Page 108 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
See offered his arm, and I took it, glad for the loan of his strength that reminded me of Madison.
When we exited the tower, my eyes swept to where she had been alive in death and stitched in place. A statue of her remained.
I crossed to Molly, who stared vacantly at the dirt, tugging on her stitches every now and then. Pushing out power, I healed the hands of the mothers either side of her. They did not reprimand Molly for hurting them. They knew her pain.
“Molly,” I said. Then my words stopped and there were no more to offer.
Molly looked at me without feeling. No fury, no hope, no reason. “You are my daughter, and yet I have not felt the sisterhood of this circle where so many others have. My heart is mydaughter, and when she was here, my heart was here, and now she is gone, so gone is my heart again. Please let me be next. I want an end. If there is oblivion, I rush to it. If there is Madison, I wish to know without further pain. I seek death, Daughter, and you hold the map.”
I did. “When champions awake, we will fight the battle of your stitch, Mother.”
Tears trailed over her cheeks. “Thank you, Daughter.”
I went next to my mother. “Life was given.”
Mother turned her gaunt and fragile face to look at me. “Yes, Daughter. Life was given to you, then taken away.”
I sat beside her. “There was a message in your gift.”
“There is a message in all. In the end, Life meant something wonderful, splinters and all.”
My exhale shook.
“Acceptance, Daughter. Your prince consort was not wrong in that.”
In that.Mother had made the effort to just inform me that there was a message in all. Why speak two words when she might have said, “Your prince consort was not wrong”?
She had implied that hewaswrong in another matter.
“Of what did you speak to See about?”
“He spoke as a prince consort might speak to the mother of a woman he feels everything easy and difficult for. I spoke to him as the mother of a daughter.”
I narrowed my eyes and noticed the teasing glint in her gaze. “I am to understand you will not tell me.”
“Your understanding is great.”
Laughter slipped from me. “I will find out.”
“You will,” she said, and the teasing was gone. Departed.
Ah.Butah.What intrigue. Perhaps I should enjoy it a time.
Pawns were tending to champions, who had just begun to stir. I shivered, recalling the feeling of black sand eating at myskin and burrowing under the surface into bone and mind and soul.
I tuned out my body and senses. There was something more to be learned from what had transpired. When no wisp arose, I tuned out my power, too, and gave full noise to my mind.
The cogs whirred and spun, all connected and individual. The tiniest and rustiest of cogs screeched forward, and I awaited their offering.
I had learned that a weak union could be reinforced. That while the healing must include a battling mother and the couple in question, other ingredients could be used in the ritual.
A change to Change.
That was what I was missing. In what way did I need to change the Changes? Or in what way must I change thehealingof the Changes’ seam?
Perhaps the King of No Change would always remain as he was. That seemed an irrefutable reality by now. Nothing could change his single reason for being. But I could alter the ingredients of how his frayed seam was mended.
By sacrificing other simple monsters.
