Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I can’t let her die without a final goodbye.
So. Here I am, standing in front of the door amid the cacophony of the New Year’s Eve celebration, trying my best to get rid of the guilt I feel for abandoning her just because she told me the truth.
It was… selfish.
It scared me. Horrified me as well. But mostly I was so afraid of losing what I had with the Guild. And surely they knew—they had to have known what sins my grandma had committed. And they took me in and gave me a brand-new life anyway, so these fears were unfounded.
But they were there. I’ve been abandoned once. I don’t know if I could live through that again.
Choices. One brings me closer to the Guild, one whisks me further away.
I wanted so much to be closer.
I try, now, to justify it with my age, but I haven’t been eighteen for a long time.
A bunch of revelers stumble along, laughing, and joking, and having fun.
I don’t look over my shoulder at them. I don’t want anyone to see my face. I’m on the run, after all. This visit is stupid and dangerous and if I get caught… well, I don’t even want to think about it.
So I don’t look. I just turn the handle of the door, step inside, and quietly close it behind me.
Instantly, the smell of death has me recoiling. It’s so strong, I have to hold my hand over my mouth and nose as I scan the room.
There is a bed pushed up against the back wall and my grandma’s small, frail, nearly lifeless body is lying on top of it. It is very clear that she has not been receiving visitors. No one has cared for her in a very long time.
I feel sick and it’s not because of the smell.
It is the guilt.
She is wearing a nightgown. A long nightgown that was probably once white, but is dingy and soiled with filth now. Her bony legs poke out of the bottom like something from a skeleton. Her long gray hair is frayed, and mangy, and tangled around her head like a rat’s nest. She is so thin, her cheekbones are like sharp edges. Her face is sunken, and hollow, and pale. And when she opens her eyes, they are cloudy and colorless.
Shame fills me up.
How could you leave her here?
How could you let it end like this?
I like to think of myself as strong, and capable, and fair. But what is happening in this room turns me into the very thing I’ve been running from.
A monster.
“Syrsee.” Her voice is a husky whisper, barely audible over the partying beyond the door. “Child. What are you doing here?” The last few words drop off and then her milky-white eyes are closing again, like just this little bit of interaction is too much now.
Shame.
What have I done? Why did I leave her like this? Why didn’t I bring her with me?
Of course, it wasn’t up to me. The Guild wanted nothing to do with my grandma. She was a stain on all of humanity. Hell, she was a stain on all inhumanity as well.
“Grandma?” I cross the small room and sit down on the bed, reaching for her hand. Oh, God. It’s so cold. So bony. Her skin is tissue-paper thin and when I give it a little squeeze, she doesn’t squeeze back. “Grandma?”
Did she die? Did I just witness her last moment?
But just as I think these thoughts, the world becomes something hazy and lavender. A mist floating up in front of me.
Choices, choices, choices. This word echoes in my head like a haunting whisper.
The mist is a signal that the dreamwalk is coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“No. Not now!” It’s been ten years since I last had one. Not a single puff of purple haze has haunted me since I left my grandma behind. But now that I’m back, what did I expect?
Her magic leaks. My grandma is a trigger. We are both Black witches, after all. We both carry the Black blood in our veins and we are both cursed with the power to walk the unseen world that exists somewhere in between. So there is no stopping what comes next. I can run all I want—I can leave this place behind for a decade—but it won’t change anything.
The room morphs and suddenly, I’m outside. I can’t hear anything, or feel anything, or smell anything in the dreamwalk time. I can only see. And typically, everything is tainted with some shade of purple fog.
In this case it is lavender and I see woods. A thick forest. Somewhere I have never been.
The color of the fog is how I orient myself in the dreamwalks. If it’s light, and misty, and tinted lavender then I am in the present. There is a quaint little paradox attached to this fact. Because my present is occurring in my grandmother’s room, but I’m here in these woods at the same time.