i'm lame. but i also have a life. my friend from arizona is visiting soon, and we're starting all this pre-testing stuff. plus band is so much funnn
but i think you guys will like this part a lot. i know i did.
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Twelve steps down the hallway. Two steps to the right. Seventeen smooth steps up the spiraling staircase, and five more steps down the carpeted corridor.
The soft thudding of Solomon’s footfalls echoed in the manor. By now it was dark, and the servants seemed to have all forgotten to light the candles. Had I turned my head away from where it was buried into Solomon’s chest, I would have barely been able to make out the outline of his resolute face.
The pain in my face eased and only stung now, and I shut my eyes, simply listening to the beating of Solomon’s heart through his silk shirt. He kept his steps light and smooth and I barely felt any jostling from the study to our bedroom.
A single candle was lit on Solomon’s bedstead, and he moved me carefully over to the bed, setting me down and pulling a corner of the covers up to my shoulders, brushing away strands of my hair from my forehead. It was dream like and surreal—I could not believe that this was Solomon, gentle and cautious.
Straining my eyes in the dark, I watched him sit down on his edge of the bed, taking off his leather boots and unbuttoning his work shirt a little so that it wouldn’t wrinkle when he laid down on the bed, which he did shortly after. His dark waves rested against the stark pillow next to mine.
“Anneka?” His hoarse whisper was too quiet, as if he had been hoping that I’d fallen asleep.
“I’m right here,” I mumbled, turning on my side so that my bandaged cheek was not being pressed to the pillow. We stared at each other, both of us realizing that it was one of the first times we were looking at each other on the bed. It felt new, and raw, and too close. But neither of us pulled away.
“Sleep,” he ordered, his lips pressing in a thin line. “You need it.” Oh, he thought he was going to get away without telling me.
“No.” I tried to make my weak voice severe.
“You need your rest,” Solomon repeated, and his eyes drifted down to where his hands were clenching the covers. “I’ll tell you it all tomorrow.”
“No.” I was so close. He couldn’t get away. He simply couldn’t. He had promised.
He laid on his back, sighing in an almost forlorn way. He had given up. “Where…where would you like me to begin?”
I licked my lips to wet them, wishing he would face me again so that I could be sure he was being truthful. “I…I asked you at dinner. Where you were from.”
Solomon’s voice was surprised. “I was not lying. I was born in London.”
“Yes, but…” I hesitated again, wondering if perhaps this was all for nothing, that maybe Solomon was just an ordinary man who was perhaps a little angry and a little odd at times, but could he really be the son of a witch, or of an enchantress?
But my ears couldn’t deny what they had heard for so long. For so long, I’d wanted to know.
“What are you?!?” The words burst out of my mouth with fervor I hadn’t expected. I bit my lip, wishing to take them back. Words of all words, why did I start it like that?
Solomon was silent, so silent that I couldn’t hear him breathe and it seemed as if the room was hushed. I could only hear the rushing of my own blood in my ears, a feeling reminiscent as the kind of feeling you get when you fall.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and strained, as if he were trying to hold back. “That…that is a very good question.”
His lack of anger seemed to egg me on. “I mean,” I continued softly. “You…Damascus said you were different. He said he were always…aware of everything. Is it true? What does that mean?”
“I—“
“Not that Damascus told me these things—he only said those to make me quiet, to prevent me from asking and finding out more,” I said quickly, realizing that perhaps Solomon might be angry with his friend for telling me such things. “I just…it just seems like…you sense it all. Like you don’t even have to use your ears or your eyes to know something…”
He listened patiently, shaking his head when I was done. “You are much more perceptive than I had thought.”
I stared at him, wondering if this was a compliment.
Solomon turned on his side, brushing his fingers against my bandaged cheek mindfully, as if checking to make sure that it was still secure. “I can’t answer all of your questions. Because I don’t know the answers to all of them.”
“But to the ones you do know!” I whispered fiercely, looking back into his eyes as if breaking our gaze would ruin everything.
