Fiona thought she might be gaping. The tears on her cheeks were still wet and she could still feel the anger eluding from Misty beneath her calm, less glowing now, but still hot. At first, she thought it was a joke, only Misty didn't make jokes. Sarcasm and cruel games were never Misty's style; she was too barbaric for that.
"You'll cure me? Really?" It sounded much harsher than Fiona intended, but a sudden sense of fright had risen in her throat. The opportunity had jumped her so suddenly she had had no time to dread the consequences, if Misty's abilities wasn't enough. Now she only had seconds to fear it and pressed in such a small space, it felt too much to handle.
"I'll try", Misty said. She snarled her words and her eyes were still hard. She was no less reluctant to help than before, which made Fiona wonder just what sort of plan she had in mind. But she didn't get much time to ponder it, before Misty interrupted her thoughts. "On one condition. That you keep yourself healthy. You quit all those self-destructive habits."
"I just quit the cocaine tonight", Fiona said. Or she hoped so. She didn't know if Misty even knew of these drugs or not, and her face was unreadable. If not, she hoped it at least showed effort.
"What 'bout the drinkin'?"
"I'm trying."
"You quit or I ain't touchin' you", she snarled. She crossed her arms to emphasize her words. Fiona sneered at the attitude, but didn't comment. As much as she wanted to retaliate, she was afraid Misty would change her mind back again.
"Easy, I've cut down, but believe me, withdrawal will not help Cordelia at the moment."
"Fine. But you'll quit it, when there's room. Otherwise me healin' you, will be for nothin'. The smokin'?"
"Don't push it."
Misty bared her teeth. Fiona gave in and promised she would try.
The swamp witch loosened up then. And she looked like a witch there in the half light of the room, as the look of concentration crept onto her face. There was a special atmosphere humming around her, when she did that. She had only once touched Fiona with her powers and that was almost twenty years ago, yet Fiona still remembered everything vividly. She could still hear the snapping of her own bones as Misty put her wrist back together and she recalled the strange warm comfort, she had felt amidst the panic. Now she felt uneasy, remembering that bone-snap, but she needed this and she resisted the urge to back away.
"What do I need to do?"
"Stand still", Misty just said. Her eyes were not on Fiona's face, but her abdomen. She was sure Misty had never had one lecture on human anatomy, yet she put her hands directly on Fiona's liver without a moment's hesitation. She divided blouse from skirt and placed her hand on Fiona's bare skin. Fiona gave away a small gasp as the heat started flowing into her flesh and for a few moments, heat was all she could feel. Diffuse, but strong, as it pulsed through her cancer eaten liver and rid it of disease.
Then she felt it. The strength coming back to her body, the exhaustion exorcised by whatever this thing was. Fiona looked up at Misty from their point of contact, at which she had stared with wide eyes, and took in her concentrated look. She could see the exchange happen in Misty's face too. Her eyes started to flutter, her face grew tired, her body stood less secure on its feet.
Misty wavered, then lost her footing. Fiona caught her by her upper arm, before she collapsed. She did so without thinking about it and now, as she helped Misty back on her feet, she stared at her own hand with amazement. Had she done the same thing just a minute ago, they would have both tumbled to the floor.
Misty blinked a few times and then looked at Fiona. She looked like the tired one now, but her strength always came back fast, Fiona knew.
"That should buy you a decade", she said slowly. "Couldn't cure it, but cut it back. It's the best I can do."
"It's- I- Thank you, Misty. Thank you." The words sounded weird on her tongue. But she said them one more time and only now did she dare asking: "What made you change your mind?"
"Don't think I've started likin' you", she said first. The force was right back in her voice and Fiona was relieved, despite the anger. Misty took a step back, putting distance between them again, and said: "I needa try somethin' and in case it goes wrong, I need you to not die anytime soon."
How sweet, Fiona thought to say, but didn't. "What are you planning to do?" She demanded instead. Now that she felt so much better, it was hard not to get on edge at the tone in Misty's voice.
