Page 60 of Consume
I took a breath and looked to Pop and Ellison seated on my other side. “My goddess, Feozva, is real. Saelises worship her.”
Ellison blinked. “You made her up.”
“I did.”
“Wait...” Mase thumbed my knuckles. “You have a goddess that you made up?”
My cheeks flamed even though he hadn’t said it with judgement. “I disguised my iron addiction as a religion. Feozva became my goddess, the goddess of iron.”
Moon tilted her head. “Your shrine back at the dorm before the police picked it apart...the one with all the candles and the periodic table.”
I nodded. “That was the only shrine I had.”
“No, you’re forgetting the one you had for... Never mind.” She hid her smile behind her wine glass.
Oh, right. The one I had for Jezebel’s whiskers and nail clippings in a box to someday rebuild her after she died. See? Weird.
“Feozvaisreal,” Poh announced, her face serious. “but I never heard you mention the name before.”
“I didn’t. Only to Pop and Ellison because it was weird.” I glanced at Moon. “Weirder than I already am. But... to Saelises, Feozva is a goddess who merges earth with the hereafter.”
Captain Glenn caught my gaze across the table, understanding brightening his dark eyes. “You.”
I nodded. “Me.”
Poh turned to me. “Youare Feozva.”
“I thought I made the name up. I knew the ghosts would come inside me when I invited them, but I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to do after that. Or where I was supposed to send them. Or what that place was even called.”
“The hereafter,” Ellison breathed.
“That’s where I sent them, yes, and it happened right in front of the Saelises. A wall of light opened up behind me, and...well, it was impossible not to see it. Or feel its power. I didn’t tell them to, but the live Saelises followed after their dead.”
“You killed them?” Moon asked.
“No,” I said. “I...merged, I guess, and while they walked into the hereafter, the Saelises touched me. Maybe that means they can get back out again, like I’m their tether or something.”
“You’re the doorway.” Captain Glenn sat back in his chair, his mouth parted slightly. “The doorway between the living and dead. The merger between worlds, and the Saelises just walked on in.”
“It’s telling, though, isn’t it?” Ellison asked softly. “That they chose love over war? They could’ve picked up where they left and finished things, but they didn’t.”
Mase cleared his throat and leaned in to me. “Did you say anything to them?”
“I told them I was sorry, that humans were wrong, and we should’ve never done what we did.”
Franco blew out a loud breath. “Powerful words for a goddess, especially one with the appearance of a human, the species they despise.”
Silence fell over the room while all of us digested this info. It was a lot and it sounded crazy, but there weren’t any doubts flickering my way. They accepted everything I said as truth, even though I wasn’t quite there yet. I might never be.
Pop clasped his hands on the gurneytop and bowed his head over them. “I can’t pretend I understand this, Abs, because your mom was a human. A very special woman but still human. Your sister and I are both humans. I know you’re my daughter because I was there for your birth.”
“Yes, but when Mom died,” Ellison started, “maybe someone, somewhere, another god or goddess possibly, gave something back to us.” She gazed at me with such love and devotion that tears brimmed in my eyes. “Not just a baby sister, but hope for the rest of humanity and the only thing Saelises would listen to.”
Poh traced the cross on her necklace and nodded, a wistful smile lighting her face. “The hereafter. It’s nice to know it really exists.”
I knew her well enough to know she was thinking of her murdered husband and son. She’d see them again. We’d all see our lost loves and friends, which helped to take the terror from death, at least a little.
“How are you coping with all this, Absidy?” Josh asked.
