-3-
“WHAT – what are you doing here?” I stammer.
Mara’s looking at my mother as if she’s seeing a ghost. In fact, this is about as strange an occurrence: parents never visit their children in the manor. Why would they? We don’t need them. We can’t rely on them anyway.
Mother reaches for me and touches my shoulder. “Leia. You’ve grown so much.” Her gaze lands on the necklace I’m wearing. Tears pool in her eyes. “How are you?”
“Fine,” I reply stiffly.
“And how’s Colin?”
“Fine as well.”
Her eyes never leave my face. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispers. “I should never have let the two of you go.”
I blink. “What do you mean? That’s what we do.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t believe that anymore,” she mumbles almost inaudibly.
“What do you mean, you don’t believe it anymore?”
“It’s not right.” She wrings her hands. “It can’t be right to let your children go so soon.”
“What about father?” I ask, bewildered. “Is he going to show up next?”
“Your father is dead,” she replies in a monotone.
I swallow the lump in my throat in the silence stretching between us.
“Dead?” I repeat lamely.
My mother nods quietly.
I wasn’t expecting this. I expected to run into my parents again in a few years’ time. I would have seen them from afar, in the market square. I would have had a courtesy chat with them in the village shop. They would never have visited. They’d never have gotten to know my own children, but they would have been around.
I will never see my father again.
“What happened?” I ask softly.
“The flu took him. He was running a high fever and the healer was at the end of his rope. There was nothing to be done.”
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “My condolences.”
I have gone my own way. I can stand on my own two feet. I don’t need my parents, and they won’t be there for me. The Force is the only thing we can rely on. So why do I feel so terribly sad and empty after hearing this news?
“Thanks,” my mother mumbles. “I hope you’ll come home soon.”
I nod grudgingly. “Once I’m ready to get married I’ll come back. And not a moment sooner.”
My mother looks from me to Mara and back. “Tell me – is Saul still running the show in the manor house? He never signs his newsletters.”
“Yes,” Mara replies, pulling an appalled face. “Together with Ben.”
Mother frowns with worry. “So it’s true.”
“What is?” I ask.
She looks at me seriously. “Honey, Saul is twenty-one. He should have left a long time ago. Something’s not right.”
Twenty-one? The oldest age at which someone leaves the manor house is nineteen, and even that is more the exception than the rule. Puzzled, I shake my head.
“It’s time for an intervention from Newexter,” my mother continues. “I will tell the Eldest.”
“What?” I erupt. “An intervention? No way!” The Eldest may be of high standing because he survived the longest, but that doesn’t give him the right to decide things for us over here.
“We only want to help you.”
I scoff disdainfully. “We don’t need your help. We can take care of ourselves.” Before she can spout more nonsense, I push open the gate and pull Mara along. Inside, I’m boiling with rage. If Saul is indeed too old to stay here, we will call him out on it. The parents in Newexter should stay in Newexter and let us handle it.
And then I suddenly think of her again. Mother. She looked so lonely and pale. Was she really worried about me and Colin? Why would she?
Hesitantly, I glance back, but I don’t see her standing at the gate anymore.