Chapter 14 Anything but What I’ve Become #2
“Pardon me.” He clears his throat as he stands.
I try to distract him—and myself—from the overwhelming feeling sucking the air from the room. “Where are Cassius and Jasper?” I ask.
We never eat without the six of us.
Five… five of us.
Four.
There’s only four of them now.
“Cassius is with his partner, and Jasper’s working,” Pa answers, the steady rhythm of his knife chopping through vegetables echoing against the wood.
Life never stops moving.
I froze on the day Ma died, my life stunted, but they continued to move forward. If grief is a race, I lost by a landslide.
I choose not to dwell on it. I think of Jasper, my youngest brother. He trained his whole life to be a healer. I can’t believe he graduated before me.
“When did Jasper graduate?” I ask. The small amount of excitement I feel for him crumbles under the overbearing weight that settles in my chest.
“He didn’t,” Pa mutters. “He works at blue beam.”
I shake my head. “But he was going to be a healer.” A great one at that. He could patch me up with more ease than growing berries.
“He enjoys the farm,” Pa says, filling another plate with food.
That’s not right. He went to the best school in our hometown. Everyone always saw me as the special child, the prodigal daughter, but that’s how I saw Jasper. Steadfast, reliable, powerful. He was the one who deserved the spot at Visnatus. He deserves more than to be an agronomist.
“Why didn’t he graduate?” I mutter, almost to myself.
Pa turns to me, shrugging with a frown tugging at his lips. “Healing’s not as urgent here as it is in the other worlds. But agriculture? That’s what matters.”
Because our world supplies the rest. Jasper isn’t a healer because I took his spot at the academy. I eat the food he grows; I heal the elites that he should be healing.
I killed his mother, and I stole his dream.
I don’t even want to be a healer.
“Will they be back soon?” I ask, taking deep breaths as Pa turns away, his attention fixing on the food once more. I ignore how eager I am for an escape, in case Pa reads me again.
“Jasper, yes. Cassius is hard to determine. Sometimes he’s home late.”
“Do you wait for him?” I ask, regarding the meal.
Pa meets my gaze, nodding once. “Always.”
I watch a firefly hover around the berries on the table. I breathe in the familiar smell of the wood. All of the wood in Visnatus is finished; it doesn’t have a scent anymore.
The minutes of silence pass by with the fireflies buzzing wings.
“What has been bringing you about?” Pa asks.
He sits next to me, his hands folding together over the wooden table. I’m not sure how to answer his question. If I tell a lie, he will know. If I tell the truth, I don’t know what he’ll think.
But he might have answers.
At this point, I’d do anything for them.
“Did you know Ma worked for Folkara?”
Pa picks at the loose wood on the table. “Yes,” he answers slowly. Cautiously.
I begin to feel constricted in my clothes, in the seat.
Claustrophobic in my body.
“Do you know what she did for them?”
He continues picking at the table. “She occasionally helped them decipher their prophecies, sometimes the stars,” he answers. He lies.
My skin feels as if it is stretching too tight over my bones. He knows more than he lets on.
“What about Isa?” I pull at my gloves. “She worked for Folkara too—”
His palm meets the table with a loud thump. “We do not speak of her, Wendolyn.”
Pa’s face grows red, as if the mention of Isa is too much for him to swallow. He’s choking on it.
But there is something more. His fear is growing through me, the pit in my stomach becoming a tree. For the first time, I think there may be an answer to find.
“And Freyr?” I ask, feeling him come undone. The spider web of emotions unraveling itself.
“Wendolyn.”
“Do you know what Ma was involved in?” I ask once more, my voice shaking with the growing volume.
Finally, Pa meets my gaze. “Do you?” The fear isn’t just in his voice or in my bones anymore; it’s written in his eyes.
Written like all the things I’ve learned, left for me to find in her journal.
“I think I do,” I answer. Pa reads me, searching for the truth.
He finds it.
He knows I do not lie.
“Let it go.” His jaw tightens.
“I don’t believe that’s what she would want,” I whisper.
Ma would want me to uncover what Folkara has planned for the Weapon. She’d want me to stop something with any propensity for destruction. I know her.
Knew her.
Pa’s voice is as soft as mine now. “Willow would never want you involved in this.”
“That’s not true.”
“You can’t do what she could’ve done. Drop it.”
The words land like arrows in my chest.
Never once has anyone told me I can’t do something. They’ve only ever pushed me to do more.
I’m left in a state of shock, and before I can fight for further answers, Jasper walks in.
His green eyes light up when he looks at me. He reeks of what could only be defined as nostalgia.
Jasper opens his arms, the way he used to, expecting me to get up and run into them. It’s been so long. I’m so far from that girl he knew. But I run anyway, crashing into him. At first, I stiffen in his arms, despite their familiarity. Then I force myself to sink.
He spins me, and it’s easy to pretend I am anything but what I’ve become, for a moment.
“My favorite sister has returned!” Jasper says as he sets me down. He’s so happy. In turn, I get to feel that smile. His warmth.
“My favorite youngest brother.” I try to smile. But even with the warmth of his excitement, Pa’s worry boils in the background.
“How long are you here for?” The remnants of soil and magic waft off Jasper, lingering in the air.
“For a meal,” I say, suddenly feeling guilty.
Jasper only smiles. His hair is the lightest of the four of us kids, and he doesn’t have freckles the way Terran and I do.
He carries the least of Ma in appearance. But I always thought he had her spirit.
He can make anything fun.
“Cassius should be back soon,” Jasper says, looking into the living area. “Is Terran home?”
I don’t answer, and Jasper looks at Pa, still sitting at the dining table.
“He is,” Pa says.
Jasper looks between us, his smile faltering. He feels the animosity—and other leftover emotions—that lingers between us. No one says anything more.
When Jasper nods, I see how much he’s started to look like Pa. The same lean build, the same creases in his chin when he frowns, the same dimples. But it’s the smile that stops me. A smile I haven’t seen since Ma died.
It hits me how much I’ve missed. Years have passed, lives have moved on, and I wasn’t there to see any of it. They weren’t there to see mine, either.
It’s been a sorry excuse for a life, anyhow.
I can only hope Jasper continues to carry what Ma did—a way to keep things light, even while bearing the heaviness.
Then Terran enters the room, every inch my opposite, yet still a twin in appearance. His gaze meets mine, a scowl already etched into his face. He looks like the angry little kid he once was when his eyes narrow.
When Cassiues joins us, we sit around the table and begin the meal, but Pa doesn’t look at me. Terran continues to scowl. Jasper tries to include me in conversation, and Cassius smiles sometimes, but I keep my head down more often than not.
Every time Pa looks up, I feel full of sorrow.
I can more than imagine why.