Hunter

Chapter 14

         Although exhausted, I had litteraly rushed home as soon as I had been out of Henri's sight. As I arrived, I climbed the stairs and went to Arthur's room. My heart missed a beat: Agate was indeed in her brother's room and played with what she could find, Ul was still sleeping on the bed, but Arthur was gone.

"Daddy!"

A cheerful smile enlightened her face, drawn by childhood's carefreeness.

With the same haste which had brought me home, I kneeled before her.

"Look! I..."

"Where is your brother?!" I asked.

"He went to walk Ulysses."

I rubbed my face with my hand and gave a look to our dog lying on the bed. Panic to ahold of me and I had to inhale deeply to stay calm.

"No he didn't, chérie! Ul is here, look!"

"I know" she said. "But that's what he told me when I asked him where he was going."

Arthur was gone. My son was gone. I got up and for a minute my empty eyes scanned the room searching for nothing, finding nothing. Then, I kneeled again before Agate.

"Daddy is going to join Arthur. You stay here, okay?"

She nodded, without looking at me, her eyes absorbed by the cork she was holding.

A few minutes later, I was outside, searching every corner of the garden, garden of which I did not even know the exact extent. Susanne had insisted for us to live in the country and we did not have neighbours nor fence. Our house was in the middle of a big clearing, itself in the middle of the woods. Around me, there was nothing but a vast stretch of grass, turned yellow by the sun. But Arthur was not there. The only place left in the surroundings were the woods. I started to run towards them.

It was a very deep and thick forest. So thick even the sun hardly pierced its green shell.

"Arthur!"

I could no longer run, I was exhausted by my sleepless night. I walked on laboriously between roots and the doughy humus which squeaked under my shoes.

"Arthur!"

There were only one or two hours left before the sunset. If I were late to the office, this time it might be Henri who would come get me, not Bob. I could not afford to risk him coming.

"Ouch! ... fuck."

My attention had started to decline, I was scratching my legs in the brambles, stumbling in the ferns.

"Arthur! Please..."

Suddenly, a rustle in the foliage caught my attention. I turned and Arthur appeared from behind a bush.

A huge relief filled me.

"Thank god! I said stepping towards him.

"Non!"

He motioned to stop me. He was still shaken and his features showed a hard expression, filled with anger.

"Stay back. That's enough now!"

I stopped, grasped with an awful fear because I was afraid of what he was about to say.

"You had no right to hide the truth from me, you and Susanne!" he yelled.

Susanne. He had not called her "mom". This intended change broke my heart and I was terrified he might not consider me his father anymore.

"Arthur, li..."

"No! I don't want to hear it! You lied all these years! How coud you do this to me? You killed my mother! Ripped me away from her! And still... Still you managed to look at me in the face, to pretend you were my father! And above all, you never said anything about my true nature! I hate you for this! I hate you!!!"

I thought I was dying. My heart was not only broken anymore, it was stabbed, burnt, dissolved... completely annihilated by these words. I wished I could say he did not mean them, yet I could only see anger in his eyes, a violent anger...

"You are my son. No matter what you say."

"That's wrong! It's wrong and you know it! We don't have anything! We don't have the same blood!"

"Blood isn't everything."

I was destroyed. I felt a terrible pain twist my stomach, but it was Arthur who bent double, grabbing his ribs, setting up an alarm in my head. This time, I crossed the space between us and grabbed his shoulders, panicked.

"Arthur! What's going on?!"

His nose was bleeding.

Crack.

No, impossible. Not again?! His bones. His bones started to twist and break. He let go of his ribs, strongly pushed me away.

"No, I don't want to... I don't want to." he grumbled.

I was paralysed and lost. I had no idea how to help him, I was powerless. He kept repeating he "did not want to", but the pain had him scream everytime he felt a part of his body turning.

Then, all of a sudden, he collapsed to the ground, inconscious. His body had stopped changing and the parts which had started to turn seemed to go back to their original shapes.