Chapter 27 The Bone Of It #2
But when I reached for the moment he entered the world, I found nothing.
Just static.
I must have staggered, because Aiden’s hand caught my elbow to steady me.
I looked Aiden in the eyes then, desperate for a lifeline, something to bind me to my life before it all unraveled into a heap of fairy tale gone rotten.
I wanted to scream at him for not dragging me out of the spiral of my own panic. God, I wanted to launch at his chest, rip at his hair, hurt him in the way I was hurting.
But the only sound that made it out of my throat was, “You knew something… At least, you suspected it. Didn’t you?”
My accusation hung in the air.
He shook his head fast and hard. “Josie, I swear… I had no idea. I wouldn’t…” He stopped himself, clamping his jaw.
“You somehow knew my child was part of your world, didn’t you?” I asked.
I remembered how shocked he seemed when Mateo said things that were too old for his age. Maybe he hadn’t known for sure, but he’d sure as hell suspected.
And now, this.
Aiden’s silence was worse than any lie.
The betrayal stung.
I wanted to swear at him, to scream words that I was sure I’d regret later. But none came out of my mouth.
Florence, who’d been hovering on the edge of the living room, took two quick steps and planted herself between us. With both hands raised, palms out, fingers splayed.
“Enough,” she said. “The boy is still burning. Anger won’t heal him.”
There was no hint of the soft grandmother in her now. This was the Florence who had led a pack, forged alliances with old clans, and buried children of her own.
The room felt as if it had shrunk around me, the air buzzing with the static of old secrets. Every instinct screamed at me to grab Mateo and run, to find a safe place where the supernatural couldn’t find us. But I couldn’t move.
Ethel, meanwhile, had gone into some kind of trance. She circled the table, chanting in that same unnerving tempo. The powder from her fingertips traced symbols on the blanket, and with every stroke, they seemed to glow a little brighter.
Florence’s hands dropped, and she turned to Mateo. She knelt beside him, brushing a lock of sweat-clumped hair from his forehead, and spoke so softly I almost missed it.
“You have to let him go, Josephine. There’s no other way.”
“Let him go?” I rasped. “He’s my son…”
“He’s not dying,” Florence said, a flash of annoyance sparking under her calm. “He’s waking up. If you pull him back now, you might lose the boy forever.”
The words made no sense.
My arms ached with the need to snatch him off that table, to cradle him, rock him, shush away the monsters. I almost did it. But then Aiden moved and put himself between Mateo and me. His hands hovered at my shoulders, not touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat of them.
“Please, Josie,” he said, voice trembling. “If you love him, let them finish.”
I turned and looked into his face, searching for any sign of the man I’d started to fall for, the one who’d made me believe the world might be more than just a series of losses and compromises.
“Do you realize what you’re asking?” I spat.
He nodded, just once. “I do. More than you know.”
My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor, hollowed.
I watched the women work, watched the powder burn its way into the linen, watched the shadows from the totems crawl up the walls.
The wolf’s eyes caught the light and glittered, and for a moment, I thought I saw the shape of a real animal crouched behind the table, its fur bristling.
For a moment, the fire in the hearth burned blue. Ethel’s words sped up, the syllables running together into a hiss, and her hands blurred as she drew looping symbols faster and faster.
I reached for the only thing I had left: memory.
I forced myself to remember every moment of Mateo’s life.
His first steps, his first word (not mama, but “look”), his love of peanut butter, the way he chewed his sleeve whenever he was nervous, the exact pitch of his laugh when I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe.
All of it. I forced myself to relive every moment, good or bad, because if I stopped remembering him, he’d slip away for good.
Florence’s voice joined Ethel’s, the two harmonizing in a way that set my teeth on edge. The language was older than anything I’d ever heard. The cabin itself seemed to groan under the weight of it, the beams creaking, the glass in the windows rattling in their frames.
Aiden hadn’t moved. He stood above me, hands balled into fists, muscles locked and loaded. He wasn’t watching the ritual anymore; he was watching me, as if what I might do was the real danger.
I wanted to hit him.
I wanted to grab his shirt and shake him until everything made sense again. I wanted to collapse into his arms and let the world end while I pretended none of this was happening.
