His Captive Mate

Chapter 5 – Celine

Her uncle reaches out and takes her hand with his rough one and squeezes gently. Celine lets the tears fall quietly, not wanting to break the reverent silence that had fallen over the table. Her uncle coughs,

“You should save the letter for when you are alone my dear.” His voice was thick with emotion. Michel smiled sadly at her, “She wasn’t well towards the end and wanted to make sure she passed on what she could to you, those words are for you not us.” He swipes at the tears on his face with the back of his hand, and with a deep sniff and a cough, pulls himself together. “You need to read the prophecy now, and we will do our best to help you understand it.”

“Okay uncle.” She puts the letter and photos back into the box, then pulls the journal over in front of her and starts to flip through the pages. She notices the journal is much older than she’d realised, with more than the three generations she’d expected. Her aunt points at the book,

“There is a bookmark on the page with the prophecy, your mother wanted you to be able to find it when the time was right and knew how hard it would be to find it in that old thing.” Eloise indicates a tasselled bookmark poking out near the back. She looks at her aunt. She had managed to stop crying and was looking a little less wan, Celine smiles at her and leans across to squeeze her hand quickly. Her aunt gives her a small smile and nods,

Celine finds the bookmark and opens to the page. The woven bookmark has a faded blue tassel and was made of woven threads depicting wolves running in a forest, at the bottom of the bookmark was an old wolf’s tooth with a hole drilled through to be able to tie it onto the bookmark. She puts it to one side to look at the page it had been marking.

It looked much like many of the others she had seen flipping through. But its words had her feeling like her world was slipping through her fingers and she was unable to do anything to stop it.

‘A death-borne daughter will be sent to a foreign land upon her eighteenth summer. This land will cause deep sorrow and many great hardships to fall upon her. She will know great pain, within and without. But she will return to a place of honour, greater than from whence she came. Many years will have passed, and her gift will have grown. She will be the source of many blessings for her people.’

“So, I’m the ‘death-borne daughter’? Are we sure it’s me?” Her hands shaking, she puts the journal down on the table. She clenches her fists on the table, careful not to damage the book. Her eyes are stuck to the page, reading it over and over. She doesn’t dare to look up at the adults surrounding her, not really wanting to know, but needing to none the less. Her father whispers,

“Yes, and yes,” he spoke so low she struggles to hear him. He stands and walks to stand in the doorway to the patio, leaning on the doorframe as if it could bear the weight he’d carried, knowing this from possibly before she was even conceived. Her aunt moves to sit beside her, and takes her hand gently,

“You know that your mother died during childbirth, but the full truth is that she died before you emerged from her. I had to cut her open to get you out.” Celine stares at her aunt for a moment, then glances towards her father’s back, which she notices is shaking gently with silent sobs. She looks back at her aunt and nods,

“Death-borne.” Having never met her mother, she wasn’t as sad as the adults were, but she knew their pain at her loss was deep. She re-reads the paragraph once more, then notices something in faint lettering scribbled underneath the prophecy.

“Mother has been getting more and more tired by the day, repeating this over and over and refusing to eat. I doubt she'll last the week if she continues like this… - N.D.T.”

From what she could tell, it was her mother’s handwriting and ‘NDT’ were her mother’s initials, Nicolette Du Travere. A name not many in the family would ever speak aloud around her father. They’d taken to just referring to her as her mother around Celine or just not speaking of her at all. While she did not feel the loss as keenly, she still felt like she had missed out on having a mother.

The various cousins and their mothers who lived here on the vineyard had tried to look out for Celine, but they had children of their own to contend with. She hadn’t wanted to be in the way, so she gravitated to Eloise and Michel as they had never had any children of their own. Their house was a quiet refuge from the bustle of the vineyard, the other children and the adults who would look at her with a sadness that Celine didn’t feel.

Instead, she spent most of her time alone, reading or climbing to the top of the château to watch the sunset over the vineyard. Running through the trees and climbing them pretending that the well-worn paths through the trees were lava. And many other such games which she did not need the company of others to enjoy.

Her uncle had taught her chess to help her think moves ahead of anyone else, and her father taught her poker once she was able to count to try and teach her to bluff and keep her thoughts from her face. She could now beat them both easily at either game, unless they cheated, which they did, often. Much to Celine’s chagrin, she never quite got the hang of cheating in the games she played with the two men, preferring to win honestly.

Celine sighs and brings the conversation back to Richard, who had turned up seemingly out of nowhere.

“So, how does this Richard come into the equation? Is he really my mother’s cousin?” Her aunt nods,

“Unfortunately, yes, he is your mother’s cousin. Adopted, but still…” Eloise gripped her now empty glass tightly enough for her knuckles to whiten. “He is a disgrace to the family, doing ‘experiments with destiny’. Hah! You cannot change the path of fate so easily.” Eloise clearly didn’t buy his story any more than Celine did. She sighs, sagging into the chair,

“Right, okay.” Celine feels deflated but then remembers something. “Ah, yes, I meant to tell you before Richard soured the mood this morning, when I woke up, I thought I could feel my wolf!” She smiles at the group around the table and they all rush to hug her. Even her father comes back from the doorway to the table. Her uncle chuckles,

“Finally, some good news today!” Her aunt grins and ruffles her hair,

“About time!” Her father sighs, and rests his head on hers and holds her the tightest of them all,

“My girl’s growing up.” He releases her, takes her shoulders and looks her directly in the eyes. “Did you feel anything else today that could be different, sort of like a ‘gift’?” he queries, looking at her carefully.

“I think so, but I could be wrong.” Celine takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, forcing herself to relax. “I could feel your emotions, and when Richard was here, I think I could sense his intent towards me.” Her aunt sits taking her hands to make her look at her,

“And what was his intent?” Celine furrows her brows then shakes her head,

“I’m not sure, I didn’t get the specifics. But… dark and secretive. He felt sort of… slimy and cold and I don’t know why.” Celine shudders at the memory.

“It’s okay, we can work on developing your gift over time. But we need to give Richard an answer soon, then he should leave for England again.” Michel reasons, looking at her father. Who looked as if he’d come to a decision, but he was still looking at Celine. She was chewing nervously on her bottom lip, he nods then speaks to the group,

“My answer is; ‘no’. She won’t go with him. She may end up in England, she may not. All we know from the prophecy is a foreign land, but she won’t be in his care while she’s not here.” He nods to Celine, and she hugs him tightly around his middle, relief flooding her body,

“Thank you, papa.” She lets out a deep sigh and slowly releases him. “I’m going to get dressed for my day, I’m aiming to beat my record to the top of the château and down again, and then some of the cousins and I are meeting up to go to town this evening. There’s a sort of open mic night in the town square for any local musicians to come and play, which sounded fun. And I know, absolutely no getting drunk, two drinks maximum.” Her father nods with a smirk,

“Sounds good my girl, as long as you don’t fall off the château and hurt yourself.” She groans,

“I haven’t fallen off the château in, what, six years? And even then, I only fell a little way and I only sprained my ankle!” She grins. She had slipped from the roof of one of the towers on the château and managed to stop her fall by landing on a windowsill. The windowsill happened to be the one in her father’s room. He’d had quite a rude awakening, hearing her squeal as she nearly flew past his window.

She’d climbed in through his window after he had opened it, and then promptly fell over his slippers on the floor, spraining her ankle.

“And it wasn’t the château’s fault, your slippers were in the middle of the floor.” She sticks her tongue out and runs for the stairs to get changed into her climbing gear. Laughter followed her up the stairs.