Enchanted by freckles - short stories

Story 38 - Loss

Caelie's point of view (a few months after Fiona's birth):

"Are you okay?", Garreth asked me when he came home and saw my tense expression.

"Garreth, we need to go see your parents," I said quietly. Sebastian nodded, and took care of the children while we apparated to his parents together.

"Gary, we have to tell you something," Yvain began, wiping a tear from his eye, "Helia has died," he said quietly. Garreth began to cry, "Where is she now? How did it happen?" "Old age. I found her in the shed this morning."

Wordlessly Garreth went into the shed, took the dead kneazle in his arms and disappeared.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll just prefer to bury her in your garden," Yvain said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

It was ten or fifteen minutes when Garreth returned. His clothes were dirty and he was still crying.

"I want to go to the basement." he said and went inside. I went after him as he began to look around his grandpa's room. He picked up his wand and looked at it. "It's almost like mine," he said quietly.

"Why did you want to come in here now?", I asked, looking at him worriedly. "Because I'm sad right now anyway."

Garreth's father came downstairs and sat on the bed. "Hurts to be in here," Yvain said softly. Garreth just nodded. "Do you want me to go out?", I asked. I felt a little out of place, but Garreth shook his head, "No, please stay. Your presence helps me."

Garreth opened one of the wardrobes and looked around. He picked up some clothes and placed them on a chair. "Leaving them here to rot is no use either, I think," he muttered.

Yvain joined him and took a few shirts aside as well. Suddenly Garreth took a step towards the small window. "Ah, I found Grandma's ring." he said, handing it to his father as he continued to look around the wardrobe. "No, that's not Mum's ring. Mum had much more slender fingers. Besides, she was buried with her wedding ring," Yvain said, looking genuinely irritated.

Suddenly the ring fell out of his hand and dropped on the floor under a cupboard. "Shit." he muttered. "I'll just get my wand and ask Pelleas and Matilda if they know whose ring it is.... strange."

Garreth found some books, which he looked at a little more closely as he continued to cry. "Why do you want to torture yourself like this now?", I asked, sitting down with him. "Actually, I wanted to look around here a while ago, but well, as you can imagine, I'm not doing too well after that. Although it was foreseeable that Helia would die soon. It was a miracle that she got this old in the first place. She had been around for a while when I was born. But it still hurts." "I believe you. I felt the same way back when we moved into Marlee's house."

It was a few minutes before we suddenly heard some people coming downstairs.

"Well, let's see then," said Pelleas. Yvain knelt down on the floor shone his light under the cupboard before conjuring it up with Accio.

"There's a bunch of notes down there." he continued irritated as he showed the ring to his siblings. "I don't know any woman with fingers that wide," Pelleas said, shaking his head. "Do you think he was having an affair?" asked Matilda, looking at them both sceptically. "No, absolutely not. I don't think he'd do that."

Sceptical now, the three began to look around while Garreth tried to pull out one of the slips of paper that lay under the cupboard. When he couldn't reach it, he asked his father to lift the cupboard briefly with the help of Levioso. No sooner said than done, Garreth read through the letters under the window.