Page 45 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
The faucet squeaked and the showerhead stopped spraying. Juniper stepped around the glass door and toweled off. She reached past Sophia and wiped the mirror with her palm. “Feel better?”
“Different,” Sophia said.
Juniper rested her chin on Sophia’s shoulder and met her gaze in the reflection. “That’s fair. No one comes back exactly the same.”
“I don’t think many people come back at all.”
“True.”
“How long did I sleep?”
“A while,” Juniper said. When Sophia tilted her head, she relented. “Sixteen hours, give or take.” She smacked a quick kiss to Sophia’s cheek. “You needed it.”
Exhaustion sank to the bone. She swallowed uncomfortably and grabbed the comb off the vanity, swiping it through her hair. The adjoining washroom in Juniper’s primary suite was exactly what Sophia had imagined. Clean and cluttered, stocked with an assortment of sweet balms, fragrant oils, and well-loved makeup. The bedroom was lavish and beautiful. White bedding, violet sheets, sun-shaped pillows, and framed replicas of famous paintings. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Ophelia by John Everett Millais, and The Virgin of Guadalupe by Nicolás Enríquez were among them. She’d stared at the assortment of pinned butterflies above Juniper’s bed, clinging to wakefulness after the ritual, hungry for rest but afraid she’d never wake up if she closed her eyes again.
The stigmata mark on her palm was gone. She felt Lilith there, thrumming like a second heartbeat.
“Is everyone else awake?” Sophia asked.
Juniper nodded. “Tehlor’s returning the porcelain plunge pool to some”—she flicked her wrist—“athletic depo and Colin’s fixing a playpen for Hazel.”
“Did we really need to do what we did with the rabbit? I mean, it didn’t seem, I don’t know, necessary.”
“Did Lilith grant you an audience?” Juniper smoothed lotion over her legs, then her arms. When Sophia nodded, she shrugged. “Good. Then it wasn’tunnecessary.”
“But—”
“Ritualism is messy, brutal, callous, and old. Maybe it did nothing. Maybe Hazel’s death didn’t light a way for Lilith, or maybe it did. You’re back; he’s back. In the end, that’s all I care about, conejita.”
Sophia remembered a hooked claw snagging gold thread buried in her wrist. She’d felt it quiver, vibrating through her spirit, lifeline to lifeline. That brittle bit of light—sacrificed to entice a god—had been her pathway back to the earthly plane. Her time in the afterlife was dreamlike now, unrefined and hard to reach, fading by the hour. But maybe Juniper was right. Maybe giving life to get back to life was what broke the cycle Haven started.
She nodded and stayed quiet, watching Juniper rake cream through her glossy hair.
They got dressed together. Sophia wore a sweater Colin had gifted her, one he’d outgrown, and Juniper slipped into cool jewel tones, buttoning an azure blouse, and fastening emerald pants. There was an obscurity about it, being alive, beingback, that made Sophia critical of every movement she made, every breath she took. Haven’s mission had failed, but Amy was still gone. The investigation in Gideon was at a standstill, no suspects in sight, but she still knew the truth behind the massacre. Her mother hadn’t called; Sophia couldn’t imagine a world in which she would. But she still hoped. Everything she’d ever known was essentially gone. What she had left—survival, friendship, magic, faith—was less finite than anything she’d ever chased before.
Every passing thought was a symphony. Loud and harsh without the lonesome, ghostly hitchhikers she’d carried for weeks. For a fleeting moment, she missed them.
Sophia’s phone lit on the nightstand, plugged into an outlet next to the unmade bed.
Tehlor Nilsen:curry or pizza
Tehlor Nilsen:say curry
From somewhere on the first floor, Lincoln hollered, “Say pizza!”
Sophia zipped her baggy jeans. “Curry or pizza?”
Juniper shrugged. “No preference. We could always get both.”
“Do you have oatmeal and peanut butter?”
“I do.”
Sophia De’voreaux:Both
Tehlor Nilsen:big brain
“Can I bake?” Sophia asked.
