Moon In The Mirror: A Tess Noncoire Adventure
Page 43
I paused long enough to breathe.
Sirens wailed around the corner. Men shouted and dragged hoses. They smashed open doors with axes.
And I knew in my mind that Scrap was right.
But that didn’t ease the pain in my heart.
I’m sorry, babe, Scrap whispered. You loved him and he loved you. But you cannot change the past, only observe it.
Two bats flew out the window over my head. Bats! The one creature I fear most. Bats of my nightmares. Big bats that sucked blood.
My phobia overcame my love of Dill.
I huddled on the ground in absolute panic, covering my head with my hands, gibbering nonsense. One of them grabbed a lock of my hair and yanked it out of my scalp with its vicious claws and a squeak of glee.
Once more, firemen found me cowering on the ground in a fetal position and took me out front to the ambulance where they tried to give me oxygen. Once more, men in heavy coats with fluorescent yellow bands dragged Dill’s burned body free of the carnage of the flames. Once more, I held him in my arms.
I wept softly, smoothing his sizzled hair away from his face, not minding the way it crumbled to ash in my hands.
He opened pain-racked eyes in a ravaged face. Muscle, blood, and bone shone through the cracked and blackened skin.
“I love you, Tess.”
And then he heaved one last rattling breath and released the pain and agony of living.
I collapsed over him, too filled with grief to cry. Too choked to object when gentle hands dragged me away from the love of my life.
Chapter 53
THE WORLD SWIRLED about me in pain and the reek of rancid, waterlogged smoke. I didn’t care.
Dill was dead. I had failed to save him.
Twice.
“Welcome back,” Gollum said quietly.
He crouched beside me on the floor. The chalk circle around me looked smudged where he’d trod on the markings. Gently, he brushed a tangled curl off my forehead with a single finger.
I was back in the new Mowath Lodge with massive logs forming the walls. Bright woods and clean upholstery decorated the large and luxurious room. A far cry from the shabby, generic motel that had stood on these grounds three years ago.
The only trace of old smoke that lingered was in my memory.
Outside, I could hear MoonFeather and Larch arguing about packing the rental car with luggage for four for a long weekend in Seattle.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked me.
“Oh, Gollum.” My throat closed upon my tears.
He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me onto his lap. There he held me for countless moments, my face pressed against his shoulders, his hands comforting, secure. Safe.
I cried. My shoulders heaved. My gut ached. And still I cried.
All the tears I had held back for three years came forth in a tangled river of grief and pain and loneliness.
And still I cried.
Not a word passed between us. He just held me. He let me have the time to cry and cry some more until there was nothing left inside me but a gaping hole where Dill had dwelled.
And still I cried.
And still he held me. Undemanding. Keeping me safe while I was vulnerable.
Eventually, the storm of grief and tears passed. I don’t know how long we sat there with me in his lap like a small child. When there was nothing left but the shudders, he continued to hold me.
At last, as limp as a wet dish rag, I roused enough to feel the strength in his arms, to cherish the calm and quiet in his heart beating beneath my ear.
“Thank you,” I said and kissed his cheek. “Let’s go to a con and sing silly filk songs. Then I’m going back to work. Vacations are too trying.”
“Good-bye, lovey,” Dill whispered. His ghostly hand might have ruffled my curls.
Then he was gone. Nothing left of him but my memories.
Gollum gave me a quick squeeze of reassurance. We untangled ourselves and joined the rest of the world hand in hand.
Just then Larch started the car. The CD picked up where it had left off.
Heather Alexander singing quietly in a pain-racked alto.
“I looked across the battlefield
Blood seeping from my wounds—
My comrades they did never yield,
For courage knows no bounds—
And yet, I thought as I stood there,
Of all that it had cost—
For what we gained, it seemed not fair
For all that we had lost—
They spoke of honor, faith, and pride,
Defending for our home—
Through honor all my friends have died,
Their faith left me alone—
We fought for greed, we fought for fame,
We killed too much to tell—
The devil and God were both the same,
We worshiped only hell—
We fought, it seemed, for a thousand years,
A million nights and days—
Sharing one laugh with a hundred tears,
Seeing clearly through a haze—
Then came that day I know not when,
Beneath a blood-red sun,
Atop a pile of dying men,
They said that we had won—
Another tract of land is all
The territory gained—
Will that ever pay for all
The lives here lost or maimed?
Bodies lying all around,
Blood bathing them in red,
Their white eyes staring at the sun,
These the countless dead?
I looked across the battlefield
Blood seeping from my wounds—
My comrades, they did never yield,
For courage knows no bounds—