The Stone

Eddus Brandt, 1955 – 2009

The stone at the head of the grave was small and simple. Isabella stood on a narrow footway between the rows, at the foot of her bonded-mate's resting place. Her gaze rested on the stone marker.

She felt ill as she read the engraving, her chest tight, as though her heart itself ached. How could his entire life be simplified to only a name and two numbers, separated by a dash?

"Eddus..." Isabella's breathing was laboured as she softly spoke his name. She felt odd speaking aloud, knowing that he was not there, although his body was roughly only two meters away, beneath where she stood. "Eddie, I-I can't believe- I don't know how to deal with this. I can't..."

Glancing up from the grave, Isabella looked around awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious. There was no one for as far as she could see. Except for the other bodies within their graves in the cemetery, she was alone. She knew that nobody could hear her, but she felt wrong and guilty, speaking his name like this. She felt exposed.

She also knew that this was the only way. Eddus couldn't hear her, but being with him, in whatever capacity this counted for, was the best she could hope for. She had so many feelings and so much that needed to be said, and she had to say it to him directly.

"Ealasaid is so beautiful," Isabella spoke in a hushed voice, again looking around her as if to make sure she was still alone.

Her stomach clenched as guilt washed over her. There was still no one to be seen, and therefore no one to hear her say the child's name, but she could not subdue the feeling. At any other time, she would not have dared to utter it, but here and now, she could not bring herself to call their daughter by another name in Eddus's presence.

"She is such a happy child. I see you every time I look at her. I keep the photograph of you that you gave me beside her bed. The other night, I showed it to her. She grabbed it and said, 'dah-dah'..."

Isabella had just spoken, the words pouring out of her. She inhaled sharply and quickly pressed her hand against her mouth as tears blurred her vision. She'd told herself that she was not going to cry, but her tears flowed freely at the thought of her now fatherless child.

In her mind, she saw her infant's smile and the way her daughter looked at her, the same way Eddus had. The idea that her little girl might have had to grow up never having met her father had been overwhelming, but the thought that the child's father was now gone forever was devastating.

"Eddie, my love, I need you to know that I never gave up!" she cried out suddenly. "On you, on us – I never stopped... I petitioned the queen over and over! Dain helped me. Sometimes I wrote several times a day; every day after you came back here."

Trembling, she dropped to her knees, both hands over her mouth, and wept. Her body quaked with each sob until she could no longer take a breath and had to remove her hands from her mouth. Gasping, she leaned forward, placing her hands on the ground. With her eyes closed, she slowly took several breaths through her mouth, tears dripping from her cheeks and the tip of her nose onto the grass over Eddus's resting place.

"It's not fair," Isabella's voice was weak and shook as she spoke. "It's not fair! It was too late- I was too late."

She leaned back, sitting on her feet. Eyes closed, she raised her head and inhaled deeply. As she did, her stomach convulsed and she lurched forward, heaving so hard that the muscles in her abdomen cramped. Retching, she gasped for air, choking as the two occurred simultaneously. She lowered her head to the ground, resting it on her right arm.

Emotion poured out of her, and she sobbed into the back of her arm, both hands in tight fists, clenching the grass she lay on. Her eyes hurt. Her head ached, and her body felt weak and fatigued, like she'd been hit in the solar plexus. Her knees burned where her bare skin met the grass and the earth under them, supporting her weight. The sweat on the back of her neck was uncomfortably cold in the morning breeze.

Slowly, and using what felt like all of the strength left in her, Isabella first raised her head, looking at the bottom edge of the gravestone through tired and bleary eyes. Catching a cough in her throat as her insides churned again, she swallowed hard to prevent the sick feeling from again welling up into her throat. She slowly raised her body until she was again sitting. Hands trembling, she loosed her grip on the tufts of grass she'd been holding, then, one grasping the other, she placed them on her lap.

"Eddie, I am so sorry!" she cried bitterly. "I had it, you know. I had the news we'd waited so long for. When I came to your house that night, it was to tell you that the queen had nullified your original sentence. They issued a new ruling: that if you were willing to stay in the realm, that is, to agree not to come back here, you could come and be with us, Ealasaid and I... Eddus, the queen was going to let you come home!"

Her mouth dry, Issabella swallowed again, fighting that feeling in the back of her throat. The word home seemed so cold and foreign as she said it. While home for her would always be with her daughter, she could no longer refer to the faerie realm by that word.

She wanted nothing more than to leave the pain and sorrow of the human realm forever. And while she bore no hatred for the realm itself, she knew that there was no possible future for her there. She could easily refuse to ever return to the world of humans, but she also knew that it would mean being confined to that of the fae.

