Page 41 of The Child of Rue Royale
I stare out into the abyss, a torture consuming me, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I can wait. It might not be over.
I don’t know how long I sit for. I don’t know how much time passes.
The tide comes in, so close to washing away the candles, the circle of stones. The cold sand holds me as tears stream down my face, not a sound escaping my lips. A numbness has coated my heart, my lungs, my very soul. An emptiness wrapping me up like a body bag because it’s over. It’s over. No more ashes. No more Bastian. It’s done.
“Come on,” Chantal soothes, her face entering my line of vision.
I sit up, spitting sand from my mouth, the darkness engulfing me, mere feet from the ocean.
“Time to go, honey. Time to go.” She pulls me up, my feet numb, shivers encompassing my legs and arms.
“It didn’t work,” I whisper, and Chantal grabs my hand with determination.
“I know.” She squeezes my hands with tears in her eyes. “It will be okay, all right? I promise it will.” Her hands reach for Winnie and Cassius’s book, for my bag of herbs and tinctures, and my cauldron. The crystals have been carried away by the tide, back to the earth. His ashes and Aven’s blood…all gone. I couldn’t even try the spell again if I wanted to. Everything I would need is gone. And that’s all my head can grasp. Gone. Gone. Go…
Our hands clasp as she leads me up the steps to the house, my body shaking because though I love Chantal, she wasn’t who I thought I would be coming back with. What had I done wrong?
After Chantal strips me down, I fall into bed, sand still on my feet and in my hair as Chantal rolls Aven’s bassinet next to me. I want to feel his little body wrapped in my arms because I let him down too. He will never know his father. He will never see the green eyes that match his, nor hear the laugh that filled a room.
I let him sleep. I let him sleep so I can lie in the heartbreak that has become a part of me. After two months of the ritual, I am bone exhausted. Completely shackled with fatigue. I let sleep consume me, knowing the pain will return the moment the sun spills into my room.
MY EYES FLUTTER OPEN. AVEN’Scry for nursing is right on time. I’m robotic as I sit up, pull him into my arms, and slide in the rocking chair. It all hits me again as the sun begins to rise. I failed. He’s gone. It’s over.
Chantal sleeps in my bed, crouched in a ball, her breaths so quiet, I didn’t even realize she had crept in.
Aven quietly eats, falling back to sleep within minutes as the ache rips in my chest. Everything inside me feels like it’s sinking, so low, I’ll need to be scraped from this chair. I know what I’m supposed to be thinking…I have a child now. I need to get myself together, gather all the broken pieces, and build a life without Bastian. But right now, I just want to—need to—get back in bed and pretend like everything I’ve been working toward didn’t just come crashing down around me. I clench my chest, the heart inside it raging, dying, grieving…all over again.
I stand with every intention of bringing Aven back to bed with me this time. But right before I turn, I look out the window just as the sun peeks over the horizon, and notice something in the water. I blink my eyes, trying to zoom in and focus, but I can’t make out what it is.
I place Aven in his bassinet then run back to the window to decipher what I’m looking at. Something moving, something swaying in the ocean. The sun continues to rise, and my heart stops as it shines upon what appears to be a head full of brown hair.
“Chantal!” I whisper-yell, shaking her. “Chantal,look outside.”
I walk back to the window, my eyes surely playing tricks on me, my heart not done torturing me. But when I look out the window, there’s a man walking from the ocean. It can’t be Bastian. The sun is up, but there’s dark hair, and he’s tall, so very tall. It can’t…
I pull on my leggings and grapple with a hoodie from the closet as Chantal walks over to the window.
“It’s not him,” she says, looking at me with sympathy etched on her forehead. “Honey, he’s in the sun. It’s a guy swimming.”
“I just, I have to make sure. He doesn’t have a wetsuit on. Do you know how freezing that water is?” I zip my hoodie up.
“Aster.” Chantal grabs my hand. “You’re torturing yourself.”
“I know,” is all I can manage before I run out the front door and down the side of the house, Chantal not far behind.
And when we both make it to the back porch, our inhales are collective, and then she says it. “Oh, my God! I’ll stay with the baby. Go!”
I’m running before I realize it.Speed, I think, and my feet start to move like I’m on roller skates, flying down the steps to the beach, hitting the chilled sand, flying across it in seconds.It’s him, my heart tells me.It’s him.
All I see is a man’s chest, smooth and familiar, walking from the water, slow and steadily. The sharp intake of my breath hits the back of my throat like a baseball, my hand flying to my mouth, a stampede of horses galloping inside my chest. I run faster. The sun is fully up now, and there’s no orange glow, no burning body.
“Bastian,” I cry because my eyes meet Aventurine’s. They are staring back at me, and am I dreaming? Am I actually dreaming?Please make it be real. Please.“Bastian!”
I run into the water, the cold biting my legs but I don’t stop. Because he’s making his way through the ocean, trying to get to me, and I would keel over, pass out if I didn’t have to touch him, to make sure he’s really here.
I crash into him, his bare chest slamming against me, his strong arms pulling me up so my legs can wrap around his waist as my arms slide around his neck.
My face presses against his, my eyes clenched shut, while my arms have his neck in a death grip. “Is it you? Is it real?” I cry, a cord of fright spearing through my skull. Dreams can feel so real, as do nightmares, and this could be both.