But I stayed frozen there on the floor, watching my world dissolve.
Then Mateo screamed.
Not the high, thin wail of a child having a nightmare, but something deeper, rawer. His back arched off the table, and his eyes snapped open. They weren’t his eyes anymore. They glowed with that same eerie golden translucence I’d seen before, but brighter now.
“Mama,” he gasped, but the voice that came out was layered, as if three different people were speaking through his mouth at once. “Mama, it hurts.”
Every maternal instinct I’d ever possessed roared to life. I lunged forward, but Aiden caught me around the waist, his arms iron bands holding me back.
“Let me go!” I shrieked, clawing at his hands. “He needs me!”
“You can’t,” Aiden said, his voice breaking. “Not now. Not like this.”
Ethel’s chanting reached a crescendo. The symbols on the blanket shone brightly, and I could smell fabric burning. The totems at the corners began to vibrate, rattling against the wood.
Mateo’s eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, and he spoke again, this time in that ancient language. But underneath it all, threaded through the alien syllables, I caught fragments of English: “river,” “blue stone,” “she’s waiting,” “the door is opening.”
Florence stepped closer, her face grave.
“The binding is breaking,” she said to Ethel. “Whatever was holding him together is coming apart.”
“I can see that,” Ethel snapped, sweat beading on her brow as she worked. “The question is whether we can guide it or if it tears him apart first.”
The casual way they discussed my son’s potential destruction made something violent and primal rear up inside me. I twisted in Aiden’s grip, teeth bared. “If you hurt him…”
“We’re trying to save him,” Florence said, not looking away from the table. “But this magic… It’s not just fae or wolf. There’s something else woven in. Something that feels like…” She stopped, her face going pale.
“Like what?” I demanded.
Ethel’s hands stilled over Mateo’s chest. When she looked up, her dark eyes were wide with fear. “Like the Source itself.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I remembered Rita’s last night, her desperate warning about the Source, about Ava’s death. It was all connected somehow, and my son was caught in the middle.
Before I could process this revelation, the cabin filled with a blinding light. The symbols on the blanket ignited, no longer glowing but blazing. The totems at the four corners of the table began to spin until they were just blurs of motion.
Mateo’s scream turned guttural, a sound no child should ever make. His body levitated inches above the table, suspended in the air as if gravity had abandoned him.
“Stop it!” I screamed, fighting against Aiden’s grip with renewed desperation. “You’re killing him!”
Ethel’s voice rose above the chaos. “By earth, by air, by water, by fire; I bind these magics to their rightful place!”
Florence joined in, their voices merging into a single, powerful chant. The cabin shook around us, dust raining from the rafters as if the very structure was struggling to contain whatever force they’d unleashed.
Then, as suddenly as it began, everything stopped.
The light vanished. The symbols on the blanket faded to ash. The totems clattered to the floor, inert once more. And Mateo, my Mateo, collapsed back onto the table, utterly still.
Aiden’s arms went slack, and I tore free, lunging toward my son. I gathered his limp body into my arms, pressing my ear to his chest, desperate for a heartbeat. It was there, faint but steady.
“What did you do to him?” I snarled, cradling him protectively against my chest. His skin was cool now, the fever gone, but he was unconscious, his face pale and slack.
Ethel sank into a chair, looking exhausted. “We contained the energies that were tearing him apart. For now.”
“For now?” I echoed, my voice rising hysterically. “What the hell does that mean?”
Florence approached cautiously, hands raised as if I were a wild animal. “The ritual stabilized him, Josephine. Without it, the conflicting magics would have destroyed him from within.”
“I don’t care about your magic or your rituals!” I spat, backing away from her. “Look at him! He’s not even conscious!”
“He’ll wake when he’s ready,” Ethel said, her voice maddeningly calm. “His body needs time to adjust.”
I turned to Aiden, fury boiling over. “And you! You let them do this to him! You stood there and watched while they nearly killed him!” I was screaming now, clutching Mateo’s limp body against my chest. “What kind of monster are you?”
Aiden flinched as if I’d slapped him. “Josie, please…”
“Don’t you dare ‘Josie please’ me,” I snarled. Mateo lay unconscious in my arms. “My son is unconscious because of whatever the hell you people just did to him!”
