Chapter 29 A Ghost Made of Memories #3
She can do it. I know it.
I close my eyes.
It’s a bumpy beginning—a blurry picture. Then, I’m standing in what must be Desdemona’s body. She can’t be older than fourteen. She looks at a woman as she holds her hands.
Gods, the woman looks so familiar. I swear I’ve seen her before.
The door to their home trembles, just as I realize who the woman is.
“Isa!” a voice shouts. A voice I never thought I’d hear again. A voice I dare to recognize. “Isa open up!”
Ma.
Desdemona’s mom—Isa—opens the door.
And I stare at the voice I never thought I’d hear again. A face I never could imagine quite right. Unmarred and beautiful. Restored to past glory.
I choke up, but Desdemona’s body doesn’t follow me into sensation.
My mom wraps her arms around Isa.
Why would Desdemona’s necklace have a memory of my mom?
“What are you doing here?” Isa asks, holding onto both of Ma’s arms. The way I long to.
I watch, standing in Desdemona’s body. I have no control over it, yet I somehow swear my mouth is agape.
“You weren’t supposed to come for months,” Isa finishes.
“They know she lives,” Ma says. “King Easton—he’s looking for her. He thinks he can power the weapon before the Arcanes do.”
Isa looks at me—at Desdemona—like I’m both a nuisance and the object of all her love.
The breath rips from my chest, like it’s been stolen.
This body—Desdemona—is Isa’s daughter. She’s her daughter.
She’s my mom’s best friend’s daughter.
I shake my head. It doesn’t work.
“We need to leave,” is all Isa says to me—no, to Desdemona. Then she rests a hand on Ma’s shoulder. “Thank you, Lo—”
“Tell me nothing,” Ma interrupts. I try to focus on the scene in front of me.
“I don’t know what they’ll do to me if they believe I hold information.
” Ma reaches up to grab Isa’s cheek. She holds her so tenderly, the way she used to hold me.
Tears prick at her eyes. “I can’t promise that you will see me again. ”
Could this be the last thing Ma did before she died?
Did she use her final breaths to protect Desdemona? A girl I’m trying to kill?
Am I going against Ma’s dying wish?
Isa steps back, shaking her head as she runs a hand over her month. The two stare at each other, Ma’s lower lip quivering.
“Willow,” Isa sighs, her voice muffled, her hand still covering her mouth. Her head continues to shake. “I need you.”
Ma bites her lower lip to stop the quivering. The image is a mirror. I never realized that habit of mine came from her.
I want to know all the ways I carry her.
“My dearest friend,” Ma chokes, yet her eyes glow as she looks at Isa. “The light of my life.” She smiles. “You saved me once. I owe it to save you, too.”
Isa takes a step forward, picking up Ma’s hands. “Being near will save me!” Isa pleads. “I can’t lose both you and Freyr. It cuts too deep—”
The image breaks off. My mom disappears.
I open my eyes to the suite, more confused than ever.
Ma?
Where did you go?
I look up, seeing Calista and remembering: it was all a memory.
“Show me more,” I beg, breathless.
Only then do I realize the red lines in the whites of Calista’s eyes. Her strain.
“I can’t.” Calista rubs her eyes closed. “It’s too much.”
Ma has something to do with this—with Desdemona, the Memorium, and Isa. She went back to save Isa, to save Desdemona, right before she was killed.
And I left Desdemona in the ballroom to die.
I broke my ma’s last living will.
I wonder if Pa was right when he said I could never do what Ma has done. If I’m playing with forces far beyond my comprehension and control.
If Ma protected Isa and Desdemona, there was a reason.
I stand, turning to the door. “We have to go back to the ballroom.”
Calista reaches for the stone. “I have to—”
“I need you with me,” I say.
The truth is I only need someone with me. Someone else to be forced to feel so I don’t crumble beneath my own weight.
But Calista tilts her head as she looks at me, her gaze lingering longer than it should. Tears prickle in her red-rimmed eyes. I feel it—an unspoken truth, something neither of us would ever say out loud.
We are the only real connection either of us has left in our lives.
And in this moment, I realize maybe I do need her.
Before either of us can voice it, Calista huffs, “Fine,” as she picks up the Memorium.
We walk the academy halls, the sconces dim and an alarm blaring. Students race by us, whispering about what happened in the ballroom.
