Chapter Ten

First Interaction

"Where did you say you heard that? The Secret Garden?" I asked, as we were descending a massive staircase of the mansion. I was so excited and desperate to go out there that I had almost forgotten to carry the drug bracelet with me, after which I had to again send back Iris in my room to fetch it; afterall pregnancy doesn't simplify things very much.

"Yup. I mean, I'm not that sure – definitely not sure – whether the voice would actually be there; I mean, it was day before yesterday when I heard that voice. It must have moved on somewhere, though there's no harm hoping it would still be there. I actually didn't know you would get so desperate and excited over all this; I mean, you really don't get very excited about many things; in fact, more depressed, I could say. Plus, I always knew you were searching for someone who was dead, though I didn't know that it was this particular person. It seemed more like it would be Elora you're seeking."

I simply nodded, and went ahead until we reached the Secret Garden. I chose a stone bench to sit on and then beckoned Iris to do the same so that we could again cast our spell. But Iris's irises had completely disappeared and there were only the whites of her eyes, fully concentrating on something else.

"Iris?" I asked, kind of worriedly.

"Shhh" she whispered, probably directed to me, and started walking to some other direction of the garden.

Worriedly, I got up and followed her, making sure she didn't trip herself and break her bones or something with her eyes that weird way. It was like her lenses had gone to some other universe to view something totally else, and there were none in her eye sockets to give her the vision. She wandered somewhere around the garden, and then went back inside the mansion.

Lamely, I followed her awkwardly back inside. She went through some long hallways, staircases, opened doors of some rooms, and occasionally also muttered and whispered a lot. I wondered if she was doing the same thing that she had done when I had first discovered that she could talk to the dead at the night in Elora's room; talking to the dead people.

She went down to the servants' quarters, and entered one room; and without knowing what to do, I had simply followed her. When I realized that this was Iris's final destination, I let myself sit on a dusty bed and rest my back against a cushion. For a couple of seconds I closed my eyes, let the panting and nausea get a little more under control, and then I opened my eyes and took into the old servant's room I was in. belatedly – and with quite of a shock – I realized that it was the very room where he had been kept when he was under imprisonment here. I gasped loud, surprised that Iris had lead me out here.

"Where have you got me?" I almost trembled, as I asked Iris. It was a place that inhabited a lot of memories about him and it was definitely not very pleasant visiting this place full of memories again; to relive a microsecond of each memory unavoidably again.

Now Iris's eyes were back to normal, and she was in the same world where I was. "This is where he is? The dead person you wanted to talk to you; or so I assumed."

I flinched at the words 'dead person', and noticing my pain, Iris stopped speaking. "So, should we . . . cast the spell again?" she asked, not knowing saying what would be right and what would not.

I didn't reply to that, and instead said "What did you do with your eyes that made you lead up to this room?"

"Well, I told you, the default and involuntary mode that is onset always is the audio mode; where I can hear those people. There is another mode where I can both hear and see the dead, and that was how I was just right now. I just talked around to the other ghosts, tried to ask where he was, checked out through my dead vision, and finally managed to lead you out here, where he actually is."

"Wait, I think you said that you were too immature to nurture in this." I narrowed my eyes.

"That was more than a week ago. And now that I've learnt illegitimately how to connect people to the dead side, it should make sense that I should also start learning about this seeing-ghosts stuff. I mean, seeing ghosts isn't illegal either, but then it's just that Brian started me off by trying to coach me into this, and I gradually just mastered it all. Okay, not exactly master; but I know the basics and can perform it pretty well without using an ornament to heal the sideffects after conducting this. Brian anyway thinks that I should be able to do this perfectly until before my debutante, and turns out that his expectations didn't all go wasted. You know, I finally got it all; though in our special classes I had decided to control its usage in order to save energy."

"When is your debutante ball?" I asked, realizing that it had not yet occurred.

"Day after tomorrow. Brian says that the dress would be ready by today evening, and I still need to work on my babbling-control, and then I would be, all like, perfectly set and ready for the ball. Though –"

"Well, thanks for that; can we now work on our spell?"