Slowly, he inhaled and he withdrew his hand from my cheek. “Anneka, I won’t lie to you.”
“I know you won’t.”
“I don’t want to scare you. That is why I have not told you before.”
A cold feeling curled in my stomach. Being frightfully angry and threatening was one thing, but the way he spoke made me shiver, as if there was another dimension to the kind of fright he was speaking of.
“I won’t be scared.”
“Yes, you will be.”
I swallowed. “What you say will not change my views of you.”
And he smiled then, almost ruefully, as if I were being a silly but endearing child to him.
“You are sure, then?”
“I am sure. Tell me what you do know. Tell me so that I can understand. Please,” I added as an after thought.
He bit his crimson lip. “When it becomes too much for you to know, tell me. Then I’ll stop. You must promise that you will alert me when it is too much.” His eyes looked at me warningly.
“Yes,” I nearly begged.
Stretching his limbs, Solomon closed his eyes as if he had been awake for ages, and at last he was about to fall into a peaceful sleep. Minutes passed, and when he finally opened them again, his face was taut and strained.
“You ask me what I am,” he murmured quietly so that I could barely hear him. “I am not sure myself. But this I know: I am not like you. I am not of man and woman.”
The blood flowing in my veins went cold.
“Or at least, not wholly. My father. I did not know him. He was a human, just like you and Damascus. He was a vain man, he looked just like me, you see.” He stated this without a hint of pride—to him, it was all fact. “He was from London, and he would court secretly the wives of the old blustery parliament members , and then he would break their hearts. Every girl, every woman in London lusted after him. He was invincible, like most young men believe themselves to be.”
Solomon stopped and looked at me, as if to gauge my reaction. I nodded once timidly, encouraging him, begging him to go on.
“My mother was a harlot of the streets. She fell in love with my father, but he would have nothing to do with her. Not her, a dirty prostitute. Not her, the strangely eerie girl who haunted alleyways and slept on the streets. But she was absolutely beautiful, and she was deadly. You see, my mother was not a human.”
“But what…what was she?”
He sighed. “Over the centuries, society has categorized women like her in various names. Witch. Sorceress. Hag. Enchantress.” Solomon felt me cringe. “She was the only one of her kind in Europe. It seems confusing, why such a woman would settle for the mortal disposition of a harlot when she could have easily bewitched wealthy patriarchs and lived lavishly. But I think she must have preferred the anonymity of her life. She was not young, you see, because a being like her is ageless. She changed the shape of her face and hid the wrinkles of her skin quite cunningly, so that she looked merely your age when in reality she was ages older.
“At any rate, she had fallen in love with my father, the proud, boastful man he was. He washed his hands clean of her as much as he could, but she haunted him. She wouldn’t let him go, and one night she had in mind to astound him and revealed her true self to him.”
“Her true self?” I tried to picture what his mother looked like.
“Yes. Naturally, he was repulsed. In fact, he was so disgusted and horrified that he tried to kill her right there, as if trying to do the world a favor and rid her from it. My mother flew into a rage, and she locked him in the bones and flesh of an old man, and then left the city. He died shortly afterwards.”
This Solomon all spoke without emotion, as if he were simply reciting facts from a history tome instead of his parents’ lives. “It wasn’t until a few months later that she realized what was wrong.”
I looked up at him, biting my lip. “She…she was with child—with you, wasn’t she?”
He smiled wryly, as if pleased that I had caught on. “Yes. It was a condition she had never experienced before, no matter how long she had been living upon the earth. It is to say, she was miserable and horrified. As her unnatural body had to accommodate another life, it changed drastically because of this new vulnerability. She began to age—rapidly.”
The picture of a wily harlot in my mind became blurred as I struggled to comprehend this sudden aging. Was it possible? Was it feasible? For a woman Isabella, or perhaps Florencia’s age to suddenly grow silver hair and have wrinkles within days?
