Page 69 of Through the Wicked Wood

“Susi.” The word bounces between the small walls of the cage, long and drawn on like a whisper in the wind. My mother. I suck in a sharp breath, her voice like needles against my skin.

“Suuuusi.” My mother’s melodic voice wraps around me. “Come now, Elora. We’ve missed you.”

The eerie darkness of the cage begins to lift, a soft glow from the ground illuminates my surroundings. There, in the dim light, stands my mother. Her onyx and silver hair braided into a crown as it was the night she died. Her deep emerald gown pooled at the floor, the sleeves cropped neatly at her wrist. And her eyes. Her beautiful, silver eyes watch me with such sorrow.

Such longing.

My gaze shifts to her throat. No scar. No blood. Not the image that replays in my mind every night, but the mother I always knew before. Before Roman. Before…

It’s my mother the way I always wanted to remember her. Her ivory skin glows as she holds her hand out toward me. A beacon of light. My heart tugs forward. How I’ve missed her. Her touch. Her laugh. Her voice.

“Come, Elora.” She waves her hand again, gesturing me forward. Her lyrical voice is sweet in my ears. A sound so beautiful it shatters my heart in two. How simple a sound can be and yet so complex. It has the power to hold many memories. Memories of pain and joy and fear and heartbreak. And this sound, the sound of her voice, somehow houses them all.

“There once was an Enchantress who loved a little girl very much…”

Hanging my head, I slam my eyes shut. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” I repeat the words aloud through choked sobs. Then, the press of a warm hand on my shoulder. Warm, not cold. Shooting my eyes open. I don't dare look up from the ground. I fight the urge to lean into her touch.

“Isn’t it, though?” she asks, her skin soft and smooth. Her fingers run delicately over my jaw, landing under my chin, tipping it upward so I’m forced to meet her gaze. “My poor, susi,” she says, shaking her head, glancing at the scar along my neck. The scar I received the night of the mountain, a moment of weakness so blurred and dark, I couldn’t even locate the proper artery. “I’m just as real as you are,” she whispers. “Just as real as this cage. Come with me now and all of this will go away. You can save your friends, no one else will have to get hurt.”

So wrapped up in the sound of her voice, in the feel of her touch, I don’t realize how her fingers slip into mine. How she delicately brings my hand to the hilt of the dagger tucked neatly at my side. I watch my fingers trace the hilt of the blade, but I don’t feel it. Don’t feel anything.

Isn’t this what everybody wants? One last moment with the person they’ve lost. One chance to tell them all the things you did not say. Could not say. That I love her with my whole heart. That I should have done more to protect her. Save her. That, above all else, I am sorry.

Maybe after all this time, this is my moment of retribution. To right my wrongs as Agnes said I would. I am lost in her eyes, mesmerized by the feeling of home I find within them.

“You can do this, Elora.” The blade slips out from its sheath. She grips the hilt in her glowing hands. But I don’t care. I can’t tear my eyes away from hers as she speaks to me. Hypnotized by her voice, I don’t notice when she places the blade into my hand, until it’s already there.

“You can make this right,” she whispers. Immediately, I know what she means. I’m the reason she is gone. Her hands cup my face, distracting me from the weight of the blade in my hand. Her smile is warm and familiar. Like coming home after a trip that lasted far too long and oh, how I so badly wish to go home. My body shudders. I don’t question her words as I tighten my grip on the blade’s hilt. Isn’t this what I pictured so many times before? Isn’t this what I planned to do on the mountain, but failed? Had planned to do in the woods the night before I met Sorin?

My mother. My beautiful, warm, mother who wanted everything for me. Who put me before anything else. Who withheld parts of who I am, who she was, to keep me safe. Who died to ensure I would live. Her hand grazes mine as she encourages the blade up until its sharp point pricks at the soft skin under my chin. Warm blood trickles down onto my chest but I don’t fight her. I don’t pull away.

“Do it now, my sweet susi. Save your soul from damnation by making this right. Do it now and come home with me.”

In the years since she’s passed, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.

All those years alone in the woods, I let the voices invade every inch of my mind, settle into its depths. I let them call my mind home. Let them believe they belonged. Kept them guarded in a box, letting them out only when I could not find the strength to fight them off.

I allowed them to replace everything in me with fear until I was nothing but a shell moving amongst the forest. They could feel it, the voices. The moment I started to give in, and that night in the woods they didn’t hesitate to strike.

They seeped in slowly through my pores, driving all the way down to the core of my being, their malicious chants a constant echo in my ears.

Give up.

Give up.

Give up.

And I almost had. The night before I met Sorin that thought was pressed to the forefront of my mind. That’s all it would take, one careless slip of the blade, my demons whispered in my ears, encouraging the end. But the wind whispered something else that night. “Not yet, little susi.” And so I listened to that wind and now I am here.

Here, in this cage built of stone, looking at my mother’s beautiful face, the thought more tempting than ever before. Her eyes flare as I tighten my grip around the blade. The early days in the forest cloud my mind. The thought of almost giving into those demons cracks my chest open. Had I ended everything then, I wouldn’t be here now. I would have never met Sorin that very next day. Or Sam. Or any of the others.

The anger in my chest lights a fire within me as I think of Ruse and of Alaric. I picture Jarek’s face as he tips his head in laughter. Galen’s as he studies a book. I see Sam’s eyes as she worries about me, far too often. Sorin’s face flashes into my mind again, and I cling to the image in the violent storm brewing inside me.

With a strangled breath, I brush my thumb across my mother’s beautiful face. “I’m so sorry.” I choke on my tears. “I love you,” I whisper. I know it now. I know it isn’t her, but I have to say it. One last time to her face or what looks like her face. I had to say it.

Confusion splays across the being and in a split second, I spin the blade, slamming it deeply into the wraith’s chest and yanking it back with a forceful tug. Recoiling back, the face of what looked like my mother flexes. In and out, it bounces between my mother and the nymph until finally, the black eyes and graying skin of Grawgeth slumps in the corner of the cage.

Thick black tar oozes from her chest instead of what should’ve been blood. Her screams so high and shrill I’m close to dropping my dagger, wishing to pull my hands to my ears to soften the blow. I let out a scream of my own.

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