She anticipated that Misty would refuse to tell her, better yet, just walk away without a word. Instead, her face softened, and Fiona thought she might catch a glimpse of unease, not to say fear.
"I'm gonna undo it. She wouldn't be like this, if Hank hadn't died."
Fiona gaped again. "What, you're going to raise him from the dead? Do you think you're some actual goddamn witch?"
"I'm gonna try." She paused and then looked at Fiona with an earnest expression. The anger was almost gone now. "I don't know what's gonna happen to me. If I don't come back, just tell her again that I love her. Make sure she gets it. I want her to live again and there's no one else I'd ever do this for."
"I don't doubt it", Fiona admitted and resisted the urge to beg Misty not to go. It was the strangest feeling, wanting her gone for so many years and then not, when it finally came to the end of the line. But she felt it even so, because without her, Cordelia was lost and Fiona had a bad feeling about this plan. "I'll tell her", she promised.
Misty nodded. "Thanks."
Then she turned around, walked out of the door and closed it behind her. Spalding appeared in the doorway as the door closed. He looked at Fiona, then at the door, then back at Fiona. There was a question, a wish in his eyes.
"You can go with her, if you want", Fiona told him. He gave her a humble nod and then ran out the door.
Fiona's first impulse was to get a glass of whiskey. Then she remembered that she had made Spalding throw most of it away and hide the rest. She only had what was necessary to stay clear, to avoid withdrawal. This time, she would have to handle it without. A smoke would do.
Fiona pulled it out and looked at it for a while. Misty's words echoed in the back of her head as she rolled it between her fingers. Getting herself a new kind of cancer from these would definitely make it all for nothing. Not to mention be incredibly stupid.
She found her lighter and lit it. Quitting three addictions in one day was too much to ask.
She was sitting in her armchair, the cigarette put out and the smoke evaporated into the air, when she heard steps on the stairs. She got up at once and found Cordelia on her way to the kitchen.
"Darling, what are you doing up?" Fiona said. Cordelia squinted her eyes at the sound, but didn't answer. She slouched her way to the kitchen sink and filled a glass with water.
After she had emptied it, she stood there for a moment, staring into the wall as if something was written there. She squinted her eyes again and lifted a hand to rub her temple. A disgusting kind of sadness crept into Fiona's throat, as she watched her broken daughter fight the voices in her head.
"Can I do anything for you?" Fiona offered.
Cordelia turned, slowly, to look at her. The light in her eyes was gone and the circles under them were turning black. Her hair was greasy and knotted, her skin an unhealthy grey tone. A thin layer of sweat lay on her forehead. The sight of her was torture.
"You're better", Cordelia suddenly said and it abruptly ripped Fiona out of her miserable thoughts.
"What you do mean?"
"You're not sick anymore. Did Misty heal you? Where is Misty?"
"How did you know?" Here she thought she had managed to stuff her disease away, before she was forced to tell Cordelia, but all the work for nothing. So Misty had-
"I just know. Just like you know about me."
Fiona didn't know what to say. Her daughter's exhausted voice terrified her. Before she could put words to anything, Cordelia grimaced again and started rubbing her temples with a synchronized movement of a building panic. She crouched down, sat on the floor, staring at it with frightened eyes. Fiona crouched down in front of her, but she couldn't get contact.
"Come on, Cordelia. Please snap out of it. You can if you want to. You've done it before."
Cordelia tilted her head to look up at her. The gaze that met Fiona looked almost possessed. Mad and angry, but wordless. Misty had cut her nails, so she couldn't scratch herself, but her fingers did the motion anyway.
Fiona reached out to take her hands down, but Cordelia whined and moved away.
"Cordelia please…" Tears stung in her throat again, but she swallowed them. She sighed heavily and leaned back against the door of the cupboard. "I don't know how to fix you."