The ritual had ended, but the aftermath lingered in the cabin’s stifling air. Mateo lay completely still on the table, his face ghostly pale.
Florence approached me cautiously. “Child, we saved his life. Those energies would have torn him apart from the inside. He’ll wake when his body has had time to heal.”
“When?” I demanded. “When will he wake up? An hour? A day? Never?”
Ethel’s movements were slow and deliberate, as if the ritual had drained decades from her life.
“That depends on him,” she said, her voice sandpaper-rough. “And on what’s been done to him.”
“What’s been done to him?” I echoed, hysteria threading through my words. “You mean what you just did to him!”
“No,” Ethel said, her dark eyes finding mine across the room. “I mean, what was done to him before he was born. Before he was… yours.”
The implication hung in the air like poison gas. “He’s always been mine,” I insisted.
Aiden took a tentative step toward me. “Josie, I swear I didn’t know. But we need to understand what’s happening to him if we’re going to help.”
“Help?” I laughed, the sound bitter and broken. “Like you just helped him? He’s unconscious! He could be brain-damaged or… or…” I couldn’t finish the thought, terror closing my throat.
Then a dry, sharp noise cracked the tension. All heads jerked toward where Mateo jerked upright from my lap, his body rigid as a bowstring, his eyes wide and glassy. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a wet, torn whimper that was equal parts boy and monster.
“Mom?” he croaked.
I wrapped my arms around his trembling frame.
His skin was cold and clammy, but he clung to me with the strength of a drowning man.
I buried my nose in his hair; he still smelled like my son, like the faintest trace of peanut butter from a forgotten lunch.
I could have sobbed with relief, but I held it in.
His fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt. “Where are we?” he whispered. “What’s wrong with this place?”
A shudder ran through the cabin. The lights flickered, then glared so bright they washed the room white. On the shelves, every jar and bottle rattled in its place. From somewhere behind me, a book leapt off the table and slapped the floor with a sound like a gunshot.
Ethel sucked in a breath. “He’s reacting to your pain. He feels you,” she said in awe.
That was the last straw before my fear combusted into pure, white-hot rage. I shifted my grip, pulling Mateo into my arms. He staggered, hooked his arms around my ribs, and leaned heavily into me. Then I turned to face the room.
“We’re done,” I snarled, voice brittle with the effort of not screaming. “We’re fucking done.”
Florence stepped forward, hands up in a calming gesture, but I bared my teeth at her, and she stopped cold. “Josie…”
I cut her off. “No. I don’t care what you think he is. He’s my son. And I’m taking him home.”
The word sounded foreign on my tongue: home. Maybe I didn’t have one. Maybe the only home I had left was the shaking boy in my arms.
Aiden moved to block my path, his eyes wide with fear, or maybe regret. “At least let me drive you. Please. It’s not safe…”
“If you come near me right now,” I spat, “I will make you regret it.” He flinched, just enough for me to see it. His shoulders sank, the fight leaving his body.
He looked over his shoulder and called, voice shaky, “Cody! Start the car!”
From outside the cabin, the sound of an engine reluctantly starting answered back.
I didn’t wait for anyone else. I burst through the door, stepping into the humid air of mid-August in the Adirondacks.
Heavy droplets of summer rain began to fall, splattering against my skin like tiny pinpricks, but I barely noticed.
Only after I had distanced myself from the cabin did I dare glance back over my shoulder. Through the rain-specked window, I could see Ethel and Florence leaning close, their heads bent together in hushed, intense discussion.
For a moment, their faces looked alien. I didn’t trust them, didn’t trust anyone, but mostly I didn’t trust myself: not to fall apart, not to let the boy in my arms fall, and allow the world to swallow him whole.
Then Ethel’s voice found me, carried through the walls and over the wind. “The truth you seek lies in the shadows of your past, child. Be wary, for not all is as it seems.”
I didn’t know if she meant it as a threat or a promise.
I didn’t care.
All I knew was that fury and fear had taken root in my chest, tearing through every scrap of reason and restraint.
All I knew was that I held my boy in my arms, fragile like glass, a heartbeat away from shattering.
And if anything or anyone dared to come for him, they would have to go through me first.