are these things? They look like spellbooks and potions," I joke.
Da looks up at me and scratched his head.
"This box is labeled, 'for Màirie'."
I blink in surprise at that, and crouch down to see Mum's curly handwriting on all four sides. I wonder why she gave me all these old things. I pick up a random book and carefully open it, and the spine creaks with age as I do. The yellowed, ragged pages are rough and barely readable, written in faded green ink. 'To Summon A Servant' is written in elegant, swooping hand across the top of the page, and I try to figure out which language the rest of it is in. I shrug and close the book up, setting it back in its place.
"I don't know what she thought I would do with these. They're just old junk in a language I can't even understand."
My father shrugs too, and stands up, moving on to another stack of boxes, and I'm about to leave when a massive trunk, which looks like its made of leather, and covered in ruby, sapphire and emerald-coloured jewels, catches my eye. Its similar appearance to the box meant for me probably means that what's inside it is of a similar nature too.
But the heavy, rusted chains wrapped around it discourage me from trying to open it. The brass padlock is in the shape of a roaring lion's head, with the keyhole in its mouth. I feel around inside it, and suddenly my finger feels like it's been pricked. I cry out at the sensation and retract my hand immediately. There is a tiny dot of blood on my middle finger, and it stings quite a bit.
My father rushes to me quickly, and gives me a good scolding about how I shouldn't touch things without his supervision and how now I could get tetanus from the rusty ancient metal.
I stop paying attention when the chains slide off the trunk as if by their own accord. The padlock has fallen as well and lion's mouth is closed. The hinges on the trunk twist and click, and the lid pops open. I lift it carefully, ignoring my father's protests, and find a slender, shining sword, with unfamiliar characters engraved along the blade, a shield with the coat of arms with Mum's maiden name, Angoulême, on an embossed white banner underneath. A lady's armour, and a deep green velvet gown with darkly glittering gold accents, a golden circlet with a violet jewel in its center, and a little box lie on the surface.
I take only the box, and open it carefully to find a smaller set of earrings identical in shape to Colin's. I close the box, slip it into my pocket, and turn to my father.
"What did Mum need all this old stuff for?"
Da only shrugs again and stays silent, then returns to what he was doing before.
I open the box again and put the earrings on.
We start to drive home a little after sunset, and only take home the things we want: family pictures and mementos, a few of Mum's clothes that I liked, and the box for me and the trunk because I insisted on it.
The sun hides behind the trees, and only slivers of it shine through as I watch the scenery pass by. I lean my forehead against the cold glass, and my warm breath makes it my fingertips I trace lines across the fog before it fades completely. There's next to no one living here on the outskirts of the city, and the little houses seem almost swallowed up by the towering, dark trees.
I want to tell Da my theory about Mum and Colin, but he doesn't yet seem like he'll react to it well. The issue eats away at my mind, and I still haven't come up with any plausible possibilities besides the one Mum insisted on. I can't even recall an instance where they showed any physical affection towards each other: no kisses, no hand-holding. Just smiles.
The next few weeks pass quickly with nothing really changing between me and Da. We mostly keep to ourselves and only talk during meals at the dining table. But even then, what we say can't really be called a true conversation. All we talk about are petty things like the mundane events of school and work.
The only thing that does change are Da's one-sided late night talks. He's become more impatient and even slightly angry, and less quiet and sad. It seems like they've turned into light arguments now.
On Friday night, I decide to stay up and eavesdrop on him. I hide behind the wall the separates the corridor leading to our rooms from the living room. I can hear everything clearly. Da starts off the conversation, saying something about how I'm not ready. For what, I have no clue.
And then, I hear a voice I thought was lost to me forever.
I come out of my hiding place to see a monochrome hologram of Mum. She's wearing a dress similar to the one I found in the trunk and her hair's been cut to her shoulders. She looks alive and well, as if the accident never happened at all.
She's the first to notice me, and she stops talking, her eyes widening. Startled, she can only blink at me.
"...Mum?"
My voice sounds scared and small, and tears start to blur my vision. I can see the hologram of my mother smile sadly.
"Hello, my darling."
Her gentle voice sounds too real, and I let out a sob. I see the faint outline of Da turning to me.
"Mummy, where are you? Why aren't you here with us?"
My voice is distorted by my sobs, and I wipe my eyes. My Mum gives me that same smile as an answer and shakes her head.
"This is a complicated matter, Màirie. You wouldn't understand it if I tried to explain it. In short, this body I have now is artificial. It is merely a housing place for my soul. My friend is a talented puppet-maker, and created a replacement for me."
Her explanation makes my head spin. It has to be a lie.
"As for where I am, I am in the past, in a secret place unknown to anyone."
"You're lying!" I protest in anger. I shake my head.
The image wobbles and the changes to a castle, with people passing by all dressed in ancient clothes. Some walk beside horse drawn carts and some carry large jars and bucket. I refuse to believe it.
"It's all fake! It's all a lie!"
Her next words make me freeze.
"Màirie, there's something I need to tell you. I am a Magus."