Page 18 of Crossroads Magic
I made myself look at her face. Her eyes were closed, and her jaw jutted up into the air. Her face was smooth, the flesh rising over the high cheekbones, looking almost stretched the way Ghaliya’s looked right now, with her hollow cheeks.
“She looks like you, Mom,” Ghaliya whispered.
“As do you, Miss Ghaliya,” Benedict replied softly, from my other side.
Ghaliya blinked at that and returned her gaze to my mother’s still body.
So did I. Details began to register. The thick plastic sheet my mother had been laid upon. And the rips and tears in the nightgown or robe or whatever it was she was wearing. The long chain and the pendant that hung from it, now resting on her chest below her breasts. The pendant was pewter or perhaps even iron, dark with age, and worn, but it was clearly the head of a deer, with large antlers.
I studied the tears in my mother’s gown. They were tinged pink on the edges.
“Is that…blood?” I asked, my throat strained.
“Yes,” Benedict Marcus replied.
I raised my hand to my throat.
“She was stabbed?” Ghaliya asked, her voice high.
“Yes,” Marcus repeated.
“She was murdered…” I breathed.
Chapter Six
I turned away from the bed and moved blindly across the room. There was a chair beside a narrow door and I perched on the edge of it and let my head hang, while my breathing shortened and my heart slammed against my chest with sickly speed.
“Mom?” Ghaliya asked, her voice thick with concern.
“Ms…Anna?” Benedict Marcus added.
I could hear them both moving toward me, and held up my hand. Grey flecks were clouding my vision. I had to get my breathing back under control and I couldn’t do that while I was talking.
A hand, warm and large, rested on my shoulder. “I think your mother is having a panic attack,” Marcus told my daughter.
“Why? What is scaring her?” Ghaliya voice was high, but strident and demanding.
“She’s never had one before?” Marcus asked, his tone more concerned.
“I…wouldn’t know,” Ghaliya said hesitantly. “We’ve lived apart for a few years….”
I put my hands over my mouth and nose, to help with the breathing.
“I think this is not the first time,” Benedict Marcus said, his hand squeezing my shoulder gently. “Your mother knows how to calm herself. Watch.”
Ihatedthat Ghaliya got to see me in this state. I didn’t give a damn about the doctor. He’d seen worse in his time, I was sure. But Ghaliya was watching her mother buckling under pressure and that was not an impression I wanted her to have, not of me.
But worrying about it would not help me climb on top of this attack. I pushed the worry aside. I was very good at pushing worry aside, these days. And I focused on my breathing, on getting more oxygen into my lungs so the dizziness would pass and I could relax enough to take deeper breaths….
Finally I could draw a deep, deep breath of cool, delicious air. I blew it out and straightened.
Ghaliya stood with her arms crossed, a hand to her mouth, while she chewed on the ball of her thumb. Her eyes were wide.
“I’m fine,” I assured her. I looked at Marcus. “I’m good,” I added.
“Yes,” he said softly. “How often?”
“Too often,” I said crisply and got cautiously to my feet. “My mother didn’t die in this room, did she?”
