112 | BUCKET LIST

The next day is something Paris calls ‘capture the pelt’ - like the human’s ‘capture the flag’ but instead of a banner on a stick, it’s a pelt from some long dead creature. Mom and I keep out of this one, just like yesterday’s activities. But we stick around the main area of the territory rather than wander off like yesterday. Paris leads her team, made of almost twenty Reiniers, to one side of the territory, while a female from the allied families guides the other faction - also made up almost completely of allies.

Some sit out, like Mom and I, and I easily spot a huddle of foreign allies talking in their huddle between various tents where I’ve seen them go into at night. Mom and I are enjoying steaming cup after steaming cup of decaf coffee, nicely made for us by my cousins earlier. Though it’s cold out here, it’s not see-your-breath weather, but Mom stays bundled in her winter clothes and has a wool blanket wrapped around her. I keep my eyes trained on the allies still clustered together, whispering too low for even my sharp ears to pick up.

A part of me is itching to go over to them and demand what they’re talking about - the part of me that wants to protect my cousins. But the more logical part of me knows that’s a very bad, very stupid idea. So I sit and wait, simply watching for any signs that they’re up to no good or plotting something sinister. I mean…I’m almost positive they are, but without proof…

“I’ve been thinking,” Mom begins softly after my bare foot starts tapping against the cabin steps. I acknowledge her words with a low hum, but keep my gaze on the allies. “Have you ever heard of something the humans call a ‘bucket list’?” She asks me, and I feel my spine stiffen into a pole, my head whipping around to lock eyes with her. “Don’t look at me like that,” Mom rolls her eyes, blinking rapidly - as if to chase away my horrified expression. “I’m going to die, Wisty. Everyone knows this. It’s just a matter of time.”

I feel my chest constrict painfully as my eyes trace over the fresh wary lines, the sallow way her skin’s started to sag - thinning out slightly - almost imperceptibly since yesterday. And then there’s her scent. The mingling of Magic in her is faint, but the cloying scent of decay has made it’s presence known. There was an odd caution to how she’s starting to move, like even she herself is aware of the lightness and fragility of her own body. There’s always a hint of something in her fuzzy aura, a sensation like something jutting into my body - straight to my bones. A spike of some sort that comes and goes in inopportune moments when I get too close to her.

“What about it?” I question, letting my emotions fall back into their raw space in my heart, scrabbling to make me feel like everything around me is falling apart. I could switch them off, let the vamp in me take over and drown the sensations in logic, but I don’t. Mom deserves only the best from me right now, and that includes my emotions - good and bad - no matter how much it hurts to feel them. I owe her this much.

“I’ve made one.” Mom’s face smooths when she looks at me, her tired eyes dancing happily - excitedly, enough that I can’t help but mirror her expression. Even if it makes the cracks in my heart turn to leaking fissures to hear my mother’s gone and made an ‘before I kick the bucket’ list. A list of things she wants to do before she dies.

“Let’s hear it,” I tell her expectantly, clearing my throat from the claustrophobic tightness and swallowing down the lump of pain that had gone to roost there. I bring my decaf-coffee to my mouth, trying to concentrate on it instead of the sorrow pulsing in me. I take a long sip and wait.

“The first item was coming here,” Mom explains, making a movement in the air with her own mug - as if to check off or strike out a box. “The second was to do some exploring with you.” Again, that motion, and I wince, feeling think she’s just struck off more time. It’s ridiculous to think that when the list ends, her time with me will too, but my brain’s not logical right now. “The third was to make amends - at least with Paris if no one else -” Mom tells me, her smile softening nostalgically as she draws her blanket tighter to her. “I’m glad we came, honey.” She looks back to me, her eyes glimmering with the reflectiveness of impending tears. I lean over and nudge her shoulder lightly, letting my own smile grow.

“Me too,” I agree and finish off the rest of my coffee. “Anything else?” I ask - a little too hopefully. Mom nods, looking back out across the open area to the trees.

“Number four was to dance in the rain,” Her smile goes a little vacant, eyes searching the trees, but not really seeing. “I used to do that a lot with Zar,” She murmurs, her voice getting that tight quality that only adds to the pain in my chest. I put an arm around her, letting it ground her and soothe her, though I want to just pull her into one of the boa-constrictor embraces Yuri and Misha would give me. But I know that would hurt her, so one arm will just have to be enough.

“Dancing in the rain sounds nice,” I tell her, trying to picture her and a male version of her dancing around while it rains. For some reason, I don’t find it too hard to imagine. My mom’s been my rock and pillar of stability in a way that made her kind of stand-offish in the last eight years. But after we disconnected from the Reiniers, I was able to see another side of her. A much more relaxed part that had me recalling the ‘good days’ when I was younger.

“Five was to be at your wedding- or at least get to see a ring on your finger.” Mom’s back to grinning, waggling her eyebrows at me. I roll my eyes and sigh, pulling at the chain around my neck and showing her the bullet-shaped charm.

“This is the ‘ring’.” I tell her, smirking as her eyebrows draw together. “It’s going to be the ring eventually, he didn’t want to freak me out by just proposing.” I add by way of explanation. Mom laughs, the sound rushes and surprised…and just a little too loud.

“He seems to know you well.” She finally comments when she stops laughing. I roll my eyes and tuck the thing back under the collar of my turtle-neck. I grumble under my breath and try to control the rising heat in my cheeks as I silently - begrudgingly - agree. A smile pulls at my lips, turning from tiny to huge in a matter of seconds. “And he seems to make you happy.” She adds, nudging me back with her shoulder.

“He does.” I agree aloud, because I really can’t deny it. We’re still working through stuff, Blue and I, but I’ve got a gut-feeling that things will be fine with us. “Anything else on this list of yours?”

“I want to watch one sunrise and one sunset with you.” Mom finally replies, the somber look reappearing in her crystalline-blue gaze. It’s a look that tears at my heart, making the fissures in it bleed just a little more, widening the expanse of pain pooling in my chest and making it hard to breathe.

“We can do all of it.” I choke out, my voice raspy and tight with the heat prickling in my eyes and squeezing my throat. I have to clear my throat before I can say anything else, and Mom waits for me, one of her hands rubbing up and down on my back. Her touch is all light pressure and no heat, only driving home that things are getting worse. That her time is running out and everything with us is finite.

*How many more times will she be here to soothe me? How many more moments will we have like this? Sweet moments of nostalgia? Laughing together and playful smiles? When will be the last time? Have they just happened?*

“We will,” Mom agrees, her hand still on my back. “Even if we’re not together physically.” I start to shake my head, denial bubbling at the back of my throat, but what actually comes out is a half-choked sob and tears that blur the world around me. “Hey,” Mom coos gently, her bony arms coming around me, pulling my face into the groove of her neck to muffle the sounds now pouring out of me. The pressure of her hands stroking up and down my back is a little stronger, but it’s her scent that makes the tears and the hurt worse.