The Secret
There's these two kids, boys, sitting close together. Squished in by the big arms of an old chair.
You're the one on the right.
The other boy's warm as he leans closer to you.
You're mom's sitting on the chair across from you, talking.
The words she says don't make sense but you can feel the other boy's eyes on you until the world sort of starts to move in slow motion.
You don't know why but you start to cry. Not the loud and sloppy kind, but tears roll down your face like rain drops. You've never cried like this before, but for some reason you feel like this is the right reaction, the right way to feel.
You're mother reaches for you, tears in her own eyes as she keeps talking, but you jerk away.
Without pushing the other boy away you manage to get out of the chair and stand, looking at the ground because to look up would hurt more than you're sure you can handle.
You go outside. You always feel better outside, even if the city isn't what feels right.
You know you're father is behind you, you feel him following you but you don't care. You need to walk, need to be outdoors, need the fresh air.
Only, he's not your father and you're not his son.
You're mother told you you're father's name, and the second you heard it, the second she said it, you knew. You felt it inside.
Relief. And guilt.
Because you love your father, or the man who you believed was your father, but you never connected to him. You were never anything like him and now it was so clear why.
You have a father. A legend, your mother called him.
And his name was Nathan.
The Letter
It came when I turned 15. Mother wasn't expecting it, neither was my step-father, but I was.
I was actually expecting it sooner, but the timing couldn't have been better.
Connor, my brother, was sitting by the window watching for the people who were supposed to be coming by today. He was excited, I think. I never bring home any friends even though he always asks, so inviting everyone to a party wasn't really my style. Which is why my mother had to do it.
It came in the afternoon.
Connor's voice drew me out of my room more than his words.
"Edge! Letter!"
I'd never had a letter written to me before. Neither of us had. Mail usually only came for my mother than Ben. And this wasn't just any letter.
I ripped the letter from Connor's hand and tried to see who it was from.
There was no return address.
"Edge."
My mother's voice came from the kitchen and I wanted to ignore her but I knew what she'd do if I tried that again.
So I turned to the kitchen, stuffing the letter into the back of my jeans, hiding it with my shirt.
"Yes, mom?" My voice was slightly mocking and higher pitched to mimic her.
Her face wasn't happy to see me, but she couldn't be mad at me. Not on my birthday.
"Connor said you got a letter?"
"I haven't read it."
"Do you know who it's from?"
"I haven't read it."
I'm being petulant, I know that, but I couldn't help it.
I don't know how to feel about her. Not after the stories I've been told, the truths she finally believed I was ready for. I wasn't ready for it, but I was ready to know him. My father. Nathan. I like his name, I want to say his name out loud, but every time I do, my mom flinches like I've hit her and my dad gets angry. Not my dad. Ben.
It's been six years since they told me the truth. Six years since I started asking questions about why I don't look like my father, or why my eyes have these strange triangles that look so pretty in the mirror.
Six years since I first met my uncle Arran.
"Will you tell me who it's from when you read it?" My mom's voice brings me out of my head, but I don't want to talk to her. I want to think, I want to look at the letter, but I can't. Not with her in the room.
"No." I tell her bluntly.
Before I could see the hurt in her face, I turn away, going up the stairs to the room I share with Connor.
Arran talks about him a lot. My father, Nathan. Every time I see him, I get a story about my father, and it's my favorite thing about Arran. Mom doesn't like it, she doesn't want me seeing Arran, but she doesn't get a say in it anymore. Not since I was finally told the truth about all that happened.
About my father. About my mother's family. About my grandfather and how he died. How my mother killed him. How she betrayed my father.
I hate her for it.
I didn't know my father. I've never met him, never seen his face before, but inside of me I feel him. Arran said once that I look exactly like him when he was 15. Sometimes I look in the mirror just to see if maybe I could see him in my own face. Maybe I could know him just a little.
Ben doesn't like it. When he looks at me, he scowls now. I know it's my own fault, he doesn't like the way I treat my mother, but every part of me can't forgive her for what she did to him. Just like I'm sure that he didn't forgive her either.
