Céline came up behind me and stopped to put her arm across my shoulders. “Worried?”
“Freaking out is more like it,” I said, nervously.
The twins sized me up and then looked towards the house.
Theresa spoke first. “I’d like to know what I’m getting into here, if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, me too. We’re more effective if we know what to expect,” said Felicia, swinging her dark locks over her shoulder, looking like a supermodel with that one simple movement.
“Well, I’m really not sure, to be honest. I received several freaky emails from my mom and then His Evilness, Rick the Dick, saying I had to come home right away. But Tony got some too, and they were all really fishy, so I just needed to come check it out. You guys are here in case it’s a trap.”
Finn looked really out of place standing on my lawn with a bow and arrows over his shoulder. He was completely unselfconscious about it, though, so I decided not to worry. My only concern was that he was used to fighting in open spaces. My mom’s small, modest house wasn’t exactly his usual turf.
Finn caught me looking at him and nodded his head. “I got yer back, Jayne.”
I smiled tremulously. “I was just wondering if your bow and arrows would be worth taking inside the house. It’s kind of small.”
“I got a knife too. I’ve stuck plenty-a-gators in my time, so don’t you worry ‘bout me.” He looked over at the twins. “I’m whatcha call ‘adaptable’.” He gave them his most charming smile, and I had to admit, it was cute.
Felicia smiled back at him, but Theresa rolled her eyes.
I cleared my throat in an effort to remind the girls of our earlier talk and about Becky. I was worried because Felicia looked like she was considering having a taste of my friend.
I looked at Tony. “You ready?”
He squared his shoulders. “Ready as I’m going to be, I guess.” He took his axe out of his belt as surreptitiously as he could, glancing back at the driver. Luckily the guy was busy reading a magazine and paying no attention to us arming up as we approached the front door. The guy hadn’t even questioned our tunics and moccasins, come to think of it. Maybe he thought we were actors in a local play. Maybe he was used to wingnuts in Southern Florida.
I walked up to the door, a twin on either side of me, Finn, Tony, and Céline at my back. Tim buzzed somewhere behind my head. I rang the doorbell and tried not to sweat too much while I waited for an answer. We didn’t have to wait long.
The door jerked open and Rick was standing in the darkness of the foyer, scowling. “Well you sure took your sweet time getting here.” He pulled the door open more and then started looking at the fae standing around me. “Who’re all these people? Bunch a hippies, looks like.” Then his eyes lit on first one twin and then the other. “But ya’ll are welcome, sure ya are. Come on in.”
All of a sudden he was our gracious host. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the girls, and I for one was glad for that. Lure him in, ladies, lure him in. Then eat his face off, please. I smiled at the thought. Rick caught me by the arm, squeezing it uncomfortably hard, and said, “Your mom’s up in the room. She wanted to see ya. Go on up, while I take care of these ... friends of yours.” He practically licked his lips, all of his attention now on them again.
I signaled to Finn and Tony to come with me, Céline too.
“Just you!” said Rick the Dick, loudly.
I stopped. “They’re my friends. They’re coming with me.”
“No they are not. This is my house, not yours.” He jabbed his thumb at his own chest. “I make the rules around here.”
“I have a better idea,” said Theresa, sidling up to him. “Why don’t you let them all go up, so we can get ... better acquainted.” She pushed out her chest a little and tilted her head to the side with her chin to her chest a little. Then she turned her hips left and right suggestively, as if she was just an innocent little schoolgirl, nervous in the presence of awesomeness.
“Well, okay. Yeah. That’s a good idea. You all go on up there and leave me with your two other friends here. What’d you say your names were?”
Cha-ching! Hook, line, and sinker! I wasted no time taking off, my friends following closely behind me, Tim the dragonfly buzzing in the air at my shoulder. I took the stairs two at a time, thanking the heavens for all the workouts I’d done as a changeling that left me in the best cardio shape of my life. I wasn’t even winded when I got to the top. I took Blackie out of its sheath and crept along the hallway leading to my mom’s room. I didn’t even stop at mine, although a brief glimpse at its interior through the open door told me Rick the Dick had taken it over for his space now. Shithead.
