We’re all just a roll of the dice away from faltering, and the world doesn’t need more suffering or hate. It needs compassion. If there’s one last gift I can give Declan, it’s that, and I intend to give it freely.
Mother might have forced him to turn away from me, but I don’t have to do the same. I can keep loving him. No one, not even Declan, can make me stop if I don’t want to.
And there’s power in that. Mother clearly doesn’t think so, but I can feel the truth in it, in the warmth spreading through me and the steady drum of my heart.
Rolling my shoulders back and holding my head high, I weave through the trees, feeling their sympathy thickening the air around me. The trees don’t speak the way the rest of the plantings do, but they are just as alive. Back when I was a girl, I could read their thoughts in underground vibrations, and we hummed back and forth between our roots.
Now, I can just…feel them. Their hearts beating in solidarity with mine. Their compassion. Their regret.
Regret…
Oh, no.
A horrible suspicion swirls inside me, and my throat tightens again, but I force my feet to keep moving. Whatever has happened has happened, whatever will be will be, the only thing I can control is what I do next—the next step I take, the next words I choose.
I pull in a breath and let it out slowly, willing myself to choose wisely.
To choose not to let fear and rage and pain choose for me.
I step out of the trees, braced for the worst, but when I see him…floating on his back in the shallow pool, his eyes wide and empty and his face slack, I can’t stop the sob rising in my throat.
I run for the pool, scarcely noticing Mother standing on the other side until she warns softly, “Careful. Don’t wake him or you’ll send his spirit back to the other side before you get what you’ve come for.”
I skid to a stop by the water’s edge, my racing heart skipping a beat. “He’s not…”
“No,” she says, clearly understanding my meaning. “Just sleeping.”
“But his eyes are open,” I whisper, wishing I could close them. I hate seeing him like this, so empty. Declan is quiet, at times, but never empty. His eyes are full of hopes and dreams, musings and wonderings. They confess his secrets, sharing every sweet thing he isn’t ready to speak out loud.
“They’re open so you can see into his mind,” Mother continues in a hushed voice. “Dip your fingers into the water.”
I shoot a sharp glance her way, fearing a trap, but she only nods calmly toward the pool. I bite my lip, hesitating another moment, but in the end, I crouch and extend my hand toward the pool. It’s either reach out or walk away, and I didn’t come all this way to leave Declan alone and in trouble.
My fingertips kiss the surface, sending a shiver up my arm, though the water is as warm as jungle rain. For a moment, nothing happens, then suddenly I’m looking through a window thrown open in my mind.
No, not a window. A door…
That’s what Mother said. That she opened a door and showed Declan what was on the other side.
Now, she’s done the same for me.
I see Declan, years from now, taller and broader, with a thick beard he scratches absently as he gazes out over the water from the docks on Amaria. There’s a sadness deep in his eyes that wasn’t there before, a tightness around his mouth, but both vanish as a boat sails into view. He lifts an arm, waving as the ship draws closer, laughing as the men on the dock secure the gangplank and a woman runs down it and into his arms.
He hugs her close, his eyes sliding closed, but still crinkled at the edges in pleasure. Relief. Gratitude. He’s so grateful to have the woman home.
After a long embrace, he pulls back, gazing warmly down at her upturned face.
Her familiar face…
It’s Adrina, also older, but no less dazzling. Her smile still lights up the world around her, making the sun on the water seem to sparkle harder as she says something I can’t hear, but which makes Declan laugh again.
Laugh and kiss her gently, deeply, intently, with a singular focus that leaves no doubt in her mind how much he loves her.
At least, it leaves no doubt in mine. And oh, it hurts. It snarls like barbed wire wrapping around my heart, but even through the pain, I know this is best. Right. Adrina can give Declan things I never could. Things like children and growing old together and a normal human life.
Declan was clearly touched by his time in the garden as a babe, but at his core, he’s human. I am not. While he was maturing from a boy into a man, I was wandering the world as a nearly-grown nightmare. I do not age, I do not change. In twenty years, I will still look like a girl on the verge of womanhood. Eventually, Declan will come to look like my father, then my grandfather, and then…