Chapter 24 #2
‘Fuck!’ I yell out. ‘Fuck it!’
Well, at least that’s cleared up one thing. My father is absolutely not the issue, so whatever I’m meant to learn, it’s got to do with my mother and Dinah. I momentarily stop my pacing.
Of all the memories I could have been shown, what’s the probability that both involve my mother and the priestess?
Yes, Dinah has always featured heavily in our lives, but she wasn’t a constant presence.
Hell, we even saw Artur – Jonas’s father – more often than her.
At least we did when we lived in the High Hold.
So is that what I’m meant to learn? That Dinah has something to do with this?
Something to do with whatever the last lesson is?
I need to remember the rest of the conversation.
The bit about it being an honour is what is stuck in my mind, but I know there was more.
Dinah was telling my mother that it was time to do something.
Something that had to happen to give ‘it’ time to leave her system. That was it, wasn’t it?
My stomach somersaults as I connect the dots. Dinah told my mother to stop taking the tonic. I don’t know which, and I don’t know why, but I know she did.
I draw in a breath, ready to face the door again and ensure that I haven’t missed something else, but as my feet move towards it, it disintegrates into a flurry of snowflakes that melt upon the stone floor.
That’s it. My heart leaps. I needed to know about Dinah’s instructions to my mother. That was it.
And now two of the lessons are learned. Two more to go. I’m nearly there.
And if they’re all this easy, I’m going to be in the library with the others before Ruben has time to bake another batch of his green cakes.
I’ve nearly completed the final stage of the Veil on my first fucking try.
As expected, only one of the two remaining doors is open, and when I step through it, I’m unsurprised to find myself back in my childhood home.
Lamps cast long, flickering shadows that extend up the walls. It’s nighttime then. The same night? Surely not. There’s a stronger scent of jasmine in the air than I recall smelling before.
‘I cannot believe it is time already.’
This time, my mother comes from the other end of the house, from near the kitchen, but once again Dinah is at her side. As they pause at the bottom of the stairs, the priestess grabs my mother’s hand, squeezing it tightly.
‘You will be fine,’ she says. ‘I promise you. You will be fine. Just do as you know you need to.’
Nerves are written on my mother’s face as she chews her lip. ‘But Rose … you truly believe Rose should come?’
‘I do. This is the way it must be.’
My mother nods, though I can see the doubt etched in the lines of her face, and she tries again to resist. ‘She’s asleep. It’s so late at night…’
‘Then you must wake her. It must be as it must be. The Goddess has her reasons.’
I truly fucking hate that phrase.
‘I must go now, my child, but the Gods are with you.’
After a swift embrace, Dinah leaves, and I follow my mother up the stairs. There’s a strange nostalgia in seeing this part of my home as it once was. The paintwork is so much more vibrant than it was when I was last there, the space so much more alive.
My mother’s steps are slow and hesitant, as if she doesn’t wish to wake me despite Dinah telling her to.
But then, my mother was never the one to wake us, not when it was late at night or some obscenely early hour.
It was always my father who roused us from sleep, normally by throwing himself onto the mattress beside us.
In fact, as my mother reaches the landing, it strikes me that I can’t recall a single time when she ever woke me in the night.
Except…
It is as though my insides have been grabbed by a fist and pulled up through my throat, the feeling of nausea so instant and so complete.
No.
No, there was only that one time, and it cannot be that. I refuse to let it be that. To go back to then. There is nothing I need to learn from the night. Not one fucking thing.
‘Argh!’
The sensation is one of being pulled through the air by the very marrow of my bones, a sharp yank in every part of my body from my ankles to my skull, as I’m ripped out of the Veil.
I drop to my knees, slamming onto the ice-cold ground. There’s not a hint of the stone floor or the doors in sight.
‘Fuck!’ The word rips from my throat.
As I let out the scream, ice spears out from my hands, flying up across the flames of the Veil and momentarily stealing those flickering tongues.
For one horrifying heartbeat, the fire disappears.
My stomach lurches.
No.
No, no, no.
Panic is screaming through me, but before I’m even on my feet, the ice melts and the soft yellow glow returns, flickering as though nothing happened.
My entire body trembles as I slump to the floor like a puppet whose strings have been cut. It’s not from fear, I tell myself, but from exhaustion.
From being so bloody close.
Two doors opened effortlessly, and for those moments I thought this might be easy. And then the Veil started to show me the worst fucking night of my life.
I failed the third stage of the Veil. I noped right out of there.
I curl my hands into fists.
Today is gone.