Chapter 5 When I’m Done Dying #2
Down the hall, the door to Ma’s study is left wide open. I freeze, checking my perimeter to make sure no one is around, in case I was wrong in my prior assessment. In case the one time my power would be of use to me, it’s decided to turn off.
But the house is, as I knew, completely empty. I move forward, into her study.
The room is frozen in time, untouched, as if Ma has only just stepped out and not left us entirely.
Not been dead the last five years.
Papers lie scattered across her desk, collecting dust. The books on the shelf across the room are leaning, their spines curling, the covers fraying like forgotten things, slowly decaying without the careful hands Ma used to give them.
The room is a time capsule.
I understand why; it was where she spent all her time. The family can come to the door, close their eyes, and pretend she’s still sitting here. Zola knows I would’ve done it thousands of times if I ever visited my old home.
But this is no longer home. It feels like I’ve broken in—like a new family lives here, and I couldn’t let go, so I’ve forced my way in to get one last glimpse.
What am I doing? I’m unsure what I’m looking—hoping—for. One last piece of Ma, left in the ruckage, untattered by the new family that replaced the one I once had?
But I remember the name—Isa Althenia. I can almost put a face to it. A piece of Ma. One last shard to dig into my skin.
One last way to pull blood, to prove her memory.
Could anything of importance be left in Ma’s work, all the philosophy books she wrote that only the Eunoia agree with?
I step toward the bookshelf, then stop.
There’s a lump in my throat. If I looked in a mirror, I’m sure I’d see something lodged there. Like a snake swallowing its prey. I don’t know if I am the snake or the mouse. Nor do I know which is worse—their pain, or my own.
Because this is all mine.
The worst part of the room is that it still smells like Ma: violets and freshly chopped wood. Is this the best part for my brothers? My father? That they still get to smell her?
I move away from the bookshelf, starting with the pile of papers on her desk. As I run my fingers along each page, I imagine Ma doing the same. I imagine my hand in hers. Her ghost sitting in the chair beside me.
It’s not very long before I notice a similarity between the pages: some are stamped with the seal of Folkara.
But there’s no reason Ma would have anything from Folkara. The worlds don’t often share with each other—least of all the monarchies. Not unless it’s with someone in their service.
I shuffle through the papers faster. Some are signed by King Easton and Queen Melody—the rulers of Folkara.
It must be a mistake. It has to be. Except, they’re all addressed to her. Willow Estridon written in shining ink, making the hope of doubt nearly impossible.
There’s no reason she would—
Yet the reality of what I’ve found hits me like an axe to wood.
She worked for the kingdom. That’s the only explanation. My mother, a philosopher and Eunoia, worked for the Folk. It seems impossible. Yet I can’t deny the logic of this. She managed to secure my enrollment at Visnatus, an academy built for future leaders.
She had to have ties with the current ones.
I’m halfway through the pile on her desk when it dawns on me: I need something more personal.
There will be nothing about Isa in government papers.
Stepping back to her bookcase, I’m prepared to look for a journal…
Only to stop short, my hands inching toward the books but never touching.
I don’t understand why at first. Maybe there’s a magical barrier, stopping me.
Until the boy comes to life in my mind, saying, “You’re looking for the final words she penned.”
That’s why I didn’t start with the bookshelf and why I can’t touch it now.
I feared this would be too much.
I try to swat at him, like he’s a persistent fly. But he says, “I’m not here to annoy you,” and I understand. “Close your eyes. Join me.”
The offer is a tempting one, and I take it. I have enough mercy upon myself to place the two of us back at Visnatus Academy, in the garden. I can hardly bear the grief of Ma’s study in the real world—I don’t know if I could handle it in my mind.
The sun shines over the boy and me, the colors around us spiraling lazily. As if painted of water color instead of reality. Yet reality weighs heavily on me. My body still stands in my hometown, where everything tastes of bile and blood.
“This is hard for you,” the boy says, staring at me from a foot away. His features are more muddled than usual. No part of him is easily defined, like a smeared piece of art.
He is dark, even in the light.
“Yes.”
“I know, love. It wasn’t a question.” He steps closer, his movements like water flowing downstream. Then, he folds me into an embrace.
Years ago, when I discovered him in my mind, his presence and touch felt strange. Over time, our embraces have become the only I receive.
The sun shines in my eyes.
