***
For a long time, Paul and I stared at one another, him smiling pleasantly, and my face impassive. Neither of us wanted to break the silence, as both of us were using it as a weapon. Me not speaking was supposed to lead him to question my intentions (was I going to beat up on him, or were we merely going to talk?) and him not speaking was supposed to make me think that he would not be saying anything at all. I thought that I would be the one to initiate conversation eventually, but alas, he broke our mind-game stalemate first.
“So, how have you been keeping, Brynna? I am very sorry about how out of hand things got when you and your dear Rexprimus were in my company the last time. I do not think they would have shot you, even if you had not set a hive of Shadows on us.”
“But they would have shot him?”
“Of course they would have, and they would have suffered terribly for it. They did suffer terribly, for disobeying my orders. Thank God I showed up when I did, otherwise…”
“Otherwise you would have missed my epic escape plan working magnificently.”
“Yes.” He smiled, “I suppose I would have. But even if you had not unleashed the Shadows, I would never have let them harm your love right in front of you. At least not there, of course. Tyre wanted to dispatch the great king himself, and he would have made you watch. But I could never be so cruel as to let you see that.”
“He is not my love. He is my friend.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. James Maxwell is your love. But then, I thought you two had had a falling out?”
“We reconciled.”
“How nice.” He smiled almost genuinely. “Does Mr. Maxwell know of our arrangement?”
“He does.”
“And he agrees that it is a sensible and fair trade?”
“He does.”
“So, we are on then?”
“I do not know. You know, you have not offered me any proof, irrefutable or otherwise, that my mother is actually alive. So, why should I even consider what you asked of me?”
Paul leaned as far forward as his hands being bound behind the chair would allow.
“Because your mother is alive, Brynna. You will have to trust my word. You will also have to trust me when I say that she will not be for much longer. It is not that your father would ever let them execute her as they so wanted to do in the beginning. It is that she is very sick. You know what we do to stubborn ones where I am from.”
“I do not really, though I have heard plenty.”
“We make them un-stubborn.”
“Why? Because God says women cannot be stubborn? They must obey men?”
“Precisely. But it is not just women. Men have suffered greatly, too, when they do not shun their old ways and embrace our newer, better ways. Though honestly, our ways are not new. They are old, as old as the truths you scoff at in your blindness.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, looking, ironically, like Buddha for a moment. I almost laughed. “This is neither here nor there. Your mother is alive, and that is what matters. I will give her to you in exchange for Adam and his wife.”
“Why didn’t you just bring others with you? Why have you created this long, intricate game? Why did you not just bring several men with you, ambush our village, and take Adam and Janna?”
“Because we could not find your village, no matter how hard we tried. The trebestia are a danger to all human-like creatures, but they are also this village’s greatest defense. They cause confusion, even when they are not active, which is during the day. We have searched far and wide, and the few people we had buried here who tried to lead us here all failed miserably. Perhaps the forest knew of their ill intentions, and erased their ability to combat the confusion of the trebestia. That is why we needed you. Regardless of our setbacks, here I am. Here we are. You and me, Brynna Olivier.”
“I do not believe you. I do not believe a word you say. Your word that my mother is alive is simply not good enough, Paul. No deal.” I told him, and I began to stand up, resolving in my mind once and for all to forget the deal he had wagered and the empty promise he had made. I would forget that I had ever been apathetic when tempted and forget that that apathy had given way to an almost unhealthy, obsessive interest.
“If my word is not good enough, then I ask that you please untie my hands so I can show you what I have brought with me.”
“Not a chance.” I replied, marveling at how stupid he assumed I was.
“This is the irrefutable proof that you requested. I believe it is only fair that you at least look it over and decide from there. You have already treated me quite inhospitably even though I am a weary traveling guest…”
“Paul, if it will make you stop talking, I will look at your irrefutable proof. My stars…” With an irritated huff, I walked behind him, grabbed the knife off of the table in the corner of the room and cut through the ropes around his wrists. “Please do not think that I will not hesitate to stab you if you try anything.”
“Of course. Look…” He held up his hands as I moved in front of him. “I surrender. I just want you to see this.” He lifted himself up off of the chair so he could reach into his pocket. For a moment, I worried that he might have brought some sort of small, concealable weapon with him, and my grip on the knife tightened. I was prepared to throw it at him if he tried to attack me. After finding what he wanted in the pocket of his jeans, he put one hand, palm down, on the table, and the other, which he had balled into a fist, he slid across the table to me. His eyes never left mine when he opened his fist, and the clang of something metal hitting the wooden table sounded in the room between us, startling me though I did not show it by flinching or even blinking. When I looked down, though, hiding the sudden bout of nauseating shock that took hold of me was not complicated, it was impossible. My eyes widened, and I felt the blood draining from my face; I felt it migrating to my ears where it began to thump noisily. I stopped breathing normally. My vision blurred for a moment. My throat clenched under the threat of tears that, thankfully, I was able to suppress.