I reached my mom’s room and pushed open the door cautiously. “Mom?” I said into the darkness.
I could hear a rattling breath coming from inside, near her bed. “In here,” she said. “Is that you ... Jayne sweetie?”
It was my mom’s voice, but she sounded weak as hell and all mucousy in the lungs or something. I reached my hand over to the wall and flipped on the light switch. The room stayed dark, the bulb burned out.
“Don’t turn on ... the light,” she gasped weakly. “It hurts ... my eyes.”
I looked back at everyone behind me, and I knew my eyes were as big as saucers. I couldn’t see into the room and I was scared shitless about what was in there, sounding like a very unhealthy version of my mom. I’d already experienced a buggane imitating a friend and had almost fallen for it. I didn’t trust the sound of my mom in that room. It wasn’t quite right.
“I’m going to go open the curtains,” whispered Tony behind me, squeezing past Finn to get by and into the room.
“I will stand next to the bed to be ready for what happens when the light comes in,” whispered Céline.
I could hear an arrow being slowly drawn out of Finn’s quiver.
“I’m gonna keep my distance to make sure I get a good shot. Only if need be, though Jayne. I ain’t gonna shoot your momma if you don’t want me to. Just give the order, though, if you do.”
I watched as Tony crept over to the window that was across the room, one hand reached out to grab the drapes while the other held his axe at the ready. I could see the light blue glow coming from the weapon, telling me that the thing was going to light up like a Christmas tree if he got mad or felt threatened. That made me feel a smidge better about our situation.
Céline took up her position at the side of the bed nearest the door, while I moved to the one nearest the window. I knew my mom normally slept on that side, and I wanted to see her up close when the light entered the room. I held Blackie out in my hand just in case of surprises; it was invisible in the darkness of the room, blending into the blackness.
A slight draft pushed through the room, lifting my hair off my sweaty face; I had a feeling it was coming from Céline, who I’d seen riding the wind a couple times. Maybe, if there was some dangerous creature in here, she could blow it away or spin it around the room a few times.”
“Ready?” whisper-yelled Tony from across the room.
“Jayne? Is that you? What are you ... doing?” asked my mom, again in the squishy, rattling voice.
“Do it,” I said, ready for anything, my heart racing a million miles an hour.
I heard the sound of the rings holding the drapes zip along the bar that held them up as Tony threw them to the side.
A flood of bright sunlight filled the room from corner to corner.
My mom started screaming as soon as the brilliance hit her eyes.
I started screaming as soon as I saw her face.
Chapter 19
The hideous thing sitting in my mom’s bed was my mom. I could see that. But her face was a swollen, lumpy purple bruise-fest, from her hairline down to her neck that disappeared below the covers.
“Mom?!” I yelled, not caring that Rick the Soon to be Murdered Dick would hear me, incredible sorrow in my voice. Tears sprang to my eyes and began cascading down my cheeks.
“What the fuck happened to your face?”
“Hi, hon,” was all she said. It was all she could say. Her lips were split and her jaw swollen so much, it looked like it was broken in at least three places. I could see that her front teeth had been knocked out.
“Oh, Mrs. Sparks,” said Tony in a hushed voice, coming up to the side of the bed to stand next to me, “what happened to you?” He grabbed my cold, empty hand in his and squeezed it hard.
“Jayne,” said Céline, her voice all business-like. “Your mother has been beaten severely. This was no accident.”
“Mom,” I wept. “Is that true? Who did this to you? Was it Rick?” I slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, terribly afraid of jiggling her and causing her more pain. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice.
“I can’t ... re ... member,” was all she could get out. Tears were leaking from behind the swollen slits that were left of her eyes. Part of me was happy they were swollen nearly closed – I could only imagine what her soft and defenseless eyeballs must look like if her face and skull looked like this. I was getting nauseous just looking at her. I had to turn away to catch my breath and calm my stomach.
