Chapter 12
What did I ever do to deserve this? This was a whole new form of hell on Earth, and I was standing dead center of it all.
The group of vicious women surrounding me were out for blood––my blood. I was at a total loss on how I was going to escape, but I knew if I didn’t do it soon, I was dead meat.
“Dia, are you even listening to me?” My Mother demanded.
“She’s off with the fairies again,” Mara laughed.
Annie snapped her fingers in my face and demanded my attention. “Catch up, Dia, this is your wedding!”
Mary, Daniel’s mum, took pity on me. “Aww, leave her be, this must be overwhelming for her. My boy just proposed yesterday, and here we are looking at dresses today.”
“Yes, well,” Mara looked down at my belly. “It’s not like we have a lot of time, now do we?”
“Mara,” Mum admonished her.
“Well it’s true, Mum. Dia put the horse well before the cart on this one. At least Daniel is stepping up and marrying her.”
She turned back to me and asked, sadly, very honestly and earnestly. “So then, the baby is his? Did you get an amniocentesis?”
Mum was horrified, and the rest of the family just looked away. Well, Annie looked like she was about to flay my sister alive, but I stopped her before she could get a good steam up.
“Yes, Mara, the baby is Daniel’s. She is also Kale’s and Robin’s. She will have three daddies, and be a very lucky girl for it.”
Mara opened her mouth to say something, but mum cut her off. “Of course she will, sweetheart. Look how lucky you are––you have found your birth parents, but that doesn’t make you any less my daughter. I couldn’t love you any less if I had given birth to you. There is no difference in my heart between either of my daughters.”
Mara looked shame faced at that comment. I think it finally hit her that it didn’t matter who was the biological parent of a child, the fact that it had loving parents, who couldn’t wait to welcome her into the world, was all that mattered.
The sales assistant chose that moment to return with several dresses for me to try on, all carefully chosen to fit over the bump.
“Oh, look at what I’ve found,” she sighed.
“I have a few that are even in maternity! It’s quite modern now to walk down the aisle with a cute little bump! I have choices for you, that both hide and show off your baby bump, depending on how you want to play it.”
Umm, what am I supposed to say to that? I was totally lost. This is my worst nightmare come to life.
“I’ve got this,” my sister said firmly, taking the offerings, in the form of a rail of dresses, from the assistant. “I think this is the perfect time for some sister bonding,” she smiled gently at me.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” my mum exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Annie jumped in. “We can look for our own dresses while you and Mara go through those! Just make sure to show us any potential keepers!”
“We will,” I agreed, while following my sister to the massive changing room.
Once we were inside and the door shut, Mara turned to me. “Dia,” she bit her bottom lip.
I knew she was struggling. My sister was nothing, if not stubborn. She had always been the strongest of us all-our leader and little mother. While Sean was the protector, Mara was the one who demanded perfection, and I always felt so disappointed when I didn’t live up to that perfection. I was wary about what she was about to say, so the next words out of her mouth, were pretty much the opposite of what I was expecting.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What?”
“Look, I’m sorry I treated you badly, I shouldn’t have done that. Your choices are not my choices, and I understand that. I am really trying to understand why you have made those choices, but it’s so hard. I want to do what’s right, but what I think is right morally, doesn’t match up with what I think is right for being a big sister. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I swallowed.
“Dia, I know I can be a total bitch. Sometimes, there’s a voice in my head, screaming at me, saying, ‘No, don’t say that,’ but I can’t help myself. My mouth opens and the evil witch within comes out. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I love you so much. You are my baby sister, and nothing will change that––no matter how angry we get with each other.”
“Does that mean I can see the monkeys again?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she laughed with glistening eyes. “You can definitely see the kids again. They, we all, have missed you so much. It was wrong of me to keep you from them, I just––” she broke off.
“Hey, I get it. Let’s do like Elsa, and let it go. We have all these monstrosities to try to squeeze me into.”
“Oh, dear Lord, we do, don’t we?” she laughed.
The sister I had always known and loved came back just then.
“Right, let’s get organized. No, no, GOD NO,” she was busy raking to the rail. “Maybe, this one has potential, ohhh, I like this one, Dia!”
I smiled, a huge, stupid, soppy grin. This was my Mara.
***
Mara was totally in her element, I had once again become the dress up doll of our youth. Once she drilled me on my likes and dislikes, she took over and had the sales assistant at her beck and call.
I was on my tenth dress, and my family had oohhed and ahhed over all of them. This one was the full-length traditional wedding gown. Think Kate Middleton and you have it. It was so heavy, and itchy. Why was it so itchy? My mum and Kale’s mum were nearly in tears. No wait, my mum did have tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Dia, you look like a princess,” She cooed.
