Born of Oak and Silver (The Caradoc Chronicles)

ISBN:
978-0-9910138-0-7

Copyright © 2013 Marie McKean

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: Manthos Lappas

Acknowledgements

To my family, my amazing husband and patient children—thank you for putting up with me all of those innumerable times when I simply had to “just finish this paragraph” before I could give you any attention. I know, I fell off the radar there for a while. Hopefully the next time around I’ll be able to find the proper balance.

To my husband John, thank you for helping me
to see what you have always seen all along.

To my amazing friends who saw my desire to write a book as more than just another of my temporar
y whims, thank you for indulging me, being my unfailing sounding boards, as well as my continual read and rereaders while I worked through this.

And
to my father, who took me on a fateful trip to Mississippi that started it all, thank you.

Today has been
just another hot and stickily humid day in a seemingly endless string of many. Neither night nor day has offered any relief from the oppressive heat. Even the nonchalant insects seem to be overly burdened by the tyrannical sun. Not that there is anything noteworthy about this during the summer months. In Mississippi, it has always been this way.

T
he sun has just begun to set, splaying a soft, pink glow between the darkening thunderclouds in the distance. The air is thick with an imminent promise of heavy rain. Swallows exude an unspoken urgency as they quickly skim and dart in the skies, looking to make a quick meal out of the mosquitoes that hover unconcernedly amid the southern dusk. Thunder rumbles threateningly somewhere along the horizon, and a welcomed breeze that was not there a moment ago suddenly picks up.

One look at the sky would te
ll you that it is not worth going out—this storm is sure to be a bad one. However, it is moments like these, when no one else can be found, that I choose to seek my refuge.

I close my eyes and permit myself a rare moment to breath
e deeply, taking multiple thorough draws from the no longer stagnant air. Finally, I begin to feel that it is peaceful here. I remain motionless, allowing the hard-earned solace to seep into my tired and weary bones.

When I open my eyes, t
he solemn angels that silently guard their keep are painted in a deep sorbet of colors, highlighting the planes of their cold and chiseled faces. In this light, these pale stone markers of the dead serve only as softly warmer reminders of what once was.

It might seem odd to most
that I find my time spent in this place to be rejuvenating. Usually, this is not where most living people readily choose to go. Rather, the opportunity to visit is forced upon them either by fate or a sense of obligation. To them, this place represents only the bad—death, loss, sorrow, unfulfilled dreams, and pain . . . all justifiably true. Though for me, if only for a moment, it is only when I am here that these same emotions are not so chokingly poignant.

You see, this is the only place where I am permitted a mom
entary courtesy from heaven—the briefest awareness that everything is, and will be, right. Although the impression never seems to last, no matter how fleeting, it is a worthwhile gift nonetheless.

The air has continued to grow heavier
. No longer are there any signs of the swallows or the pesky mosquitoes. They’ve vanished as the thunder has grown increasingly louder, heralding the way of the storm.
It won’t be long now,
I think anxiously as I glance up at the sky.

Right on cue, the sky
loses its hold on the weighty burden it carries inside. A torrent of rain is released, a merciful break to the summer’s seemingly incessant heat.

I wear only jeans and a T
-shirt with some nondescript lace-ups on my feet. Initially, a jacket sounds like a welcome idea to the unmistakably chilly rain spattering on my unaccustomed, sun darkened skin, but I remain seated on my cement bench beneath an ancient magnolia tree.

Relishing
this generous change in the weather, I close my eyes and tilt my face upward. My dark hair quickly begins to trickle with water, the rivulets leisurely running down my body. There is nothing quite like a summer rain. I soak up its vitality and newness. I cannot help but hope that maybe this time the rain will manage to cleanse my dirty and stained soul. Perhaps then I will finally be offered the absolution I have so long desired.

Thunder rumbles a reprimand, God’s reminder
of my folly.

