Axel Edge (Marcus’s father) – died in the cells of the Council under Retribution
Massimo Edge (Axel’s father) – committed suicide in the cells of the Council
Maximilian Edge (Massimo’s father) – died in the cells of the Council under Retribution
Castor Edge (Maximilian’s father) – died in the cells of the Council under Retribution
Leo Edge (Castor’s father) – died in the cells of the Council under Retribution
Darius Edge (Leo’s father) – died in the cells of the Council under Retribution
Celia says that the name of Darius’s father is less clear as this was around the time the Council of White Witches became a formal organization, and records before this time are poor. But from stories a few more generations can be added with reasonable certainty, which are:
Gaunt Edge (Darius’s father) – killed by Hunters in Wales
Titus Edge (Gaunt’s father) – killed by Hunters in woodland somewhere in Britain
Harrow Edge (Titus’s father) – killed by Hunters somewhere in Europe
I asked Celia, ‘Did any of my ancestors live a long and happy life?’
‘Some of them lived to their fifties. I don’t know how happy they were.’
So it’s no wonder my father is a little cautious. And I think of my ancestors and all their pain and suffering and I still don’t understand why. I just don’t understand. I am kept in a cage and none of it makes sense. I don’t want to live in a cage and I don’t want to die in a cell and I don’t want to be tortured and I don’t want to kill my father. I don’t want any of it, but it just goes on and on and on.
I wonder if I ever have a son what the future will hold for him. Maybe I’d do what Marcus has done: just leave him and hope that somehow he will have a better future without me. And yet here I am shackled up in a cage and I know it’s hopeless and hopeless and hopeless.
But even with all that suffering and pain and cruelty I think that maybe my ancestors did find happiness, even for a brief time. I think I’m capable of that and they must have been too. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. Cos if I’m going to die in a cell I want to have something first. And I think of Arran and Annalise and being in Wales and running and every breath; every breath has to be precious and worth it and something important.
fantasies about my father
The routine keeps me busy and tired, but there are still times when I’m in the cage and I’m not in the mood for going into clouds or doing more pull-ups, so I just think.
I still like to imagine my dad coming to rescue me on my seventeenth birthday. I’m lying here in the cage all shackled up and there’s this silence, and then a distant sound – not wind, not thunder but his anger and rage. He appears over the hills to the west and he’s flying, not on a broomstick or a horse but standing as if on a surfboard, though there’s no surfboard or it’s invisible, and he’s flying towards me, dressed in black. And the noise gets bigger, the cage just explodes apart and my shackles fall off. He zooms round and slows down and I jump on to my own invisible surfboard and I’m flying off with him. It’s the best feeling in the world to be with my dad and flying and leaving the broken cage behind forever.
We go to the mountains where he lives and it’s lush and green, almost tropical. There, among the old trees and moss-covered stones, beside the clear stream, we sit and I am there with my father and he gives me three gifts – a knife, a ring and a drawing – and I drink his blood warm from his hand and he whispers the secret words in my ear and we stay together forever, hunting and fishing and living in the woods.
That one’s my main fantasy, I guess: the one I always go back to.
I have other fantasies as well. Annalise features in most of them and there’s lots of skin and sweat and kissing and tongues. Mostly I imagine I’m with her on the sandstone slab; she’s in her school uniform, Kieran has never found us and I kiss her and undress her, sort of slow but nice, unbutton her blouse and her skirt and kiss her skin all over.
My other fantasy is pretty similar: Annalise and I are on the sandstone slab and she undresses me, pulls my T-shirt off, unbuttons my jeans and kisses my chest, my stomach, my skin all over.
Then there are variations: she is undressing me on a hillside in Wales; she is undressing me on a beach; she is undressing me in the sunshine, in moonlight, in a rain shower, in mud and puddles.
In those fantasies I don’t have any scars.
The most recent variation is that I am in my cage and I blast it apart just by thinking about it, then Annalise appears and we kiss and I undress her and kiss her all over and she undresses me and kisses my chest and my stomach and my back. I have all my scars but she doesn’t mind and we make love on my sheepskins surrounded by the broken bits of cage.