But there was nothing.
Only silence.
Beautiful, peaceful silence.
It was done.
FORTY-ONE
IT’S OVER,” I TOLDmy mother. I leaned down and kissed her head. She seemed to have shrunk in the hours I’d been gone. Her face and skull strangely birdlike, her hair hanging in feathery wisps around her head. “It’s gone. The rock. Azha.”
Her breath came in slow rasps.
I had called Mark when I was on my way back, to tell him I was fine, my errands were done, and I’d be home by dinner.
“Where the hell have you been, Alison? We’ve been worried sick. I was about to call the police.”
“I’m fine,” I’d repeated. “There were just some things I needed to take care of before Christmas. Before I go off to Rabbit Hill.”
“Well, your mother’s taken a turn for the worse,” he’d said. “Teresa’s here now and she thinks it might only be a matter of hours. You better hurry home.
“I can’t believe how fast it’s happening,” he added. “She was up and talking and joking with us just yesterday. Now it’s like she barely has the strength to open her eyes.”
I understood.
It had been Azha giving her body strength, Azha keeping her alive. She was a weak shell providing a home for the demon until it was ready to move into its next host.
But I’d sent the demon away.
I’d fixed things and freed my mother at last.
Home now, alone with her, I looked down into her face. Her eyelids fluttered open.
“I’m… sorry,” she whispered.
“I know,” I told her. “And I understand now. I understand. I know that it wasn’t you. I forgive you.
“And I love you,” I added.
She smiled and closed her eyes.
We stayed like that, side by side, for hours. We kept the little bedside light on but turned off the overhead light. I declined Mark’s frequent offers of food or respite. I didn’t want to leave her alone.
Sometimes I dozed, sitting in the chair by her bed, still holding her hand, my head resting on the side of the mattress. Mark came in at one point and tried to turn off the little lamp, but I stopped him. “No,” I said. “Leave it on.”
My mother had had enough darkness.
I dabbed at her lips with a little dampened sponge on a stick. I rubbed lavender lotion onto her hands and arms.
I told my mother stories: the good memories from my childhood.
“Remember when you took us all the way to Cape Cod for fried shrimp? How we sat on the beach and talked about what it might be like to be seagulls, just catching the wind and soaring?”
A little after midnight, Mark came in again, touched my shoulder, and kissed my head. “Merry Christmas,” he said. “Do you want to take a break and I’ll sit with her for a while?”
“I’m okay here,” I said.
“I’ll make some tea,” he said. “I got the presents under the tree and the stockings up.”
