Page 36 of Gift from the Source
Releasing my breath, I take one last look around my tree and pull my shoulders back.
My turn.
“Willow, wait…”CC says softly, halting me in my tracks.
His voice is so clear, I whirl around because I could’ve sworn he said it from behind me.
“What’s…Why did that sound so different?”
“There’s something I can show you, filia mea.”
“Can it wait like two seconds?”
“It can, of course. That’s your choice, my girl. This memory is a piece of my own and the other…is a piece tied to the tree. You don’t have to see if you don’t wish to. That’s okay,”he says gently, but I don’t miss the sad undertone.
Either he doesn’t want me to see this but can’t say that or he’s worried I don’t want to see.
My gaze bounces from the portal to the remaining pieces of the trunk that I can still make out. Then to the ground where we spent so much time together learning. All our memories we shared here.
Even if my curiosity wasn’t burning like an inferno inside of me right now, I’d still want whatever this piece of him is.
“Show me.”
Five
CC
Eight Years ago
It’s a strange feeling mourning when you’re still alive. Knowing you’re going to die in just a short time but you can’t tell everyone you love. In my two hundred and fifty-two years of life, I’ve known for two hundred and thirty-seven of those that this was the day I’d die. I just didn’t know the adventure I’d be sent on in the meantime.
Closing my eyes as my feet hit the porch, I transport out.
There’re a couple more stops until my final destination.
The scent of the south wing welcomes me back and as much as I want to dally around, evade what’s to come, I don’t allow myself. With hurried steps, I cling to the box in my hand that holds my sweet girl’s birthday gift and move over to her replicated willow tree.
I swear even the cascading branches seem to turn in on me, almost hugging me as I lower myself to my knees. It’s easy for me to find comfort in the impressively familiar spot and I can’t help the small smile that breaks out across my face.
The box and the bark.
Gaster’s and Tillman’s souls had to know it was for her.
My palm roams across the trunk in a circle and the vibration of my magic settles the pounding in my heart. When my points meet at the top, I pull straight down the middle. A foolproof method Gaster always teaches for the first pocket dimension. One I’ve used so many times. It’s the way I taught Willow how to open this on the other side.
My bag of supplies I always need and have prepared for her is nestled in the small corner, along with a blanket and a pillow.
Call it poor planning on my part or maybe ignorance of how bad things would truly get for her, but I learned quickly when her elements and magic emerged, I’d have to bound her powers daily. She was so much stronger than I was prepared for, and it was too dangerous of a risk to leave her with her powers around Franklin.
So my original thought process in making this dimension was that she’d be able to open it on her own if she ever needed anything. Since that didn’t work out, the other side stays open all the time but is concealed from view. Only she knows it’s there and she can reach her hand through as she needs without being electrocuted to death.
Setting her box down on top of her blanket gently, I chuckle to myself as the memory of the day I caught her attempting to crawl through the dimension floods my mind.
When I transported in behind her, all I could see was her feet sticking out. I cleared my throat and she squealed, trying to back out as quickly as she could. All I could do was shake my head and laugh. She couldn’t have gotten through and if she did, she would’ve crawled through a wall then been stuck in the south wing.
My curious girl. That would’ve been it if she had managed it. I never would’ve been able to get her to leave.
The sweet memory draws a lone tear from my eye that I hastily wipe away before closing the dimension back up.