"Yeah, sure." And then I placed my hand on hers, and for the first time in a few months, his face was right there. The beautiful honey-blonde hair, the wide smile that reached his eyes, causing the cute dimple, the tanned skin – overall he was just gorgeous. I couldn't even believe that after all those painful months of believing in his death, I was actually getting to see him – even if he was still dead.

For the first time in months, I allowed myself to say his name "Loki?"

And for the first time in months, I allowed myself to hear his voice "Princess, how nice of you to pay me a visit."

I felt a million emotions rush through me at one time, and I welcomed all of them together inside me. In all a blur, I felt the urge to go hug him tight and feel his lips on my hair; but the doubt whether I'd be able to have any physical contact with a dead object stopped me.

"I'm the queen, right now." I replied as calmly as I was capable of at this moment, what with the endless emotions running through me.

"Sorry. Your majesty, how nice of you to pay me a visit, now that you had finally realized that I couldn't do anything to visit you, and even better because you have actually found out a way to contact with me. I'm indeed privileged."

I actually found myself smiling. I probably meant to say something about Iris and about how was his life right now, but instead my hand just involuntarily went over to my stone-hard belly bump, and I let out "I'm pregnant."

"Ohh," said Loki, and instead of being shocked or appalled, he merely seemed disappointed and jealous. "I didn't suppose you'd actually like to sleep with another guy after immediately losing one. Anyways, congrats to the royal baby; the heir to the throne."

"Loki," I said, finally realizing the misunderstanding he had been getting at. He had been thinking that after he . . . (well, after the war with the Vittra), I had slept with Tove and got pregnant, and was now carrying a legitimate heir to the throne in my uterus. "I'm pregnant with you!" That bought him in the shock and disbelief. "And the baby is due in a little more than five months."

"Wendy, I . . . I'm so sorry about . . . this." He said, and I could feel the weight of hurt and pain in his voice.

I shook my head. "Its not your fault, afterall I wanted to do this; in Oslinna, remember?"

"Why don't you . . . get the fetus out?" he suggested slowly.

"You mean abort it?" I gave him a look. "Of course not. Loki, this is the last piece of you that I'm left with, and there is no way I'm going to give it up. It is the last thing of your blood, and I cannot just put an end to it. I cannot let it happen what happened to you; especially after what happened to you."

"You cannot just let it develop inside you, Wendy. It's illegal, scandalous and dangerous. What are you planning to do with it anyway? After it is out; I mean, you cannot just pretend that this baby belongs to you and Tove."

"Well, apparently I am more into illegitimate secrets than pretense. So, the birth will be an illegitimate secret, and when the child is switched at birth, it would be another illegitimate thing too."

"Very carefully planned, but what about the baby's mankslig?" I could tell that Loki was trying to put me up with more intricate challenges and complications, maybe so that I could change my mind into getting the fetus aborted afterall. But my firm decision of keeping the baby alive was as strong-set as ever, and I wasn't going to step back from it.

"Twins. The human mother gives birth to twins; one human child, and one troll child." I smiled mentally at my plans, victorious at having defeated Loki in his attempts to change my mind.

"Yeah" said Loki, finally almost giving up too. "try to search for another brunette-blonde couple in the hospitals, so that the twins – though fraternal – don't look awfully fraternal."

"I'll keep that in mind." I said, wondering about how different, less-suspicious and accepting it would have been if Elora and the other trackers on duty would have dropped me in as a changeling in a brunette family instead of a fair-skinned, fair-haired and fair-eyed family from where I could always distinguish myself.

"So, now that you've told me the most fearful and shocking news, I'm still pretty curious about how did you manage to come up till here." Said Loki.

I told him all about Iris, her strange abilities, and tried to shortcut her illegal usage as much as possible. Loki even talked about how depressing life had been in between an earth where he could only view the things and places but not the humans, and heaven – which wasn't as beautiful as normal, human reviews had said. Our conversation almost turned back into any other ordinary conversation we both would've had – with him making me smile with his bizarre sense of humor – and it wasn't until the bond started to get slightly scratchy, that I realized that the bond was also limited and Iris was bravely risking her sanity to make this interaction possible.