Instantly
, I am brought back to the painful reality of the hell I have been forced to live. Peace, yet again, is merely an imagined and forced perception. Just as quickly as my mood was heightened by the prospect of final release, the rain casts everything in a dank shade of gray.

The water continues to drip down my back, a
nd bitterly I shiver at its sting. As I breathe in the rain, feel the contrast between its cool moisture and my hot, living breath, I accept that I can only remain oblivious to the obvious for so long. At last, I find the courage to stare at the headstone that lies before me.

A desolate hunk of rock carved in the shape of a tree stump looms in the shadows before me. It is moss covered, weather-worn, and neglected. Only a few indifferent words
were given to remember its charge:

Daine C. Dalton

August 15, 1840
– November 22, 1915

Daine Dalton lived a good amount of time—seventy-five years. Seventy-five years, and this is all that is left of him a hundred years later—a rapidly deteriorating rock, decaying alone in the shade of an ancient magnolia tree. It is depressing.

I have often wondered if I were to dig up his grave
, would I find anything that resembled a man remaining? After this much time, surely not. Besides, I do not think that he would appreciate it much if I did.

One would think that after
visiting this place for what seems an eternity, never witnessing a renewal, and unfailingly bearing witness to the perpetual demise of the new, that I would be more convinced of the grave’s terminal nature. I am sorry to say that I am not.

There was once a time wh
en I hoped for as much. When I believed that eternal rest was granted irrevocably in death, and when I was confident that mortality was brief, but definite. No. All of that no longer applies, and the finality of the grave has been lost to me.

Daine Dalton’s gravestone states that he has bee
n dead for a hundred years—yet here I am, still living, breathing, bleeding, feeling, and . . . unending.

I am Daine
Caradoc Dalton.

This is my grave.

I remember my beginning and everything that existed until what was to be my end. And death, yes, I remember death. The deep cold that settled, leaving me paralyzed in a terrifying haze as consciousness detachedly slipped away . . .

After
, there was no heaven or hell. Only a waking, in which I discovered myself lying naked upon my recently filled grave in my thirty-four year old form. Since then, I have not aged a day. I have tried to end this life, but death refuses to take me.

And so
, here I remain—a man who both bleeds and breathes, but yet is unable to die. Tirelessly visiting the spot that is supposed to indicate his final resting place, but finding only disguised anguish instead.

Chapter Two

The sun had just begun to rise over the town of Strasbourg; however, most of its inhabitants were already awake and beginning their preparations for the day’s work ahead. It has been said that the name of Strasbourg means “the town on the crossroads”, a definition that has come to perfectly detail the dynamics of this city. Being located on the French and German border, with the Rhine River moving steadily through year round, a constant flow of people from innumerable places always came and went. In that, it is so much like the river, always changing but still remaining ever so much the same.

It was here that I was born, at the tail end of a modernizing world.

We lived on a small bit property just outside Strasbourg proper. It wasn’t a large place, but was just enough that we were able to have two cows, some chickens, a reasonable garden, and an old three room cottage with a barn. The barn served not only to shelter the animals, but also as my father’s woodshop. A majority of the property was heavily wooded, and in the middle of those trees ran a stream that meandered its way leisurely toward the Rhine.

By all accounts it wasn’t a lot, but my parents were intensely proud of it.

They’d settled here just after they were married. For a time they were genuinely happy, blossoming as much as individuals as they were a married couple. But their contentment was not to last. My mother was unable to bear live children.

One
mild mid-November morning, my mother ventured out into their property in hopes that the sun might lessen her sadness. Thinking herself alone, it took her quite by surprise when an old and silvered man stepped out of the very trees she was about to walk into, and began to hobble his way toward her.

He seemed familiar, but the fact that she couldn’t place him made
her uneasy. However, he could not sense her apprehension, and upon seeing her look toward him, gave her a fully toothed smile and a low bow of his head.

