Page 3 of American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy 1)
Or that a kiss might be worth all the harm it caused.
The regret in his eyes turned into sadness. “And I am sorry about your parents,” he said softly. “Despite everything, you are a sweet girl. You deserve only happiness, and maybe one day you’ll learn that’s what I’m trying to give to you. Hold tight to the things that make you happy, and never doubt that you are loved.” He nodded towards Grandpa Leo, who was now walking back toward us.
“Don’t be sorry for my parents,” I said, puzzled. “They’re just fine.”
Merlin said nothing, but he reached down and touched my shoulder. Not a pull into a hug, not a pat or a caress, just a touch. A moment’s worth of weight, and then nothing but the feeling of air on my skin and worry settling into my small bones.
Grandpa Leo scooped me into his arms as he reached us, planting a big mustached kiss on my cheek as he did. “Isn’t my granddaughter something special, Merlin?” he asked, grinning at me. “What were you two talking about?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Merlin cut in smoothly. “She was telling me how much she enjoys staying with you.”
Grandpa looked pleased. “Yes. I love Oregon as much as anyone, but there’s nothing like New York City, is there, Greer?”
I must have answered. There must have been more conversation after that, more words about politics and money and demographics, but all I could hear were Merlin’s words from earlier.
I am sorry for your parents.
In my overactive imagination, it wasn’t hard to conjure the worst. It was what always happened in the stories—tragedy, omens, heartache. What if my parents had been killed? What if their plane had crashed, their hotel caught on fire, their bodies beaten and robbed and left to die?
I am sorry for your parents.
It was all I could think of, all I could hear, and when Grandpa Leo tucked me into bed later that night, I burst into tears.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” he asked, thick eyebrows drawn together in concern.
I knew enough to know he wouldn’t believe me when I told him that Merlin was an enchanter, maybe a bad one, or that he could somehow sense my parents’ deaths before they happened. I knew enough to lie and say simply, “I miss Mommy and Daddy.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Grandpa Leo said. “We’ll call them right now, okay?”
He pulled out his phone and dialed, and within a few seconds, I heard Mommy’s light voice and Daddy’s deep one coming through the speaker. They were in Bucharest, getting ready to board a train bound for Warsaw, and they were happy and safe and full of promises for when they returned home. For a short while, I believed them. I believed that they would come back. That there’d be more long forest hikes with my father, more tai chi in the evenings with my mother, more nights when I fell asleep to the sound of them reading poetry to each other with logs crackling in the fireplace nearby. That the warm sunshine and tree-green days of my childhood still stretched out before me, safe in the cozy nest of books and nature that my parents had built.
But that night as I tried to fall asleep, Merlin’s words crept back into my mind along with the fear.
I am sorry about your parents.
I barely slept that night, jolting awake at every honk and siren on the Manhattan streets below Grandpa’s penthouse, shivering at every creak of the wind-buffeted windows. Dreams threaded my sleep, dreams of tree-covered mountains in a place I’d never seen, broad-shouldered men crawling through mud and dead pine needles, my parents dancing in the living room after they thought I was asleep. A train steaming across a bridge, and the bridge collapsing.
My parents danced, the wind blew through the trees, men crawled through mud. The train plunged to the valley floor.
Dance, trees, mud, death.
Over and over again.
Dance, trees, mud, death.
And when I sat up in the weak sunlight of morning to see my grandfather standing in the doorway, his eyes blank with shock and horror, his phone dangling from his hand, I already knew what he was there to tell me.
Like King Hezekiah, I turned my face to the wall and prayed.
I prayed for God to kill me too.
2
Eleven Years Ago
God, as he often does, chose not to answer my prayer. Or at the very least, chose not to answer yes.
Instead, my life went on.
