Witness: See Series (Volume 1)(65)

“Do you have something you want to ask me – us?” my mother finally said.

“Why?” I mumbled.

“Why what, Charlie?” she said in her familiar, unapproachable tone.

“Just forget it,” I said as I stepped back, prepared to end this. I wanted to go back to my room and fight my own battles.

As I stepped back, my father reached his hand for my arm, and I felt a warm calm feeling stop me in my tracks. My mother stood slowly and walked around her desk.

“Charlie,” she said as she leaned on her desk just before me. “Most mothers read fairy tale stories to their children - not nightmares.”

“What are you saying? That the two of you are a nightmare?!” I said, louder than I intended. My father let his hand fall from my arm and moved to my mother’s side. Once his arm was around her, I watched the wall she’d placed between us slowly fall.

Seeing them in each other’s arms nearly took my breath away. I’m sure most kids take seeing their parents in the same room or showing signs of simple affection for granted, but it was the one thing I wanted more than anything growing up: to have a happy, normal family.

“We are not a nightmare, but we had to fight one to be together – just like the one you’re about to fight,” she answered.

“It would have been so much easier if you’d told me, if I knew all along that this was coming. I would have figured out how to fight it by now.”

My mother’s blue eyes seemed to flood with wisdom. “Charlie, why would you have wanted to spend your life preparing for a moment that your heart will lead you through?”

“My heart? Are you serious? My heart isn’t the problem; understanding what I am what Draven is, this realm or dream world - that’s the problem. And then there’s Silas.”

As soon as I said Silas’s name, the expression on my father’s face grew angry, almost as if he were hurt.

“What?” I asked, looking at him. “Is he bad? How can he be bad when he carries so much calm and peace with him? Tell me what you know.”

My mother reached her arm around my father, and whatever anger he had faded with her attention. Then she looked at me and said, “He’s not bad, baby; he’s a warrior for our kind.”

“’Ours’ as in yours and mine – or ‘ours’ as in all of us?”

My mother looked up at my father, then to me. “As in the damned souls.”

“So he is bad,” I said as a breath of guilt escaped my soul.

Concern came over her beautiful face. “No, he’s doing what’s natural to him: defending the lost souls. And Draven and your dad are doing what’s natural to them.”

“Feeding on them,” I said before I was wise enough to choose safer words.

“Harsh words,” my mother said. “But true. It’s not their fault the darkness is pulled to them...they take what’s given to them....just like you take in air.”

“And what do we do, mom – you and me? How can we be both?”

“We balance…we see that the men we love aren’t evil or dark; they’re simply playing the role given to them.”

“According to Silas, this is my fault; he said I crossed a line – tried to save Britain, then Draven. That because of what I did, I’ll eventually end them, that all I did was make this worse.”

My mother reached for my hand. “Is it easy for you to conceive the idea of another life – this other realm? Seeing, moving your soul from one place to another with a simple thought?”

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?” I said with more sarcasm than was needed.

She smiled slightly as she let out a breath. “Then I did not hinder you by keeping you in the dark; I let you find a way to understand the unbelievable on your own.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you could see before? That dad was dark? Why didn’t you tell me so I’d know that I’d have to fight to keep Draven? Tell me how to save him...is...is...is his fate what dad’s was?” I asked as grief came over every part of me.

Both of them stood quickly and pulled me to them. “No, no,” my mother said over and over as she squeezed me tighter. I pushed away; I couldn’t look at either of them, especially my father.

“Listen to me, Charlie,” my mother said. “What happened to your father was nothing more than an accident. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. If that bus was parked, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d thrown that chair; he’d already made a choice to rise from the depths before he met me. When he did find me, that choice was amplified. He knew that fighting his demons – the pain – was worth it, even if it meant he would stay in this world. You don’t have to stay here.”

“I don’t understand. Why is living here bad? I want him to live here.”

My father reached his arms around me and rocked me back and forth as the gentle sound of a guitar came to life.

“This world is a prison for those like your dad, for those like us, only because it traps us here – because it forces us to live in a materialistic reality....we are blinded from the energy, the beauty all around us....life is not meant to be defined in reality....it’s meant to be felt, absorbed with every action.”

“What are you saying – that Draven wants to live in that realm?” I asked, slightly pulling away from my dad.