Once we arrived back in London, we transferred Caleb and Sophie into their mother’s shaking arms and picked up Uncle Nigel—he, my father, and I had one more thing to take care of before we would be returning home. Our plane was headed for Serbia.
On the flight, I continued to tell my father all that had happened to me over the last year. The existence of the astral plane was less understandable than international conspiracies, it left him quiet. When I got around to explaining my mother’s involvement, her history—the truth about her and Franzen, my father turned and stared out the airplane window.
“Dad?” I asked, but he kept staring out the window.
“Are you okay?”
A moment later he shook his head, but still didn’t turn around and look at me. After a few minutes of staring at the back of his head, I sat back in my own seat and decided to give him some time and space to digest the overturning of his entire world—again.
After an eternity of silence, he turned to me, his face wet with tears. “You are my daughter,” he declared. “Maybe not…” he choked. “Maybe not from this,” he pulled angrily at the skin on his arm. “But in every other way…in every other way that matters.”
I looked down, hating to see so much pain in his eyes, “I know I am dad. I know.”
My uncle Nigel had arranged for a car to meet us at the airport when we landed in Serbia. As soon as we slid into the backseat of the sleek black car, Nigel started calling numbers, trying to get hold of someone in charge at the Kovin Psychiatric Hospital.
My father and I sat, silent, stony. Side by side, holding hands on the seat between us, neither of us able to form words for what was about to happen to us. We were about to get my mother back—we had both hoped and longed for this for over five years, and now that it was actually happening, just the idea of it was too much to even believe.
“This isn’t how I imagined it,” my father suddenly said. “Everything is different.”
I turned and looked at his profile as he stared ahead. I knew what he was thinking, as much as he longed to finally get my mother back, he now realized that he never really had her in the first place. He would get her back only to lose her all over.
“What are you saying?” my uncle’s voice rose as he spoke into his phone, his expression hinted at his frustration. “I want to speak with the director…yes right now.” While he waited, he turned and looked at me. “What sort of hospital are they running?”
I hadn’t told them, not yet. There had been so much, so many other questions, I hadn’t yet figured out a way to describe the horrifying conditions of the hospital that was warehousing people in atrocious conditions—including my mother.
“It’s really bad,” I whispered. When was I going to try and explain that the woman we were rushing to rescue may not actually be the Elizabeth Stephens we all remembered?
In the astral plane, she had stared back at me with unrecognizable eyes. How was I going to explain Lilith to my father?
My uncle continued to hold on his cell, “I can still hear people in the background,” he said. But in the end, we arrived at the hospital before the director ever made his way to the phone. Having seen the establishment, I felt pretty certain that the people in charge were well practiced in avoiding questioning calls from inquisitive relatives. They had no way of knowing that these particular relatives would soon be storming the doors.
As we walked to the entrance, crossing over the crumbling, overgrown walkway, I watched my father and uncle take it all in. The dead grass. The broken brick walls. The discarded rusted wheelbarrow that had sat overturned in the middle of the weed choked garden long enough for the earth to grow up around it. All of these signs of decay were only indicators of what might be found inside the building, and the inside was much, much worse.
Before we even reached the entrance, a short, heavy set woman in white scrubs cracked the door and rushed out to meet us. Her eyes darted to the shinny black car parked behind us before settling on my well groomed uncle.
While Nigel quickly figured out that this woman did not speak English and called our driver over to help translate our reason for being here, I moved closer to the building and stared up at its cloudy windows. Ever since we got out of the car, I had a feeling, a sensation that had settled in the pit of my stomach. I assumed I was nervous, worried, and highly unsure about what I was going to do when I saw Lilith’s eyes, in the real world, staring back at me from my mother’s face. How was I going to explain Lilith to my father?
But the more I stared up at those windows, the more I realized that the feeling was something else entirely.
The woman talking with my uncle was shaking her head and explaining something I was just beginning to know myself.
My mother was not here.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Ruined
My uncle and father insisted—we searched the entire hospital. Despite the nurse’s assurances that the woman we described, the exact woman from the photos we showed, was discharged only hours before we arrived—they had to see for themselves.
I didn’t.
It was the feeling, the anxiety that wrapped around my core from the moment we arrived. Not worry about how to handle my mother, but the growing realization that, having come so close, she had again disappeared from me. I followed behind my determined uncle. Tried to sooth my frantic father, but I knew my mother was not here.
No.
When Sophie, Caleb, and I made our escape, Emerick must have made his move. He swept in and took the one bargaining chip he knew would force me back to him. Force me to go after the rest of what he wanted—the remaining keys to the emerald box.
Emerick had my mother, and so, he also had me.
After two hours of searching every filthy room, every crowded closet, every bare mattress bed, my uncle and father finally started to give up hope that they would stumble across my mother hidden away in this horrifying place. Standing in the middle of the last room, my father looked utterly defeated. He looked exactly the way he had in those days when she had first gone missing.
