“How do you feel, Mother?” my sister asked.
“Like I’ve been sitting in this bed for far too long,” she responded with a weak chuckle.
Rissa laughed and wiped away a tear from her cheek. “Let’s take one thing at a time. You need to eat. Let me call for something to be brought up.”
Mother placed her other hand on Rissa’s leg before she could get up. “Look at you both,” she whispered, tears lining her gaze. “So grown up. So beautiful. I—I feel as if I’ve been a ghost, watching your lives pass through the eyes of someone else.”
I swallowed. “You remember? All this time, could you hear us? Could you see us?”
“At times,” she admitted, her words still slow. “I rememberbits and pieces. It’s all rather…hazy. A different life.” She furrowed her brow. “Some parts are darker than others. It feels like entire sections of my life are missing. But I rememberfeelings—warmth when you would hold my hand, joy when I’d hear your voice. I can’t explain it, but Ifeltyou. I knew you were there. Always there,” she finished quietly, a tear dripping off the end of her nose.
“Always,” Rissa repeated, bringing her hand to her lips and kissing the knuckles. “We missed you so much, Mother.”
“How—how long has it been?”
My sister and I shared a glance. “It’s been fifteen years since Father died,” I finally said. “And you’ve been sick for the last ten.”
She took in a shuddering breath. I could practically see the shock and denial flashing across her features. Her hazel eyes widened, the wrinkles at her pale forehead deepening. She struggled to swallow as her lips parted.
“Fifteenyears,” she murmured. Looking between the two of us, she took in our faces, scanning us with those eyes that could always see straight through. “My babies,” she said in a choked whisper. “Although, you’re not babies anymore, are you?”
“I suppose not,” Rissa said with a sniffle.
“How did this happen?” Mother asked. “How am I…” She trailed off, releasing her grip on us and glancing down at her hands. “I remember things becoming clearer. Sounds were sharper, colors brighter. I felt as if I had control of myself again. And when I woke up this morning…”
“We don’t know,” I said. “But we think it may have something to do with Gayl.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Theodore? What could he possibly have to do with this?”
Rissa licked her lips. “Well, he’s…he’s dead, Mother. And when he died, enchantments he cast throughout his entire life started to unravel. Spells he had over people have broken in these last few days. We were wondering if”—she looked at me out of the corner of her eye—“if he had somehow used his magic on you before you became sick, or if it could have been a side effect of what happened the night we were born.”
Mother sucked in a breath. “What do you know of that night?”
I paused, silence pressing in on us, until I said, “Everything.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the pillow. Rissa jumped in. “We can let you rest, Mother. We don’t have to have this conversation right?—”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Mother waved her hand. “That night weighed on your father and I for so long, but in the end, we would never have changed a thing. For then we wouldn’t havebothof you,” she said, grasping our hands again. “I had always felt…somethinglingering, a piece of Gayl’s spell embedded in me, perhaps. I don’t think one can go through what I went through and not have consequences. It festered throughout the years, but your father’s death…” She let out a long breath and closed her eyes again. “I feared I would never come back from that.”
“But you’re here now,” Rissa said, scooting forward to be closer to her. “Gayl’s magic is gone and we’re together again. We can start over. Be afamily.”
Mother smiled wistfully, more tears tracking down her cheeks. “I’m here, sweet girl,” she repeated. “And I’m so sorry. So sorry we kept things from you, sorry I left you—that I missed so much, and?—”
“Don’t you dare apologize for that,” I interjected. “None of this was your fault.”
A sob escaped her. “I only wish we could have that time back.”
“We’llmaketime,” Rissa said. “We have the entire future ahead of us. So many memories left to make. You’re going to be absolutely sick of us,” she added, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand.
Mother and I both chuckled. “The two of you will have to fill me in on these past years, I suppose. What have I missed?”
I looked at Rissa, who raised an eyebrow. With that sly grin she got from our mother, my sister asked, “Should you start, or shall I?”
78
Rose
The darkness was all-consuming. The pain waseverywhere. But the power…
