Page 1 of A Bond with the Dark

1

THE DARKEST DARK

SAYAH

Waves of nauseating grief threaten to drown me.

This doesn't make any sense.

My mom isn't supposed to die.

The police say it was an accident; the fire started in the kitchen.

I can see Dan downing a bottle of rum while cooking and forgetting to turn the stove off. My parents are alcoholics—one of the reasons I am sober. But something about it doesn't sit right in my soul. It's crooked and wedged into a place that doesn't fit.

Five minutes have passed, and the phone is still lying in my trembling hand. The meaning behind the worst call I’ve ever received is slowly sinking in, and I'm waiting for it to annihilate me.

My mom and stepdad have perished in a fire.

Perished.

What an awful fucking word.

My mom is gone.

Everything slows, becoming boiling hot while a searing, soul-deep pain swells up inside me.

My bones are mush; they've melted. My face, arms, and feet feel like they’ve turned to liquid as I topple out of bed. In a compulsory gait, I amble toward the stairs where my knees give out, forcing me to tumble to the top step as I try to wrap my mind around this. Feverous tears spill from my eyes, and my breath hitches; overwhelming agony rips me apart from my marrow outward.

Another witch in our family has died by fire.

It is our way.

A witch's way.

I have to call Mama's sisters.

Fuck!

I have to tell my son, Gauge.

This is quite possibly the worst thing imaginable. This is Gauge’s first experience with death. And it’s hers.

Death.

That is the only word I can cling to.

My thoughts lapse into the aching silence.

My mom is gone, and the world is turning dull and dreary right before my eyes, leaving an irreversible hole in her wake.

It's three o'clock in the morning, two in Washington, which is too early to call my aunts.

What else is there for me to do right now? Go back to sleep?

There's not a chance in hell that's happening. My heart is fracturing; the shards are suffocating me, constricting my airways.

My mom died, and I'm just supposed to go back to bed, shut my eyes, and pretend like the world isn't ending. Like it isn't tilted on its axis or spinning around the wrong way. That gravity isn’t thrown off, or the air isn't broken.

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