“Things like this can be healing,” he murmurs into my hair, his voice weaving with the wind. A tear slides down my cheek. “Since she died, you’ve only avoided her. Sometimes you must let things in.”
“I miss her,” I sob, leaning into the boy.
“You always will.”
“I don’t want her to be gone.”
“These are the things we cannot change.” I clutch him tighter, and he continues, “There is something in the bookcase, I can feel it. Find it.”
Slowly, his touch dissolves from under me, his edges softening like a shadow met by the sun. I clutch onto him tighter as he slips away.
Then, my eyes open, leaving me standing before the bookcase in Ma’s suite. Alone.
But the boy left me with a parting gift.
I follow his instruction, scanning the spines. I assume I’m looking for Ma’s classic leather-bound journals, something that looks battered enough to be my age.
Something she penned her thoughts in.
Instead, my eyes stop on a philosophy book: The Mendacity of Good and Evil.
I glide a finger down the rough spine, feeling every crease and indentation, stopping just over the author’s name.
This copy is attributed to Marto, but I know it was written by Shenlin.
As I pick up the book, something foreign comes to life.
This is what the boy pointed out. What I pointed out to myself. I felt it the moment I stepped into the room. It was pestering in the back of my mind. But something off isn’t always so easily defined, like trying to recognize a wrong note in a song you’ve never heard.
Until it sticks out.
This room is the song—the book the wrong note. It doesn’t feel like Ma.
It feels like magic.
A glamour. Folk magic, which means a Folk hid it. It adds weight to my theory that she was working with Folkara.
But I don’t know why.
I slip the book into my bag, though I can’t be sure it’s truly a book beneath the glamour.
With the bag clutched close, I step out of the room and avoid the creaking floorboard on the stairs once more.
My eyes land on the table, where my father sits alone. Watching him now, I realize I misread him earlier—when all I had were echoes through the walls.
He is not the same. There’s a grief in him, heavy and hollow, like the pit in my own chest—something he’s holding back with all he has, trying not to be swallowed whole.
And it’s all because of me. I’ve done this to him, and now I’ve broken into his home, taking away his last scrap of relief.
Before he can see me, I press myself against the wall on the stairs—as if I could disappear into the wood forever.
“Terran?” he calls.
It’s been five years. He can’t see me, not like this. It’s been five long years of knowing they were better off without me. I can’t bombard him with my presence.
Yet, there is no way to get back to Visnatus other than the community mirror.
There is no way to hide if he chooses to feel.
I have no choice.
I step into view.
Our eyes meet for the first time in five years. Tears slide past mine.
“Wendy,” Pa remarks in awe.
There’s a bright feeling.
It’s the rising sun, but the day only lasts so long. No matter what, night will come again, overshadowing the sun.
In the end, only his blame will remain—resting solely on me.
As it should.
Pa’s eyes turn glassy as he walks toward me, wrapping his arms around me. “My sweet Wendy.”
It’s been so long. I haven’t heard my name spoken like this… in so long.
I wish I could hug him back. It’s the first hug I’ve had since Ma died. But I’m as stiff as a board, scared my movements might scare him away faster. Like I’m a wolf, and he’s a rabbit.
This warm feeling he holds—that I am holding—will not last.
It’s only the rising sun.
“Has something happened?” Pa asks, the same cadence to his tone as before, back when I knew him.
Yet his feelings are still conflicted. I understand. I am his daughter and his wife’s killer. He blames me as I blame myself, yet loves me as I never will.
I wonder if he knows of the things I learned today. Why Ma worked for Folkara, or why a woman she used to know was taken by the Arcanes.
“No. Nothing’s happened.” Then, “I missed you.”
I choke back a tear. One falls down his cheek.
“And I’ve missed you, Little Thorn.”
I’ve always hated that nickname. Little Thorn. But he means it. He missed me. I am his daughter, after all.
And his wife’s killer.
“Will you be staying?” Pa asks.
I hate that he has hope. That despite it all—the guilt he gives me, the grief I gift him—he still wants me here.
He wants to torture me—for me to torture him.
That is all my presence is good for.
That is the game people play.
I bite my bottom lip, shifting the weight between my feet and angling my body toward the door. “It’s probably best I get back to the academy.” Tears well in my eyes.
“Are you sure?” Pa asks, his tone timid. “The boys would love to see you.”
The saddest part is he believes it. There’s scarcely a chance my brothers will want to see the person who stole their mother from them.