Chapter 12

-Alright, My Loves! I didn't mean to post this chapter so late in the evening so I hope it reaches a wide audience anyways. Life has been busy this week.

-There is a lot I want to say about this chapter but I feel like it's a piece in the vast puzzle of my story. I want things to unravel naturally. Sometimes, it might seem like I am just throwing in things at random and then not coming back them immediately afterwards. Patience. Everything will make sense eventually. This story is in the 60's as far as chapters go so we have a lot of ground to cover. I'm trying to make it last one bread crumb at a time.

-I will probably post the next two chapters together by Sunday. Sometimes chapters just make more sense when they are together.

-So, lots to think about with this chapter and hopefully a review or two in my horizon!

War of Hearts- Ruelle (not sure this song fit but I like it anyway)

I can't help but be wrong in the dark
'Cause I'm overcome in this war of hearts
I can't help but want oceans to part
'Cause I'm overcome in this war of hearts

I can't help but love you
Even though I try not to
I can't help but want you
I know that I'd die without you

Brown eyes. She had brown eyes with beautiful rings of hazel in the middle. He would have known those eyes if he were blind. The little face was downcast at first and only reached to his shoulders but then she tilted her chin to look at him, his world tilted with her. Her head was covered as was half her face but the half that could still be gazed upon was pale and jagged, as if she had recently gone hungry for a very long time and was just starting to recover. Adam stumbled backwards and heard a sharp gasp that took him a few moments to realize had come from his lips.

Chip was immediately alerted and was at his side in an instant. "Adam, what is it?"

Adam couldn't speak, he cold only stare at the apparition standing in front of him.

It was then that she spoke. "Monsieur? Are you alright? Gabriel! I need a chair and some cloth."

Chip froze in place, a hand gripping Adam's arm. The voice, her voice. It couldn't be her voice. The younger man turned himself to finally face the woman standing in front of them.

With her hands on her chair she gestured to Adam to sit. "Monsieur, please sit. You're as a pale as a ghost!"

She made another gesture to guide him to the chair at the same moment she said 'ghost' and Adam flinched perceptibly.

She paused at his reaction and looked him in the face with her one eye that was not covered with her head scarf.

Finding his voice Adam finally spoke. "Is that what you are? A ghost?"

She seemed taken aback by his statement. "Of course not, Monsieur, I am flesh."

"Flesh?" He shook his head as if to clear it of the vision in front of him. "How can this be?"

The woman in front of him seemed at a loss with his behavior and looked to her son for a hint.

"I am certain I do not understand you, Monsieur."

Something in the edge of her voice caught Adam's suspicion and his eyes narrowed at her half covered face. "What trick is this? Have you come to toy with me? Are you a witch?! Are you the Enchantress, come back to torment me?! Who are you?!"

Without giving anyone a chance to react he had the thin woman by the arms, mostly to see for himself if she was flesh or not. She cried out in surprise and took a stumbling step back which only caused Adam to strengthen his grip on her.

Her voice shook as she tried to free herself from his grasp. "Please, sir, you are not well. Gabriel said you had a bad fall and you are confused."

"Stop it! Stop it!" Adam shouted finding his reasoning gone. Gabriel, upon hearing his mother's distress latched hold of Adam's arm and tried to pry him away from the woman in his grip.

"Monseiur Adam, let my mother go! You're hurting her!"

Adam, without thinking, put one hand on the skinny boy's chest and pushed hard enough to knock the child clear to the ground.

"Adam!" Chip cried out, finally finding his voice after the shock of hearing hers.

Gabriel landed with a soft thud on the wooden floor and the woman in Adam's arms cried out in alarm. She turned again to look at Adam with a mixture of anger and fear that Adam could have painted in its perfection.

"Don't hurt him! We paid our rent! We have nothing you could want! Please!"

"You have her! Give her back to me!" Adam gave her another shake and to his surprise she reached out two hands and wrapped them around his shoulders to keep her steady. For being as frail as she was she was showing considerable courage in the face of what could only look like a mad-man.