I still love Connor though. He's my half-brother, I know that now, but he's never done anything but love me back, so I don't feel anything bad for him.
When I make it up into my room and close the door behind me, he's sitting on the bottom bunk, a Gameboy in his hands. He doesn't bother to look at me, and I don't bother to greet him. Instead, I pull myself up to the top bunk of our bed and lay down, breathing deeply so he wouldn't know that something's going on with me.
A small bowl of night smoke sits on the window sill by our bunk bed, but Connor doesn't mind it anymore. He knows the relief it gives me from being in doors so he's learned to put up with it in our room.
Trying not to make too much noise, I pull the envelope out of the back of my pands. It's a big envelope, the orange ones used for full length pages. There's only one line of writing on the outside back and it says 'For Edge'.
My hands are shaking and I don't really know why. I don't even know why I was expecting this envelope. Arran told me that my father left something for me for when I finally turned 15, but he never told me what it was. I knew though, I knew it would be an envelope.
It was thick with papers, but I savored opening it. Moving slowly and quietly so Connor would ask any questions. I didn't want to tell him about it, didn't want to share this piece of my father with him. This was mine alone, the last and only thing my father would ever give me.
When I finally opened the envelope, I couldn't help but gasp.
"Edge?"
"It's nothing. My friend said he wouldn't be coming today after all." I lie before Connor could get up from the bottom bunk and check to see why I made a sound.
The answer pacifies him and he goes back to the Gameboy, the noises from the game making me relax back into my pillows.
I sit up then, clenching the envelope so hard that it wrinkles.
I breathe deep as I try to calm myself.
Slowly, I open the envelope again and pull out the stack of papers, looking at the very first one again and swallowing past the lump in my throat.
On the paper is the face of a man. He looks a lot like me, but so much older. Older than even my father was said to be. On the page there is a name scrawled carefully and neatly. Marcus. My grandfather.
This was the man my mother killed. The man my father lost before he could get to know.
Arran told me once that my father loved my grandfather very much, even though he only met my grandfather when he was 15. He also told me how my grandfather died when I pushed him into telling me the whole story. He wasn't happy to tell me, he didn't want to be the one to do it, but he knew that my mom wouldn't tell me. In the end, I heard the whole thing and it was why I couldn't forgive my mom. Never.
Marcus was a handsome man, I realized. I resemble him much more than I resemble my mom. I've never seen a picture of my father, but I know he must have looked like Marcus too. It was the only connection I had to them both.
With tears gathering in my eyes, I placed the picture of Marcus on my bed next to me so I could see what else was in the pack of papers.
Another face stared up at me. A woman's face. Beautiful in a strange way and arrogant too. Van was the name scrawled in the same hand writing.
I didn't know her. I've never met her, but I could see another scrawl on the bottom half of the page that I hadn't seen in Marcus' picture. It said 'For Edge, From Nathan'.
The tears started to fall before I could stop them, but I clamped my mouth shut, unwilling to make any noise.
I moved passed the picture of Van and went on. A man named Nesbitt was next, and there was a wide smile on the face of this man. It was wicked and a little goofy, but there was also love in his eyes. This was someone my father cared about.
Next was someone I recognized. Arran, looking so much younger and more delicate than he did now. His eyes were bright and his smile was kind, just like it always is when he sees me. But there's a lightness in his eyes in the picture that there never is in the eyes of the man who comes to see me once every year.
After Arran is my father's sister Debora. I recognize her name, Arran often spoke of her with fondness and sadness. I know she is dead.
Next is another woman and a name I've only ever heard once. Jessica. She looks mean in the picture. Malice shines in her eyes and her lips are twisted in a harsh smirk that makes me want to crush the paper in my hands. Still, I don't. Because in the bottom corner of this picture, the same words are written there as had been on all the ones before. 'For Edge, From Nathan'. My father wanted me to know her, no matter what she did to him. He wanted to me know about everyone who mattered in his life, and so I don't crumble the paper up. I lay it on the pile on top of Debora's and I go on.
