Chapter 15 #2
I run a light hand over the benchtop, my fingertips coming away with five years’ worth of dust coating them. I brush it off on my dress, hoping it will float away in the wind on the ride back.
Memories flood my mind—visions of my mother smiling wide as she stood washing the dishes, watching the three of us out that very window. I would always look for her, like I could feel her watching us, and she would always just smile and wave at me.
My father taught me to dance in this kitchen, or he tried to at least. Apparently, I didn’t inherit his natural rhythm and likely stood on his toes more often than he mentioned.
It’s also the room I was in when Finnick rushed through the front door so hard it nearly fell off its hinges.
I was about to scold him for it, but then I saw the look in his eyes.
He fell to the floor, his words nothing more than a mumble of sounds before he finally choked out the words that would cleave my world in two.
It’s where the reality that my mother would never wave out that window to me again slammed into the forefront of my mind. The fact that I would never hear my father’s deep laugh again as he watched me dance with two left feet.
Tears well in my eyes as a cold feeling skates up my arms.
“We should split up,” Hazel says, reminding me that we are here for a reason. “And if there is nothing here, then we will go, okay?”
I just nod, not meeting either of their gazes before they split off, Hazel going into the living room and Cedar venturing down the hall.
I take a deep breath, a musty scent drawing up my nose before I force it back out and turn to follow after Cedar down the hall.
I turn through a doorway, landing myself in the room that was once my parents' bedchamber. My breath catches in my throat as I look over their bed. It’s still exactly how they left it. The linens crumpled at the foot of the bed, as if they got up and were too busy to make it.
Finnick and I never touched this room. I don’t think I even stepped foot in it after their accident. I couldn’t face it, not back then. I barely can now, not without a few tears sliding down my cold cheek.
I walk over to the armoire, where the door is slightly open. A peek of green fabric hides in the gap, and I pull the door wide. Another tear falls as I run my hands over my mother’s dresses, grief hugging me tight like an old friend.
I pull the dark green one out and lay it on the bed. She used to wear this one all the time, and every time she did, I thought she looked like a piece of nature, like she was exactly where she belonged.
I always hoped that one day I would be half as beautiful as she was, that my smile would bring joy to everyone who saw it.
And maybe even that my death would hurt someone the way hers hurt me.
Because that would mean someone loved me the way I loved her, and the way I loved her surpassed any other feeling I had ever felt.
“I can’t find anything in here,” Hazel’s voice floats down the hall, reminding me once again that I’m supposed to be looking for something. Something my mother hid from us. The thought still makes me feel ill. What would she have hidden from us?
I turn back to the armoire, pushing the clothes aside as I knock on the back of the unit, but it is dense. I’m not even sure what we are looking for. A key? A secret room? A book disguised as a fable?
I shake my head as I shut the wooden doors, and when I turn around, I don’t look through their dresser or under their bed. I simply walk back into the hall.
Creaky floorboards lead me to the next door across the hall, and I land in my father’s study, another wave of grief and nostalgia crashing over me.
Vines have crept their way up the bookcase that lines the back wall, weaving in between books and tomes before making their way up one more shelf, and another and another until they crawl across the ceiling, the entire room swallowed by greenery.
I walk over to my father’s desk, pulling open every drawer I was told not to as a child. Rummaging through papers with faded ink, looking for something, anything that might explain what I am missing here.
I slam the last drawer shut, exhaustion flooding my body as I slump down in the desk chair, dust puffing into the air around me. I breathe it in, letting myself cough on the little particles that invade my lungs.
This is hopeless.
I feel like a fool chasing the hope that I might find something that could explain…everything. Witch hunts, and mysterious strangers with even more mysterious weapons, and malicious councilmen…nothing that I find here could fix any of it.
My parents died long before Nameria fell under King Wyndbrook's reign, so the only person who can help me now is myself.
I should never have put so much faith in an elderly woman’s ramblings.
The sound of a sharp chirp drags my attention to the open window where a sparrow balances on the ledge, its head tipping in the direction of the bookcase. I watch as he hops along the wooden sill, almost as if he is trying to catch my attention with his dance.
His wings beat as he flits through the air, landing on the fourth shelf of the bookcase before hopping around to face me. I stand quietly, hoping he won’t scare away as I take cautious steps towards him. He watches me, chirping as I get closer, but not moving to flee.
He turns around, pecking his beak into the spine of a book before he takes off, escaping out the window before I can so much as blink.
I pull on the spine of the book, not sure what I am expecting, but nothing happens.
I pull the book out, reading the title on the front.
Lakes and River Systems of Nameria.
Okay, nothing too sinister going on there.
As I turn the book over, I notice a leaf pressed in between the pages, a sliver of green peeking out.
I flick through the pages until I land on the page with the leaf, but something else is hidden between the pages.
A worn piece of paper, the edges tattered and stained.
Written in ink on the rough paper is what looks like a recipe.
A Look Beyond the Mist is written at the top of the page, followed by a list of plants and herbs.
Opium Poppy
Sap of the Red Maple
Aniseed
Jasmine stem
As I read the rest of the ingredients I can’t help but remember that every single one of these plants were in our garden field as kids. The one our mother taught us to tend like it was something precious.
I read on, and when I see a sketch of the dagger that is hiding in my basket, the book falls with a thud as it hits the wooden floor.
