Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris (Harley Merlin, #6)

“Help me, Mom! Help me!” I begged.

From the vapor, limbs formed, and then a head, so familiar and yet so totally new and strange to me. I’d only seen her in photographs, but those pictures hadn’t done any justice to her beauty. However, I didn’t have much chance to admire her, as she raised her hands and whispered something into the ether.

“Et abiit, ex inferis spirituum. Quam tibi debitum reditus tempus enim. Sit legibus alligatus huius regni. Ne molestum nobis iterum!”

In the space of a second, the ghosts withdrew, dissipating into the darkness like fog rolling away from a morning field. I almost collapsed with gratitude.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Slowly, my mother turned to face me, her eyes sad. “Oh, honey… I know this sounds awful, but I was hoping I wouldn’t see you here.”





Thirty-Six





Harley





“What do you mean?” Her words hit me like a freight train. Wasn’t she happy to see me? I blinked hard, still shocked that I was actually seeing her and talking to her—the mom I’d never known.

She smiled. “You’ve put yourself in a world of danger to be here. I had a horrible feeling that you’d come, and I was helpless to stop it. I would rather have gone on for a thousand years, trapped in this existence, than have you risk your life to come to this place.”

“I had to.”

“I know you did, honey. It’s in your nature. I’ve heard Katherine talking about you, and I knew you would have to follow your heart and do something like this, to stop her from achieving her goal. I just wish there might’ve been another way. One that didn’t put my daughter’s life on the line.”

“Is it bad to say that it was worth it, just to see you?” Tears choked my throat as I looked up at my mom for the very first time since she gave birth to me. This moment had been nineteen years in the making, and I still wasn’t ready. Love and grief radiated out of her like a furnace, overwhelming my own emotions.

“I’d say the same, if I knew that you’d be safe,” she replied, with a sad chuckle. “I never envied Katherine for anything when I was alive, but I envy her for having the chance to see you all grown up. She stole my life, and she stole every second I might’ve had to watch you grow. I’ve been trapped here, neither living nor dead, unable to cross over. And every day, every minute, every second, I’ve thought of you. I’ve thought of the young woman you’ve become, and I’ve hoped, with all my heart, for you to be happy.” She reached out a ghostly hand. I reached back, my fingertips drifting through hers.

Just let me touch her. Just let me hold her hand. Just let me hug her. Tears fell from my eyes as I tried again and again, unable to make contact of any kind. I’d never hold her; I’d never feel her arms around me, hugging me tight; I’d never get to do all those things that had been stolen from me, too.

“This isn’t fair,” I murmured, trying to brush my tears away. It was useless—more came, trickling down my cheeks in an endless stream. A painful sob racked my chest as I struggled to come to terms with this harsh reality. I wanted my mom. I wanted her to be alive and breathing, with solid arms and solid skin. I wanted everything I’d never had. If I could have found a spell to turn back this whole world nineteen years, I’d have done it in a heartbeat, just to be able to look into my mom’s eyes and have her pull me close.

“I know, sweetheart.”

“Why didn’t he save you?” I was weeping properly now, unable to stop the tears and the sobs from rising up my throat.

“Who?”

“Dad. Why didn’t he save you?” Bitterness lingered in my voice. “Why did he kill you instead of saving you? He fought the curse off when it came to me, so why not you? I don’t understand how he could do that—how he could see you and not know that he had to stop.”

Her wispy hands sailed right through my shoulders, leaving a chill. I’d never know how warm she was, in real life. This was all I got, and I had to remind myself to be grateful. I could have gone on for the rest of my life without even seeing her, but at least I had this moment.

“Don’t blame your father, Harley. He did what he could to try and stop himself, but she was too strong. That curse she used on him was too powerful,” she said, her tone desperately sad. “He managed to save you because Katherine wasn’t there at the time. She didn’t know anything about you, and Hiram used that opportunity to take you away while she was busy elsewhere.”

“Was Katherine there when he… when he killed you?” I asked.

My mom nodded. “His proximity to her meant he couldn’t fight off the curse. She was the source, and she was in the room when it happened. She trapped my spirit as soon as Hiram killed me, because she was hiding in the shadows.”

“Why didn’t she kill you herself? If she hated you so much, why didn’t she—” My voice broke.

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “It was precisely because she hated me so much that she wanted to watch me die at the hands of the person I loved most. And she wanted to punish me, even after I was gone.”

“I’ll rip her freaking head off.” I wanted to use much stronger language, but this was my mom. I didn’t want to give her a bad impression of the woman I’d become.

She chuckled sadly. “You are strong, Harley, stronger than any of us who’ve gone before you. I suppose I knew you’d be extraordinary, even before you were born. I thought it was just a mother’s pride, you know, thinking my child was better than everyone else’s. But you are. You’re strong and fierce and kind and good, and that’s all I could’ve asked for.”

“I’ve missed you so much.” I choked on the words, my vision blurry. “Every day, I wondered what I’d done wrong, to get dropped at some orphanage. But, even then, I missed you. I didn’t know who you were, but I missed you so much. It was like a huge hole in my heart that I couldn’t fill up. And then, I found out who you were, and what had happened, and that hole got so much bigger. I knew I’d never be able to fill it up, because you’d been taken from me, and you were never coming back from that. What made it worse was the fact that I knew, after all that time, that I’d actually been loved. I’d spent so long thinking nobody loved me and nobody cared, but that wasn’t the truth at all.” I sank to the ground, struggling to breathe. It felt like I was having an all-out panic attack. My chest had seized up, my heart pounding, my throat narrow.

“Oh, Harley.” Her voice made it all the more painful. I could feel the agony flowing away from her, wrapping around my heart, squeezing the air out of my lungs. This was so much harder than I’d ever imagined. “If I could have changed it all, I would’ve. If I could’ve killed Katherine, or stopped her in some way, I would’ve done everything in my power to do that. But know this: you’ve always been loved, even though it had to be from afar. You’ve always been right here, every day of your life.” She pressed her wispy hand to her breast, her face so sad that it broke me all over again.

“Then why did you let him kill you? Why didn’t you fight?” The tears kept flowing down my face.

“I didn’t have the strength to fight him,” she replied. “I’d given birth to you, and I’d hidden you away. I had nothing left to give. But, even when he killed me, I knew he didn’t want to. I could see it in his eyes as he held my gaze, right up until the last moment. He was crying when it happened, and his hands were shaking, as if he was trying to fight back. If she hadn’t been there, he would have defeated that curse. He loved me, and he loved you, and he loved the world we’d created together. He’d been so excited about meeting you, and he used to talk all the time about what we’d be like as a family. It was all he’d ever wanted.”