Chapter 28: It was You

Credence and Chastity

Time remained frozen for the two of them. The rain was coming down harder by the second, and on the road cars still trundled by, but the two of them could only gape at each other. Then Chastity screamed.

"Ma!" she shrieked, abandoning her fallen leaflets and running past Credence back to the gathering, "Ma, he's here!"

"Wait, Chastity!" Credence sprinted after his former sister. His run was more desperate, and she couldn't gain much speed in her skirt. Shoving in front of her, he held out his hands like a protective wall, "You have to stop!"

"Don't touch me, Witch!" she cried, and he dropped his hands. The word set off a flash of pain, a memory. It was nothing like when wizards said it.

He couldn't let her pass. She tried to get around, but he blocked the way again. "You don't understand. She's wrong. We just want to be left alone, we're not dangerous!"

He caught a glimpse of Percy, who had stopped following a few yards behind, and was now standing on one foot, obviously unsure of what to do.

"You're a liar! You're one of them." Chastity stopped trying to get around, and stood still, feet apart, hands slightly raised as if she expected some sort of attack. Her auburn hair was coming undone in the rain and curling about her face, a harder face than Credence remembered. The long brown coat she wore looked new. Were they richer, with one less mouth to feed? "It's you who doesn't understand. They've bewitched you. How can you say they're not dangerous, after what you did to us? You're a monster."

Behind her, Percy was mouthing something, but Credence barely glanced at him. "It wasn't my fault! It was Ma's. She made me do it!"

The sight of his sister was finally braking the dam, the one he had been trying to hold together ever since he got here. Every pain-filled moment came flooding back into his mind. The last day of that nightmare, being dragged under by the violent, consuming being that he hadn't understood and couldn't control.

But she wouldn't listen, couldn't know. He saw it in her eyes. They were Ma's eyes.

"Ma didn't rip our house to pieces – that was you, and you know it!" she retaliated, "Don't try to lie. I know you were lying all those other times. It was you. Everything unnatural came from you. Do you know what it was like to watch that… that… witchcraft destroy our house? You know we didn't have the money to fix it. I had to stare at that gaping hole for months. And every time I saw it, I had to remember you, and your eyes." She looked at him like he was some mutant, loathsome creature. And all over again, that was exactly what he was. "I hate you!"

She sidestepped and got around him.

Credence's brain was in no shape to react. He hadn't even considered what Ma and Chastity had done after he'd left. He'd banished all thought of them from his mind. But they had kept on living, hadn't they? What kind of riposte could stop her when she could silence him just by reminding him what he was?

Percy. Where was Percy when he needed him? Had the rain washed him away?

Chastity was shouting again. She was running, getting dangerously close to the earshot of their Ma. Credence wasted a few precious seconds twisting this way and that, completely helpless.

"Chastity, wait!" he finally cried.

The youngest Barebone was running like a plow, her head parting a path through the rain. The bouncing caused her bun, which had been so tight and pretty that morning, to unravel behind her head. Not many people were on the roadside anymore. She wasn't thinking about watching out while running and slipping and screaming for her mother. Suddenly, a man took shape out of the blurry world ahead. Too late to change course, she slammed into his chest.

"I'm sorry –" Chastity began, but a long, thin object poked her temple and she fell silent.

"Obliviate," the man said in a soft voice.

A/N: After Credence reveals himself in FB all of his family is either dead or never seen again. I think it would be really interesting to see what they thought about seeing the Obscurus, and how they dealt with it. I'm especially curious about Modesty's reaction, but she isn't born yet in my timeline here. I figured that the sight would be extremely traumatizing for the remaining Barebones and would just push them further into their line of thinking. And I sometimes wonder why they were never obliviated more thoroughly… Please review!