*Looks in* Nine years later...here I am, I'm trying to get back into writing, between 4 laptops, several life changing events and the like...^^;; Here's the ending to one of my more...obscure works!
Enjoy!
Madam
Chapter 20
Epilouge: Unreal
"Come on, Lyra, time to go to bed," Samuel looked down at his daughter, who was busy coloring in a drawing, her amber eyes full of determination and concentration, "It's almost midnight, Orion is fast asleep but you're not."
"Dream woke me up, Daddy," Lyra turned to look up at her father, holding a clunky crayon, "The man in my dream told me I had to draw something."
"Oh…did he?" That caught Samuel's attention, and he walked over to his 8 year old daughter and sat beside her, "What are you drawing?"
"Something for Mommy," Lyra hummed, looking back down at her drawing, "Youseff told me to draw it."
"Was that the name of the man in your dreams?" Samuel asked, earning a head nod, "I swear, you and your brother, like your mother, I swear."
Lyra shook her wild curls of white and said, "Nu-huh, Daddy, Mommy says no one can understand us!"
"That is true," Samuel hummed as he watched his daughter draw, "That is very true…"
He looked at the picture and found himself looking at a very detailed drawing of his partner and the man in Lyra's dreams, Youseff, sitting at a table, in an animated conversation, their faces expressing happiness. It looked like a normal picture, if it wasn't for the fact that the man in the picture had a grey shadow around him, while the woman had an almost blinding glow around her, making her look almost unreal.
'Unreal…'Samuel thought, as his child put the last touches on the picture and then sat up, lifting the picture up in the air, 'So very unreal…'
"Finished," Lyra said, proudly, handing the picture to her father, "Daddy, give this to Mommy please, I'm too tired to do it."
"I'm sure you are, you are a gifted artist, you know that?" Samuel said, taking the picture and then grabbing his daughter's hand and leading her over to waiting bed, "Did you know, that before you born, Mommy used to tell me and Papa Diesel that you would be a talented artist?"
"I always knew, Daddy," Lyra mumbled, climbing into the bed and letting her father cover her up, "Even before I was born, I just knew before I knew…."
"Yes, I bet you did," Samuel leaned down and kissed Lyra's forehead, watching as the child fell asleep quickly, "Pleasant dreams, sweetie."
He looked at the small dream catcher, the one he had given Heidi, all those years ago, hanging above his daughter's bed and then left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He walked over to the bedroom beside Lyra's and found her brother, Orion, fast asleep, with Apollo resting at his feet. The fox like creature, as if sensing him, lifted its head, and stared at him with wise eyes, its three tails swaying lazily behind them.
"Thanks for keeping watch bud," Samuel nodded to the creature and then closed the door and made his way downstairs, hearing soft talking.
"Did we wake her up, with our talking?" Someone asked Samuel, who shook his head, "Oh? What woke her up?"
"Oh, she had to draw something for you, Heidi," Samuel responded, holding the picture out for the person that spoke, "Youseff visits her in her sleep, apparently."
"Not surprised," Heidi said, looking down at the picture and taking it, "She is getting so good at drawing, we need to find an art school for her."
"We do," Samuel said sitting beside Heidi and wrapping an arm around her waist, "Diesel, where's the grub at? We can't have an all nighter without the snacks."
"Fuck off," Diesel's head appeared from a doorway, his blue eyes narrowed with anger, "Stephanie, come and get your husband! He's trying to put flax seed in the fucking queso dip!"
"Not the Queso!" Stephanie hissed, trying to get up from the couch, but failing, "Damn it…" she turned to the blond woman beside her and said, "Jeanne, help me up!"
"Seven months pregnant with Manoso number 4 and you're still a lost cause," Jeanne Ellen Santos nee Barrows sighed, standing and helping up Stephanie up from the couch, "Go save the dip!"
"Carlos, get out the kitchen! We told you; this is a celebration not a food detox!" Stephanie waddled into the kitchen, her hands on her back, "It's a retirement party!"
"What am I going to do, with all this fucking time on my hands now?" Jeanne sipped her wine and looked over to her husband, "Lester, I'm losing my job, my boss is retiring, what am I to do now?"
"As if she's letting you go," Lester chuckled, kissing Jeanne's cheek, earning a huff from his wife, "She still has an empire that needs a good manager to hold it down."
"True," Jeanne shook her head, looking over to her boss, "You would be lost without me, Heidi…"
"I truly would," Heidi sighed, closing her blind eyes, "Lost, in a miasma of hopelessness and Porter brothers."
"Watch it, you," Samuel nipped Heidi's shoulder in warning and then smiled at her, "Excited about leaving the music business?"
