Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
I don’t know why I’m not dead or why I leveled up. Yet, here I am. I only have one use of the two spells I just gained. As far as the Speak to the Dead spell goes, that was a pretty obvious choice.
I tap on the spell and turn to smile at Mom.
“Hi,” I say, stroking her cheek.
“Hi,” she says, but her lips don’t move. There’s no sentience in her face. Her voice is as disembodied as the one that gives me leveling updates, but it’s filled with as much emotion as if she were alive.
“I really loved talking and watching TV with you,” I say.
“It’s our favorite soap.” She giggles. “Wish it had been the Paris special, though.”
I groan. “Ugh, I hate the travel episodes.”
“Yeah, well, it was my last episode, so I should have gotten to choose.”
I squeeze her hand and tell her, “I would do anything to get you that episode.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m glad you saved the Kiss of Life for yourself.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Look where your right hand is,” she says.
My hand still holds hers. Nothing has changed about it. What is she talking about?
“Remember how you used to kiss our thumbs as a kid? You’d hold my hand and kiss it, but you always kissed your thumb, too. That’s all it took.”
Oh, God, of course. “I gave myself the Kiss of Life.”
“They’re telling me I don’t have much longer to talk.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Or not.”
“Really, Mom?” I ask. “Pulling out that old chestnut?”
“Do you want to spend these few seconds discussing my turns of phrase?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I wanted to tell you goodbye.”
“You are the sweetest girl,” she says. “I’m so damn proud of you.”
Though her body doesn’t move, I swear I feel her caress my cheek and kiss the top of my head, just like she used to do when I got on the bus to school.
“I’m proud of you, too,” I say.
“It’s time for me to go,” she says. “I love you. Goodbye.”
“I love you, too,” I say. “Bye, Mom.”
The air grows heavy, and my chest deflates with the last bit of hope I had to talk to her again. Mom is gone now—really gone. I’m beyond lucky that I got the chance to speak with her twice.
Then there’s the whole “I accidentally gave myself the Kiss of Life” thing.
I hadn’t even realized I could do that. Is that why Aphrodite acted shocked when I said I wanted to give it to Mom?
She’d told me she doesn’t let her worshippers die.
Was that her way of trying to hint at what I could do with that spell? Why didn’t she just tell me?
Really, there’s no use asking why the gods do anything. They’re always vague as hell, and it always turns out we’re just their pawns.
Yet, Aphrodite visited Mom when she was pregnant with me, just so that she wouldn’t feel lost after my father left.
She escorted me to the hospice, knowing that any minute she spent outside of Peripeteia weakened her.
She cried when she saw I’d sacrificed myself, even though she knew I must in order to defeat Zeus.
Even more than all that, she’d brought me into the game to save me from a car wreck she saw as a consequence of receiving news of Mom’s death.
Is that how you treat a pawn?
Speak to the Dead is no longer on my menu. There’s still one use of the Portal spell. I could really go anywhere, but really, isn’t it obvious where I should go? Not back to my apartment or my job or even a vacation somewhere exotic.
I click on the spell, and a computer screen big enough for me to fit through appears before me. On it is the starting screen for Legends of Sacrifice. There are three buttons: New Game, Load Game, and Exit Menu.
Smiling wide, I press my hand to the screen.