I pulled out the scroll from my bottom drawer, the one with the family tree which I’ve added to, making sure the paternal DNA has been included. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t do away with the need for men.
I pointed at Helen’s name. “This is where it started,” I said, not that they needed to be reminded where the start of the plague on our bloodline began. But it was important for them to understand what I was proposing, along with the consequences. I’d done some reading around timelines and the implications of altering them. My finger traced the line to Helen’s daughter. “Louise fell for Eric, who drained her dry during her pregnancy, making their daughter powerless.”
“Eunice,” Sophia said with a nod. “She didn’t accept her lot in life and worked tirelessly to change it.”
“Right, and that meant she twisted the curse so that the firstborn in each generation drained their father. Then she seduced the most powerful man she could, and that’s when the bane of our existence was born.”
“Our mother,” Liz agreed. “And now, that burden is on myself and you.”
I nodded. “What if we changed that?”
“I’m not following,” Stella said with a twist of her head and a squint at me. She was trying to read the future.
“What if we make it so Eunice never changed the curse?”
“Then you would likely never be born,” Liz said. “And neither would I.”
“The ramifications for the timeline are too great,” Stella said. “It wouldn’t work. Only alterations that impact the future can be tolerated.”
“Right, so we change the past by altering the present.” I pointed at Liz’s name. “What if, starting with you, we bent the rules and gave the firstborn the power to drain their mothers?”
Liz blinked.
Stella huffed. “Even if you could, that would again alter the past.”
“I said choice, not definitive,” I clarified, catching Sophia’s eyes. She paused in her crochet as I reminded her about the power of choice I’d been burdened with. “We work back in the curse using Liz’s blood, so that she now has the choice to take her mother’s power.”
“You’re proposing I don’t demand that right until this moment,” Liz whispered. “Meaning I can reduce her to nothing more than human?”
“Once Donn’s power is gone, she will be vulnerable.”
“And killable,” Dayna added.
“I won’t hesitate,” I said. I couldn’t ask them to deliver the final blow. That would come down to me.
“I can’t decide if you are a genius, diabolical, or an idiot,” Sophia said.
I shrug. “All three, depending on the outcome. We took a calculated risk in cutting her off, and while she can’t draw power from us anymore, it doesn’t matter because she has so much already.”
“So how could Liz drain her then?” Sophia asked.
“Because the bonds of motherhood can’t be broken unless she has cut that tie. You should all still have a line to it.”
“She’s right. I still feel her,” Liz grumbled, rubbing the heel of her hand against her chest.
“It’s risky,” Dayna said. “So much could go wrong. If we fuck up, we could lose everything and undo our entire line.”
I grimaced at the possibility. “Then we would know no different, but the world wouldn’t be on the brink of war.”
“Wrong,” Stella snapped. “If you fuck this up and destroy our line, the fabric of the universe will unravel faster than a runaway toilet paper roll down a hill.”
“Then we don’t fuck it up. Because unless you have any other ideas, this is all I’ve got—the ability to alter the future by changing the past.”
The Roberts women straightened their spines and silently agreed the risk was worth it.
Sorry, Grandmother, you forged us in fire, so you only have yourself to blame.
After agreeing to take one last night to rest, sleep, and prepare, I climbed the stairs to the top floor. My legs were stiff, and my heart heavy. How had it come to this? Power and greed. That was how.