When she looked again, the possessed look in Cordelia's eyes seemed to have faded a bit. But the dark circles went nowhere, and the haunted expression stayed too. She looked like she sat on the bottom of some dark, cold ocean.
"I need to tell you something", Fiona said. "Explain something to you. Best do it now, when it can't get any worse, right? Weeks ago, you asked me why I didn't tell you that Misty was back and I meant what I said then. But it wasn't the whole reason. The whole reason I didn't tell you was because I was mad at her for leaving you behind. Same reason I didn't tell you her mother was sick. I wanted you to be as mad at her as I was. And if you… if you didn't have her and you didn't have Myrtle, then maybe I could be your number one. I never was. But it's the cheat way to become it, don't think I don't know that." Fiona sighed again and looked at her daughter again. The anger had crept back into her stare and it made her look twice as insane, but Fiona thought she probably deserved this look.
"I don't know what to do with you, Cordelia. I know I failed you as a mother and I'm sorry."
Cordelia just looked at her with that haunted, angry stare. "I guess you're useless too then."
There was nothing Fiona could argue to contradict her words.
O0O
Misty thought it sounded like her steps grew louder the closer she got. As if her racing heartbeat manifested in her feet, making them thunder against the ground. She tried to ignore it. She couldn't back out now.
Spalding walked half a step behind her. He was the best companion she could wish for on a night like this, because she had no room for words. His mute presence comforted her. He hadn't questioned her once, only caught up to her and followed her out here, somehow sensing that she might need his help. For that, she was grateful.
The cemetery came into view and Misty drew in a deep breath. She cleansed her system, shut the fear out and went in.
They walked along the lines of graves, some beautiful, some left completely unnoticed. As if forgotten by the ones who put them there. Their bodies turned to dust, the memories of them scattered like a handful of gravel in the wind. Misty hoped she wouldn't fade that easy. There weren't many people on this earth, who would remember her. And the only one that mattered might be too afraid to try.
"Please don't let her forget me, Spalding", Misty said in a low voice, as if to not disturb the peaceful sleep of the dead. Her voice shook a little.
She felt his hand on her arm. Misty looked up into his sympathetic gaze. He had never touched her before. He used to be afraid of her, when she was a child, but somewhere along the line, he had realized she wasn't as frightening as the rest of the world. She smiled at him and he smiled back.
"Let's go find him."
They found the grave by the end of the fifth row. He was buried in a coffin, on his father's orders. He had wanted to move him back to Boston, but Fiona insisted he stayed here, where Cordelia could visit him, for which Misty was now grateful. Fiona had also wanted him cremated. Yet, here he lay, whole beneath the layers of grass and gravel. Beneath a small bed of flowers. They were sent on Cordelia's behalf, but she hadn't been here once. The mere suggestion made her mind snap into one of those places far from reality.
Hank's grave was well kept and much newer than the surrounding ones. Misty didn't read his stone. She only stared at the ground, gathering her strength. Spalding left her for a while and came back with shovels. She didn't ask, where he had gotten them from, but accepted one in silence.
They started digging.
It took long. It was much harder work than Misty had expected and something about the atmosphere made it harder, the time longer and the tools heavier. Misty thought someone might have had time to find her by now, if it wasn't for Spalding's help. He had become older, frailer, but he gave all he had. She didn't fully understand why, but he did.
The sound of the spade hitting wood cut through the silent air. The realization of the inevitable moment coming closer rolled over Misty like a fog. This was not the kind of haze she was used to, it was a numbing one. Close to what she felt like when healing, but not quite so. It was stronger. It was as if her body knew she planned to use it for all it had. Misty barely noticed it, when Spalding got the coffin open and started dragging Hank out. He signaled for her to help and she crawled close, hooked a hand around a cold, dead wrist and hauled Hank up. Even this was a strength she didn't know she had. She no longer felt weak from healing Fiona. She wasn't sure she felt anything. Or perhaps it was that she was feeling so many things they yelled all at once and drowned each other out.
