Rebirth

This is the long awaited sequel to my first story Love and Leaving which you will have to read first if you want to know anything that's going on is this. This is going to be from Gemma's POV.

Disclaimer: All old characters belong to Libba Bray and anyone new belongs to me.

Chapter 1: Devika

Kartik took my not nearly as white as it had been hand in his warm brown one, and wrapping one gently around his neck he then took the other and did the same, my breath started coming faster as his hands touched my waist.

We started spinning in time to the music playing on the small record player he had bought for our humble abode, and words and thoughts were forgotten and unneeded. Slowly he pulled me towards him and we were two hearts, two lovesick birds fluttering helplessly against each other.

Then his lips were on mine, smelling spicy and tasting better than chocolate. "Kartik…" I whispered faintly.

"Shhhh…" he replied and I could feel him smiling.

His fingers traveled from my waist delicately up under my breast cupping them in his palms, I gasped. They moved back to my waist and started deftly untwisting my sari. I smoothed my hands up and down his hard chest, and then reached for his belt. Thought was lost and passion for him, my Rakshana lover took over my body and it was if our love was rekindling the one lost by our orders of old. We were a new generation, a rebirth. So as we slid to the ground of our small Indian hut we did not know that the birth of our daughter nine months later was to be the real birth. We also did not know that the past would catch up with us.

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"Devika, watch out for the carts!" I yell as I watch my little daughter; with her red streaked dark hair a combination of her father's and mine and skin paler than most people around here, dash across the street to look at the jewelry in one of the market stalls. I look both ways and run across after her picking up my skirt and side stepping a pile of manure. She is already goggling at a pretty string of glass beads and I have a rather hard time dragging her away.

"Mama can't I just have one second to look at them!" she says to me in English the language I still have a better time understanding even though we've been living here since a year before she was born. I speak Hindi passably but have Kartik or our little girl translate for me from time to time.

This marketplace still smells like goats and spices just as when I was young. I can't help remembering that fateful day when my mother died, the day that changed my life forever the life I would never return too. Yet sometimes I still wonder about Anne and Felicity, about the Gorgon, and Asha, and about Pippa. I sigh and she looks up at me her dark brown eyes like Kartik's, inquisitive. "What's wrong mama?"

"Nothing pet, I was just thinking." I smile; she is so much like me and so much like Kartik that I can hardly ever tear my eyes from her.

"Hurry up Mama I want to go see Papa!" she races ahead of me again and I laugh at her spontaneity and chase after her down the hill towards the docks where Kartik works.

The docks are warm and the salt stains the air. Steam from the ships is like a curtain that the gulls dart in and out of. We find him working on hauling goods of cloth from a huge liner. "Papa!" Devika yells and runs giggling into his arms as he whirls her around in the air. He puts her down comes over and gives me a kiss, even though we've been married for 5 years I still get shivers every time he kisses me. He pulls away and our eyes meet a secret communication that we've developed just in case something should go wrong, but his eyes are smiling and I believe mine are as well.

"Hello love." He says. I blush like a young English girl being asked to dance for the first time. Devika breaks the moment and pulls on his arm.

"Papa hurry it's time for my dance lesson." This is in Hindi but I catch most of it.

He throws back his head and laughs "You're so impatient little one. First let me finish unloading then we'll go." He is so much more light hearted than when I met him as if a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. One of the other men working the rig puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Kartik, I can finish this load you go on. You're too young to be working yourself to the bone like this." Kartik gives him a grateful smile.

"Alright I guess it's time for dancing lessons! I'll see you at home later." He says to me, swings Devika up on his shoulders and plants a warm kiss on my cheek. Then they're off twisting through the crowd of colorful clothing and red dust.

As I watch them disappear I can't help but think that he is such a wonderful father, surprising considering that he had no parents and only his older brother, and the Rakshana of course; but they could hardly be considered family. I have been thinking more and more often of Felicity and Anne and all the things I ran away from in England. Simon and The Order were and are at the top of that list.

After we left Spence that bitter October night 5 years ago we traveled with the gypsies south on their way to Spain for it was time for them to move on as gypsies do. They were full of life and music, but not the kinds we learned of in boarding school, Mozart and the like. The music they played was the kind that rose up from a day of weary travel, the kind that stirred the soul after someone had died, or after someone was born.

Kartik and I spent 6 happy months with the gypsies, sharing their work and sleeping together in our own tent and when it was warmer, under the stars. We traveled around London and south through countries I had no name for with people and customs that I had never known existed. I realized then how shut away I had been from the world, I had lived in India but never done things that the locals did, no I was a British lady always the one to set an example for the ruffians. For the first time in my life I let my hair down and lived life to the fullest. I danced and ran bare foot and laughed even when there was nothing to laugh about, and cried openly when I was sad instead of hiding my face behind my hand and excusing my inappropriate behavior.

Yet there were still times when after Kartik had fallen asleep with his arms wrapped tightly around my waist I would like awake wondering what was to become of everyone near and dear we had left behind.

Anne was probably moping about and I wondered if she had gotten a new room mate yet. Felicity was probably feigning indifference but really missing me, or maybe they were both just missing my power and the realms. In the few months before I left it was very hard to tell whether they were my friends or just power mad. Perhaps it was both perhaps neither, it was so very hard to tell what was going on in their heads.

The person I worried the most about though, was Father. I prayed that perhaps he would forget all about me or something of the sort but those silly wishes didn't help relieve the guilt I felt for leaving him. He must have known I could never be with Simon, or really love him; he himself had married my Mother purely out of love for she had no family or connections at that time. These were the thoughts that whispered in my ear and would not let me sleep for weeks. But by the time we got to Spain they were nearly all gone.

At that point I was starting to look much like one of the gypsies trading in my school girl's uniform for their colorful if somewhat ragged long skirts and blouses, my fine blue cloak traded for a heavier woolen one, things I would have despaired of even a year or so before. That was not the only change, Kartik and I had agreed that once we reached India I would no longer be Gemma so that it would be simply as if I'd disappeared off the face of the earth. I had decided my name was to be Emma because I liked the name and because it was so close to my old one that I would not completely lose my past identity.

So when we reached Spain we parted from the gypsies. It was sadder for Kartik who had spent all of his time with them while I was at Spence, but I had truly considered some of the younger women my friends including Cassandra who was lame in one foot but could carry a tune on the flute better than anyone else.

From there we spent another six months on the ocean, Kartik worked to pay for our fare to India. It was crowded and smelled of goats below deck but it gave me even more time to think and I found that I kept comparing myself to my mother. She had fled the Order and the Rakshana and ended up killed by her connections anyway, why was I to think I was any different?

I tried to force these thoughts from my head and focus on what was to come; a wedding to Kartik and then…. I almost didn't want to guess about what would happen after that for there were still so many things that could go wrong, what if something happened in Bombay? What if someone recognized me, for I had lived there only a few years before. Going back to the city was almost a homecoming, when I was there I had never appreciated the spice of life but once in England with all the rules and regulations and pouring rain all of the time I secretly longed for the red dirt and the brown skinned people.

Once the ship docked in Bombay the next step was to find a place to live, and to of course find a way to get married. As usual Kartik had an idea.

Ok, so I was getting a bit bored with this part even though it's important and decided to take a break so I wouldn't rush through it like I sometimes do. Please review, ask questions, tell me about spelling mistakes, whatever you want, and remember your motivation makes me work faster! (P.S. can someone tell me if they would have ocean liners yet at this time because I'm not so sure, thanks!)

Thank you once again,

Glitzy