Chapter 9
Damon
I wake as if it's an emergency, as if sleeping had become a dangerous thing. My heart beats fast and there is a buzzing in my brain and together they are as panic with jump-leads. Only now my brain is as a flat battery, the exertions of the night being a marathon of erratic problem-solving. As my eyes open my limbs flex in shock. There is a liquid in them, around my entire body too. I blink, blurriness fading, surroundings more crisp. The coldness of the air is more apparent, it dominates the air and the chill freezes my skin and the little brain power I can muster.
I look up up floating on my back to see a domed ceiling with a painting that is muted, the style reminiscent of Monet. Each stroke had a smudging quality that rendered the image watery, like a reflection in a rippled puddle. The scene is a street, London I'll bet, the umbrella bearing pedestrians battle against rain and the red double-deckers and black cabs rumble by. It reminds me of Oxford Street, looking out of a rain-splattered window at the rivers of people that moved in each direction. Like in this painting they moved so randomly, pushing against one another, flowing, like water.
Oddly it was calming.
Where am I?
Freya?
Fuck! What happened?!
With all the grace of a dying man I quickly swam to the edge of giant pool. Slamming my hand down on the cool white marble floor I started t pull my body up,"Ahem. You're going to need clothes wherever your running off to".
I turned to see an elderly woman setting a pile of clothes down for me. I sank back down in the water not realizing I had company. The old woman, was not the kind you pity with their old bones and feeble limbs, but the kind who could still run an army kitchen given half a chance. She stood quite tall and slim, her long white hair neat and likely styled with old fashioned rollers, the kind women used to sleep in. Her face is made up with discrete make-up except her lips that are cherry red. Were she any paler her mouth would be garish, but against her sun-kissed skin it looks right. She wore a greenish-blue gown made of soft, satiny fabric, long and loose. A semicircular, high collar made of silk-like materials headed the ankle-length robe. She walked as lightly as an acrobat. She had a soft beauty, and a strikingly sweet expression that was only amplified by her grey eyes.
Wait, I knew this woman.
"Thank you, ma'am".
"You're welcome", she smirked - just a small pouting of the lips; a narrowing of the eyes and a tilting of the head. It was so subtle, I couldn't tell if it really happened. "And I've been told congratulations are in order. You didn't waste anything with my granddaughter". This woman was human but her words crept down my spine like a careful spider leaving a trail of silk. She folded her hands primly in front of her and continued," I say this from a place of love and concern, not criticism and control, Freya is not ready for marriage. She has so much to learn. And she will regret getting married later on in life once she is older and better understands life. Freya will want that freedom to be able to make her own decisions. Marriage is hard work. Grind, commitment, and selflessness. Passionate love changes, sometimes even dies. You seem like a respectable young man, all I ask is that you give Freya time. Time to grow up, time to find herself and her wants. Will you do that for me?"
"I'm not going to leave Freya", I couldn't. I wouldn't. She was my half.
"I'm not asking you to leave. I'm asking for time".
I wanted to respect her wishes because I know what Freya's family means to her,"How much time?"
"Five years. What is five years when you'll have eternity?" She wasn't wrong there.
