In Time

Chapter 7

The sun hung well above the horizon by the time Pierre finally began stir.

Veera had been at the window, watching as the stable hands scurried around the castle bailey. When she heard the soft rustling of sheets, she flew to his side in an instant and gently used the back of her knuckles to push a limp curl of  hair from his brow.

He'll be needing a haircut when we get home, she thought to herself. And perhaps some therapy.

Pierre frowned as the last dregs of sleep ebbed from his features. One eye squinted open at first, followed tentatively by the second.

"Je suis ici, Ma vie."  Veera cooed. I'm here, my darling. "It's alright. You're safe. I'm here."

At the sound of her voice, Pierre launched from the bed before promptly tumbling to the stone floor with a painful thud.

Veera rounded the four-poster and grasped his upper arms, preparing to lift him back up just as she had done all those time when he was a bairn learning to walk.

The sting of Veera's skin hardly registered over the sound of Pierre's wail. On instinct, she cradled her slapped hands to her chest.

"Non!  Don't touch me!"

Slowly Veera shook her head, as if trying to shake some sense into the scene before her: her son sprawled on the floor in an overly large nightshirt beside the four-poster that had been her childhood bed.

The curtains and the bedding had changed, but the rest of the room—with the stacks of forgotten trunks crammed beside the small hearth and the narrow window with views of bailey—remained the same.

"Pierre," Veera heard her voice murmur. "I know this all must be very shocking to you—"

"You don't know anything!" He spat.

Veera shook her head again. "I-I know this is a lot to process, but you have to believe me—"

"Non!" The exclamation sent Pierre scrambling to his feet. Despite his gangly adolescent appearance, his sandy-blond tresses only just came to Veera's chin. "I don't believe anything you say! You're a liar! You-you lie!"

Veera schooled her visage into a calm smile. "No, darling, please. Just let me explain. I—"

"What's my real name?"

The words died in her mouth on a taste of ash.

She had seen the news articles on his computer, still she had held out a hope...

His nostrils flared indignant at her silence. "What—"

"Pierre." Veera forced herself to clear her throat before repeating herself with a steady voice. "Your name is Pierre."

"Liar!"

Veera grit her teeth against the pain crackling through her son's cry. Panic clawed over her chest, but she refused to give in. She had sacrificed too much to do so now.

"No..." She drew out the vowel as she advanced a step. "Your name is Pierre Gregory."

"No it isn't!" Pierre bellowed, jumping back and nearly colliding with the bedside table.

"Darling—"

Pierre barely managed to catch himself on the corner of the table as a rogue sob racked through him. "That isn't what my mother called me! O-Or my father!"

Veera froze in mid-step. She opened her mouth, but just as soon closed it.

He clamped his eyes shut against the rivets of tears streaming down his reddened cheeks. "WHAT'S MY NAME!"