It was the ring my father had bought for her for their twentieth wedding anniversary, which had passed four years before the end of our world. There was no mistaking that it had belonged to my mother; there were four large, circular diamonds set into the silver band, and on the inside, engraved in fancy cursive were the names of my four siblings, three living, one dead.
“She never wore this. He could have taken it out of her jewelry box. He could have kept it on him. It was expensive, and God or the Gods know that he would want to make a profit off of it after paying nearly one hundred thousand dollars for it…”
“Brynna…” Paul looked at me in gently chiding amusement, “How likely is that scenario?”
“It is very likely!” I snapped, and now, the color was returning to my face as I got angrier. “She was with John when the world ended. She was seeing him again, and she never wore her ring when she was with him. She only wore it when she and John ended their relationship. If they were together, why would she have been wearing her ring?”
“Your father said she went back into the house and grabbed it. She made him stop the car so she could go get it.”
“If my mother were alive, why did my father keep her from us on the ship?”
“She did not recover well from taking the drug. It made her very ill.”
“For two and a half weeks?”
“Yes. Your mother was sickly on Earth, wasn’t she?”
The icy grasp those words took on my heart left me feeling dizzy and nauseous. I remembered her voice, so small, struggling so desperately to strengthen. “I have cancer.” “You can die.”
“If by ‘sickly,’” I hissed, “You are referring to her spending every night in the bathroom with her head in the toilet while she vomited out the copious amounts of cheap liquor she had consumed, then yes, she was sickly.”
He smiled, because he knew that I was omitting something.
“You know that is not what I mean, Brynna.”
“You still have not told me where she was while we were all on the ship?”
“She went into a coma briefly on the ship. Your father did not want to reveal that he was onboard, because he knew your sisters and brother would ask for her, too, and he did not want to worry them over her condition.”
“Paul, how likely is that scenario?” I asked, “He said she was dead when Violet asked him. Why would he lie?”
“She was as a good as dead.”
“So, when he went north with all of you, what did he do? Strap her to the back of a donkey? Carry her over his shoulder? Put her in a wheelbarrow?”
“By then, she was able to walk again.”
“No one else had such long-lasting side effects from the drug.”
“She was very intoxicated when she took it. You can imagine the effects that would have had on her heart.”
“You are lying. You are lying, and it is painfully obvious, Paul. Really, I expected more of my personal foil. I expected a little more of a challenge. To feel some inner doubt. Some mild intellectual discomfort. Really, I am just finding the effort you put into this attempt at trickery to be hilariously fruitless.”
“Am I lying? I would suggest that you call your dear Rexprimus in here to read my heart so he could confirm my story, but that would give our little secret away, wouldn’t it?”
“It is not a secret. I will tell him now myself, because you are lying. She is dead. I killed her by leaving her behind, and honestly, I would rather know that than to believe your ridiculous story for even a second.”
I stood up.
“She also had this on her. Your father was furious when he saw it, but she made quite a fuss when we took it. It took five of them to subdue her.” I had reached the door, but the curiosity got the better of me. I turned around to see that he was outstretching something. Out of his fist, I could see a silver chain dangling.
The ring had shocked me terribly. But what he dropped into my open hand shook me, truly, to my soul.
It was a small silver ring, with one small square-cut diamond. This was not from my father; given its charming modesty, it had to have been from John. For what felt like endless, painful minutes, I avoided looking at the inside of the band, but during those minutes, the temptation grew to a nearly riotous urging, until finally, my eyes looked, because my mind was demanding them to look so desperately.
And sure enough, there was my name, my lone name, written in elegant cursive beneath the diamond that stood alone, that was even cut differently than the other diamonds.
I left the room, hearing him shout after me that he knew he would be seeing me soon. I darted past Adam, James, and Don, who were sitting in the front room of the jail, and murmured quickly that Paul was untied. Then, I zoomed off before any of them could ask what had been said. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was being driven by the slight weight of those two small objects squeezed tightly in my sweating hands. Those two small rings, like furious, impatient, devastating, ticking bombs.