The End of Times Chronicle

A reunion that wasn’t

The glass met the floor at an awkward angle. It was their fate that the moment they met, disaster would have followed. The pieces flew around Meave’s cabin as if trying to escape her anger. As if she was going to hunt them down and totally extinguish any physical evidence that the glass ever existed.
Meave didn’t care. After she had shattered the glass, she threw another one against the wall and then a cup and a plate and then she took a green coffee mug in her hand and she looked at it. She stopped.
“Better be careful with that”, said a voice with a London accent behind her, “that was my gift to you”
“You stole it”, said Meave without turning. She knew who the voice belonged to without having to.
“Still a gift”, he said coming closer to her, his right hand caressing her strong back. “Did you miss me?”, he asked.
Had she missed him. What a question. He was a young little angel who couldn't find his wings when Liam had found him, carrying the whole of Hell inside him and the weight of the world on his shoulders. A young libertine dressed in guilt. They had taken him in, sheltered him, taught him. He had been their guest, then their student, their lover, their husband, and finally their son. The son they never had.
Of course she had missed him. She had missed him like a teacher, welcoming back her favourite student and like a wife whose husband sailed far away seas. She had missed him like a mother waiting for her son to return from the war.
“A bit”, she answered turning to face him, “I’ll admit that much”. He hadn’t changed at all since last she saw him, with his tussled brown hair – like a schoolboy who had been wrestling other boys until the sun came down and the soup was ready and hot – his mischievous eyes and his smile. That boyish smile. She always did love it in silence. Nobody needed to know.
“Why are you here, Amadan?”, she asked narrowing her eyes in suspicion, “Do you not have business in Greece? Serious matters of the highest degree to attend to, what with you being a high and mighty Flambeau Master now?”
“I do”, said Gabriel, lighting a cigarette “but I missed you”
“You missed us?”, asked Meave taking the cigarette from his mouth and crushing it under her heel. “Never stopped you before from completely forgetting us”.
“That is unfair”, he said, “When have you called me and I have not come? When did you ask for me and I did not return?”. He took a step back and sat in one of the chairs. “Besides, it was you who told me to leave. It was you who let me go”.
“Aye, we did. Because we loved you.”, said Meave sitting beside him. She was calmer now, “we wanted what was best for you and what was best for you was that little slip of a girl with the ratty hair and the pointy face”. She snapped her fingers as if trying to remember. “What was her name?”, she asked herself.
“Nathalie”, replied Gabriel.
“Aye”, confirmed Meave, “Nathalie. She wasn’t having none of what we were giving you, she wanted you all for herself. And you were so in love with her you couldn’t see your own predicament if it came up to you and bit you in the arse”.
“I was not”, said Gabriel smiling, “I was never in love with Nathalie”.
“You were head over heels but you did not know it, fool that you are”, said Meave, “in love with a single English girl who wouldn’t share”.
She remembered now, clearly, Nathalie in the pouring rain, getting soaked from head to toe, her short brown hair clinging to her face, shouting "I love you, Gabriel Aldridge!", as if the rest of the world cared.
"You'll catch the death of you”, Liam had shouted from his window, ”get inside, for Lugh’s sake".
"Just fuck him and go to sleep already!", Meave had shouted not even bothering to get out of bed.
“Your memory plays tricks on you, Meave”, said Gabriel raising an eyebrow, “ It was Nathalie who was in love with me, not the other way around. I was in love with you.”
“Is that so?”, she asked smiling, “Yet I remember clearly that fine morning in Cork, when Liam had taken her shopping”. She ran her hands under her breasts. “ I pressed my naked tits on your hairless chest and put my hand down your pants”, she said, “and you were as soft as a poet's heart. Do you remember?”
“Vaguely”, he answered a cloud on his features.
“And I got down on me knees and I said 'Ah, shall I help you with that, then?' and you said ‘Please, don't.’”. She paused for effect. “What man pleads for a woman not to take him in her mouth?”, she asked.
“A man who is in love with someone else”, concluded Gabriel.
“Ah, I see the Fool is less of a fool these days.”, she exclaimed.
“And so I understood. And Liam understood”, she continued, “And we decided we had to let you go. Because we loved you.”
“I…”. Gabriel begun to say.
She interrupted him. He was good with words this one. The trick was not to let him speak too much or you might end up buying the air you just breathed.
“You didn't pay attention to us anymore”, she said, “all you cared for was Nathalie. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she coming? What would she say about this or that? What was her opinion of the city? Her views on the local customs? How did she like the fucking weather? And, then, when she came to find you how your smile brightened up my room.”