There are many more after that. Celia, Mercury, Wallend, Ledger, Bob, Greaterex, Piolet, Ellen, Adel, and so many more. Some names I recognized, and some names I didn't. Connor, my uncle who my mom told me is also dead, Niall, and Kieran. My father gave me portraits of my mom's family and there was even one of my mom when she was younger. When she was beautiful.
I used to find her beautiful too, used to love her more than anyone. I don't find her beautiful anymore. I can't. But it hurts to love her still. I don't want to forgive her.
I bite my lip as I hold the picture of my mom in my hands.
My father drew this for me. Drew her and how he saw her. Drew the love in her eyes that she must have felt for him, before she betrayed him. For a family that never loved her, for a cause that was evil. She didn't love him though. Not all of him.
I am like him. I know I am, because sometimes I can see it in the way my mom looks at me. When I can't stay inside after dark without the night smoke. When I smile at Connor because I love him. When I practice martial arts in the back yard because Ben thought it would be good for me to learn. When the principle of my school called her one day because I'd punched another kid who'd pushed Connor to the floor.
She always looks at me like she's afraid of me.
That's how I know that she was also afraid of my father. It's how I know she never really loved him for what he was. He was a white witch, I know this, but he was also a black one. He was both, like I am both. Despite being more white than black, I still get sick at night, and I still like to fight, and I still can't stop being angry with her.
Laying her picture down with the others, I pick up the next one.
Gabriel.
I know that name. I've heard it before, whispered under Arran's breath. Hitched in my mom's tears the one and only time I'd asked her if she ever really loved my father.
Gabriel was handsome, but not like Marcus. Marcus was like me, hard angles and sharp features, but Gabriel was softer almost. Warm hazel eyes that looked out at me with so much love and fondness in them. A smile so sweet and soft that it made my heart squeeze in my chest. There was more detail in this picture than all the others, more emotion in the face of this man.
Bellow, where the message from my father was written, the lines of the words wavered, like it was painful to write. The name was printed out so carefully, the letters bolder and thicker like the pencil had traced the same letters more times than was actually needed.
This was the person my father loved most of all.
This was the person who loved all of my father. The person who wasn't afraid of who my father was.
This was the person who wouldn't be afraid of who I am.
Arran never likes to speak of Gabriel, and the one time I asked my mom was the one time she ever struck me. But I don't need them to speak of him, because the picture my father drew tells me enough. It tells me all that I have ever wanted to know.
Gabriel would have loved me too, I liked to think. If Gabriel had loved me, maybe my father would too. Maybe I could have met him if he loved me. Maybe I could have been a witch, instead of living like a fain.
I want to be a witch.
When I turn 17, I'll ask Arran to give me three gifts. My mom never wanted to tell me what it meant to be a witch, but the internet is full of knowledge, if one knew how to look. I know what I need to do and I'm ready for it, but I don't want to tell her. I don't want to care about what she'll think when I leave to find Arran.
Connor doesn't know about witches. Mom never told him the stories about my father. She only ever told him that I wasn't Ben's son.
It never changed the way Connor looked at me, so I was glad.
Holding the picture of Gabriel in my hands I spare a moment to think about what it would be like to have my father be the one to give me three gifts. To have my father make me a full witch. What would he give me? What would he say to me when I drank his blood? Would he smile as he welcomed me? Hug me?
I didn't notice I was crying until the tears landed on the Gabriel's portrait.
Desperate to save his picture, I held it away from me and laid it down gently, away from the pile of other pictures. I would frame the picture of Gabriel. I would keep it with me because my father couldn't, I would treasure it because my father did. I'd remember Gabriel's face for the rest of my life, even if I couldn't know him.
Looking at the next picture, I found a drawing of chickens. A cabin in the woods, a rage of fire wood, a beautiful forest and a woman. Celia, I recognize her from one of the portraits. Multiple pictures display for me the daily life at the cabin. A day to day account of what was happening at the time. What my father had seen.
I wonder if it's still there. I wonder, if I went to where these pictures were drawn, would I find Celia there? Would I find my father?
