Did she lean against his fingers as he wiped at her tears? Quite possibly. But Ophelia planned on taking that fact all the way to the grave. It felt even more surreal to be walking side by side with her father. To be linked with him by the arm. A small part of her wondered if this was a dream. Or a really bad trip. But no. The slight chill of the night, the way she kept sniffling because her nose was clogged from all the crying, that was too specific, too real to be something made up in her mind.
Phe did her best to listen patiently, but she felt like there was so much context she was missing. So many pieces of the puzzle that just didn’t quite fit. It’s not that she thought her dad was lying, but that there was a bit more to the story than he was letting on.
As they walked Phe felt as though she were on autopilot, only allowing muscle memory to kick in, the path from the cemetary to her apartment a familiar one. Her stomach twisted once more hearing that nickname for her mom. Further proof of just how much Jonah must have loved her. That what he said about having no choice in leaving was true, at least to an extent.
Her throat went dry as Jonah mentioned his beloved being set on fire. Fuck. That was brutal. She lowered the arm linked with his so that she could take her dad’s hand and squeeze it. There wasn’t an ounce of jealousy inside her heart, which surprised Phe. She would have thought the mention of another love, another family, would have sent her down a spiral. But the hurt in her dad’s voice, in his expression, were too much. And…she could reason with herself that it was long, long before he ever met her mom. It was possible to love more than one person; she could accept that fact.
A tiny sob escaped her at the thought of a brother she never had. Sure, Gonzo was her brother for all intents and purposes. His family even taking her in after her mom’s passing. And the fact they had been best friends since toddlerhood. But…the idea of a blood brother. Someone connected to her through genetics alone. It….was a lot to take in.
Phe’s brows shot up nearly to her hairline as her dad oh so casually name dropped the Mayflower. He was at least that old? Holy fucking shit. “You must be a riot at parties,” she mused.
Her expression turned more serious, more thoughtful, as she listened to the tragedies that befell her father’s life. “Why did this Rodrigo guy hate you so much?” As they walked Ophelia continued to hold his hand, not wanting to let go of their connection.
She swallowed the lump that formed at hearing about her parents meet. Of course she had heard the story dozens of times from her mom. But to be getting her dad’s perspective, to know what it all meant to him. It was painful….in a weirdly good way, if that made sense to anyone other than her.
A rueful smile appeared on as she glanced over to her dad. “You’d be surprised. She said you were the most beautiful man she ever met and she felt like fate meant for you to meet. When I saw your old pictures I told her she needed to get her eyes checked.” It…was so bizarre. Being able to lightly tease Jonah like this. As if he’d always been there. Perhaps, in a way, he was. If what he was saying was true, then he was at least there in spirit. In love.
“She…kept a lot of your drawings,” she offered quietly. Ophelia wanted to throw them out so many times, but she could never bring herself to do it. It was something her mom treasured, and throwing that away seemed like a disrespect to her memory. “Mom loved you til the very end. Probably even past that. I don’t know. I’ve been too scared to talk to her. Really talk to her.”
The medium stopped dead in her tracks, realizing she never actually said her name. She immediately let go of Jonah’s hand. “How did you know that? How did you know my name’s Ophelia?”
He squeezed her hand back, sighing gently. “Mind you, when I met Giovanna, it was the.... late 1400s? Thereabouts? I don’t want to have to do math, but it was back when the Catholic Church was ah, fairly loose about the clergy having kids. And I was already an old man who had long outlived his own family by then. I don’t remember how. The details on me becoming a vampire are equally as... fuzzy.” He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to think, to shake things loose, bring up things he could remember, events he had attachments to.
“How much do you know of religion in the mortal realm?” He asked, both curious and a little rhetorical. “Back in the 1400s, the Catholic Church allowed a charlatan to come into power, someone power hungry and cruel, craven and dishonest. Pope Alexander VI, otherwise known as Rodrigo Borgia was a criminal and a baneful sack of shit,” he seethed. “He hated my kind almost as much as he hated the poor. But he desired power, and the Church gave him power. My clan sent me as an envoy, a peace offering, to work for Rodrigo, teach him magic, things that he had never dreamed, since before I was turned I had been an - unusually talented witch.”
He sighed, pulling more and more strands of memory from the abyss of his cranium. “Rodrigo wasn’t satisfied. He chased my clan from the Vatican but kept me - so long as I continued combing through official records for spells that he desired to use, mostly for his children, Cesare and Lucrezia - the incestuous siblings I found more than once in the bowels of the Church in mid coitus.” He shook his head, the motion a sudden jerk as if he was trying to erase an image from his brain like an Etch-a-Sketch.
“He wanted the secret to immortality to advance the power his children held, but I refused him. Which is why he took Giovanna from me. When I refused a second time, just after he set my betrothed alight, he took a silver rod and heated it, had me stripped and held down and -” Jonah’s face contorted in pain at the memory. “He had the rod forced into my urethra. He seemed to think it would prevent me from having children. Little did either of us know that you would be a delightful plot twist we never saw coming.” He nudged her gently, the ghost of a smile settling over his features.
“I refused him a third time, not aloud or to his face, but when I found the spell he was looking for and ran off with it, burning it on a pyre before leaving Italy for England, sneaking onto a boat to escape the eyes of the Vatican, knowing they would pursue me. People like that, men that monstrous, don’t deserve the power they seek. Even now, it seems the Vatican has held a grudge, considering I don’t believe they ever stopped looking for me. And even if they did, I wonder whether or not Rodrigo had me cursed before he passed. I can only hope his death was painful.”
He snorted out a laugh at Ophelia’s teasing, throwing his head back and losing his beanie in the process. His hair fell out into a mop of dark, messy curls and he retrieved the beanie with a sigh, dusting it off on his leg before attempting to pull it back over his hair. “Sometimes I wondered just what she saw in me. I won’t lie and tell you that I thought myself a good match for her. She deserved a world I didn’t think I could give her.”
He looked startled at her question, eyes wide for a moment. And then he softened as memory surfaced again, tiny confessions whispered among the flora and fauna of the Feywild. “She told me in confidence once that she loved the name Ophelia, that if she ever had a daughter, that Ophelia was the only name she ever had in mind.” He smiled then, genuine and soft. “She was a sucker for Shakespearian literature. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the man was mainly ah, penile humor and political satire. He was a decent man, at least.”
He paused, considering Annie, considering how Annie had raised Ophelia alone. “I wish I had been there to see you. I missed so much. I missed your first word, your first steps. I missed so many milestones. That will haunt me for as long as I have left to live.” He admitted, now more than a little troubled. “Had I known she was with child, perhaps I wouldn’t have left - but then, maybe I wouldn’t have you now.”
