Spider's Game ((Book One) #Wattys2016 Winner!)

Chapter 15- Weddings and Houses

The church was a solid structure- squat and remote. On all sides spread rocky fields with grass and flowers sprouting from the cracks. Beyond the rocks the horizon sported trees, mountains and a distant city rippled in the waves of heat. Dual roads one for cars and one for carriages spread out both North and South from the church. Darith sat back in his wheelchair, watching the grass ripple.

The new suit clung, hot and heavy to his shoulders. Darith struggled to recall the last time he'd ventured to this place.

Belief in the gods was almost non-existent so the church only opened for weddings and funerals. Several weddings had passed since Petyr's funeral but those memories were hazy and distant, irrelevant to his life. Only the funerals stood out, and as he watched the grass dance, he pictured the ashes being scattered. Gray flecks coating the yellow flowers.

"I didn't understand back then what the crown of flowers you helped me make really meant," Marim said.

Her voice sounded angelic after two months in its absence. Only Gretta's reports to tell him how she fared-- that her nightmares were worse and she wept in the shade of clouds. Yet, in that instant Marim only seemed like her old self. The picture of innocence-- everything worth protecting.

"Darith." Her hand draped over his shoulder. "Those flowers grow from the dead. I imagine now they watch with the eyes of those passed."

"Go inside. You need to be getting ready," Darith said, moving his eyes to her. The intricate white lace of her wedding gown rippled in time with the flowers. She touched him with one hand and the slight protrusion of her belly with the other. He wanted to hold her, kiss those soft cherub lips. "Mother must be livid at your hair being down."

"Please, Darith, don't tell me to put it up. My mother wore hers down with a chain of pearls. I want a flower chain. I need it. My heart says that is the only way to have Petyr and Mom with me."

His throat pinched closed, and he took a deep breath to clear it.

"We should leave this planet, Marim. Leave the past." Darith placed his hand over hers on her belly. The child inside, as if sensing him, moved, the vibrations traveling through her fingers to his palm.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Marim said. "In the daylight, I can pretend but I feel it. The day this child comes the cocoon of their web will be complete. I don't know if I'll be able to find the light again. It's too late to escape."

"All those years ago, I swore to protect you. Here, in this field, I gave my word. I may not be much in the way of a gentleman but I keep my word. Your father allowed himself, then and now, to be hindered by the law. I have no boundaries, Marim. I won't let them win."

"Mom was pregnant when she died. Odd thing was, doctors said she was infertile. They didn't know how I'd even been conceived. Mom and Dad never talked about it, but she changed after Petyr's birth. She was afraid. I saw it. She'd welcomed the bad in and once you do that it's only a matter of time."

"That's nonsense."

"No. I let them in, and the poison must run its course."

Darith forced his eyes from her. He wanted to hold her until her voice lost the wandering listless quality. That the world would harm her, his one pure thing, was like a rat gnawing at his breast. For now, all he could do to shield her was wed her but it wouldn't always be so.

He focused the drive inside him, dwelling on her smile and stretched his hand in front of him. One at a time the yellow flowers snapped free and bound themselves into a triple rowed crown above his knees.

"Darith," Marim breathed.

When he looked up, a soft smile changed her expression to one fit for an angel, and tears shone in her eyes, one racing down her cheek to her chin.