Gabriel lowered his head and furrowed his brow as if understanding for the first time.
“You had eyes for her only those days. It was plain to see for anyone with eyes.”, she added.
“I’ve never realised before”, he said.
“Of course you didn’t”, said Meave, “because you’re a fool. An Amadan.” She got up and fetched two cups, as if suddenly remembering her manners. She poured two shots of whiskey into each and handed him one. “Whatever did happen to Nathalie?”, she asked bringing her cup to her lips, “Did you marry her? “.
Amadan did not answer. He drank a good gulp.
“Maybe for a little while, then, yes? “, she smiled. She was being cruel, but it was alright. She’d said worse in the past and Gabriel always benefited from a good slap in the face. Who didn’t?
“What was that all about?”, he asked pointing at the shattered glass, obviously anxious to change the subject, “are you angry at Liam?”
“He’s been sleeping around”, she answered. It was her turn to take a long gulp.
“So?”, asked Gabriel, “Liam has been fucking half of the Isles ever since I’ve known you two. Has old age turned you into a housewife?”
“You watch your mouth, childling”, she snapped, “lest you fancy eating from a straw”.
“I’m just saying you have never been jealous before”, he said, “at least not THIS jealous. So… why now?”
“Because he didn't return.”, she said, “because HE is angry and he didn’t return”.
“So… What is it you fear?”, he asked smiling like a car salesman who just got you to buy the most useless car in the lot for an outrageous sum of money.
“I fear I may have gone too far”, she confessed, “I fear he may never return. I fear he will love another”.
“Well”, he said putting the cup on the table, “if that is the case, let him go. Let him be happy. You did the same for me. That’s what love is, no?”
“It’s not the same!”, she exploded, springing from her seat like a jack in the box, “It’s not!”. She threw her cup at the floor and it smashed into pieces. “He is mine!”, she shouted, “not Niam’s, not Emily’s not anyone’s. He can fuck anyone he wants in the fucking world as long as he’s back in my arms! Do you understand?”
“I understand”, he said caressing his beard, “you don’t love him, you own him.”
“Even so”, she said, fire in her eyes, “Why isn’t he here?”.
"Auntie?", said the young girl’s voice from the doorway, “Are you alright? Who are you talking to?”
Meave turned her head to the left, facing the doorway. The girl was dressed in a yellow dress, her hair the colour of an orange sunset, giving the impression of a small fragile flame in the December breeze. She looked just like her mother when she was that age, her green eyes wide.
"Go away, Molly, shoo”, she absent- mindendly snapped, “I'm talking to your father".
"Me da?", asked Molly, “But he's in the trolley with me ma”. She got inside and peeked around. “And there is no one else here”, she added.
Meave gathered herself. Indeed, there was no one here, except herself and her niece.
Was she going mad?
And what if she was?
What was love if not a kind of madness?
And being in love…
Being in love was absolute Bedlam.

The Sea Bitch

The young woman was dressed in a blue dress. It matched her deep blue eyes and her long black hair, well. It didn’t really matter what she wore, however. She was beautiful , she would have been beautiful in a sack with holes for her limbs and head, she would have been beautiful in a diving suit, she would have been beautiful in just about everything.
Meave was jealous of her, of course she was. They were about the same age, they had the same teachers and sometimes the same lovers, but never at the same time period.
It seemed to Meave that she took these shy boy children and showed them what went where and then Dolores would waltz in and charm them away from her, one after the other, with her mysterious wiles and her obscure love talk. Always promising, that one, but she belonged to no one.
She was like the sea, she was, coming in waves. Taking her lovers with her and drowning them in her depths only returning to tenderly lay the corpses on Meave’s feet. She was a hard one as well, all sweet talk and temptation, meaning each and every word at the time. But only for a short time. She kept trying to be tender but she was all salt and weeping mothers, Meave knew. She wasn’t evil, she was selfish. She had tried to be good and sometimes it worked. But not for long. You couldn’t rely on that red lipped smile to last for long, for Meave knew, that smile could be dressed in your blood in just a matter of seconds.
And they were nothing alike, one could easily say they were opposites, even by just looking at them. Meave was a short, red haired, lithe girl, Dolores was a tall, fully rounded sin of a girl with breasts that would have tempted a spirit of Chastity. Meave was shameless, Dolores would blush at the mention of kissing, Meave was always straightforward and disliked lying, Dolores always had plans within plans and hidden motives. Meave was quick to anger but seldom sought revenge , Dolores was calm but would plot vengeance for even the smallest slight.
It was to be expected that they wouldn’t get along that well but they were sisters, after all, and that bond could not have been denied.