“What did she do? What happened?” I pressed him, as if he were Isabella and this were another one of her famous bedtime stories.
“It’s not as dramatic as you would think, Anneka.” Solomon shrugged. “I was born one cold, rainy night on the outskirts of London. She had returned to the city only for that time, because she wanted her baby to know London the way she had known it.”
“Understandable.”
“But she couldn’t stay there, of course. Instead, she took me—only a few days old—and fled to a small village in the countryside, disguising herself and then sending me to a nearby orphanage. That is all I know of her. That is all I have been told.”
“Did you grow up in the orphanage?” I asked, remembering how the rumors back in the village had affirmed this fact.
He nodded. “I did. It was ghastly, and as a child I didn’t know anything about these other…senses that I had over the others. The other children were frightened of me, I knew, but I was a quiet, lonely one that scared them with my appearance. The nurses who took care of us at the orphanage thought me a strange child, too.”
“The dead animals…” I whispered, prompting him. Isabella had told me long ago how as a child he had ‘turned funny’ and was always found with dead animals beside him. How could a few extra senses have managed that?
“Oh, that was really nothing,” Solomon shrugged again, gazing at me through his long eyelashes. “Animals appealed to me more than other children, and I had so little control over my senses and my…abilities …that it was all an accident. I figured out how to master them more or less by the age of ten.”
“Abilities.” The feeling of fear seemed to prickle at me again. “You never said anything about your abilities,” I accused.
“They’re not worth mentioning. It just means I can do the work of a highly skilled doctor without touching a hair.”
“You…wait…magic?” I spluttered.
He was amused at my reaction. “Not magic, Anneka. I prefer to think of it as just another ability. Another power as your village elders would say.”
“Power? You have powers?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me, waiting to gauge my reaction. I didn’t know what to say, or how to feel. The idea that the very being beside me was not an ordinary human being threw me—oh, I had always suspected Solomon was different in that sense, but now that it was confirmed, I felt dizzy.
“You…you can…you have powers?” I repeated, sounding like a small child.
He nodded again, almost imperceptibly, as if it pained him to say so. “Not nearly as impressive as my mother had, though. She had quite a supernatural knack of sensing and reading one’s heart, and being able to see the future.”
“Can you…what can you do?”
A small smile formed on his crimson lips, and he touched the tip of my nose with his icy finger. “I possess no powers that you are thinking of, Anneka. I cannot fly. I cannot see through walls. I am still mortal, and mostly human.”
I wrinkled my brow, not understanding. What were these powers, then?
Solomon propped his head up on his elbow, smoothing the wrinkles of his pillowcase. “Anneka, it’s hard to explain. It’s as if I were describing the nature of colors to a blind man. Or the way of music, to a deaf child. How could I? What words are there to explain something you don’t have the capacity to sense?”
“I could learn,” I breathed softly, feeling completely overwhelmed as his steady charcoal eyes fixed on me. “I could try, and…”
He laughed quietly, shaking his head on the pillow. “The human being—a person like you—has five senses. Sight,” he held up one finger, and then two. “Sound, touch, smell, and taste. Am I correct?”
“Yes.” I felt a compelling urge to touch my fingertips to his five outstretched fingers. I wanted so desperately to know, to be able to grasp what he was saying.
“Senses are the only ways you can experience the world. But why only five? Could there not be more? Could there be six, perhaps seven, or even eight different types of senses out there, ones that God himself didn’t see fit to grant to the human being?” Solomon smiled almost shyly, and he moved his fingers to brush against mine the way I had wanted to.
I gasped, startled. His fingers were icy and slender and dwarfed mine in comparison. But how had he known? Had he read my mind?
Guessing my reason for surprise, Solomon withdrew his hand and lowered his eyes. “I cannot read minds. But I can…know how you are feeling. Hate. Grief.” He flicked his eyes back up to mine. “Urge.”
“But how,” I inhaled sharply, feeling almost frightened. “How did you know that I wanted to do that? You may have…sensed, as you say, my emotion. But how did you know the cause of it?”
