Page 24 of Demons of Eden

It doesn’t make sense. Those things don’t make her mad.

I cry until the tears are all gone, until I’m tired again. I wonder if it’s the right time to get up now, but I keep lying there, pulling my pillow into my arms to cuddle close and bury my face in. I’m not sure how long I’m in my bed, hiding from my nanay’s anger, when there's a knock on the door.

Nervously peeking out from under the covers, I see Nanay standing in the light of the doorway. I don’t understand the way she’s looking at me. She looks so scared, but she was the one being scary, wasn’t she? Grown-ups aren’t supposed to be scared, but she is. She’s also really, really sad. Her eyes are all puffy and wet, like she’s been crying this whole time too. There’s an uncomfy pinching in my chest at seeing her this way, and I bite down on my lip so it doesn’t wobble.

All I want to do is get up and hug her to make it better, but this time I don’t try. I don’t want her to shout at me again.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Iho,” she murmurs, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s staying in the doorway, far away from me. Maybe she’s still mad at me?

“It’s okay,” I mumble quietly, worried I’ll upset her with the sound of my voice.

“You can’t sneak up on me like that, okay? You have to be more careful.” She frowns, staring at me in that way she does when she wants me to answer her.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll be more careful, I promise. Can I have a hug now?” I ask, looking up at her pleadingly.

Nanay has her thinking-too-hard face for a moment before stepping into the room and opening her arms. I jump out of the bed, almost tripping on my covers as I throw myself at her. Her arms wrap around me tightly, and I choose not to complain when she covers the top of my head with kisses, too happy she’s feeling better again. She kneels with me still in her arms and sets me on the ground.

“Bibe ko,” she says, her voice all warm and soft as it ruffles my hair.

“Not a duck,” I mumble in a weak protest.

“You’re my little duckling,” she disagrees, pulling back to smile at me while keeping her hands on my shoulders. “You tried so hard to follow them into the pond. We almost both ended up swimming.”

“I don’t remember,” I lie, turning away from Nanay’s face to look at the wall as she quietly laughs.

“Mahal kita,” she whispers, pulling me into another cuddle, and I bury my head into her shoulder.

“Lab kita, Mama.”

Everything blurs when I try to look around again. All the old scents fade away, the warmth of her touch vanishes, and I’m alone.Head spinning, I grunt as I pull myself fully back into the present, shaking off the old memory and all of the unpleasant emotions associated with diving into my past.

Using my magic to relive memories of my mother isn’t something I’ve done before, but given recent events, I felt like I needed to. She always had this sadness to her, but seeing the past,feeling it as I felt it then,really drives it home. Normally if I think about her, most of what I remember is cloudy, not picture-perfect the way the meditative spellwork allows them to be. That felt real, too real. It was so much that I’m unsure if I want to try it again, no matter what I could learn by seeing the past through more mature eyes.

The second I feel grounded enough in the here and now, I jump to my feet, compelled to move. There’s a gnawing demand in my brain for something to use as a distraction, a longing for an escape away from the too intense emotions of my childhood self. I pace across the floor a few times, eyes scanning my surroundings for something to take up my thoughts. Only, I’m in my bedroom, and there’s nothing in here that’ll offer me the kind of diversion I really need right now.

Deciding to seek out company, I stop pacing and head for the door.

On my way out of my room, my eyes catch on the only photograph I have of us together. It’s placed alone atop the small shelf, and the empty space at either side of the frame is damning. The photo was taken outside of the last house we’d lived in before she was…before she died. I pause for a moment, fingers reaching out to brush over the image, tracing across her face. We look somewhat alike, both with dark hair and eyes. She also shares the same warm-toned skin, but her features are much softer, the angles of her face far less sharp than my own.

Her affection for me is obvious in the way she smiles down at my face, rather than at the camera. Her arms are wrapped around my little shoulders from behind, and it feels like a stab to the chest how much I wish she were still here. It borders on being physically painful if I think about it for too long. It seems like a weakness to still miss someone this much after nearly twenty-eight years of them being gone, but I do.

If I gained anything from my little dive into the past today, it’s the confirmation, the reassurance, of what I already knew. My mother loved me. Despite everything that should have made her hate me instead, I know she truly did. She also loved me the only way she knew how, and sometimes her fear and paranoia made her care feel harsh and painful despite her intentions. As a child, it confused me, the constant moving around and her moodswings. I was too young to understand the reasons behind her fears and clueless to the fact she’d obviously wanted me to leave the kitchen because she was afraid for my safety.

“Mahal kita,”I say softly to her picture, hoping she’ll feel it somehow. Wherever it is souls go, hers had gone there too soon. She did the best she could for us and deserved better than the cards life dealt to her.

With a final glance back at the image, I step out into the hallway and pass right by Rio’s closed door. Torrin’s door is thankfully open, so I step inside and wait for him to finish his pushups, knowing he’ll have heard me come in.

“We have a gym, you know,” I point out offhandedly after a few minutes of waitingsomewhatpatiently.

“I know,” Torrin replies with a groan as he lets himself flop onto the ground, quickly rolling over to look up at me with a lazy grin. “Just wanted to do another quick set. What's up?”

“Nothing’s up, muscle-brain,” I reply, shoving off his concern, even if it is concealed with a smile.

Torrin always smiles so easily. Not only at me, but at everyone. What would it feel like to be so free with my happiness? Maybe he’s right; maybe I do need to lighten up. Not as much as Rio needs to, though. Then again, no one needs to lighten up more than he does. He’s so tightly wound it’s only a matter of time before he unravels, not that he’ll listen to either of us when we try warning him.

“Then what are you doing lurking in my bedroom?Iknow you didn’t come for the view of me working out,” he teases, likely poking at what I’d said Eden asked me during her first training session.

Speaking of the witch…

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