When Meave had married Liam, back when they were both in their youth and everything seemed to be made from brighter colours, she was there, smiling her pearly teeth at the moon, while throwing flowers at her sister, waving her half-dressed bosom in his face. Meave wasn’t stupid. She knew what this was about and she was having none of it.
Back in her –their- cabin she had thrown Liam on the chair. He had smiled at her, taking off his pants while she lifted her dress to ride him, guiding her inside her with her hand. She had brought her lips to his ear while thrusting with all her strength on his pelvis. “Anyone”, she had whispered, “you can lie down with anyone, I will not mind.”
“Anyone?”, he had asked smiling, “I only want you, my Meave, you are more than enough for any man to have been born of mother”.
She had let out a moan. “Daenne talk shite to me, man of mine”, she had said, “you are a man and men are blind when their beast calls”.
He had opened his mouth to protest and she had put her fingers in it. “Listen to me and listen to me well, my sweet Liam, I do not count loyalty and faithfulness in whom you choose to fuck and I expect the same of you. So I tell to you again: you can stick your cock in anyone in Britain, any woman or man you take a fancy too, I will not mind, but mark my words: not her.”
Liam had grabbed her by the waist, taking his hands from her breasts, to stop her, but she was not about to let him. “Not her?”, he had asked.
“Don’t play the fool with me, husband”, she had said, “my older sister. I saw you looking at her while she was dancing and I saw her smiling like a shark who just spotted a school of fish”.
“I would n…”, he had started.
“I don’t want your denial”, she had said, “just don’t fuck her. Ever. Don’t even think about it.”
“I would never do that to you”, he had assured her, his mind already drifting to the memory of her. Those breasts swaying in rhythm while her black hair flowed beneath her. She had moaned, oh how she had moaned, all silky skin and warm wetness was her sister but it was Meave he really loved. Her fire and her spark. He would never touch her sister again, or so he thought, and he would never, ever, let Meave know . It was foolish of him to think that, but to his defense he didn’t know her all that well back then.
He had thought she was jealous of her, and he was right, but that wasn’t the reason. He had thought she was afraid that Dolores would steal him away from her, like she had done with so many lovers in the past, but that wasn’t the reason.
She would have drowned him eventually, Meave knew, that was the real reason. Her sister would take him deep into her depths and she would have drank his last breaths until he was a husk. She would have left him a broken man, swaying to the waves that was her emotional ambiguity, she would have changed him and Meave would not allow that.
The young woman was dressed in blue, but there was red on her dress. A stain, declaring its conquered area purple. Her face was perfect, those lips, the blue of the eyes, her heavy lashes framing her pale, soft skin, now adorned with red drops of blood.
She looked down at her hand. Her index finger was missing as if it had remembed some urgent business at her younger sister’s hand. She looked at the bloody knife. “My sister”, she said, “has it come to this?”
“I warned you Sea bitch”, Meave snarled, “I warned both of you”.
“Will you let a man come between us, deirfiur?”, asked Dolores moving towards the knife.
“Not any man”, said Meave with fire in her eyes, “MY man”. She took a step back as if afraid. The wave of the salty sea threatening the hearth.
“He didn’t seem to be your man when he was cumming inside me”, said Dolores, cruelty in her voice. The knife would have hurt less. “All men are the same, deirfiur”, she continued , “they do not care which sea they swim in, as long as there’s a good warm cave to drown themselves in”. She was smiling widely, holding her spurting hand near her breasts, blood flowing on her once blue dress. “You will find another to fuck you, just as good”.
“They will never find your body”, said Meave, her stance resembling an animal ready to pounce. “Do not come near my man again”, she continued waving her bloody knife, “or they will never find your body”.
Dolores smiled. Her little sister was in love. How wonderful it would be to befoul that love. She had lost a finger, sure, but it was worth it. And she had so much more in store for her. So much more. She would reach down her throat and take her throbbing red heart and piss on it. The mere thought gave her the shivers. But she had to withdraw for now, let her think she won. It was a crucial part of the plan. She was playing the long game. Patience, for nothing could withstand the sea forever.
And later that night, she would crawl to Meave’s husband with tears in her eyes and let him question her as to what had happened to her finger. How it must have been an accident, surely her own sister would never hurt her this way, and would he please hold her for a while? No, no, he didn’t want him to talk to her, he didn’t want them to fight, she just wanted him to hold her tight, her heavy bloodied breasts pressed against him and his hands in her hair. And she would have him soon enough, for no man was beyond her reach and no woman would be spared her sorrow.
Not even her own sister.