And she would confine herself to the faerie realm for their daughter's sake, though she couldn't bear the idea of living in the realm responsible for the death of her human, her bonded mate. While the thought of it filled her with anger and even hatred of her own world, that nagging thought at the back of her mind would constantly remind her for the rest of her life that she, ultimately, was to blame. Eddus had only come into the faerie realm because of something she had said.

Issabella shook her head, trying to push the thought out of her mind. With Eddus no longer in it, Issabella desperately wanted to leave the human world and hoped that her grief would not follow her. At the same time, she knew that Eddus' permanent absence from her life would only compound her heartache.

Pushing the fingers of her right hand between the black fabric of her dress and her left breast, she retrieved a piece of parchment. It had been folded three times and then folded again in half. It was sealed with scarlet-red wax.

Holding it with both hands, Issabella gazed at the wax seal holding the folded paper closed, rubbing her thumb over the Royal Seal of the Fae pressed into it. On it, the queen's new ruling had been put in writing so that it could be taken to Eddus physically. The name 'Ed' had been hand-written just above the seal in what almost looked like a type of calligraphy.

"I've kept this with me from the moment I received it," Isabella said, "and I came to show it to you as soon as I could make arrangements for Ealasaid."

Her voice trailed off, and she was quiet for a moment as she fought not to think about the night she'd found out about Eddus' death. Glancing from the parchment she held to the headstone, she nodded slowly. Breaking the seal, she unfolded the parchment. On it, in the same handwritten penmanship as was above the seal, was written the queen's new ruling.

Isabella sighed wearily.

"Ed," she read aloud, though softly. Her voice was at as she struggled not to show any sort of emotion. "This document is to serve as physical notification of the reversal of the Queen's ruling."

Clenching her eyes closed, Issabella inhaled a long and wavering breath. Using the back of her left hand, she wiped the tears from her right cheek, then her left. She opened her eyes, looking at the parchment she held. Blinking back her tears, she began reading again, her voice faltering:

"After much deliberation, the Queen's ruling that one, Ed, the human who wilfully crossed the barrier between the realms without permission or invitation, and was then banished from the Realm with the sentence of immediate death upon return, is hereby invalidated and now void.

A new decision has been reached, and after careful consideration, it is the Queen's ruling that Ed be permitted to return to the Realm of the Fae to reside with his bonded-mate and their offspring, providing that he agrees to remain within the Realm henceforth and-"

Isabella's hand slowly dropped to her lap, still clutching the letter. She pursed her lips, shaking her head.

"There's more," she sighed, "but it doesn't matter now... It goes on to explain that the decision was reached after several appeals had been made, including the ones Dain made on our behalf."

Again, she fell silent, placing the paper on the ground just in front of her.

"I misjudged him, Eddie. I was wrong about Dain." Isabella began speaking, her words again spilling out.

She then spoke quickly. She was trying to explain something she deeply regretted. In truth, she felt ashamed when she thought about her distrust of the faerie guard in the beginning.

"From the start, he only ever wanted to help you, Eddus. He helped me, too, with what to write in my appeals to the queen. He wrote appeals of his own and submitted them with mine. He took Ealasaid and I to meet his mate and asked about you every day. He is quite possibly the reason for the queen's... He- He-"

She felt a chill start at the back of her neck and slowly crawl down her spine, causing her to shudder.

"He doesn't know..."

Isabella's gaze dropped to her lap, and then she looked at the grave marker.

"Dain doesn't know that you- Eddie, he was so happy when the queen issued the new ruling. He came to tell me about it even before I was summoned to be told about it. He wanted so much to be there when I brought you back."

Squinting up into the bright and cloudless sky, Isabella shook her head, unable to prevent the tears that spilled down her cheeks. For several minutes, she wept, unable to hold back the response to it all.

Exhausted, she again felt sick and physically fatigued. Every muscle in her body trembled in pain, and she swayed for a moment before falling forward, catching herself using her left hand. Bending her elbow, she lowered herself to the ground and rolled onto her left side. She laid her head down on the ground, the grass against her temple. Tears still flowing, her stifled sobs were audible only as whimpers.

Looking toward Eddus' headstone, she reached toward it with her right hand, then lowered her arm to the ground. Her gaze came to rest on the dull grey mark – that of her bonded link to the man in the grave that she lay upon. There was a cold emptiness inside of her that was her mate's absence, and she knew it could never be filled. Closing her eyes for a few moments, Issabella tried to steady the waver in her breathing. She could feel the pounding of her racing heart in her ears and an ache in her chest.

Weariness began to set in, and Issabella felt herself start to fade into unconsciousness as the heaviness in the back of her head began to throb. She forced her eyes open, her arm once again in view. The throbbing grew until the pressure in her head was almost the only thing she could feel, and her eyes became heavy. As they closed, through her tears, she thought she saw the slightest glow from beneath the mark on her arm.