Time - Chapter 9
It was exactly the same as when I left it, down to the coats on the hooks to the left of the door.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
It was exactly the same as when I left it, down to the coats on the hooks to the left of the door. I used to rush through the door after a day at school and throw my backpack—the same one I would abandon in Edgemont when I left with Veronica—on the ground next to my muddy shoes and flop on the couch to watch television before chores.
The same laughing sounds that Veronica was making from the kitchen were the ones I once made, too, as Dad made hot chocolate, or soup, or any number of snacks for me. And if Mom was home, she would pull one of her famous eclairs or donuts out of the oven and stuff them in my belly. God, what it was like to have a fast metabolism in my younger years.
The television was blaring classic TCM when I passed by on my way to the stairs. The television had been replaced since my youth, but the rest of the room was glaringly the same, though the thick coating of fuzz made it seem grayer than I remembered. A floorboard under me moaned, exactly five steps into the house, just like always. I hopped over it the night I left to avoid being caught.
As I placed my hand on the banister, Veronica rushed out from the kitchen door and into the dining room, where she sat on the same chair that I had once claimed. Children were incredibly resilient, and it was amazing to see her smiling at Carl as he hobbled back into the room.
“Do you want marshmallows, too?” Dad asked.
She nodded. “Course I do. I’m not a savage.”
“A girl after my own heart,” he said with a chuckle, disappearing back behind the door.
I took the stairs one at a time, in no rush to see my mother’s failing condition. The stairs squeaked and cracked in chorus as if the house was greeting me. The banister, like the rest of the house, was coated in a thin layer of dust. It hung in the air above where I’d placed my fingers for a moment before floating down to the floor.
There was a heaviness in my feet as I stepped onto the second floor of my childhood home. The door to my room sat on the far end of the hall, and on the near end was the one they gave to guests that had been occupied for a short time by my estranged, world-hopping sister. On the other side was my parent’s office and on the far end, across from the door to my room, was my parent’s bedroom. That’s where Mom was.
I needed another moment to gather my courage. Instead of opening Mom’s door, I pushed open the door to my childhood bedroom. I wasn’t surprised to see that it hadn’t been touched since I left, except that the bed had been made and the schoolbooks I’d left spread across my desk were nowhere to be found.
I thought I was edgy, putting up pictures of the Cure and the Smyths and painting my walls black “to match the color of my soul.” I cringed a little. If only I knew what real pain was, perhaps I would have been able to see the joy in this home, in my innocent childhood.
That was the problem with youth. It was impossible to understand just how long life would be or how dark things could get when you hadn’t lived much of your life. A year seemed to last a century when I was younger. Imagining that there would be four to five times as many days to live—well, that was an impossible task.
I knew I shouldn’t blame myself for believing that I had reached the zenith of my misery back then. If, when I was a child, I had been given even a fraction of the weight that my life now carried, I would have buckled under the pressure. I had to grow and mature into the idea that living with the misery was possible, that every single person in the whole of the world deals with so much misery that it’s hard to believe the world keeps turning. And yet, not only does it keep turning, some people even find joy in it.
Dust plumed into the air when I sat down on the bed, causing me to hack a few times. I stood immediately and made my way out of the room to grab some air, closing the door behind me to lock in the dust particles. When I stopped coughing, I was in front of Mom’s door, my hand resting on the doorknob.
“Carl?” a weak voice said. “Is that you? It doesn’t sound like your clodhopper footsteps.”
I entered the room where Mom lay in bed, shriveled and weak. Her skin was gray, and her eyes sunken. A heart monitor beeped next to her, and even the stress of moving her head to look at me was too much for her to manage. She fell back with a painful moan. I wanted to wail at the sight of my strong mother degraded like this, but I choked back my emotions, hid them like I had so often in my past.
“No, Mom. It’s me. It’s your Lizzie. Do you remember me?” I took a few steps through the musk that permeated the room.
Her voice shook when she talked. “Lizzie?” This time she fought through the exhaustion and turned to see me. “My gods, is it really you?”
I grabbed her hand. “Yes, Mom. It’s really me.”
She gave a wobbly smile and squeezed my hand tightly. “I never thought I would see you again.”
I nodded. “It’s so good to see you, Mom.”
“It’s good to see you too, baby. Now, come and give your mom a hug.”
She opened up her arms, and I collapsed into them like I had when I was a child. Listening to her heart beating in her chest made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I let my eyes fall closed.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.