"I am, I think having more time for my partners, my children and friends will help fill the void," Heidi turned her head to Samuel and kissed him, "And maybe…another child?"
"Uh…." Samuel looked over to Jeanne and Lester, who were laughing at the question, "Maybe?"
"Are you afraid our third child will come out more eccentric than our Stars?" Diesel asked, walking into a tray of snacks, "I mean, Orion and Lyra are hard to top…"
Samuel looked to his brother and then to Heidi, who leaned against Diesel, once he sat down, "No, I'm afraid how much energy that'll put on her heart…you fool."
There was a moment of silence around the group, and Heidi placed a hand on her chest and whispered, "Yes, that is a factor to think about…isn't it?"
"You cheated death three times," Carlos said, pulling his pregnant wife into his arms, looking at Heidi's small form, "What's to say about a fourth time?"
"…Yes…" Heidi murmured, curling her fingers into her sweater, "You're right…"
'Hey old Baba, what happens when you cheat death three times?'
Samuel had been in his shop, working on charms for the twins, when the old lady that had given him the Spirit warder appeared in his shop, once more, with a bottle of fine whiskey to give him a gift for his impending role as a father.
He had thanked her and spoke to her softly. She had seen all the excitement on the TV, and wanted to come see the clairvoyant and congratulate him for his relationship. As they spoke, like good friends, he asked her that question, because it nagged in the back of his mind. Heidi had cheated death three times, the first time, as a newborn, the second time in the bathroom of Diesel's place and the third time in the basement of Aster's lab. 3 was a very powerful number and death was a very powerful state of being.
'Well,' the old woman said, pulling two shot glasses from her sleeve and cracking open the whiskey for them to enjoy, 'I've not met anyone who's cheated death out of a soul, three times, well, not until recently, but I've heard of a few old wives tales.'
The old woman pours them each two fingers of whiskey and then she held up her own shot glass and motioned for Samuel to look into it. As she swirled the contents of the glass around, an image of Heidi appeared in it and the woman began, 'I heard that, once, a long time ago, before stories were written down, a man died three times, but death could not get his soul. It puzzled death greatly, because death was like the sunset of life, it would all come for humans and other creatures. Why had this man cheated death three times?'
The woman drank the whiskey and poured herself another before continuing, 'This man was special and magically powerful, marked before birth, he had died as a newborn, died as a child and had died as an adult but still he lived. Fate had marked him, and on that the third death the mark came to be, because just like life, death had an end and a beginning, the man that evaded death was to become death, the master of it, one could say. So when death came to the man a fourth time, the man snatched death up and ate death whole, to take his birth rite. The man became the Master of Death. Life and death, controlled by the man's fingertips, nothing could kill him, until he chooses his death and passed the mark Fate gave him to someone else….'
The old woman looked at Samuel and smiled sweetly at him, 'Maybe it's because Madam is set to become the Mistress of Death…'
Samuel ran his fingers through Heidi's hair as he thought back on the old woman's words. When Heidi had given birth to the twins, Orion and Lyra, she had to get a C-Section, giving birth naturally might have been too much for her new heart. Diesel and Samuel had been in the operating room, they had watched as she flat lined, after the twins had been delivered and their cords cut, for ten minutes straight, but as she started to flat lined, Heidi had reached out for something, for air and slap her hand to her mouth and literally died on the operating table, only to be bought back to life by being shocked.
After that, she spent less than a day in the ICU, where she woke up, feeling fine, able to move, not weak at all, demanding to see her children. She had made a fast recovery and was out of the hospital in two days, shocking everyone.
Was his lover now in control of death itself? Samuel looked down at Heidi, watching her banter with Stephanie and Jeanne, before looking over to his brother, who he was surprised to find him looking back at him.
Diesel looked down at the top of Heidi's head and then to Samuel and then gave a short nod, before winking, taking a sip of beer.
"Let's see…8 world tours under your belt, several smaller tours under that, 20 albums, several dozen number smash hits," Diesel said, looking at Heidi, "And you want another child? If we have another, we'll have to have twins again, there are two of us, you know," he motioned to Samuel, "I have Orion, he has Lyra, I suppose, we could have quadruplets t-"
"You know, the twins, were a handful when they were infants, maybe we should shelf the idea of children," Heidi said, shaking her head, "I keep forgetting…double trouble."
"How are the Manoso Triplets handling school in France?" Jeanne asked Stephanie and Carlos, "I know they had a whole life in New Jersey, so you moving them must have been a shock!"
"The girls handled it fine," Carlos said, his hand resting on Stephanie's baby bump, "They're only five, were only in school back in the states for a few weeks, they're making several friends. It helps that their parents know Madam and see her often."
