Celia says that the name of Darius’s father is less clear, as this was around the time the Council of White Witches became a formal organization, and records before this time are poor. But from stories a few more generations can be added with reasonable certainty, which are:
I asked Celia, “Did any of my ancestors live a long and happy life?”
“Some of them lived to their fifties. I don’t know how happy they were.”
So it’s no wonder my father is a little cautious. And I think of my ancestors and all their pain and suffering, and I still don’t understand why. I just don’t understand. I am kept in a cage, and none of it makes sense. I don’t want to live in a cage and I don’t want to die in a cell and I don’t want to be tortured and I don’t want to kill my father. I don’t want any of it, but it just goes on and on and on.
I wonder, if I ever have a son what the future will hold for him. Maybe I’d do what Marcus has done, just leave him and hope that somehow he will have a better future without me. And yet here I am shackled up in a cage and I know it’s hopeless and hopeless and hopeless.
But even with all that suffering and pain and cruelty I think that maybe my ancestors did find happiness, even for a brief time. I think I’m capable of that, and they must have been too. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. ’Cause if I’m going to die in a cell I want to have something first. And I think of Arran and Annalise and being in Wales and running and every breath, every breath has to be precious and worth it and something important.
Fantasies about My Father
The routine keeps me busy and tired, but there are still times when I’m in the cage and I’m not in the mood for going into clouds or doing more pull-ups, so I just think.
I still like to imagine my dad coming to rescue me on my seventeenth birthday. I’m lying here in the cage all shackled up and there’s this silence, and then a distant sound—not wind, not thunder but his anger and rage. He appears over the hills to the west and he’s flying, not on a broomstick or a horse but standing as if on a surfboard, though there’s no surfboard or it’s invisible, and he’s flying toward me, dressed in black. And the noise gets bigger, the cage just explodes apart, and my shackles fall off. He zooms around and slows down, and I jump onto my own invisible surfboard and I’m flying off with him. It’s the best feeling in the world to be with my dad and flying and leaving the broken cage behind forever.
We go to the mountains where he lives and it’s lush and green, almost tropical. There, among the old trees and moss-covered stones, beside the clear stream, we sit and I am there with my father and he gives me three gifts—a knife, a ring, and a drawing—and I drink his blood warm from his hand and he whispers the secret words in my ear and we stay together forever, hunting and fishing and living in the woods.
That one’s my main fantasy, I guess: the one I always go back to.
I have other fantasies as well. Annalise features in most of them, and there’s lots of skin and sweat and kissing and tongues. Mostly I imagine I’m with her on the sandstone slab; she’s in her school uniform, Kieran has never found us, and I kiss her and undress her, sort of slow but nice, unbutton her blouse and her skirt and kiss her skin all over.
My other fantasy is pretty similar: Annalise and I are on the sandstone slab and she undresses me, pulls my T-shirt off, unbuttons my jeans, and kisses my chest, my stomach, my skin all over.
Then there are variations: she is undressing me on a hillside in Wales; she is undressing me on a beach; she is undressing me in the sunshine, in moonlight, in a rain shower, in mud and puddles.
In those fantasies I don’t have any scars.
The most recent variation is that I am in my cage and I blast it apart just by thinking about it, then Annalise appears and we kiss and I undress her and kiss her all over and she undresses me and kisses my chest and my stomach and my back. I have all my scars but she doesn’t mind and we make love on my sheepskins surrounded by the broken bits of cage.
That’s a good one. I like it that she doesn’t mind my scars. I don’t think she’d like them really, but maybe she wouldn’t mind them too much.
And then there’s the fantasy that I don’t like to use too often, but I sometimes can’t help myself. In it I’m living in a cottage in a beautiful valley by a shallow, fast-flowing river that’s so clean and clear it sparkles even at night. The hills are covered with green trees that are almost humming with life, the forest is full of birds and animals. And my mum and dad are alive and living in the cottage and I live with them. Mostly I spend time with my dad, and we don’t sleep there in the cottage, we sleep in the forest and hunt and fish together. But we also spend time with Mum; she keeps chickens and grows vegetables. And summers are hot and sunny, and winters are cold and snowy, and we live together forever. My mum and dad grow old and are happy, and I stay with them and every day is beautiful forever.
Thoughts about My Mother
When I got back from Mary’s, Gran told me that Marcus and my mother were in love. But my mother knew it was wrong to love a Black Witch. She felt guilty about it. She married Dean and had his children and tried to be happy, but basically from the moment she met Marcus she was in love with him.
I wonder if she still loved Marcus after he killed her husband, the father of her children.
I guess when Dean found Marcus and my mother together there would have been a bit of a fight. Dean’s Gift was the ability to send flames from his hands and mouth, though it didn’t do him much good in the end, as Marcus must have fancied having that ability and he took Dean’s Gift.
When did the flames stop? Did they curl out with his last breath?
And where was my mother while all this was going on? Was she there? Watching my father eat the living heart of her husband?
And was it easy to kill herself, knowing that she’d loved someone who could do that? She loved someone who killed men, women, and children, who killed the father of her children. She loved someone who ate people. And when she looked at me, her child—Marcus’s child—and saw I looked like him, did she wonder what I’d be capable of?
Assessments
I have a monthly assessment now. Celia carries it out.
She starts off by weighing me, measuring my height, and photographing me. I don’t get to see the measurements or the photographs.
Then come the physical tests: running, circuit training. All the results are noted down. None of the results are shown to me.