Chapter 16

Inca Mummy Girl

You lay in the grass watching the shafts on light dance beneath the tree branches. The lawn fragrant, freshly mowed. Your feet bare, arms at your sides. Crutches cast aside for now.

Buffy lays next to you, propped on one arm. Her hair is longer now, bleached lighter. Her bangs grown out. She is doing that thing again that she does, head tipped to the side, not so much waiting for you to speak but giving you the space to.

"Yunno, Snyder's gonna kick your out if you skip out of class every time I let stuff beat me." You say. "Not that this isn't appreciated."

"You are worth a few smears on my otherwise unblemished record, Faith." She smiles. "Oh, that and a pack of wild dogs ate Snyder a month back. New Principal's name is Woods. He's a softy."

"For real?" You say.

"Oh yeah, waaay soft. Last week, in first period he totally let Cordel-"

"I meant the dogs bit."

"That's what the papers say. Strangest thing, doncha think?" She pulls a little weed up between her slender fingers and twirls it around idly. "I mean, what would voluntarily eat a bitter little goblin like Snyder? Beats the hell outta me."

Sunnydale, man. You have to laugh.

"What else I miss?"

"New flavour of Gatorade."

"Huh."

"Blue."

"Cool."

"I am guessing you don't want to talk about what happened?" Buffy says, laying down on her belly. You nod.

"May I ask just one question."

"Buffy..."

"See, I just keep running everything over and over in my head. Every moment together. Everything I said. And… I can't solve it. It's like the more I try to escape, the more wrapped up I get. I just… it all just comes down to this one question."

"Okay."

"What did I do wrong?"

You are sick of silence and lies. You think about Amy and Oz, and how close they looked. How accepting he was. Too accepting. It was gonna get him killed.

"I am trying to understand. Was it shame? Are you… is it because I'm a girl?"

You shake your head. Buffy rolls onto her back, further from you. She looks up at the sky and releases a huge breath.

"I got mixed up in something. Real bad. Kennedy too. It got her killed. Put me in hospital. I just didn't want you… I can't let you risk… "

"This bad thing?" She says, green eyes locked to yours. "What if I could help?"

"That's just it. You can't." You realize your mistake being here. You sit up painfully and reach for your crutches.

Buffy pulls them away. Tosses them behind her.

"Shit Buffy, what the hell-"

"No. Not till you hear me out."

"Give them back.

"No." She growls "You. You don't like to feel weak. You are the tough girl. Nothing gets to you. Right?"

"Give me the crutches"

"You don't want to be weak because that gets you hurt. Because people always hurt you when you let that guard down, right?"

"BUFFY!"

"How do you think I felt Faith? Not knowing? Not being able to help? When… when I find out that… that… my… you are in a coma. That your sister has been… and I can't reach you. Can't do anything? I felt so powerless."

"What can you do? What exactly can you do to stop this… this… constant loss… this constant… pain and fear and... Do you think you can save me? Poor little Faith? Is that it? Does helping the trailer trash girl up when she falls make you feel special?"

"That isn't fair."

You try to stand, so help you, but your leg gives way. Sharp, like a tendon. You are gonna land hard, but Buffy has you in an instant. Strong arms catch you, guide you back to the grass effortlessly. Perhaps you should wonder at that, but her face so close to yours, hazel eyes almost emerald, flashing brightly with tears and anger.

Your kiss is painful. Hot. Cruel. Selfish. But necessary in that moment, absolutely necessary. Her lips swollen and soft, the kiss grows tender. Her grip shifts, she hovers over you, no weight upon your broken and battered body, but her warmth spills into you. The touch of her hand velvet and cool against your hot cheek.

"I'm so scared." You whisper. "I am so scared."

"Me too." She says. "Just let me in"

"And what? Get you killed to? I ain't worth that."

"That's my choice to make, doncha think?"

She offers you your crutches.

"Come, I wanna show you something."

Buffy's house is like a museum. Clean, open, bright, with furnishings that seem brand new, hardly used. Her room is anything but, with a comfy bed and worn dressers, clothes and makeup strewn here and there. Yet down here in this section you feel like an alarm will sound if you so much as breathe on any of the artifacts or paintings.