Hank's wrist fell the ground the moment she let it go and there he lay, limp and pale and bent the wrong way. His spine was broken, she knew. She could see it, but his body didn't tell her much else. Her ability had never communicated with a dead body before, it didn't know the language. She would have to go in blind.
Spalding sat down somewhere behind her, but Misty barely noticed. The scarce sounds of the night faded out of her consciousness. The smells disappeared, the cool breeze didn't touch her. There was only her and Hank now.
He looked a little angry. Even as death had smoothed out every crease in his forehead, he looked upset. Perhaps it was, that this was the only expression Misty knew of his. Even in death, he was mad at her for existing. Misty promised herself she wouldn't be mad at him, if they switched places. She wasn't doing this out of spite after all.
She pushed his white shirt open and then there was no more room for thoughts or fears. The trance took over. She felt it like an internal vibration in the palm of her hands. And it spread, she could feel it spread. She had to give everything this time.
Misty put her hands on Hank's ice-cold chest.
She almost gasped in shock at the intensity. It sucked at her, her every cell. It made her dizzy at once, but she ignored it. She focused on the energy exchange between the two surfaces of skin. She looked at his chest and she could almost see the flow of life. It even made her smile. Her muscles started to tremble, her eyelids grew heavy, but she kept the corner of her mouth hooked on that grin. This smile she wanted to keep, even though she felt weaker by the second, because it only told her that it was working. And she hoped this would be enough to get Cordelia back. Maybe she would see this smile and know that it was okay. Misty clenched her jaw, closed her eyes and pushed the life out of herself, into Hank, until the dark consumed her senses.
O0O
Heat was the first thing Hank felt, as he drew his first breath after death. It was a violent, wheezing breath that opened up the tight tube of his throat, filled the lungs that wasn't meant to hold air again. The heat blazed upwards through him, travelled up his spine and raced underneath the surface of his skin. It burned behind his eyes, but it didn't hurt. It was the most comforting heat he had ever felt. So smooth and good, that for a moment it was all he could focus on.
Then slowly, the heat faded and he felt coolness touching the outside of his body. The sound of wind reached his ears. Tickles of grass against his neck. Cold breaths of wind in his lungs. He drew a few of those cold breaths, dazed and confused at the thought that he might be outside and not in his bed sleeping.
Then he remembered.
Flashes of headlights blinked against his closed eyes, sounds of car tires screeching against the road pierced his ears, his own halted panic welled up in his chest one more time. His eyes snapped open and he sat up.
It was night around him, but a different night. There was clouds and drizzle of rain that night, but this one was clear. He could count stars. He could smell; he never could that when he was drunk. And he had been. He had tried to drown his despair in booze, but it hadn't worked, because his emotions lunged out of his throat anyway. He had directed all this fury at Cordelia and then he had left her, hoping she hurt just as much as he did.
He didn't hurt now. He didn't feel anything, only a slight confusion.
Hank blinked a few times and the night came into focus. He was in the middle of the graveyard it seemed. He had only been here a couple of times, but the tombstones were hard to misplace.
He didn't hurt. And he didn't understand that, because that car crash should have killed him. It should have crushed him like an insect caught between the ground and a boot. Yet he felt intact. He felt comfortable and warm. He felt that heat, just now disappearing from his flesh. He felt good.
The thoughts started pressing to his brain. I was dead, he kept thinking. He didn't know what made him think it, but he felt that it was true. He just couldn't explain why that was so.
There was a ruffling in the grass behind him and it made him look around.
His eyes fell on Misty and he flinched.
She lay beside him, curled around him almost, as if she had fallen right beside him. She was unconscious and she looked oddly fragile. There was just the faintest hint of a smile at her lips, like the exhausted grin of some kind of triumph. Hank looked around, more confused than ever and his eyes found Spalding, the weird old butler of the Goode house. It was his ruffling, Hank had heard.
