Chapter 773: All Is Lost
Why is everything all black and fuzzy? Numbness pulls at me, hums to me to return to the dark and be still. I almost do, want to, for some reason. There is great comfort in it, in the embrace of the black and the haziness of the nothing.
Have I fallen into my sorcery? Into a gaping hole made for travel from the hungry black of my power, only to be lost?
No, that can't be right. I can hear voices, can't I? Familiar voices, ones I know very well. They make me want to focus, to listen and understand why I am here, floating in the dark.
Even as I do, my soul flinches. Cries out. Tries to retreat. Something isn't right. A fundamental something, tied to the center of who I am.
But what? And do I really want to know?
Light assaults me, bright and terrible, and only then do I realize I'm blinking. Looking up into Lula's face while she talks from very far away. Not to me.
To Mom. Who hovers over me, face lined in strain, hands clenched tight to her chest.
Why are they upset?
And should I be?
Lula looks at me. Her face crumples a moment before she opens her mouth and says my name in slow.
Motion.
Syyyyyyydddddddd...
And then, I'm falling again, away from her, my soul running from the light. My stomach heaves, I feel a terrible grief try to take hold of me, only to be embraced in the numbness.
I know this numbness, have felt it before, this lack of emotion hazed in a cloud of confusion. Lived it for a little while. But when? And why? Lazy, indistinct, a face appears. Beloved face, with hazel eyes and pinpoints of green sparks, the scent of the earth and fabric softener sharpening the memory.
(My dead husband,) Liam.
Yes.
But he's gone already. So from where comes this numb and empty feeling I find myself in?
Another flash of light as I surface once more, Mom sitting beside me, weeping. Meira next to her, hand holding mine. So odd, she's human. Yes, I feel her touch, if only for a moment. Meira comforts Mom. She must be so sad Dad is getting married again. Lovely of my sister to come and help when I'm not feeling well.
Yes, that's it. I'm sick, aren't I? Just ill, some odd malaise holding me captive in the black and the numb. I should act on it, heal myself. Rise again. Mom needs me, it's so clear to see, can barely hold herself together against the pain of Dad's marriage. Something wet escapes the corner of my eye, touches my cheek. Sweet, this tear for my mother's sadness.
But I when I try, when I reach for my magic, it takes so long for me to find them, to feel them, my hitchhikers, my alter egos. Hiding, deep inside me. Torn up with sorrow. Turning slowly toward me, the truth of what's happened in their magic.
And, in a gasp of need I
Run
From
Them.
Back into the darkness. The quiet.
Without hearing or knowing or understanding. Because I don't want to.
I know that now.
All I want is to stay here.
Where it's perfect.
Lula's voice again, breaking through. "She's fighting me. I can't keep her still."
The family finds me, the coven's power, grief and love and support but I can't can't can't-
Can't.
I jerk awake, into night this time. Lying in a bed. Blank. Empty. What?
What happened?
Meira's room. At Harvard. I recognize it immediately. What am I doing here? I need to go home, the family needs me-
Lula appears, sits beside me. Sassafras's silver body presses against me as Lula eases me back down onto the bed. I don't resist her. Maybe I should stay here a bit longer. I've been sick.
Haven't I?
Sass's misery is almost too much for me to bear, because I don't know (I do, I know, I just don't want to, never want to, never never) why he's so upset.
"It's okay, Sass." My lips are thick, I can only mumble. "It'll be okay."
He sobs, unable to purr.
Mom is there, too, replacing Lula. Her magic wraps around me, her hands holding my hands. "Syd," she says, voice steady though I can hear the tremor behind it, feel the subtle touch of her sorrow masked in her power. "Syd, sweetheart."
Something happened to me. "What happened?"
She shudders, looks at Lula.
"Her mind is still protecting her," the Kennecott twin says. "But it's time we try to bring her back to us again, Miriam. We must keep trying."
Mom's face crumples, her hands shaking before she nods and meets my eyes. Sassafras is still weeping on my shoulder.
I feel them, then, my egos, shivering and crying within. The thrum of the family magic. The deep and mournful touch of the earth through Sidhe magic.
Galleytrot. Did someone hurt him?
Did someone hurt-
Flinch.
"Syd," Mom said. "What is the last thing you remember?"
The memory coaxes forward. Mom's kitchen. Sebastian. "Cupcake," I said.
Mom sobs once, stills. "Yes, sweetheart," she says. "Then what?"
I hugged her, she cried over Dad. And then someone-
"Crying," I say. "Someone was upset." Who was it? I struggle to retrieve the recollection, my mind skipping around it while my soul screams at me to stop.
Asking.
Questions.
Stop.
But I can't stop, not now. I have to know. Who was upset-
***
And then.
My mind.
Exploded outward.
Images, memories. His sweet face, his tiny hands, his dear scent. The way he giggled and loved everyone. And never, ever fussed.
Never.
Gabriel.
My body bucked in answer to the truth, seizing, power tossing me as the girls howled their loss.
My loss.
Gabriel.
Lula's power barely skimmed over me, unable to hold me. I knew that, they couldn't keep me here, I was done, so done-
"She's breaking again." Lula's desperation was clear in her voice, but I didn't care.
The family tried to hold me, Mom, Sunny and Uncle Frank, Sassafras. Charlotte, weeping. Meira and Ahbi.
Only Galleytrot shared my grief. And wanted to leave with me.
But this departure had to be solitary.
Lonely was a single digit.
"We can't lose her this time." Sassafras's power slapped me, hard. Jabbed me over and over. The shock of each impact jerked me back, but he wouldn't win.
He couldn't keep me here.
Don't you leave me, girl. She had to come, didn't she? She had to force me to listen, to sit in my mind and harp at me. You stay with me. Because if you go, you take me with you.
Gram.
Syd, they whispered, all of them. Syd, stay with us. You have to stay.
No. Please. Just let me go.
Don't make me.
I can't.
I won't survive without-
***
My mind takes me out of Mom's kitchen. Down the hall. To the door. The knob. Gabriel fussing in my mind, against the shielding I left around him.
Mom's room in the dark. The crib. His name on my lips as he falls silent-
Deathly silent.
NONONONONONONONONO-
***
They cling to me while I howl and fight them and try so hard to leave. How many times have they forced me to come back, to face what's happened? The numb and the dark wait, pulling me close, embracing me. And I go to it, hide in its cool embrace, their presence falling away as I run.
Run from my shattered heart. My broken soul.
My life.
I want to die. Please, just let me die. Go with him. Be with them both.
My husband is dead.
And so is my son.
***