"Here it is." She says, rather nervously. The wall contains a black picture, a meter square. A nebulous white round form in the centre. Like a galaxy.

"What is it?" You say. Art isn't exactly your thing.

"It's an x ray. Of a mummy. See, that's where her head is… see the teeth? Jaw... you can make out the jewellery. Her hands. See?"

You nod.

"Mom had a bunch of these at the gallery, large prints of ancient mummies from all over the world. But I begged her to keep this one. I know. Morbid much, but- she just sings to me."

"She?"

"An Inca girl. Maybe a princess. No one is sure. She was a human sacrifice. See the white things? That's trinkets offered along with her to the gods. She is bound up in a bundle."

She smiles and sits back on a pristine leather couch, stares at the giant print with a rapt, distant expression.

"After my dad left, I got mean. Like, you have no idea. Cordelia on her worst day? Not even close. I hurt a lot of people. It was like a big game to me. I played them off against each other intentionally. So cruel. It makes me sick now to think what I did.

"One day. There was an accident. I got trapped… into this tiny dark space. I screamed and I yelled for help. But no one could hear me. Hours became days.

"I cried, I raged, I slammed my fists. It didn't matter. It was just me and the dark. Curled up. Exhausted. Thirsty. My world shrank down to this little, lightless space. Just me and my thoughts. And I couldn't escape them. No distractions. No games. Just me and what I had done. Who I was.

"They got me out, eventually, but by then it had shaped me. I wasn't the same. I just shut down as a person after that. No one cared. I had hurt so many people. All my once friends hated me. Feared me. Sunnydale offered a new start. To live in the light. And I took it."

You look back at the x ray. That frail skeleton swimming in the darkness, fabric like a ghost, useless trinkets scattered about. The skull fractured, eye socket caved in, fragments flying like stars. And then, it takes on another form. Like a baby in the womb. You think of Buffy in the darkness, becoming someone new.

You remember the blood pool. Remember being forced down. You remember your mind screaming all kinds of things before you died. Before Merrick revived you.

A baptism in blood. But what where you reborn to?

Buffy is looking at you now, her hazel eyes seem to see deep into you.

"I got the chance to go again." She says. "This life? However short or painful, this life I know when I die, for whatever reason, I absolutely know that I lived it right. That I made people laugh, and smile, that I gave myself over to what I found important, no matter how trivial or ridiculous others may find it. That I lived and loved out in the light."

Buffy looks back at the X Ray. "She never got that choice. Every single day, I do."

You take a seat next to her. Laying your crutches down onto the floor. She pulls your hand into into hers, and rests her head on your shoulder.

"So do we get a do over?" You say.

And she smiles.

Amy and Oz swing by in his van to collect you from Buffy's place because Giles is training Violet in the school gym late tonight. If the vampires don't kill her, his training regime will.

Amy has quite the voice, singing along to Pixies on the radio. When the song ends, she wrinkles her nose up and flicks her fingers.

"And now Pearl Jam and- oh, that's odd… well, I guess it's Pixies. Again. What is up with our equipment tonight? More like gremlins than Pixies. This is so strange…"

"Isn't it like an abuse of power, Madds?" You say.

She just winks at you and starts belting out the lyrics. Oz's lovestruck smile is very similar to his usual one. But you both can tell the difference.

April is powered down when you get back. She lays on the couch, legs tucked up and a blanket over her. Giles found her just sitting staring into the distance as too disconcerting. She now pretends to sleep, having watched you. The fact she is copying you exactly at one of your most vulnerable moments is kinda weird. But weird is relative these days.

Your bed is comfy and you groan as you sink in.

You dream of the inca mummy girl. But she is Kennedy, limbs tucked in like she is asleep, her hair gliding around her, floating in the deep red pool. Spiraling slowly. The light fading until there is nothing but her bones shimmering white.

And then you are sitting beside the well, a perfect black circle, moonlight catching on the gentle ripples. And you put your head down to drink from the waters. They cool your burning throat, and you feel life flooding through your limbs. You wake serene, with tears cold on your cheeks.