They would be after me.
It wouldn't take them long to figure out where I was going and they would probably catch me at some point, but I had to get back to Newport. I had to go to Mom's grave. If she woke up trapped in that coffin and there was nobody there to dig her out, I would never forgive myself.
She had always hated the dark. There had been night-lights scattered through the whole house for as long as I could remember— before it had been razed to the ground by a murderous sociopath, that is.
The diesel engine turned over and the doors shut.
I'm on my way, Mom.
5
It was almost a whole day before the bus finally pulled into the depot in Providence. Everything hurt, and not just my soul. I hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, and since I'd magicked my way onto this bus, I didn't dare leave it to get food or water at any of the stops so my stomach was churning painfully.
But I couldn't let that stop me. I had to get to Mom's grave. I had to find out if she was alive.
The doors opened and the other passengers began disembarking. I stepped into line behind an older man but paused once I was on the ground.
What to do now?
It was another hour or so to get to Newport and I still had the exact same problem. I couldn't rent a car, take a cab, or walk the whole way. I would have to hitchhike again. I really needed to learn how to hot wire a car.
Most of the passengers stood by the side of the bus as their luggage was being unloaded from the undercarriage compartment. What were the odds that one of them was going to Newport?
I slipped seamlessly into the milling mass and tried to eavesdrop:
“The schlep had better be worth it.”
“Did you remember to bring her birthday present? Or are we going to pick one out here again?”
“You had better get that job offer for this trip.”
“All day and we've still got another hour left to go until we get back to Jamestown,” a young man's tired, hushed voice said.
Jamestown. I could work with that. If they took the interstate, it wouldn't even be out of the way.
I looked around for the source of that voice and found it in a teenage boy with a mop of dark brown hair. In his arms, he held a sleeping, red-headed little girl wrapped in a knitted purple, yellow, and green blanket.
“I know, baby,” an exhausted woman said as she gathered their bags around him. “We're almost home.” They had gotten onto the bus a few stops after I did, so they had to be tired, too.
The boy sighed and shifted the girl so he could wipe his face with one hand. “It's already two and I have school tomorrow.”
“You can go in late,” the mother promised.
No matter how badly I needed their help, it still felt awkward to be asking for help from total strangers. But Mom was counting on me.
“Excuse me, ma'am?” I asked, lightly touching her arm to get her attention.
She turned around to look at me. “Yes?”
“I couldn't help but hear you were going to Jamestown?” I stated as a question.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“Um,” I dropped my gaze and my shoulders, making myself seem small and meek. “I hate to ask this, but I really, really need a ride to Newport.”
“So call a cab,” the boy said.
“I can't.” I kept my eyes diverted to my feet. “I spent the last of my money buying the ticket here and my ride flaked on me.”
The mom waited a moment before answering, “Sure, you can come with us.”
I raised my eyes to smile at her in gratitude. The boy looked skeptical, but not enough to protest.
“If you help with the bags, that is.” She gestured to the mountain of luggage at her side and smiled at the girl, who couldn't be more than five. “They pack so heavy when they're that young and don't you dare roll your eyes at me, mister, you had to have every stuffed animal with you when you were her age, too.”
He scoffed in typical teenage fashion.
I loaded my arms up with almost all of the bags and carried them across the parking lot to her waiting minivan.
“Wow, you're strong,” the woman commented, impressed as she opened the rear hatch and started loading the bags she was holding.
That was kind of embarrassing, though why, I didn't know. “I um, used to do a lot of heavy lifting at my job.” With all of the hardcore training I'd been doing over the last nine months, I'd lost forty one pounds of fat and put back some of that as muscle. I still wasn't much stronger than a normal human woman, but it was enough to get noticed when I was with normal people.
She started pulling bags one by one from my arms and packing them inside. “So what do you do for a living,” she trailed off and paused, really looking at me. Oh no, all it would take is one person recognizing me and calling the police to cause a world of trouble. They couldn't arrest me and since I was over eighteen, my leaving wasn't illegal. But they could still hold me for questioning for hours over Lexie's disappearance. They didn't have any solid connections between the two disappearances, but I had to be at least a person of interest and that was enough to delay me from my destination, from Mom. Those added hours could be extra hours of unspeakable torture for her. I couldn't afford to get caught.
The woman laughed, but didn't take her eyes off me. “I didn't even ask your name! Have we met? You look familiar.”
“Stephanie, and no, I don't think we've met,” I answered quickly and gave an uncomfortable laugh, praying that my recent weight loss was enough to distort my appearance. “And I worked in retail, so I moved big boxes and bags of this or that. What's yours?”
“I'm Cathy, and that's Brendon—” she said, pointing to the boy, then to the girl. “—and the little angel is my little Lily-put.” She pulled the last bag from my arms and gestured at me to climb into the passenger seat.
Brendon packed Lilly into her car seat and sat by her side, holding a small teddy bear in her lap for her. Cynical smart-ass though he may be, he did seem to be a very good big brother.
