Page 10 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
In the other was an orb.
She offered the orb to the woman, and they held the orb together, so lovingly.
I stepped closer to peer at it. They had cradled this even in the deepest torments of our pain.
What had they protected so fiercely?
I looked into the orb and tears swam in me at the sight of fifteen pawns and four princesses, of four kings, and of Valetise, Picket, Candor, and Life. Though I could not see King See in the orb, for the first time, I also could not feel hate for him, nor the burn of revenge that had filled my mind so noisily.
Revenge could never exist in this beautiful, profound moment.
In the orb, I saw my monsters whom I would protect always,forever. Because I had already done so as a broken child, a broken queen, and every broken thing between.
My monsters.
My reason to return.
Our monsters need us,I said to my soul. My soul smiled, both chapters of her: child and adult.
How she shined.
How we shined for ourselves and for monsters too.
Chapter Six
Five powers grasp
All icy demise
Free from her olden prison.
What I knew and understood was that the creature rested its head on my lap. I could feel my lap and my hands that stroked the creature’s soft fur.
There was no mange nor scar, so the tiny suspicion that this creature was a werebeast version of King Change dissipated.
The creature was ancient designed—either ancient or the physical manifestation of my inner turmoil. Or the creature was the sensations of my body, for I could see now that I had always, since four, placed far more importance on the physical knowledge and needs of my body—food, shelter, physical pain, lust. I had done that to avoid sinking into the parts of me that were fractured.
A broken queen indeed.
No longer.
She was unafraid. Unafraid of almost anything. She was unafraid of seeing him again, because she had learned that the love of monsters was her salvation and reason. The love of monsters had saved her and been in her heart always.
In the love of monsters, she would always hope and care and dream.
I did not fear meeting King See again.
Ididfear never returning to my monsters.
I patted the creature, and then paused when it retreated from me and stood on all fours.This cannot be My End, after all that.
The creature licked my face. My eyelids. They were closed. I had not known. I had ceased to remember that I had eyes at all. Eyes for looking?
I opened them.
The fog hardly helped my ability to find and focus on the single irregularity in the haze, and at first there was no making sense of the blur.
Therewasan interruption, though.
