The Mark of a Death Eater : Sequel

Chapter Twenty Six

"Pst, Emma."

Breakfast - or brunch, rather - had been enjoyed with enough golden syrup and laughter to keep someone alive and well for years. Arianne, despite the harrowing circumstances of her fathers missing whereabouts, was a bright light in the house, scattering blueberries onto plates and joking about goblin laws.

It was clear that Sophia, Rose and Alia, and even Jasmine, were as enraptured by her cheerfulness and good heart as Zayn and I had been all these years. She fitted in well with the Osmans. It was almost as though she were made to be here, in this space, among the sunshine and flowers and cool shade.

Afterward, it was apparent that the Osmans had matters to discuss, so Arianne and I politely made ourselves scarce and they moved into the sunny parlor.

"Emma."

The whisper came from around the wall. I peered around the corner. Arianne stood on the last step of the stairs, feet bare, perched almost on her tiptoes, long dark hair swinging around her smiling face. She looked like a woodland elf from a muggle fairy story. I used to love those stories.

"Are you alone?" she asked.

I glanced around. "Except for you, yes," I said.

"Come on," she said, gesturing with her hand. She leaped over the wooden banister instead of walking around it, and danced her way past me, back into the dining room. As I followed her, I wondered what had put her in such a good mood today. Perhaps she, like me, had been gifted with the perfect morning.

She stopped just around the corner, near the table, and stretched out her pale hands. They were cupped around something.

"Here," she said, "it's for you."

She opened her hands.

Laying against her pale palms was a necklace. A long, jade-coloured crystal the size of my baby finger, attached to a thin silver chain. The crystal seemed to glow faintly in the sunlight, but as she lifted it higher for me to see, I realized it was the stone the crystal was made of that gave it the hue.

"My father gave it to me when I was younger," she said. "It leads you to where you're supposed to go. The right path, he always said." Arianne smiled down at it and said quietly, "he said it led him to my mother."

As I watched Arianne, I realized that there seemed to be something fragile about her happiness, like a golden light enclosed in a glass bubble hanging over a precipice. It appeared to me that she very much wanted to cry.

Arianne ran her thumb over the smooth green stone. "I never got tired of hearing the story."

There was a small silence.

Seeing Arianne so deeply happy yet sad at the same time, it hurt to look at it. So I said, "can I hear it?"

She laughed, a small, bright sound.

"I asked to hear it so many times," she said excitedly, taking a seat at the table. I followed her.

She cupped her hands around the necklace again.

"I never knew my mother, did you know that?"

I nodded.

"She passed away a little after I was born." She had a faraway look in her eyes. "But my father speaks of her so much, I feel like I've known her all my life. His very favorite story is about the day they first met. But he says the story started much earlier than that day."

Arianne's voice was beautiful to listen to. She spoke like a song. I suddenly wished I'd had her to read me bedtime stories.

"His father's father gave him the necklace when he was a boy. He told him that it would lead him to goodness and purity, and that it would show him the right way. My father always wore it. He says it never really did anything. It never moved or glowed or pointed him to the right path, but little things would always happen to make him believe that it was leading him the right way.