“Guys,” I yell out. “I think I found something.” The two of them appear in the doorway within seconds.
“What is it?” Hazel asks, taking the paper from my shaky hand. Cedar reads from over her shoulder, and I watch as both of their eyes go wide.
I walk over to lean out the window, peering out to the backyard to see the field still littered with flowers, some that were there before sprinkled with some that are new.
“A look beyond the mist?” Hazel says. “What does that even mean?”
“That sounds familiar to me,” Cedar wonders aloud, her voice no more than a murmur. “And there’s the dagger,” she adds. “It says for the mixture to work that dagger specifically must be used. Anything else, and it won’t hold its effect.”
When I turn around, both of them are looking at me with a mix of curiosity and wariness in their gazes.
“Tell me we have these ingredients,” Hazel says.
I look back out the window. “If the luck of the gods is with us, then we just might.”
I rub a hand over my breastbone as I try to quell the hollow feeling within my chest as my skirts drag through the long grass dotted with flowers behind the house.
I used to spend hours in this garden, laughing with my mother as we watched the boys cause trouble, flicking them with the soil from our fingers if they ever got too close.
Back then it was full of life, a vibrant rainbow of petals. Now it’s nothing more than a memory, with remnants of that rainbow hiding between the weeds.
Hazel sneezes, reminding me that she’s standing to my side. “Sorry,” she sniffs.
I shake my head. “It’s fine. It’ll be the jasmine,” I say, nodding towards where the jasmine climbs up the fragile banister of the staircase that led us from the back door out to this garden.
“So all we need is the red maple sap, the jasmine stem, and sunflower seeds?” I nod in response, my eyes searching for the bright yellow of a sunflower hiding somewhere out here, but I don’t see even a glimpse of one.
Cedar has taken Merlin to my apothecary to pick up the milk of the poppy and aniseed that I have in my supply while Hazel and I will look for the rest, but none of it will matter if we can’t find just one of the ingredients, we need all of them for the mixture to work.
“There’s a red maple near the back of the property,” I say. “I’ll see if I can extract some of the sap.”
Hazel nods. “I’ll scour the bush for a sunflower?”
“Meet back here soon,” I say before taking off through the garden.
I walk down the vague path that used to separate the two sides of the prosperous garden. Now it’s entirely grown over, but I can still imagine how it used to be.
My stomach rolls as I step into the trees at the back of the clearing, pushing aside the thorny bushes that have found a home between the tree trunks.
I hiss as a thorn slashes across my arm. I look down, my hand instinctively covering the cut, and when my palm comes back with blood, I curse at the bush, as if it’s the plant’s fault I wasn't paying attention.
I sigh, my eyes falling closed before I continue forward, more careful of my surroundings until I find what I was really looking for—three stones erected in a gap between the trees.
Heat stings behind my eyes as I sink to my knees in front of what is left of my family.
Vines climb over my father’s gravestone, covering the small inscription beneath his name. Beloved father and husband.
I reach up to tear the vines away, but I pull my hand back, unable to ignore how the arm of the vine looks like it's providing comfort to the stone.
I fold my legs in front of me as I force myself to look at my brother’s gravestone, my heart tightening in my chest just at the sight of it, even though I know he is not buried beneath this soil.
“I know you’re not here,” I whisper. “I know that I'm simply talking to a stone right now, but you’re not around so I've got to work with what I've got.” A warm tear slides down my cheek before a cool breeze dries it on my skin.
“Gods, I hate you,” I spit, shaking my head before I let it hang forwards, staring down at my lap as relief floods my system. A shaky laugh falls from my lips. “I hate you so much for not being here right now, Finnick. I don’t know what I'm doing.”
My tears leak from my eyes like a dripping faucet. “You’re supposed to be here to help me.”
I’ve had a hard time relying on anyone since Finnick’s disappearance. He was the one person who was meant to be there for me, and he’s gone.
Everyone I've ever truly loved has left.
I remind myself exactly why I need to stick to my side of the boundary when it comes to Silas. He’s the only one who stayed, and I don't want that to change. He’s also one of the only people I’ve let in, the one person I have really leaned on.
“I need you to tell me I’m doing something right, Finnick. I want to make a difference, but I don't know if I can.”
My shoulders slump as I drag my fingers through my hair, tugging on the strands close to my scalp. Wherever Finnick is, he can’t hear me, no matter how desperately I wish he could. I wish I could hear his voice one more time, even just to tell me to stop being so dramatic, but I can’t.
He might be alive somewhere, but here, in this place, he is dead. An overwhelming wave of grief falls over me, leaving me drowning where I sit, twigs and debris clinging to my skirts.
I jump when I feel a breath of air fall over my skin, and when I look up, I see a small deer standing in front of me.
My breath is stolen as I watch the elegant movements of the animal. It bows its head just in front of me, its lips curling around a weed before I hear the plant being ripped in two.
The deer raises its head, its warm eyes looking straight into mine, like it’s searching for something within them.
Its energy is warm, soothing, and I can feel my heartbeat falling quiet the longer I spend looking into its eyes.
This is one of those moments, the ones that I think will linger long after they've passed.
Just when I mean to raise my hand and let it fall on the deer's brown coat, it disappears into the trees.