I smiled weakly. Oh god, they are going to make me get this one. I had already walked up and down the aisle several times for them, to demonstrate the flow of the gown. Annie was gushing, and the aunts were nodding like they were bobble heads. The assistant was heading toward me with a veil and I cringed.
I had never been so thankful for my sister than in that moment.
She stood up and clapped her hands once, very sharply and very loudly.
“As beautiful as this one is, I have found one last one for Dia to try on, before she makes her choice.”
“But this one is perfect,” both mum and Mary said together.
“Well, let’s try on the last one and then we can all give our opinions, agreed?”
It didn’t really matter whether they did or not, Mara was already leading me away. Once back in the dressing room she leaned against the door and sighed heavily. I had already slid down onto the chair and had no plans of moving in the near future.
“That one is a no then? Pity, it does look good on you.”
“It could be the one,” I grinned at her.
Mara laughed, “You hate it, Día.”
“I really do! It’s pretty, but oh my god, it’s itchy and heavy. I couldn’t imagine wearing this for hours. I’m knackered already.”
“And that’s why I saved the best for last.” My sister chuckled before pulling a covered garment bag from the back of the rail.
“This is the last one, right?” I was so tired, at this point, I just wanted a nap.
“Yes, Dia, this is the last one. But, I think you will appreciate it.”
Hanging it up on the display hook, Mara slowly unzipped the bag. With careful hands, she pushed the edges off the shoulders and revealed the most breathtaking article of clothing I had ever seen.
“It’s beautiful,” I sighed.
“It is, isn’t it?”
My sister tilted her head and held her chin in her hand while studying it.
“I know it’s not white, but let’s face it, you’re hardly virginal,” she winked.
I snorted.
“No, that ship sailed, and is halfway back from China by now.”
“It’s also not traditional, which suits you. It’s almost ethereal. I saw it, and well, it reminded me of you.”
It took more time to get out of the dress I was wearing than it took to get into the new one. Mara wouldn’t let me look until she had every line straightened out.
“Ok, Dia, you can open your eyes now.”
I was laughing when I answered her, “Like I hadn’t already seen it, isn’t it supposed to be the groom that doesn’t see the dress?”
When I opened my eyes, the woman staring back at me in the mirror, wasn’t me. I was a twenty-year-old research assistant. I was on my way to being a mum and I had multiple boyfriends, I was not the elegant adult standing in front of me.
Mara had pinned part of my hair back, letting it fall in waves over my shoulders and down my back. The dress was a soft, barely there blue, with just hints of color to prove it wasn’t white. The empire waist slid gently over the bean and made my lines look sleeker, rather than round. The material was satin and plain, there were no frills, just gently falling layers that ended half an inch from the floor. The piece that made it outstanding was the cape.
Embroidered, sheer lace that tied just below my throat and drifted to the ground, outlining the whole ensemble. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the image in the mirror. I was so lost in my reflection that I hardly heard when there was a knock at the door, much less paid attention when Mara was speaking to the assistant.
“Once last bit, Dia.”
“No, Mara, it’s perfect. I feel like a princess.”
“Let’s make you into a queen, little sister,” she said while coming up behind me. In her hand was a tiara, made of delicate ivy and golden leaves, inset with tiny jewels sparkling as the light hit them.
Her smile was bittersweet when she put it on me. Tears glistened in her eyes and she quickly rubbed one away before speaking.
“You’re not a little girl anymore, Dia. You’re all grown up. I didn’t want to believe it, but seeing you like this––well it’s pretty damn hard to deny.”
“You swore!” I gasped.
“Yeah, I did. It happens sometimes. Don’t let it get out. Come on––let’s go show the others. See if they are as impressed as we are.”
Hand in hand, Mara and I walked back to the viewing room. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop for all of ten seconds. Then my mum was on her feet, crying and kissing my cheeks.
The others were talking loudly and gesturing so madly that I gave up trying to hear what they were saying. In the end, I tuned into my mum.
“I really like this one, Mum.”
“Dia, you couldn’t have anything else. You are the most beautiful young woman in the world. I can’t wait for your young men to see you. You are going to blow them over. Your dad, well he won’t even recognize you,” she laughed. “You are beautiful, Dia. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Both inside and out, you are perfect.”
I didn’t know about that. There were so many things that I had done that I was not proud of. But, I was going to try to live up to their expectations and be what they saw me as.
I was a queen–– a wolf queen, a lady of the Wild Hunt and the Sidhe Court, a Sluagh princess, and the intended bride of an Irish man, descended from gods and heroes. I had to grow up and be who I was meant to be.