CA Chapter Twenty-seven (Patreon)

Three hours later, Alpha was thoroughly sick of songs about hats, barges, and absolutely anything involving horses or sunsets. Toggle attempted to teach them a tune about ‘Gnome Cooking’, and another where each verse detailed how to make a particular poison or trap, which he said all gnomelings learned when they were children. Unfortunately, gnomish music more closely resembled atonal chanting, and even Tess’ off-key attempts at singing were slightly better. Myles, of course, knew every song, and cheerfully sang along with both of them, while Amy sat in silence and Alpha tried very hard to pretend that none of it was happening.

At last, a much happier-looking Tess covered a gaping yawn with her hand and said, “Oh my gosh, I have to get to bed, or I’ll never make it to work in the morning.” She smiled brilliantly at everyone before standing and stretching broadly. “This was exactly what I needed, you know? A chance to sit around with friends and just have fun, and not take things so seriously.”

Picking up her horned help from where she’d set it on the log beside her, she plunked it back on top of her head. After adjusting it, she turned a slightly embarrassed smile on Alpha. “I’m going to take your advice. About what we talked about before, I mean. There’s plenty of time for all that, but right now, I’m actually really happy with my life exactly as it is.”

Alpha managed a smile, softening slightly as she saw that her friend did, indeed, look more relaxed and content than she had before. “That’s what matters.” She glanced away, rubbing her arms against the slight chill that had come along with the encroaching night. “It’s never a good idea to make your happiness dependent on someone else, anyway.”

Tess had already started walking toward the tent, but paused as she picked up some subtle tone in Alpha’s voice. Turning around sharply, she walked back over and leaned down to give Alpha a fierce hug from behind. “Being content with what you have alone is great,” she whispered in Alpha’s ear. “But it’s okay to try for something more. I won’t force it, but you better believe if I get a chance, I’m going to take it. And you should, too.” Standing straight again, she waved to Myles and Toggle, and crawled into the tent after a last goodbye.

Without Tess’ good-natured and lively presence, a pall fell over the clearing. Toggle, who had been sitting in the grass nearby, stood and handed a flask to Alpha. “I’m tired, too, Mistress. Good night.” Without another word, he made his way over to the pile of furs Alpha had laid out a while ago in an attempt to find something to do that would take her away from the singing. The little gnome pulled his furry bed in around himself like a cocoon, and a moment later, now-familiar whistling snores drifted to Alpha’s ears.

Silently, Alpha lifted the flask of blood to her lips and drank. As she swallowed the sweet raspberry liquid, she hated that she was so used to it now that she actually enjoyed the flavor, instead of simply being repulsed by the very idea. When she was done, and her Blood points were returned to full, she, too, stood. As she turned to walk to her own bed, Myles’ voice stopped her.

“Alpha.”

She whipped around, temper snapping as she glared at the mossy eyes that watched her with so much understanding and… affection? Ignoring the twinge in her heart, she stomped through the soft grass and stabbed a taloned finger into his chest.

“You. Promised!” she growled. “You promised you weren’t going to manipulate me any more! You promised you’d talk to me, instead of tricking me and trying to force me into something. Again!”

She was nearly shaking with anger, and when he reached out to her, she took a long step back, almost stumbling over the rock she’d been sitting on. “No!” She pointed her finger at him again, though she didn’t step within his reach. “You know everything about me. You, and your AI omniscience, you know why I don’t like music. If Tess had suggested campfire songs, sure, she has no idea, but you?” Her voice dripped with venom, and she wrapped her arms around herself to keep from physically attacking him.

“I know,” he agreed. “And I know that if I asked, you would have shut me down.” He took a step closer, close enough that she could easily strike him. “I know that every time a commercial jingle comes on, you turn the sound off. I know you keep the ringtone on your screen to a single chime because otherwise it reminds you of music. I know you flinch whenever someone drives by with a song turned up loud enough you can hear it through the windows you always keep closed specifically to block out the sound.”

He took another half-step forward, not quite close enough to crowd her, but close enough that she could feel his nearness like sunlight on her skin. Holding her gaze, he said gently, “Music didn’t kill your mom, Ava.”

“It didn’t save her either!” she yelled, and felt hot tears she wasn’t supposed to be able to shed in the game start flowing down her face. Swiping at them, she held out a damp, shaking palm accusingly, knowing he had done something to bring tears to the only place she’d been able to escape from them.

Reaching out, Myles grasped her hand, ignoring the wetness, and pulled her into an embrace. His arms wrapped around her tightly, but she could feel that he wasn’t exerting unnecessary pressure. He was offering her comfort, but he wouldn’t keep her if she pulled away again.

She didn’t. Instead, she cried in a way she hadn’t since she knelt by her mother’s bed, holding the cooling hand of the woman who had been her world until the moment she was ripped away. Great, racking sobs shook her, tearing at her chest and throat until her legs gave way, and she and Myles sank together to the grass. One side of her body felt like it would ignite in the too-close flames of the fire, while the other seemed to freeze with every gust of a cool evening breeze, but she couldn’t move away as she curled into a ball and wailed.

When the howls of long-delayed grief turned into quieter, but no less painful sobs, she found herself curled on her side, with Myles’ body between her and the fading fire. Her eyes were swollen and bleary, and her body felt oddly weak as she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the blackness overhead, a million stars spilled from one horizon to the other like a glittering stream.

“She loved music,” she croaked, her throat tight and raw. “She said she sang to me from the moment I was conceived until the day I was born. Lullabies, rock songs, ballads, show tunes… She sang them to me, and then we sang together when I learned how. When I was sick, she rocked me and sang about how she was there, and I was safe. When I was happy, she’d make up the most ridiculous ditties about whatever had happened, and we’d laugh ourselves silly.”