Everyone talks about him like he's dead. Arran talks about him in the past tense, but I've never felt like he was dead. Since the day I learned about him, I've felt him in my heart, beating there with me, living here with me. Always protecting me.
Maybe I would find him there. In the mountains, deep in the forest.
Maybe I will go there when I turn 17.
The very last picture is of a landscape. The river and hills. The meadows in the foreground. And in the middle of it all, a small twisted little hazel tree. There are horrible scars on the tree's trunk. Drawn in an almost gentle hand, the scars stood out among the flawless peacefulness of the surroundings.
This picture blurred my vision and I began to sob, even though I didn't know why.
I couldn't hold in the sounds this time, not even when I heard Connor call my name again.
I kept staring at it, the picture of the tree in the meadow. The bend of the gently flowing river. The beauty of the place that housed such a lonely and broken tree. Why did this make me cry? Why did the picture of a messed-up tree make me break my promise to myself?
"Edge?"
Connor was climbing the small latter to my top bunk and I couldn't bring myself to stop sobbing. I just held onto the picture of the tree and cried as he looked at me with confusion and worry. Then he took in the pile of pictures around me and the orange envelope beside me.
When he reached for one, I almost screamed at him.
"Don't touch them!" I sobbed, snatching up the picture of Gabriel he'd been reaching for.
Franticly but carefully, I gathered up the pile of drawings my father had made for me. I hugged them to me gently, trying not to mark or wrinkle any of them. Even the one of Jessica and my mom. I didn't want to ruin anything my father gave me.
"Edge? What are those?"
Connor climbed fully onto the bed and sat cross-legged across from me, watching me as I sobbed with the drawings held against my chest.
I couldn't answer him. My throat closed around the words and my mouth went dry at having the opportunity to say his name like I always want to.
Yet I couldn't get it out.
"Please Edge?" Connor whispered, sounding on the verge of tears himself.
He was two years younger than me, but he was mature just like I was. He wouldn't push me if I didn't want to and he wouldn't tell mom if I asked him not to. He reminded me a lot of Arran in his kindness. I loved him all the more for it.
Deciding to trust him with this piece of my heart, I took the last drawing of the pile and handed it to him. It was the picture of Marcus.
Connor looked at it for only a moment before he eyes snapped back up to me and he gasped. His eyes went from me to the drawing and back again, looking at all the similarities between me and the man on the paper.
"Marcus." Connor read out loud, looking at the paper with as much wonder as I'd felt. "For Edge, From Nathan."
His eyes were understanding when he turned them back towards me. His eyebrows knitted in sympathy. "Your father."
Unable to speak, I nodded my head and closed my eyes.
"Is Marcus his father?" Connor asked, curious now.
Mom never told him anything about my father. The only thing Connor has ever known was his name. Mom hadn't allowed him to hear anything else. I always wanted to talk about my father with him, always wanted to share the few stories I'd learned from Arran and his wife Adel, but mom forbade me from ever speaking his name to Connor.
Today, I would break that rule.
"Yes. He was my grandfather." I whispered, swallowing back bile along with the other words I wanted to speak. 'Our mother killed him.'
I wouldn't tell Connor though. He didn't need to know what our mother did, or what my father had to do because of it. Even if she'd only told me of her sins because she was drunk during one of Ben's business trips.
"Do you have one of your father?" Connor asks.
That's when I realize it.
I don't.
My father drew nearly everyone he'd ever known, yet not one of the portraits were of himself.
Startled, I pull the pile away from my chest and stare at the landscape of the tree in the meadow.
Like all the others there is the scrawl in the bottom corner.
'For Edge, From Nathan'
Desperate for anything more than that, I turn the landscape drawing over to look at the back and almost choke on my relief.
"Dear Edge," I read aloud, trying to keep my voice steady despite the itch in my throat and the tears welling in my eyes.
"Your father never wanted you to meet him. He believed that if he were to meet you, he would ruin everything good about you. He's not had an easy life, but he does love you. He wanted you to have something of him, so he gave you his memories. Everyone you see has impacted your father's life in some way. Some of them good, some of them bad. If you would ever like to come to the meadow, if you would ever like to sit by the tree and speak to him, come find me. I think I'll be here in this forest until the day I die. Celia."
