The Lost Rose

Chapter 8

- So? What happened after that?

- He wanted to take revenge on his brother.

- Oh, okay. That's why, I raise my eyebrows again.

The man declared a war for a woman. Pretty damn tough. Or stupid.

- He needed more power and had heard about an old flower which possessed ancient powers, from another time, that had grown under another dynasty, a hundred years ago. We say that a long time ago, on these same grounds, magicians used to live and practiced magic. He did get his hands on that flower. We never got to know if it had worked tough.

- What do you mean? Didn't he have powers?

- Maybe, but he never used them. He sent an army towards Eden. A deadly war ensued but he never got to use his powers. He wanted to kill your father.

- But he didn't. What happened to him?

I see him hesitate. It seems like he is choosing his words. Almost when I caught Clarisse lying. I frown and wait for him to keep going. It is weird how, sometimes, when I ask him a question he just stops for a few seconds or hesitate to answer before he does.

Finally, he starts again:

- After he had heard of you birth, he wanted to kill you, to punish your parents.

- That's when my mother decided to hide me. I add.

- Yes. But he disappeared just after, never finding you. Your father died a few months after that, from an uncurable disease due to an epidemic that was raging in the kingdom after the poor living conditions the people had been living in.

It makes me sad for them. Two brothers hating each other and fighting over a woman for so long and dying for nothing.

- Your mother ended up dying out of heart break, I guess. Until this day we haven't heard from him and everyone believes he died in his own hatred, Uncle Jacob finishes his story.

- Do you really believe it? I ask, that this man, well my uncle I guess, wanted to kill his lover's daughter?

It doesn't seem right to me. How could he try to inflict such pain to someone he loves?

- That he'd want to kill my father, maybe but me? I ask again.

- Some people just can't see clear when they hate so much, he says.

- Also, you know I can tell you didn't like my father; I raise my eyebrows at him with a knowing expression on my face. You can tell me if he was an ass, as someone with so much power that wouldn't surprise me.

- He was certainly a difficult man to understand. You know I didn't know him that well, he says.

Lies.

- I heard rumors about him as a child, I continue. That he was an abuser, I finally dare to say. You need to tell me if it's true. I don't want to think about him as a great person if he wasn't. I want to make my parents up in my mind as they really were.

I wait for his answer, trusting him to tell me the truth.

Uncle Jacob sighs and admits:

- There were rumors...

- Of course, I shake my head, disappointed.

- But I asked your mother, she denied it. I never knew if it was true or not, he looks at his plate.

I have doubts about this. I have the feeling that he is only saying that so I don't have a too bad opinion of my father. But why would there be rumors like that if it wasn't partially true?