Guilt for dragging him back to that deep pit of sorrow washed over me.
Without another word we turned to leave. Exhaustion swept over me like a giant wave and, as we headed for the door, I tried to not think about all the poor people, trapped and caged, who didn’t have the luxury we did—the great good fortune of being allowed to walk out of this living hell.
Like when we left India, my own good fortune didn’t make me feel any better.
Near the door, crouched in the corner, a man rocked back and forth on his heels. He cried, and held his head, his arms and face had long bloody scratches. As I watched him attack himself with his own hands, I realized his wounds were self-inflicted.
When he looked up and met my eyes, I recognized him.
From the astral plane. He was the man I had seen, the one the dark creature had latched on to. It was impossible to see in the light of reality, but from the astral plane, this man was being attacked—it was the reason for his tortured screams and the reason he beat at himself.
He was trying to beat off a beast.
Almost out the door, my father stopped when he noticed I wasn’t following. “Come on Charlotte,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”
I pulled my gaze from the tortured man and looked up to meet my father’s eyes, “I need a minute.”
Before he could argue with me, I sat down on the floor, right in front of the confused and terrified man, and closed my eyes.
Whether it was because I was beyond exhausted, or overwhelmed with disappointment that my mother had slipped away again, I didn’t know, but my mind slipped into the astral plane with almost no effort at all. Within a second, I was standing outside my body with my eyes locked on the crazed creature that sucked, clawed and bit the poor man who could do nothing to defend himself.
The sight of it made me sick. This helpless man who had no idea what was happening, but felt the painful effects all the same. This man who, to all th
e world, appeared to be having a violent hallucination, was in fact being fed on by a demonic beast.
I felt it first, a white hot flame of anger burst into a blaze in the center of my chest. The thought of this man, unknowing and helpless to stop what was happening to him. Unable to get help against something he didn’t understand.
Just like my mother.
Focused, all that anger in my chest burst forth into the white sword of intention I now held in my hands. I thought of my mother, I thought of Lilith, I thought of Emerick swooping in and using my mother, using her against me, against herself.
My anger vibrated through my entire being, it turned my sword into a light so bright it pulsed like a beacon in the darkness hanging all over the astral plane around Kovin.
The creature feeding on the man looked up at me, its ragged lips pulling back from jagged sharp teeth. It hissed. As if realizing it was in danger, it released the man and jumped forward, attacking before it had the chance to be attacked.
I moved like lightning, swinging my sword wide, around my body and over my head until it reached the pinnacle above my head. Every fiber of my being screamed out in hatred for this parasite that was ruining this man’s life.
Hatred for Lilith who had ruined my mother’s life.
Ruined mine.
Every piece of me flexed with such a force, the sword sliced the space before me and, when it connected with the head of the creature rushing towards me, exploded into a firework of red flames that consumed the beast and reduced it to a meek glob of gray matter shivering on the floor before me.
I stared at it, lost in the pulse of my own power, nauseated by the intense vibrations humming all around me, through me. I watched it try to move across the floor then fall apart, like spilled liquid, into a wide viscous puddle completely devoid of all form.
I had done that, destroyed that thing. Saved that man who, even now, looked more at peace, and that was good. Surely, the rage I released onto that that thing was justified, and right—but I felt none of it.
There was no victory for me to fill the gaping void that was the balloon in my chest—because all my anger was spent on a good effort that changed nothing for me.
Changed nothing for my mother.
I reentered my body, stood up, and walked towards my confused father who was about to ask me a hundred questions.
I held up my hand, “Later,” I said. Right now all I wanted to do was fall asleep in the back of the car.
Something touched my hand.
Startled, I turned and saw it was the man, the one crouched in the corner, the one no longer being fed on by an invisible beast. Our eyes met and I stopped.
His mouth worked in an aggravated attempt at something. When a guttural scratch of sound finally escaped his throat, I realized he was trying to speak. But he didn’t need to. Every word he wanted to say to me was written plainly in the desperate relief I could see in his eyes.
I squeezed his hand in mine, “You’re welcome,” I whispered.
He smiled, his lips curling into his mouth because he had no teeth to hold them back, and nodded his head wildly.
I doubted he fully understood what had just happened, but he knew he was in pain, and that I had helped take that pain away.
It was all the understanding he needed.
I squeezed his hand once more, then let him go. Happy for his relief, and desperately sorry that it hadn’t been Lilith’s head splitting in two from the force of my will.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Alone
Back inside the walls of Gaersum Aern, everyone moved around each other like ghosts. My father, shell shocked and trying to digest everything he was only just learning, anchored himself at Ms. Steward’s sturdy kitchen table for hours at a time while my Uncle Nigel sequestered himself behind his office doors to plan our next moves.
Caleb and Sophie, under the watchful eye of their very relieved, and very angry mother, were busy packing their things.