"Who's Celia?" Connor asked as soon as I finished reading.
Numbly, I search through the portraits my father drew, until I find the picture I want.
Pulling it from the pile, I show it to Connor.
The woman on the portrait is rough in a very tired way. She doesn't have a pleasant face, but there's a weariness in her eyes and the set of her lips that brings sympathy for her. She looks tough but exhausted.
"She's ugly." Connor says reverently. I can't disagree.
"Are there more people?" Connor asks.
I merely nod, still unable to speak.
"Can I see?"
I pause, debating my next actions. In some ways, I want to keep these pictures to myself. They are from my father and they are just for me, but I also want to share it with someone else. Because this is proof, this is a clear evidence of my father's love for me. His want to give me something in life.
So I decide I would only share with Connor the people he should know.
I show him the drawing of Arran, and he recognizes him. Arran doesn't talk to Connor a lot, but when he comes by to see me, he always greets Connor too. Next, I show him the uncle he was named after. I don't tell him that my father killed our uncles. Finally, I show him the picture my father drew of our mother.
"She's so beautiful." Connor comments fondly, a sweet little smile on his face. "Your father really loved her."
I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything. I don't want to ruin Connor's image of our mom. He doesn't deserve that.
"I think at one point, he did." I allow.
"So are you going to go to the meadow? The one with the tree. Will you go see Celia?"
All I can do is nod. I would go, I knew from the moment I saw the picture of the hazel tree, that I would go to that place and sit by that tree.
"I think my father is there." I tell Conner, my eyes on the beautiful landscape. "I think if I go there, I will find my father."
And I would go. No matter what my mother said.
The Tree
You are 19 when you finally go to the meadow.
You recognize the cabin, and the woman who comes out of it.
Your uncle places his hand on your shoulder as he introduces you to the woman, and her hard face instantly seems to soften. Her eyes shine when she looks at you and you nod when she tells you that you look just like him.
You know who she means.
She asks if you want her to take you up the path to the tree, but you tell her no. You tell her you want to go on your own, and if her and your uncle could wait for him here at the cabin.
As you make your way into the wild lands around the small cabin, you realize that despite it being the first time you've been there, you know exactly where to go.
The pictures, now folded in your back pocket, lead you to where you are going. To where you need to go.
The first time you see it, it's from afar.
The twisted, gnarled tree that doesn't seem to have changed despite the years that have surly passed since the picture you keep in your back pocket was drawn.
The only page that hasn't been folded yet is the one of the beautiful boy you framed. That picture hands on your wall back in the little apartment you share with the man you love.
As you draw closer to the tree, you think about that man.
A Fain.
You didn't think you'd love a fain, but you were both 16 when you met.
You wonder how old your father was when he met the man he loved. Loves.
When you're close enough to see the scaring of the tree, you have to stop your knees from buckling. Each step is heavier, but you force your legs to move.
When you lay your hand against the trunk of the tree, you feel like crying, but you don't.
There's a life in this tree, you can feel it. An energy almost unexplainable.
You want to say something, but you don't think you can speak, so you kneel instead, your forehead falling to rest against the bark of the twisted little tree.
The tears don't come, but your breaths are hard and fast. You want to greet him, you want to say 'hi' and call his name, but nothing's coming out. So you stay there. Laying against the tree just breathing in the cool fresh air of the meadow, listening to the rushing of the river just beyond.
Time seems to pass you by, but you don't care.
You still want to say his name. After all, this is the first time you've met your father.
You know that under this tree, buried deep in the soil is the bones of a beautiful man. You also know that this tree protects that man, like it couldn't protect him before. It makes you sad.
You wish you'd met him before, both of them before. You wish you could hear his voice or see his face once, only once, but you also know that the only thing you have to do in order to see his face is to look in the mirror.
Still, it's not a comforting thought.
The woman from the cabin comes looking for you. You hear her coming but you don't move, you don't want to move. She calls your name but you don't react, just a little longer. You just want to stay with him just a little longer.