My eye caught Finn’s. He’d lowered his bow and was looking at me now. “Jayne. I don’t think the enemy is up here. I think it’s downstairs.”
I nodded my head, unable to speak. Without even thinking about it, I pulled The Green up into me, and like a raging, flooded river, I started overflowing with all of the energy I could hardly contain. My grief caused me to reach with abandon, pulling more and more and more. My mom didn’t deserve this. She was a nice person who had lost her way with the wrong man. A very wrong, and soon to be very dead man.
“Jayne,” said Céline sharply, “control it! Control your power and the flow! We need you whole and able to see. We have other enemies to attend to and I have a feeling it will not be long before they arrive.”
I could hear sounds of raised voices outside my mom’s room and down the stairs. I wasted no time, throwing back the covers to find my mom’s hands. I needed to hold them to send the power to her soul. But the things I saw and smelled under that blanket made it impossible for me to be reasonable or smart. I bent over and grabbed her broken upper body into my arms, hugging her to me as she screamed in pain.
I sobbed with the agony I had caused her, leaving her here with that monster. “I’m so sorry Mom,” I cried, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” my litany of apologies continued as I sent every last ounce of healing power I could muster, out of my body and into hers while I rocked her back and forth. Sobs wracked my body while tears and snot flowed freely down my face and landed on the bed behind her.
“Please don’t die, Mom,” I begged, “I’m so sorry! Take the energy I’m giving you. Heal yourself with it. Don’t leave me now, Mom. Don’t go, please.” I could feel her body going limp on me and it only made me cry harder. “Mom! You have to hold on! I know I can fix this! I can fix this!” I was sobbing loudly, my words coming out a garbled mess. I couldn’t stop the pain that was destroying me. It felt like it was eating me alive.
I felt Tony’s hand on my shoulder as he gently tried to pull me back.
I refused to go. I couldn’t let her leave me, but I could feel The Green bouncing back into my body now, unable to do anything with the empty shell I held in my arms. “NO!” I screamed, squeezing her harder, trying to force the energy to do my bidding.
But it was no use. It had nowhere to go. My mom’s spirit had already left this realm.
I held onto her for a little while longer, bawling the entire time, until I had no more energy to do anything; I gently laid her back on the bed, placing her head on her pillow. I slowly moved the matted hair away from her face and lovingly placed it to the sides of her head.
Tony’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “Jayne. I can help her if you want.” His voice was emotional but solid. I needed solid right now.
I turned to look at him, “How?” I asked in a pitiful, tearful voice.
“I can find her in the Gray ... show her which way to go so she doesn’t wander long.”
I reached up and squeezed his arm. “Can you bring her back to me?” I asked, desperate hope filling my eyes.
“No. I can’t.”
I looked down at the floor, the swell of utter pain and despair blocking my throat, making it impossible for me to speak; I tried, but only a weird sound would come out.
“I can feel you Jayne. You want me to do this, don’t you?”
I nodded my head. What my mouth couldn’t say, my heart had. Tony knew me better than anyone else and for once I was perfectly okay with him being in my head.
“Help me find her,” he said, “Hold my hand.”
I grabbed onto his hand without question, staring into my mom’s battered, but strangely now peaceful, face. I thought of her smiling at me, so proud when I’d finally defeated chemistry and come home with a B plus. I remembered how we’d sit at the kitchen table and do our nails together on Sunday afternoons, and how we’d garden together and laugh when my cat sprawled out on the warm soil, getting in our way on purpose.
“She’s here. She’s okay, Jayne. She’s happy. She’s already finding her way.”
I started sobbing again. “Can you tell her I’m suh ... suh ... sorry?” I hiccupped. I couldn’t even speak properly, I was so wrapped up in her loss.