At this, he grinned almost smugly. “That is no power. I just am excellent at guessing and reasoning. It is a human trait. It is how I found out about your father, when he passed away.”
The day that Isabella had visited the manor flashed before my eyes, and I recalled how he had seen me on the floor crying, and had somehow mysteriously known the reason. It all seemed to make sense now, like a broken vase being pieced back together. “You felt my grief, and you guessed it was because of my father?”
“Basically. Just like how you can make the distinction between sweet and salty with your sense of taste, I can tell the difference between different degrees and types of grief. Does that make sense?” He asked this gently, as if he were afraid to overwhelm me with his extra senses. “That day, when you were crying in the hallway, it was obvious you were vastly upset—far more upset than you had ever been. It was the type of grief that I have observed only once, when Damascus received word years ago that his sister had passed away. In your case, I only guessed that it was your father, because you cared for him most.”
My mouth opened in shock. “I care for my entire family equally! What are you talking about?”
He ignored my outrage, consulting the ceiling once more. “Lying is easy to detect, too.”
“Are you saying that I’m lying?” I asked loudly so that he wouldn’t disregard me again. I felt indignant that he should question my feelings for my dear family.
Mildly, Solomon glanced at me and continued without referring to my question again. “You have often wondered why I seem to be able to tell when you aren’t being truthful. Now you know. It is as obvious to me as a rotten egg is to your nose.”
I glared at him, still irritated.
“That is also how I knew when you were trying to run away. The feeling of despair was unusually heavy,” he smiled. “Your emotions are quite intense, did you know? That is how I found you in that horrible snowstorm.”
Struggling to remember that day, I could only clearly picture how utterly angry Solomon had been with me when he had found me. Had he sensed my fear of him? And now here I was, lying on the bed with him and speaking civilly, if not in an almost tender way, if I were not mistaken.
“Yes, intense is an interesting word. To have more than the five senses God and nature has allocated one is overwhelming at times, and I find that I can alleviate—dull some of my extra ones with tea.”
“Tea?” I gaped at him, utterly mystified.
“Tea made from the petals of mountain roses,” he clarified. “I discovered the remedy when traveling one year. It has kept me sane.”
“Roses…” I trailed off and my eyes widened in realization. “That is why…”
Guiltily, Solomon nodded. “That is why I am so protective of those certain roses, the ones that I keep behind that door in the sunroom. You must understand, Anneka, my panic when I had found out that you had clipped half of them.”
“They were for a dinner, in your honor,” I reminded him, slightly bitterly.
“I know. I know that now.” Silently, Solomon bit his lip. “I think that’s all. Have I answered all of your questions? It’s very late, Anneka.” Solomon shifted his weight on the bed and his arm brushed mine for an instant.
“No,” I said indignantly. “You haven’t told me nearly enough. What happened after you grew up in the orphanage? How did you come to be here?”
Sighing defeatedly, he ran his hand through his glossy hair. “Oh, it was years and years ago. The orphanage casts children out when they are fourteen, and they usually get enlisted to work at a shoe factory to work all day for a few pennies. I endured that for a while, until I saved up enough money and left for London.”
“You went back?”
“I did. I had never known the city since I was a baby. I knew nothing about my mother or my father—the story that I am telling you know is only what I learned later, when I met my mother again.”
“You met her again?!?”
He shook his head patiently, as if reprimanding me for interrupting. “I did. I’ll come to that later, if you want. But I went to London when I was near eighteen, and I hired myself out to a shrewd old surgeon who needed someone to keep his books. I was able to observe his operations and learn about doctoring, all while earning money. He never questioned me, never asked of my parents or where I was from. He died within a year and left all his money to me, the only shred of family he’d ever had. You see, it was mostly luck.”
“And then what did you do?”
“The business was failing, and I wished to leave the city. And so I returned, slightly wealthier, and bought this manor. That was more than five years ago, and here I am today.”
