Disclaimer: All the characters from past Gemma Doyle Series books belong to Libba Bray. Those I have created are mine.
A/N: This is my first short story ever and I have little experience in writting or grammar so please humor me. I felt very passionate of this book and the characters that I felt the story should continue with Gemma's life after Kartik is gone and how she copes and deals with it. I hope you enjoy.
Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Robert Lee Frost
Preface
Kartik
Time stands still. For me nothing else exists. For so long I longed for a sense of purpose, and now that I have it I feel…nothing. I am nothing without her. It is my entire fault. If I had never entered the realms none of this would have probably ever happened. But in my mind I hear her sweet voice telling me, There is never any turning back. You have to move forward.
I will fight to exist just to be back in her arms, to see her smile, to feel her touch. But I feel that is a lost cause for I fear I will never escape from this prison I am in. I have begged it for months to let me free but it will not. The tree must have a heart, a soul. But I will never give up. I let her go and now I must pay the price.
Please let me go. I need to see her, to be with her, I plead.
That can never happen. It says harshly.
Please, I beg, I will do anything; give anything up just to see her.
Is that so? It says questionably.
Yes…just please. I cannot live without her.
Well then Kartik, are you prepared to lose everything?
I do not know what it is telling me. I had already "lost everything" in general sense. But I do not care, I would walk through hell to change all this.