"Who?!" Gabriel cried from the floor, batting away Chip's hand of help.

Adam spared him a glance and then looked back at the apparition in his arms that still held his shoulders with steadying hands. He shook his head again, very similar to a large dog, and then looked back into the eye that was visible. "Do you know me, Madam?"

With just the glimmer of tears in her eyes, she shook her head emphatically. "No, Monsieur, I've never seen you before in my life!"

"Then why do you look like her? Why do you steal her face?"

"Adam!" Chip repeated, grasping the other man's elbow with meaning. Adam shrugged him off and continued to stare at the woman before him.

"Who, sir? Who did I steal?"

"You really don't know?" An anguish entered Adam's throat that startled the woman after a moment and she looked deeply into his eyes trying to see past the madness. She reached up a hand and touched his face for just a moment as several torrid emotions passed in rapid succession.

"I wish I did, Monsieur. Please, don't hurt us..."

Adam swallowed a mouth of saliva and his heart fluttered to the feather light touch of her fingers on his rough cheek. Unable to stop himself he unclenched one hand from her arm and raised it to her face. If he could just touch her face he would be able to really see her. Then he would be able to convince himself that she actually looked nothing like his wife and that she was some stranger he did not recognize. She flinched from his touch and he instinctively tightened his hold on her arm. She whimpered in pain and Gabriel cried for Adam to stop once more. Chip placed his hand firmly on his Master's shoulder, a silent plea for Adam to regain his senses and allow the poor woman in his grip to free herself.

"Please, Mon Ami, please. This isn't her. It can't be her. Please."

Adam turned his head to the side but did not take his eyes off the woman he couldn't seem to release.

"But...But... It must be..."

"It isn't. She isn't here. She's gone..."

For just a moment, no one moved. Not a single muscle. Then the tension in Adam's shoulders ran down his body and right into the floor. He sagged under the weight of the words and his grip slowly lost all its power. To Chip's regret he watched as his Master's face fell with the utter disappointment of losing her all over again and Adam closed his eyes though he never took his fingers from her face.

"Please, Monsieur..." The woman once again murmured as the blood painfully rushed back to her arms from where he had been holding her.

With movements that neither the woman nor her son could have expected, Adam ripped the shawl covering the half of her face he had not been able to see.

A gasp ripped itself out of her chest and Gabriel lunged at Adam with ferocity not to be expected from first meeting the lad.

All of this did nothing to hide the horror on both Adam and Chip's faces as they finally glimpsed the woman behind the shawl. The scarring started from the crown of her head and reached all the way down to her bony shoulders. Her eye, though still in its general shape was puckered and milky with only the light semblance of the rich cinnamon of her other eye. Her ear was missing from that side of her head and her cheek was a map of misery that could have belonged to an entirely different person altogether. Her hair was cut so short it looked like she barely had any and the look of emaciation was so prevalent her veins and bones stuck out in dark relief to her skin.

Adam took several stumbling steps back when Gabriel's body connected with his and he only kept his balance by the hold Chip had on him.

"Oh dear God...What are you?!"

"She is my mother! You monster!"

Adam could only stare at her in the greatest alarm as the woman trembled softly into the shawl that had been ripped from her head.

"Gabriel! Let him go!" She called out, upon which the boy backed away slowly from Adam without any further argument and then rushed over to his mother's side. Both men looked on as he carefully took her shawl out of her hands and once again covered half her face the way it had been before. Never keeping his eyes from her she quickly regained her composure.

"Are you alright?" He whispered to her and she gave him a ghost of a smile and took several shaky breaths.

"For...forgive me...please, please forgive me…." And without further adieu, Adam took to the door in a rush and was out before anyone could say another word. Running as fast as his legs could carry him he sprinted across the fields while his lungs felt they would explode in his chest and he had to stop and crumple to his knees. Gasping for breath he murmured her name over and over again wishing that tree had ripped him down to the bottom of that gulch the way he should have gone in the first place.