As the woman slowly walks forward, you reach into your front pocket and you pull out something shinny, something silver and small.
A Bullet.
"To Nathan. From Edge." You said softly as you dig into the ground by the root of the tree, and you bury the bullet. The same bullet your grandfather once gave to your father. The same bullet that once shot your father.
Once you're done, you rise to your feet and you take in the full scene. The meadow and the river. The hills and the wind, the smell of fresh grass and earthy soil. You feel the dirt at your finger tips and beneath your nails.
When you turn around, you silently say goodbye to the man you've never met. And you wish you could see him just once.
The Father
My eyes are closed as I lean back on the grass, arms behind my head.
The sun is bright and warm, and I feel content in the moment like I never have before.
Next to me, Gabriel is talking about what he wants to do today. He wants to swim in the river and look for certain herbs so he could give the rabbit I'd be hunting for us some flavor.
"Are you listening to me?" He asks, a smile in his voice.
His hand lands on my chest and I feel the smooth metal of the ring I gave him.
"Of course, I am." I say back, still not opening my eyes.
"Of course, you are." You mocks. I feel his lips against mine and I can't help but smile. His lips are soft, but I feel his teeth when he can't keep himself from smiling.
Reaching out with one hand, I thread it through his unruly hair, holding his head as I kiss him. I love kissing him. I love touching him, and listening to him.
His hand is soft against my stomach as he brushes the back of his knuckles up my chest and up to my jaw, running one finger back and forth.
Suddenly, I want to see him. Want to see his eyes and his face and his hair.
Pushing him away a little, I open my eyes and I take him in.
Gabriel.
"Do you think Edge will come join us when he's ready?" He suddenly asks, and I feel a small amount of pain in my chest.
"No." I say, knowing that if he ever came here, it would mean that something out there broke him. I never want him to go through the things I had to face. I never want him to break.
"Do you want him to?"
"No."
Gabriel's rough palm cradles my jaw as he looks into my eyes. I don't want to look away. He's so beautiful.
"Ledger says the Earth will help."
His fingertips stroke my cheek and I savor the feeling. I never want him to stop touching me.
My own fingers trace the skin just under his eye. His lips. His chin.
"The Earth has already helped." I want him to stop talking. I want him to stop thinking about everything. Anything.
Without warning, I surge up and kiss his smiling lips. Pushing him down, I hover above him, kissing him and cradling him in my arms. His body is both soft and hard against mine and I savor that too. He's wet from the dip in the river, but that's okay.
He's pulling at my shirt and I pushing at his shorts and soon he's naked against me.
His mouth is hot and wet and his skin his cold and slippery and I love this, I love him. I never want to stop.
By the time night falls, we're laying in the grass side by side, a fire close by and a blanket around us to keep us warm. My arm is around him and his head is on my chest and I feel his chest move with his breaths and I feel peace.
I've never felt this kind of peace before.
My fingers toy with something. I'm not sure where I got it but it's smooth and cold.
"What have you got there?" Gabriel asks raising his head from my chest and looking up at my eyes.
Bringing my hand up, I look at what I have.
A silver bullet. The bullet Marcus pulled out of my body and gave back to me as one of my three gifts.
"For Nathan. From Edge." Gabriel says, looking at the bullet with me.
"I want to meet him someday." I admit, fiddling with the bullet, feeling the smooth curves. My other hand runs over the smooth skin of Gabriel's hip.
"You will." Gabriel assures me, his head laying back on my chest as he looks at the fire. "I will too."
I don't say anything.
A/N: Hey guys, It's been about two years since I finished this series and I can't help but revisit it every once in a while. During one of those revisits, I got the urge to write something in Edge's point of view. I wanted to explore him as a teen and then closer to Nathan's age. I wanted him to be a boy who would have loved his father. A man who couldn't forgive betrayal and who couldn't overlook the actions of his mother. This was the outcome. Some of the facts may be wrong, as it has been a long time since I've read the books, but my heart wouldn't rest until I got this out, so here it is. I hope you guys enjoy this.