"It's like nepotism," Stephanie sighed, shaking her head, "Bella, Gabriella and Estrella I swear, they are nothing but opportunists, a playdate at our house, when Heidi's around, the other children's parents were going bananas! Where did they learn to bribe like that?!"
Stephanie turned and gave Jeanne a glare. Jeanne, who never wanted children, but indulged in the Manoso Triplets and the Stars every little whim, shrugged and drank deeply from her wine glass. She was not going to get in trouble tonight, thank you very much!
"I am now happy that Lyra and Orion go to a special school," Heidi mumbled, finishing her tea, "I don't think they can fill my shoes…"
"No one can, and you were a size 5, sweetness!" Lester boomed, making everyone laugh at the joke, "But you know what, to Heidi's retirement and to her having a long and happy life with her…chaos!"
"To Heidi's chaos!" Stephanie and Jeanne echoed and everyone raised their cups in the air.
Samuel smiled and tipped his whiskey glass in the air. To Heidi's chaos indeed!
(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)
"That was nice," Heidi sighed, laying in the bed, her eyes closed as her fingers glided over the braille in her book, "I am so happy that Stephanie and Carlos moved their family up the road, and that Carlos took Rangeman international."
"It helps that they had someone rich and famous as an investor," Diesel said to Heidi, as he lounged in the bed, watching TV, Samuel was on the other side of Heidi, watching the same show, "So, what are we going to do with all this free time from music?"
"Raise our children," Heidi said, tucking a bookmark in her braille version of 'Yeats,' and handing it to Diesel to put on the nightstand, "Help them with their gifts, run the family store, anything we want, the world is ours to do with."
"Heidi," Samuel turned the TV off and looked at the lounging woman, "I-I have a question for you."
Heidi turned to Samuel, opening her blind eyes and smiling at him, "The answer is yes, I ate death and I am now the Mistress of Death, is that what you want to know?"
"I-" Samuel blinked while Diesel chuckled in his hand, "What's so funny, bastard," he threw a show at Diesel.
"You know…I think back on that conversation I had, when I spoke spoke to Fate," Heidi said, pulling the covers up around her middle, "When I died the third time," She grabbed both brothers by their hands and squeezed them gently, "I don't think death was written for me, I think Fate either forgot about writing or...didn't write about it."
"Or maybe he wrote that death for you couldn't be because you're suppose to be in control of death?" Diesel asked, running a finger over Heidi's knuckles, "The fourth time you died, I'm pretty sure you ate death…"
"I think so too," Samuel hummed to Heidi, who sighed and settled into the bed, "What?"
"Maybe I did," Heidi said, a strange smile on her face, "Mistress of Death, kind of over the top, don't you think?"
"….You're not wrong there," Samuel said as he turned to TV back on, "But now you're free with time, you can come help in the shop, the tiny terrors known as the Stars, let me tell you, Diesel, while you're out there catching Unmentionables, I have to play nanny for the twins in a shop that houses some powerful magical item one time, they found the magic carpet and took it out on a fun ride, that was hard to explain to the..."
Heidi let Diesel and Samuel's conversation wash over her, and she closed her eyes. Mistress of Death was so over the top. An immortal being? A bit too much. A goddess? No. Heidi didn't want a title for what she was. She didn't need one. The only titles she wanted was: Mother to two darling children, the lover to two amazing men, a close friend to a few precious people and of course…Madam, the woman who took the music world and turned it upside down.
Maybe, with this, 'Heidi can't die because she ate death,' thing out of the way…perhaps she can convince the brothers that the twins should have a younger sibling. They could flip a coin to see who would be the father, or wait a few years for Heidi to get pregnant with another. Heidi smiled fondly at the vision she had about a month ago, of a child, who could not have been more than three years old boy or girl, she couldn't tell, running around with an older Orion and Lyra, looking like the perfect carbon copy of her.
She thought about the pregnancy test she bought, in secret, that day and to the positive result she got from it. Well, it was way too late for the brothers to flip a coin, they would just have to do a test to see who the father of baby number 3 was. She just needed to tell them that a 6th member of the family was on the way.
Whatever Fate wanted, Fate will get from her. After all, who was Heidi to turn her nose up at the inevitable?
"Boys, when you two are finished your conversation, I must tell you, remember that conversation earlier in the night, about children? Well…I suppose, it's too late, I am with child, do as you will with that information, I am going to sleep," with that, Heidi snuggled down in the blankets to feign sleep, a smile on her face.
Diesel and Samuel looked at one another and then to Heidi before they started to shake the woman, demanding an answer.
"Heidi, you wake the hell up and explain yourself!"
END….
*continues to choke on cobwebs and dust* Finished! Smell ya later!