“You gained this much money in five years?” I asked incredulously, thinking of my poor blacksmith father who had worked for near thirty years to bring enough food on the table.
“Most of it was from that inheritance. I also deal in simple business that my abilities and senses make me good at, like clever investment, and breeding horses and then selling them. You would be surprised to know how many humans fail to pay attention to their horses properly, and a little attentiveness rears abundant health.”
“Impossible. There must be something else you do, something for a living. You have never told me what exactly all your work is, Solomon. Every day you hide in your study and work until dinner, or you engage in business trips all the time. Where do you go? What do you do? Why?”
Solomon chuckled, holding up his finger. “One question at a time, Anneka. You are right, I do make a living off of my true passion. I have not told you this until now, but my mother had an unnatural power of persuasion. It’s something that I inherited, too.”
“You can persuade people? Could you make them do something against their will?”
“Perhaps. I have never been able to, but it’s probably possible. You see, I would like to believe that because of my mother’s nature, I am not an entirely damned being under God’s eyes. And so ever since I learned what I am, I have tried to redeem myself. I work for the poor.”
I stared quizzically at him. Was Solomon joking?
“I write letters, to the wealthy and to the powerful. I argue cases against them for the poor, and I ask them to join my cause and help prevent injustice just because of their financial state. My business trips consist of me visiting a nearby village, or even London sometimes, to visit my clients and doctor them and make networks.”
“How noble,” I muttered, slightly put out that he was doing perfectly respectable, normal and even saint-like work.
“Damascus is an advisor. He is well-skilled with ministering to peoples’ needs, and he is very persuasive himself. But he is only a human being as well; I met him when we were both caring for London’s beggars one December night. Since then, we have always worked together.”
“You are friends?”
“I would like to think so. He is the only human I have been able to entrust everything I have told you, up until now. None of my business associates—like Phillip and Vernon—they know nothing about me, except that I might have an unhealthy obsession with the poor’s welfare.”
“You actually do care about other people,” I mumbled aloud.
“Yes, as hard as it is to believe,” Solomon smiled wryly. “Though Damascus says I empathize too much with them…a few weeks ago I lost an important court case and it cost an innocent, destitute man’s life.”
“That was the week when you were horribly depressed,” I said suddenly, remembering how he had been so utterly listless. That had been when I’d tried to fix him a perfect dinner, which has led to the roses incident.
“Why, yes,” Solomon nodded in surprise. “You noticed?”
“You were practically moping around the entire manor for days! Of course I noticed.”
He thought about this for a while, and then turned on his side. “You are more perceptive than I’d given you credit for.” This thought seemed to worry him. “Interesting how I haven’t been able to pick up on that.”
“I’m sure every enchantress’s son makes mistakes,” I rolled my eyes. “Speaking of which…”
“Haven’t I answered everything for you?” Solomon scowled.
“Not even close. I want to know…what was your mother’s name? Is she still alive?” I asked quietly, hoping that he didn’t think I was being disrespectful.
Far from it. He smiled, almost mirthfully, as if enjoying a joke that I wasn’t aware of. “Why Anneka, I would have thought you of all people would know.”
“What…what do you mean?”
Smirking, his charcoal eyes caught mine. “Surely you know who my mother would be. I thought I made it quite clear.”
“Solomon, what—“
“Anneka, sweet, my dear mother is…why, she is the matchmaker.”
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So I have an idea. And it’s terribly for my own benefit, but I would love to see some of your guys’s writing. The challenge/dare/contest is this: write a short one-shot/back story about the relationship between Solomon’s parents. You can base it off of any aspect of it—how they met, their casual relationship, and maybe even how they “broke up.” As long as it has to do with his parents with the way that Solomon described them, go for it. Then, post it on quizilla and send me the link, and I’ll publish every contestant’s link, and the entire story of the winner. The deadline is the end of October: happy writing! I’m excited to see what you guys come up with :)