Tony was silent for a second and then he sighed. “She says you have nothing to be sorry for.” His voice caught for a second, and he continued after clearing the lump from his throat, “She says she’s sorry for failing you ... for letting him into your lives. She needs your forgiveness to move on. And Jayne, you don’t want her wandering the Gray like this. She’ll become tortured.”
I stood up all of a sudden, now feeling ravaged and pissed at the world, taking it out on Tony. “Of course I forgive her. How could you think for a second that I wouldn’t?”
He looked straight into my eyes. “Because I don’t know if I can. But that doesn’t matter because she doesn’t need my forgiveness; she needs yours.”
Through the tears that kept coming I said, “Well, she has it. Tell her. Tell her to go into the light or whatever. And tell her I’ll catch her on the flip side.” Even though I knew she was going to be okay, to lose my mom to violence like this ... it was too much. Things like what happened to my mom, shouldn’t happen to women. Ever.
Tony closed his eyes for a few seconds and then came back to me. He squeezed my hand one more time before dropping it. “Okay. It’s done. Your mom is gone.”
I reached down and covered my mom’s body with the blanket, pulling the sheet underneath up high to her chin. I couldn’t bring myself to cover her face with it.
Just then Tim came buzzing into the room and up to the bed with an armload of flowers so big, it nearly grounded him. I watched as he flew around her face, carefully laying out bloom after bloom of every type of flower she had in her garden. By the time he was done, she looked like a fairy angel, lying in the middle of a miniature Infinity Meadow.
My friends gathered around the bed while Céline offered a parting gift of her soothing words. “May your mother find peace everlasting and joy beyond measure in the golden meadows of the Overworld. She leaves behind a legacy of love, bravery, and accountability in Jayne.”
“May her death be avenged in a way that somehow makes all this destruction easier to bear,” I added, already feeling the anger rising up in me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Rick had done this. Otherwise, she would have been in the hospital – where I know she would have gone to die, because there was no coming back from something like this, even with the best healers at work. No one could have recovered from wounds this horrific. Someone had tortured my mom. And that someone was going to feel my wrath in just a few minutes. Once I had my family at my back and my plan in my head.
Chapter 20
I went to the doorway of my mom’s room to join everyone except the twins who were still downstai
rs. Finn, Céline, and Tony were standing just outside in the hallway. Tim was hovering above everyone. We could hear voices downstairs and they were louder than you’d expect for a succubus intervention.
I stepped into the hallway bathroom really quick to splash some water on my face to cool it down and rinse it off a bit. I didn’t think dried snot was going to adequately express the murderous intentions I had towards Rick, and I wanted him to feel abject fear before he felt the pain I was going to bring. I patted my face dry with the purple towel hanging on the towel bar. Purple was my mom’s favorite color. Seeing it in a rumpled pile on the counter where I’d just put it made me even angrier. She should still be alive, enjoying her stupid hand towels. Rick had taken her from me. My mom had suffered a senseless act of violence that was going to be avenged right now. And after I dealt with this issue, I was going to go over to Tony’s house and bring the pain there too if necessary. I sent out a little prayer into the universe, hoping that the emails from his house were a false alarm, unlike the ones sent from mine.
I strode from the bathroom, charging through my friends and rushing to the stairs.
“Jayne, wait!” yelled Tony.
“Jayne! Please!” said Céline.
But I heard none of it. I pulled Blackie from my holster and headed for the voices I heard coming from the front room. I was totally unprepared for what greeted me there.
The twins were slowly being backed into a corner, not by Rick, but by three orcs. I felt like my eyes were playing tricks on me.
“Who let these fucking orcs in my mother’s living room?!” I yelled. All I could think about was how they were going to stink up the place and stain the carpet with their blood. For some strange reason I wanted to call a time out and tell everyone to take it out in the backyard where we wouldn’t ruin the furniture or bother the neighbors. I wondered if my mom would be proud of me for being so responsible. Then I remembered that my mom would never have the opportunity to take pride in me for anything I ever did again since the asshole standing off to my left had killed her.