Cathy started the whining engine and got us onto the virtually empty interstate.
“So what brings you to Newport, Stephanie?” she asked.
Trying to see if my mom was buried alive.
“I came up here to help my sister out.” I didn't like how easy lying was becoming for me. “She's in the hospital with a broken pelvis and I came up from North Carolina to help her take care of my nephews— twin, three-year-old boys who have more energy than caution— while she recovers.”
“So you just dropped everything, left your job, and spent your last dime on a bus ticket?” Cathy seemed to be surprised.
“I hated that job anyway and her friend who's watching the boys can only do that for so long before the social worker has to put them in a foster home, so I really had to book it up here.”
“That's awfully nice of you, Stephanie,” she said with an approving smile.
“That's what you do for family— anything.”
Cathy was quiet for a moment as she mulled over my answer. “Absolutely.”
It wasn't much longer of talking about her kids before we pulled into the parking lot of a hospital near the cemetery of my father's church.
“Good luck, Stephanie,” she said.
“To you, too,” I responded, smiling. “Thank you so much for the ride.”
She drove off then, leaving for her home in Jamestown. As soon as her taillights rounded the corner, I ran flat-out for the church. I had to get to Mom. I had to know if she was alive.
I ran between the familiar houses of families that I'd known for as long as I could remember until the steeple came into view. I skipped the church entrance and vaulted straight over the chain-link fence.
I looked around desperately, trying to find her. I spotted an unfamiliar headstone on the other side of the cemetery, near where my father's parents were buried together and made a mad dash for it. I knew this graveyard like the back of my hand and that one wasn't here befor
e.
Weaving blindly between the headstones, I fell to my numb knees before Mom's. Somehow, seeing it in person just made everything more real. Mom was under there. She was really in the ground.
I knew I had to feel in the earth for her life force, that she could be suffering right now, but I couldn't make myself do it now that I was here.
Back when I was in college, I was made to take an introductory physics course even though I was studying history. The professor told us about a thought experiment that exemplified some complicated quantum mechanics theory. He said that some crazy bastard put a cat and a poison in a closed box and that until the box was opened, the cat was both alive and dead simultaneously.
It didn't make much sense to me, but the thought that she was alive for sure made me almost not want to look.
Almost.
If she really was alive, then she was suffering. I had to find out.
Calling my magic into my palms, I dug them into the cool soil and reached down into the earth and saw…
A tea candle.
And just like that, the world stopped spinning.
For what must have been hours, I lay there on the cold earth, holding what remained of Mom's life in my hands. I watched it flicker and dance against the darkness just like every other light.
I wanted to see something different about her flame, some kind of recognition that it was me. If I couldn't be there for her when she needed me the most, I wanted her to at least know that I was there for her in death. I wanted her to know how much I loved her.
I would never be able to tell her that again.
It felt like there was an elephant sitting on my chest. Between the strangling pain in my throat and the squeezing on my heart, I could barely keep breathing.
I touched her tombstone, rubbing my thumbs against the cold, smooth marble. Winnifred Elizabeth Flynn, beloved wife and mother. Those words were almost an insult to her memory. She was so much more than those generic words.
She was the kindest, most pure-hearted woman that I had ever known. No matter what, she had always been there for me with a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a meal to share, or a funny story to laugh at. To try to capture an entire life— much less the life of a woman so vivid and heartfelt— was bordering on obscene.
And I would never see her again.
But…
A knot of ice twisted in my stomach like I'd been impaled. What if she didn't have to stay dead?
While I was on the bus, I had given a lot of thought as to what made Lexie different from Edgar. He'd had a flame the same size as Mom's and a fresh enough body. Theoretically, there wasn't anything that made him different from Lexie.
The only thing I could come up with was that I didn't love him and I didn't love any of the animals I'd raised. I loved Lexie and I loved Mom.
But what if I was just being crazy? What if Lexie was a one-time fluke? If I brought Mom back and she…
If she came crawling out of her grave with those empty, soulless eyes that Edgar had, I didn't know if I could live with myself.
I didn't know if I could live in a world without Mom.
I lurched to my feet and reached for the sword in my arm. The blade was at my wrist before I could think. I would need a lot of blood if I wanted to get more than just her body back.
An icy grip crushed my arm and whipped me around.
“Don't. You. Dare.” Lexie's face was twisted with anger. Her skin, always so milky and wan nowadays, was almost flushed with it.
“I have to!” I tried to jerk my arm free in vain.
She squeezed even harder until I heard a pop and my hand fell open, dropping the sword onto the ground.
“You don't have to; you want to.”
“You don't understand.” I didn't really get it, either, but I needed her. I couldn't face this dark, bloody, messed-up world I was in now without knowing that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I had to know that one day, I could have my family again. I could have my life back.
“I get it just fine.” Lexie released my arm and picked up the curved-edge sword. “You and I both want her back, but that isn't what she would want.”
I couldn't find my tongue as she took my left arm and put the sword back inside it.