Slowly, she rolled her head to the side, and somehow she wasn’t surprised to see that at some point during her storm of tears, Myles had shifted to Amythyst, and her goddess-gown glimmered in the light of the stars like it contained a thousand fireflies within its folds. Amythyst smiled encouragingly, and Alpha swallowed against the rise of fresh tears at the depth of emotion that lay revealed in her verdigris gaze.

“I was going to go to college in LA,” she whispered, knowing that Amythyst would have seen the acceptance letter among the data that documented every person’s life from before they were born, until they were lowered into their place of rest.

“I was going to be a singer. We were going to do it together. She was going to be my manager, and help me write songs, and we were going to find a way. She was so sure I could do it, and she was my mom, and I believed her when she believed in me. And then-” her voice choked off, and warm fingers wrapped around her hand where it lay limp at her side.

“And then she got sick,” Amythyst said, softly.

“And then she got a damned death sentence,” Alpha said, bitterly. “Stage four. Do you know how many people survive more than five years with cancer like hers? It was like a forest fire that burned her out and left nothing behind but ashes. We tried everything. Chemicals, surgery, radiation, more surgery, reiki, acupuncture, even therapeutic touch and crystals.” She tasted bile as she remembered the doctors and the con artists, all of whom had produced the exact same results.

“The only thing that helped was music.” She went on, turning her face back up to the celestial waterway hanging overhead. “She would listen to music twenty-four hours a day. She said it took her pain away. I sang to her, the same way she used to sing to me when I scraped my knee or bumped my head. I used to write songs all the time, but now, when she asked for one, it always came out broken. Just like me.” She rolled her head from side to side, the grass tickling her hot skin. “The one thing she wanted, and I couldn’t give it to her.”

Clamping her lips tight against the sob that cracked her voice on her last words, Alpha lifted the cold fingers of her free hand and pressed them against her burning eyes. The grass beside her rustled, and Amythyst’s hand slid away, then stroked down Alpha’s cheek, tracing the path of salt.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Amythyst whispered. “Not yours, and not the music’s. It just was, and you did everything you could for her.”

“Not enough,” Alpha choked out. “One thing. She asked for one thing, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t…”

Something wet splashed onto her face, and she opened her eyes in surprise, looking up into Amythyst’s face. The green eyes were liquid pools, and another tear dropped free, falling to join the first.

“Do you know what my mother told me when she was dying?” Amythyst asked.

Alpha shook her head. She’d known, of course, that Amy’s mother had died when she was a little girl, but somehow it had never come together for her that that meant Amythyst remembered losing her mother, too.

“She asked me to watch out for my father and my brother. She said we all needed each other.” Amythyst sat up, rubbing her own eyes as she continued. “She didn’t know that that promise would trap me for almost two decades. After all, I promised her I’d take care of my father, and even though he was,” her voice broke, “him, I couldn’t leave. He needed me.”

She lifted her hand, and her face was drawn and sad as she met Alpha’s eyes again. “It’s different, but it’s the same. When someone is dying - when we look at them and know that we’ll never see them again in this world, everything they do takes on so much weight. And we think, ‘I should be able to fix this’, and we blame ourselves when we can’t.”

Lifting one hand, then the other, she brought them together in a slow, deliberate clap. “Then those things come together, and become the foundation for everything we build in the future. Whether that makes us push away everything that failed us,” she gave Alpha an eloquent look, “or cling tighter to things that hurt us,” this time she gazed toward Amy’s silent shape, before turning back, “we put so much weight on those last days, those last moments, that bearing up under them becomes a Sisyphean task. Most people either break, and give up, or find a way to lay down some of their burden. But some of us,” her lips quirked in a shadow of her usual smile, “are just too damn stubborn to give in.”

Sighing, she laid down beside Alpha again. “The problem is, just because we’re stubborn doesn’t mean we’re not broken. And when your foundation is broken, whatever you build on it is inherently unstable.” Rolling over, she looked straight at Alpha. “You need to sing. I’ve seen the videos.” She chuckled. “Home videos on your mom’s social media, mostly. She was so proud of you. Of what you could do, and who you were. Maybe,” she hesitated, biting her lip, “you should try being that person again. When this is over, you’ll have all the money you’ll ever need. You could go to college. You could hire private tutors, for that matter. You could sing, just like you were meant to do.”

Abruptly, Alpha, too, rolled onto her side, her face just inches from Amythyst’s. Something in her chest was grinding like shards of glass, slicing her open from the inside out. “Maybe,” she growled, “you should look at yourself before you start telling other people what to do.”

She sat up, looking from Amythyst to Amy. “Because the truth is, you’re still trying to protect Carl Landon. You know what he did was wrong, and if you’d just tell brilliant Bridget Anderson or, hell, George Short, former POTUS, Carl would be behind bars and Amy would be in a facility with people who actually wanted to help her. But you can’t, can you? Not because you’re afraid Bridget will delete you, or George will hurt himself, or Carl will take Amy and run, but because you can’t stand to see Carl take the consequences of his actions.”

She flung herself to her feet, words tearing her throat like she was spewing out the broken fragments inside her, completely unable to stop even as she saw Amythyst’s expression shift from vulnerable and worried to hurt.

“Stop trying to fix me, Amythyst! I’m fine just the way I am. And once this is over, what I do or don’t do is none of your business! It’s not like,” her breath hitched in her throat, “you’ll be around to see it, anyway.” Spinning away, she stumbled to her bed, where she flung herself into the soft, warm folds. As she tugged a cozy fleece up over her face, she caught a glimpse of the empty space by the fire where Amythyst had been sitting a moment before.

In the darkness by the embers of the last lingering traces of the fire, Amy sat, as still and silent as ever, except for the glimmering starlight caught by the tears that streamed down her face.