Ms. Steward, having learned of just how close she had come to losing them both, had quit her job immediately. She never wanted to see, “this house or any of the people in it for as long as I live.” It might have only been my guilt for allowing Sophie and Caleb to follow me into such dangerous circumstances, but I felt certain that Ms. Steward was mostly directing her proclamations against me. My uncle had tried to calm her, tried to reassure her that nothing like this would ever happen again, but she wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t even wait to leave until he could help her find some other suitable arrangement. All three of them moved into a small hotel in the center of Glastonbury within days of our return.
“This is just until she settles down,” Caleb said to me just hours before they were to leave. “I’m of age now, she can’t really tell me what to do anymore. But we put her through so much worry…I don’t want to cause her any more grief right now.”
I nodded but still couldn’t manage to look him in the eye. “She’s right though. She’s been right from the very beginning. From before I ever even came back here.”
“What do you mean?”
“She asked me to stay away. To not involve you or Sophie, and she was right.” With this, I did finally manage to look at him. I wanted him to see it, the regret, but also my determination. I wanted him to understand that there was no more pretending, no going back to what might have been between us. “She knew I was a dangerous person to love.”
“No Char—”
I held up my hand. “But it is much worse for you and for Sophie to be loved by me. I finally understand what Franzen meant about how his love for my mother, for me, changed everything. It made him vulnerable in ways he never had been before us. Because there are people in this world that will use that love against you.” I turned away from him and stared out the library window. “I understand now exactly what that means.”
“We can plan—”
“No,” I turned back on him. “No, never again. I will never allow you or Sophie that close to me again.”
“Caleb,” Ms. Steward was suddenly at the library doors, clearly unhappy to see us alone. “We’re leaving now.”
“Just a minute,” Caleb said to his mom.
“No,” I would help Ms. Steward by pushing Caleb away. “Goodbye Caleb. Please tell Sophie I said goodbye as well.”
“I’m not just—”
“Caleb,” Ms. Steward interrupted him. “She’s said her goodbyes.”
“Mother!” he turned on her, desperate for just a few more moments to try and get me to change my mind.
But I never would.
Unwilling to cry in front of him and let him know how much this whole mess felt like I was ripping out my own heart, I brushed past them both without another word and headed for the stairs.
“Charlotte!” he called after me.
I froze halfway to the stairs but didn’t turn around.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he said.
Movement on the grand staircase caught my attention. There, curled on a step with her knees pressed to her chin, Grace peered out at me from under her mop of unruly black curls, her eyes red and swollen from crying.
Grace. Only three years old. Her father had died. Her mother was gone. She had been left in a strange house with strange people—Ms. Steward had been caring for her, but in all the commotion, I had completely forgotten about this tiny sister of mine.
My dad didn’t even know about her yet.
“Charlotte,” Caleb placed his hand on my shoulders. It took everything I had left, every ounce of determination to not turn into his arms and cry into his chest.
My eyes stayed fixed on Grace. “Caleb,” my voice was barely a whisper. “I need you to let me go. Please. If you love me, you’ll try to understand why I can’t risk losing you, or Sophie. My mother needs me. Grace…Grace needs me. I have to think clearly, I have to make my next move smartly, I can’t afford to have my decisions clouded by worry about you and your sister. I can’t do the things I’m going to h
ave to, I can’t work against Emerick to get my mother back if I’m also always considering your safety.”
“We can help you,” he said near my ear.
I shook my head, “No, you can’t.” I stepped away from him until his hands fell away from my arms. “You make me weak.”
Grace watched me carefully as I walked towards the stairs, towards her.
“And there are too many people that are depending on me to be strong right now.” I didn’t look back at him, never turned to see what effect my words might have had on him. I had no idea if what I said registered with him, or hurt him. I kept my eyes fixed on that little girl crying on the stairs. That little girl who looked so much like me it was almost confusing. When I reached her, I knelt down in front of her.
“Grace?”
Her eyes shifted from the spot of carpet she had been staring at to my face.
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer me or move her head. She was scared.
“Do you remember who I am?”
A few seconds passed, but when she nodded I smiled at her.
“Who am I?” I whispered to her.
“You’re my big sister,” she whispered back.
I sighed, not at all used to hearing those words and all the expectations they implied. But Grace wouldn’t understand any of that. Right now she just wanted someone to help her feel safe inside a world that was completely turned upside down. “That’s right,” I said and reached out to brush her hair from her forehead. “Will you come with me?”
She hesitated a second more, then nodded. When I reached out my arms to lift her up, she reached back until she was nestled against my side with her face buried in my neck.
I climbed the rest of the stairs with her wrapped in my arms, her little legs tight around my waist. I had no idea if Caleb and Ms. Steward watched, waited, or simply turned away—but I decided to shut my mind off from wondering or imagining which it might have been. Every scenario ended in the same painful way—goodbye.
Midheaven (Ascendant Trilogy Book 2) Page 27