“Think about it,” she pleaded. “She wouldn't have wanted this kind of life— on the run from the worst kind of monster, separated from her family, and everything she's built in her life. She wouldn't be happy.”
“She could be,” I argued with what little air I could keep in my lungs. “We could be, too, once all this is over. I thought we were starting to find some before…” I trailed off, unable to make the words come out of my mouth.
“And you think I like living this way? I'm the walking dead! I can't eat or sleep. I can't dream. My body is half numb all the time. My heart doesn't even beat anymore. Do you know how that messes with your head?” She went quiet and dropped her eyes. Her hands knitted together over her lower stomach. “I can't have kids.”
That one hurt, really hurt. For as long as I could remember, Lexie had wanted kids. She used to smile and laugh as she'd say she wanted a dozen of them. In a way, it made sense. While she got a mother's love from Rosemarie and my mom, she'd never gotten it from her own. Evangelina Baxter had no other love than for herself.
Ever since we got off that plane from Norway, I'd had an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach that she had to hate me for what I'd done. For months, I'd been pushing it down and ignoring it. I hadn't wanted to look that beast in the face because I knew somewhere that I couldn't handle losing Lexie, too. I couldn't be the one to turn on that light and here she was, shining a floodlight on it.
“I know that this isn't your fault and I'm glad to be alive today. Or not alive.” She shook her head, seeming conflicted as she ran her fingers through her hair. My knees went weak at her absolution. “But think about your mom, how much of a kind and gentle person she was. She would be miserable in this life. If you bring her back, it will be the most selfish thing you have ever done in your life.”
She was right. God, she was right.
The knife that had been twisting in my heart spread to every cell in my body and I fell to the ground. All I could do was scream my pain, my frustration, my grief to any god that would listen.
A cool arm slid around my shoulders and Lexie leaned her head against mine as the sun slowly crested over the trees.
Some time later, after my eyes couldn't cry anymore, the gate creaked open behind us.
6
Excuse me, ladies, can I help you?” my father asked, approaching us with a confused expression on his bedraggled face. He looked like he'd aged ten years instead of ten months since I'd seen him last. His light brown hair had new streaks of gray in it and the bags under his eyes carried with him the weight of his own personal hell. His collar had a mystery stain on it and was sticking out on one end. In his arms, he carried a bouquet of pink peonies— her favorite.
Lexie and I got to our feet as he came toward us. I froze up like a deer in the headlights, staring at him. We were busted.
Except there was no recognition in his eyes. Surely, my own father would know me when he saw me. But he didn't.
Lexie spoke up. “We just came by to pay our respects. We knew Constance and Lexie from school. Mrs. Flynn helped me out once a few years ago and I wanted to say thanks one last time.”
“Oh,” he nodded, accepting her answer. It was something Mom would have done. “Do you mind if I ask what she did for you?”
“She gave me some advice when I needed it most.” She shifted her weight, keeping a firm grip on my hand. Whether it was to support me or keeping me from running, I didn't know.
“What did she tell you?”
Lexie paused, trying to come up with an answer. “I was going through a really hard time with my family and she told me that we had to stick together, no matter how bad things got, because nobody loves you more than your family.”
Dad was quiet. “Fam
ily, huh?” His voice broke as he knelt on her grave, exactly where I'd been lying nearly comatose only a few hours ago. “Winnie always had such strong family values. She would have done anything for them. They didn't return the favor. Even her own mother left her behind.”
“I can't speak for her mom, but I knew Constance and she loves her family more than anything. And Lexie is her family. Those two were like conjoined twins. If she's in trouble, then Constance went to go help her,” she said quietly. “She would never leave her mom unless she had to. She probably doesn't even know what happened.”
Dad didn't say anything. He just stared at Mom's tombstone, his cheeks quivering and his fists so tight they were white.
“Constance will come home as soon as she's found her sister,” Lexie assured. She gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
“She doesn't have a damn sister.” He threw the flowers down and marched away. “And she doesn't have a father.”
A load of bricks dropped onto my already shattered heart and a piteous mewling sound escaped my throat. Lexie pulled me into a hug and held me as I wept anew. She was all I had left now.
“Shh, topolina.” Jack's hand softly stroked my back. He stood there with us for a few minutes while Lexie and I mourned together before ushering us to where he'd parked his jeep on the street.
I walked without looking back.
There was nothing left for me in Newport.
The next day, I woke to bright, noonday sunlight streaming through the window of Lexie's and my bedroom in the bungalow. The trip had taken far less time, since there weren't as many stops. I didn't sleep on the return trip, either, so I had fallen into bed the moment I got in the door.
I was physically and emotionally exhausted beyond anything I'd ever felt before and all I had wanted was to sleep for a hundred years. Maybe by then, it would stop hurting.
My stomach was churning painfully and I remembered I hadn't eaten for days. I didn't want food. I didn't want to get out of bed. I wanted to fuse with the bed, gritty sand and all.
Lexie needed me to eat or she would start rotting.
Tresia (Stone Mage Saga Book 3) Page 4