And now, with Allegra burning up from the inside, her mother wanted to retreat into fantasy again.
June's fingers found the scar along her lower back, picking at it the way she always did when the forest stories started. "I know you don't believe me. I know you think—"
"There is no goblin king!" The words exploded out before Briar could stop them. A nurse glanced through the door window, and Briar forced her voice lower. "There is no bargain. There's just a sick little girl who needs real medicine, not fairy tales."
"You're wrong, Briar. He saved us both that night. You were so small inside me, barely holding on after the accident…"
"You were traumatized." Briar's hands clenched in her lap. “You created a fantasy to cope, and I've spent my entire life dealing with the fallout."
June flinched, her shoulders curling inward. The familiar fog crept back into her eyes as she retreated from Briar's anger. "I... I know how it sounds. I know you don't..."
She trailed off, fingers still worrying at the scar. The silence stretched between them, broken only by Allegra's labored breathing and the steady beep of monitors.
"Mom." Briar forced her voice softer, seeing her mother shrink into herself. "I can't do this right now. Not with Allegra like this."
"But the forest—"
"Please." The word came out raw. "Just... please stop."
June's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before she nodded, turning back to Allegra. But her lips kept moving, forming silent words Briar knew by heart.Into the forest. Find him. Make a bargain.
The monitors continued their electronic lullaby. Somewhere down the hall, a child cried for their mother. Briar wanted to shake June, to scream, to do something to shatter this recurring nightmare of delusion and magical thinking. But Allegra's labored breathing held her still.
"Even if I believed you," Briar said carefully, "what exactly am I supposed to do? Walk into the woods and yell for the goblin king? Hope some fairy tale creature takes pity on us?"
"You find him." June's voice was small now, almost childlike. "You go to the old growth forest past Miller's Creek. You walk until the paths stop making sense. And when you can't find your way back, he'll find you."
"This is insane."
"Please." The word cracked on a sob. June's carefully maintained composure crumbled like wet sand. "Please, Briar. I can't lose her. I can't... I can't lose my baby too."
Briar stared at her mother's tear-streaked face, at the desperation etched into every line. Behind them, Allegra's breathing hitched, stuttered, then resumed its fragile rhythm. The sound drove a spike of pure terror through Briar's chest.
Days. Maybe a week.
"If I do this," she heard herself say, "if I go to the forest and find nothing—because there will be nothing to find—you have to promise me something."
Hope bloomed across June's features like sunrise. "Anything."
"You stop this. All of it. No more stories about bargains and kings. No more disappearing into fantasies while the real world falls apart around us. You get help,realhelp, and you focus on being present for whatever time Allegra has left."
The words tasted bitter, like admitting defeat. June's throat worked as she swallowed, her gaze sliding to her dying daughter.
"All right," she whispered. "If you don’t find anything, I'll... I'll stop."
Briar rose on legs that felt disconnected from her body. She pressed a kiss to Allegra's burning forehead, breathing in the scent of shampoo and antiseptic that clung to her sister's skin.
"I'll be back soon, Ally-cat," she murmured against the fever-damp hair. "Try to hang on for me, okay?"
No response. Just the machines and the monitors and the terrible weight of borrowed time running out.
The car's engine hummed beneath Briar's white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. Mile markers blurred past as she drove deeper into the mountains, each one carrying her further from reason and closer to desperation. The GPS had lost signal twenty minutes ago, leaving her with nothing but faded road signs and the sick certainty that she was making a terrible mistake.
This is insane, she told herself for the hundredth time. Chasing fairy tales while Allegra dies.
But what choice did she have? The doctors had run out of options, their careful explanations dissolving into medical jargon that all meant the same thing: there was nothing more they could do. And June... God, June was barely holding it together as it was. If they lost Allegra, her mother would shatter completely, retreating into that familiar emotional void where Briar could never reach her.
The thought sent a familiar ache through her chest. All these years spent trying to earn her mother's attention, of being the responsible one, the caretaker, the daughter who stayed. Always the odd one out, especially after David came into their lives when Allegra was born. Four years of watching them be a real family while she orbited the edges. Then one fight about money and he was gone—no goodbye, no explanation. June shattered, and suddenly Briar was needed again. Needed, but never quite seen.
