Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
YEAR 202, ERA OF THE GODS
I spoke with my mother yesterday, a real conversation for the first time in years. Since Papa died, she’s retreated into herself no matter how much I’ve tried to coax her out. She’ll eat, and sometimes I can get her out of the house, get some sun on her face, but she won’t talk except for short, terse answers.
I didn’t just lose Papa when he died. In a way, I lost my mother too.
So I was shocked when she emerged from the house just two days ago and came to the tree Khalasa and I rested under.
Khalasa had just asked me what I wanted more than anything in the world, and I immediately answered. I wanted this. This life with her. I wanted my farm. I wanted a wife. I wanted children. I was afraid she’d laugh at the simplicity of it all, but she just kissed me and said she wanted all of that too.
That’s when my mother stumbled upon us. She saw the goddess, recognized her, and then spun on her heel and marched up the winding path of the cliff and back to the farmhouse. It’s been a year of Khalasa visiting me, a year of us spending our days under the tree, talking about a future together and wondering how a goddess and mortal could possibly make this work.
After my mother had slammed the door to our farmhouse, I sat up and Khalasa had frowned. I knew she was confused. She asked me about my mother, and I hadn’t known what to say.
I never told my mother about Khalasa. What was the point? My mother was a shell of herself. It’s not like she would respond or be happy for me. It was something more, though, if I’m being honest. My mother has never liked the gods. I don’t think she’d approve of the relationship, and I didn’t want the first significant conversation I’d had with her in years to be us arguing.
But how was I supposed to explain all of that to Khalasa? The answer was simple. I didn’t. I was a coward. So instead of explaining, I ran. Told her I needed to go after my mother.
When I entered our small house, my mother was pacing by the table. I’ve never seen her so agitated. She’s been like a ghost these last few years.
She whirled on me, her face red. “How dare you,” she said to me.
Those three words felt like a slap in the face.
She stalked toward me and accused me of being the goddess’s whore.
I tried to tell her we were in love, in a real relationship, but she only laughed, nothing like the kind, soft-spoken mother I’d known before my father had died.
“In love? You think she knows how to love?” My mother pointed out the window. “All she knows how to do is destroy.”
We argued a little longer. Well, it was mostly my mother yelling at me, telling me how stupid I’d been to invite the goddess into our lives, that I would end up paying the price for it. She didn’t understand. She didn’t know Khalasa. She didn’t realize that Khalasa had been talking to me about becoming mortal, about finding a way to strip away her powers and become just like me. She’d been looking for a way to rid herself of her immortality. She didn’t want the title anymore, didn’t want the magic. But revealing all of that to my mother felt like a betrayal. So I hadn’t. I’d let her yell at me, and I’d stormed out. I wish so badly I’d told her that I loved her. I wish I’d apologized for not being more present over the last year. I wish I’d told her that she had been a great mother.
It turns out, I’m never going to get the chance to tell her anything again. The next morning, I woke up and she was dead.