His entire being beamed
with vitality, something completely at odds with his aged physique. His white beard hung to the middle of his chest, though it was well trimmed and neat. His hair too was white, but only a few straggling pieces strayed from a thickly knitted green woolen cap he wore on top of his head. Although his skin was pale, it was not a shade that conflicted with his frosted hair to give him an appearance of being sickly. Instead, his cheeks glowed healthy and rosy, adding all the more to his air of vigor.

As he drew closer, she could see that h
is hands were knobbed and wrinkled; but Carine was sure they’d be as dexterous as any young man she’d ever met if put to work. He was thin, but maintained robustness. He was not bent over, but carried himself upright with great self-possession and awareness. His mouth was ever smiling, and a surprisingly delicate nose came to a sharp point on his weathered face. And his eyes—his sparkling green eyes gleamed with clarity, wisdom, and knowledge.

On top of it all, h
e was impeccably dressed. Carine liked him immediately.

“
Bonjour, Mademoiselle
,” he spoke. “An absolutely wonderful day we are having, is it not? I just could not resist the opportunity of an unexpected sun-warmed winter stroll . . . the sun,” he voiced on an exhale while opening his arms wide and lifting his face up toward it, “is good for the bones
and
the soul, you know.” Remarking thus, he lowered his face from the sky, and seemed to radiate its warmth and kindness back to her.

Taken aback by this stranger’s echoing of her own sentiments, she quickly, but warmly replied,
“Yes, it most definitely is,
Monsieur
. I myself couldn’t resist the opportunity to bask in its warmth and break up the winter’s gloom either. Though, I must confess, I don’t think I have ever before appreciated it as much as I have today. Although winter has barely even begun, it seems as though it has already been here for quite some time.” With that, she finally offered the still sunny old man a small smile in return.

“Ah, yes, the winter has a way of making us quickly rememb
er how much we love the warmth—though, we are quick to forget it when the summer’s heat is about to smother us, and we wholeheartedly believe the winter’s cold cannot return soon enough. Vicious cycle, if you ask me,” and he waggled his bushy white eyebrows at her while saying this in a voice of mock authority.

Carine couldn’t help
herself; she allowed a small chuckle to escape her lips.

Encouraged, the man
preceded, “Bram Macardle,
Mademoiselle
,” he said removing his knitted cap, revealing a bountiful crop of shock white hair and giving Carine a slight bow, “at your service. I apologize for not having come to introduce myself earlier, but I’ve been out of country for quite some time. I am your neighbor, just there,” he turned briefly and gestured behind him, “beyond those trees.”

Carine dipped low in a curtsy,
“
Monsieur
Macardle, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Carine Dalton.” She extended her hand to him, and Macardle placed a formal kiss on the back of it before he released her. “I had wondered if there was anyone else who lived in any of the adjacent properties,” Carine explained, “and it makes me very happy to know that someone indeed does. Come, let me introduce you to my husband.”

“Yes, it is
always reassuring to know that one is not entirely alone in this vast world of ours. For the foreseeable future, it is here that I shall remain. There are others who live within a reasonable proximity, though,” he paused and stroked absently at his white beard, “though, I think that I may be the nearest one. Should you or your husband need anything, consider me at your services. Here, let me help you with your things.”

Bending, he picked up the rug that Carine had been sitting on, folded it ab
ly and tucked it under his arm. He offered her his other.

Taking it, they began walking in the direction of the
Daltons’ house and barn.

“I must confess
I am sorry to hear that you are married. I was just about to begin wooing you before I learned that you belonged to another.”

Carine looked over his wrinkled face, his long white beard, his kind eyes, and again rewarded them both with a rare laugh.

“Yes, I am sure I would have undoubtedly and completely succumbed to your irresistible charms. I consider myself to be
very
fortunate for having mentioned my espousal before you began to entice me beyond resistance.” She smiled fully, chuckling, and giving him a humor-filled quirked eyebrow. Her long, auburn hair blew lightly in the warm breeze behind her.