“Was she really an Arcane?”
“I saw her red eyes.”
“But those things aren’t real.”
“You really believed that?”
Arcane. If Desdemona is an Arcane—
I must have misunderstood them.
Or Ma.
There are still unconscious students on the ballroom floor. None are dead. One lies next to a hand, instead of having it attached to his arm. My heart races, then Calista runs to a girl—Aralia.
Calista holds Aralia like what she used to be. Her dearest friend.
“She’s alive,” I let her know, moving my focus back to the bodies littering the floor. I wonder about Desdemona. All these unconscious kids were trying to ambush her—did they succeed?
It doesn’t seem like they did.
“She’s not waking up!” Calista cries from across the room.
“She will,” I assure her. “She needs rest—” I cut myself off as my eyes land on a blue beanie.
I blink, certainly mis-seeing.
As I open my eyes, the blue remains.
My entire world shrinks, until it is nothing but the dark fabric.
It’s real.
Who would wear a beanie to a ball?
I take tentative steps. Afraid if I make too much noise, a ripple will rearrange my reality. The boy in front of me will dissipate.
It has to be Azaire, in some way. Doesn’t it?
That’s Azaire.
I approach. I lean down. I begin to pull the beanie from the head of the boy. He must have snakes. He must be Azaire. Why else wear a beanie to a ball?
Slowly, I lift the beanie from the top of his head.
I am met only with brown hair.
Hair? Who would wear a beanie at a ball to cover hair? I laugh at the absurdity. I laugh so hard that I fall to my knees, clutching my stomach as it aches. A beanie. Who would wear… a blue… a beanie…
With one breath, the humor escapes me, leaving me with a feeling so wholly my own that there is nothing else to grasp onto.
He was supposed to come back.
Azaire wasn’t supposed to die.
Ma wasn’t supposed to die.
My family wasn’t supposed to blame me.
I was fourteen. I was a baby, a child, inches smaller in height. A million times smaller in mind.
How could I have stopped a targeted attack on my mom?
How could I save the universe from a prophecy?
Maybe I’m meant to do nothing. I was only a conduit—I am not a savior. I never have been. I failed Azaire, my do-over, the first time I opened myself to love after losing so much of it.
Even if I kill Desdemona, it won’t stop me from feeling this. If there’s anyone that deserves my anger, it’s me. If there’s anyone that deserves to be avenged, it’s not me.
I don’t have Azaire, and the gods don’t have Azaire. No one has Azaire. He’s a tree.
And I never told him I loved him.
There was one thing I could have done—one thing that could have changed my fate.
I could have told the boy I love that I loved him.
There have been so many things I thought I had to do—things I was powerless to change. But this is the one I can’t deny. There is no reasonable explanation for what I did, for why I tore his heart out in an attempt to protect him, when what I should have done was pull him closer.
The one time that my choices had power, I chose wrong.
“I’m okay,” someone says. Aralia. She’s shocked that Calista is holding her, helping her. She glares around the room before asking, “What is this?”
Calista fixes me with a gaze, unsure. She doesn’t know what to tell Aralia. But she turns to her, asking, “Where did Desdemona go?”
Calista asks for me.
For me to kill her.
After watching quietly this entire time, the boy comes to life. “If this is what you want, I will not stop you, Little Thorn.”
“Why wouldn’t you stop me?”
“Because you are close to finding the truth I’ve been trying to show you. For all I’ve tried, I have failed. Perhaps it will take something drastic.”
“Lucian took her,” Aralia answers.
“To kill?” I step forward.
Aralia glares at me. “To protect.” Her gaze fixes back on Calista as she shrugs her arms away from the princess. “Why are you helping me?”
Calista opens her mouth, shaking her head slowly. Aralia sighs as she rises to her feet, moving away. She wipes dust from her dress and leaves the ballroom without another word.
Calista stares at me, unspoken words sitting in her throat. She can’t get them out. I sit next to her, once a friend, turned a foe, now something more complicated.
“Is there something more you want?” she asks, her voice tight.
I open my mouth, but it seems this time it’s my vocal cords who disagree.
“I have the necklace,” Calista scorns. “I’m done here.”
But she doesn’t mean it. I can feel her not meaning it. She must know that, but I stand regardless and leave the ballroom.
Because beneath her facade, there’s a broken heart. And I don’t have it in me to try to mend two.