A/N: Title is from "Eyes of the World" - Fleetwood Mac,
Misty Day couldn't bring herself to kill living creatures, so she waited for the dead things to find her.
And they did, they always did. Showed up in the crevices of her linear life and waited for her thin hands to breathe life into little feathered bodies, or a tiny pup with a broken neck, (or a little three year old boy that fell out of a tree with wispy brown hair that heaved and heaved as she touched his face and brought him back from that dark place he went to soon; he ran away every time she came near after that), reminding her that she has either a gift or a curse, depending on how one looks at it.
When they burnt her at the stake, all she could think about was her mother sipping tea with shaking hands at the table with tears falling a mile a minute as she was dragged off by her uncle, father, brother, neighbor, screaming and kicking in her night dress. The last thing she remembers as the gasoline ran in rivulets down her face, as she yelled till she was hoarse, is how her mother ran her fingers through her messy hair after she had to kill that poor little frog in middle school, crooned her a lullaby.
It didn't take long to bring herself back, for the dead things found her, and when they settled into her chest, she only needed to root them out, settle a trail of light in their wake.
She wakes up with the memory too and almost goes to find her, but no. They aren't her tribe anymore. They forsook her in the name of holiness, and left her to burn, burn, burn.
She's still burning, she thinks.
(At least they didn't take her Stevie and allowed her to burn in peace. It's not an unpleasant one, really. It allows her to make a home of a swamp, and keeps her away from a white house filled with cold empty rooms.)
The blind woman's hand is cool, she thinks. Cool and smooth like a stone wet from the stream. She hears the woman gasp and suddenly so many things are running through her heart, scorching through her, (the frog's blood running warm over her hands, her mother screaming when those men kicked through the door to take her away, playing in the fields, listening to her stevie in a warm, heady swamp), and then it's flushed from her, leaving her cheeks chilled and her bones chattering.
The woman's eyes are a little like the sea with flames licking the edges. She stares at them for a long while, not even noticing when she leans in.
And then she's given a tribe, and doesn't know why she keeps on holding to the blind woman's hand throughout it all.
The whole house is cold as an ice box, but coolness is another thing.
Her name is Cordelia and Misty rolls it around her tongue a few times without saying it.
They work in the greenhouse with Stevie singing her ethereal magic in the background and Misty hasn't been this happy in a good long while. Not when Zoe and Kyle came to see her. Not when it was just her and her Stevie and a longing for a tribe that seemed more like abstract idea at some point than four walls and a door.
She and Cordelia laugh and watch the plants grow, see the dead things come alive together. Cordelia has the prettiest smile, like sunshine. Misty tries with every look to find her within those two different eyes. She can tell Cordelia likes to teach, likes plants, and likes to stay grounded on the floor because the earth is solid and needs tending, and maybe she won't trust anyone else to do it. (Would she trust Misty?) She's coolness and warmth all wrapped up together, and Misty wants this moment to last forever because there are no witch hunters and Kyles to knock Stevie to the ground.
When Cordelia pulls her forward and says We make a great team a thought enters her mind and pushes through layered insecurities.
Could a tribe be a person?
Cordelia's husband comes in a few minutes later and Misty learns that maybe everyone has scorched edges, a burning center.
Hank seems like he's full of shit, regardless, and Misty busies her hands with a carnation and watches it bloom a full beaming orange. The question relentlessly playing over and over in her mind, like when her old 8track used to skip.
Misty can't sleep.
She tries one of those sleeping pills Zoe gave her, but all they do is make her head fuzzy, and not like the swamp did on a hot, sweltering day.
She tosses and turns for hours before deciding to do something about it,
She wraps Stevie's precious shawl delicately around her shoulders (protection, she thinks), tip-toes down to the kitchen for tea and because Kyle might have left his earphones down there and then she can listen to Stevie to make up for the loss of cicada chirps and the swamp waters rushing back and forth in the night.
She hears a small sob, choked like it's being held in and caged, coming from the table and nearly jumps.
It's Cordelia.
She has one of those silky robes on, and she's holding a mug of coffee between her palms.
Something blocks words from Misty's throat when Cordelia looks up, her eyes red like the first day she saw her, those eyes catching the moonlight starkly and differently through a side window.
"Misty." She says, and her voice is scratchy and she tries to clear it. "You should be asleep. You'll need your strength in the upcoming days."
She nods and goes to heat up the water, choosing a simple green tea. Nothing good like she's used to, but it serves it's purpose. As the heater whirs to life she goes to sit at the table, tentatively, and she feels the cold wooden chair beneath her legs.
"Couldn't sleep is all. Figured tea would help, but since it's nearing sunrise I think I jus' might watch it instead."
Cordelia gives a faint smile and takes a shuddering sip. Misty gets an urge to lay a palm over her the top of her hand because these days whenever she sees Cordelia, there's three feet of space between her and anyone else. If not physically, than in some other way.
She gives a small laugh. "I think I'll do the same."
Misty thinks back to the scorch being burned out of her chest and renewed and cool hands and tribes and can't take her eyes off of Cordelia. Her hand comes up to push a piece of blond hair behind her ear, and they clench and unclench around her coffee mug.
(She sees the dead things in Cordelia's chest and wants to root them up.)
(Or bring them back to life, but that's a little too magical, and hearts are harder to heal than baby birds.)
She does something brave for her own heart and reaches forward to take Cordelia's hand. She feels it jump, like a first heart beat, and then slowly fingers entwine with hers and she breathes so very loudly.
"If you don't me askin', Miss Cordelia, I know we haven't known each other very long, but-if there's something upsetting you really badly, I have good listening ears."
She holds her breath a little as Cordelia stares at their entwined hands for a long time before lifting her eyes and Misty feels a different sort of scorch altogether when their eyes meet.
She feels seen.
"You're sweet, Misty. And I mean that very, very much."
Misty lets her eyes soften and her voice to become low, like the last crackle of flame in a fireplace. "You don't have to have your teachin' voice right now. I promise, I'm listening, even if you don't say anything at all."
A few more tears fall down Cordelia's face without her permission and she hurriedly pushes them away, laughing a little.
"Can you do mind reading now, Misty?"
Misty furrows a brow. "No, at least I don't think so. That's not what I meant."
Cordelia squeezes her hand. Another heart beat. The pump and the lull.
"I know."
There's a small spot of orange, and Misty looks out the window. The sun is beginning to crest and spill over the horizon, dipping pinks into glass and off of chipped paint, yellows spilling into the kitchen and giving voice to all the colors hidden by night.
Something seizes her chest when she witnesses Cordelia staring and staring at the sunrise, and then lifting the corners of her mouth.
"I hope you stick around, Misty Day." She says quietly.
Misty grins. "Need someone who actually wants to learn alchemy?"
Cordelia takes Misty's other hand and squeezes them both, tenderly, and Misty feels that second scorching, a sunburst behind her eyelids, when Cordelia smiles her pretty smile.
"That too." She says. Misty catches her meaning.
After a few more minutes of quietness, Misty asks if she can play a little Stevie to start the day. She purposefully plays Kind of Woman, remembering it as the backdrop of their first day in the greenhouse, and let's Stevie croon them something like a lullaby as the sun comes up and up and up.