"What-" He didn't get more out. He throat felt so tight, as if he was trying to speak through a paper filter. It took effort just to exhale.
Spalding didn't look at him though. He only looked at Misty, tiptoed closer to her, carefully and with a sad face. Hank noticed this, when he came closer.
"What hap… happened?" Hank got out. Only now did Spalding look at him. The look in the old man's eyes was hard to read and it didn't linger. He shook his head and crouched beside Misty. A quivering hand reached out and touched Misty's wrist, pressed a thumb to her pulse point. He made the face of a whimper and Hank's dazed mind fought to connect with reality.
"Please tell me… what happened?"
Spalding let go of Misty's hand and looked up. With an unsteady hand he pointed first at Hank and then at a pile of dirt. Beside the dirt was a hole in the ground and a tombstone poked up behind the it.
"I was dead, wasn't I?" He still didn't know what made him say it. But Spalding nodded.
"The car crash killed me?" He voice was coming back, he felt. His throat opened up and filled with cool air.
The butler nodded again.
"But I don't understand… How am I alive now?"
Spalding sniffled and pointed at Misty.
Hank looked at her, lying there, still and muted. Her hands stretched out from her body, towards him. Cordelia called her a healer…
It made sense. In some unearthly, twisted way, this all made sense to him. He couldn't collect any thoughts to argue against it at least. It wasn't just talking through a paper filter. It was thinking through it too. Feeling thought it. Everything felt slower, less sharp.
"Why would she do that?" Was all he could think to ask. Spalding didn't offer him any answer to this. Hank looked at Misty again, leaned closer to her. He reached out and touched her arm. She felt ice cold against his warm skin. He didn't know if it was because of this supernatural heat in his body or not, but he couldn't feel a pulse.
"I need to get her back to Cordelia", Hank said. It was the only thing he thought important now. It was as if his thoughts only came through one at a time, lined up according to some plan that had been decided for him.
Spalding pointed at the hole. He got up, picked up a shovel and started shoveling the dirt back into the hole. He obviously had more thoughts in his head than Hank. When Hank didn't move, Spalding stopped again. He pointed at Hank, then at Misty and then waved them off.
Hank nodded.
"I'll carry her back."
With that, Hank got to his feet and then bent down to pick up Misty. It felt weird doing so. All he knew of her was fighting with her in the swamp and hating her from a distance for invading his home and stealing his wife. Now, this didn't make him feel half as angry about having to carry her, as he would have thought. It only made him feel weird.
He stood up and cradled her into his arms the best he could. Her head rested against his shoulder at first, but rolled off as he started walking. She didn't look wild and fierce like this. Very little was left of the woman he had met in the woods, now that she was this close. And she was light. That notion made her seem even more vulnerable to him. He realized she had a childlike quality about her, which became more evident now that her facial expression was smoothed out and the hostile stance taken away. She had a tiny frame and the strength he had sensed in her before, the power that eluded from her, was gone now. She wasn't frightening at all. He felt odd about that. No, actually, he didn't feel anything about this in fact and that was the odd thing. His emotions were stuck on the paper filter between him and the rest of the world.
As he walked through the cold night towards his home, the last of the strange sensation of heat left his body. But Misty stayed cold. It worried him, but only because he thought of Cordelia. She would be scared. Hank had the sense that even though it was Misty's body in his arms, it was Cordelia's life he held in his grasp.
O0O
Cordelia stared out the window of the living room. The night was still black out there, behind the glass. Windows made sense to her. Windows were portals. She sometimes tried to imagine that her mind was on the inside of a window and if the stars would shine just a little brighter, maybe she could find her way out.
But her mind was nothing but a black hole and black holes have no windows. No amount of staring through glass would change that.
The walls of her hole were full of dried blood and claw marks from all the times she had had to fight her way out of here. She rarely fell this deep and there weren't as much battle on the walls down here. This time she felt no urge to scratch her fingers bloody to escape. Why bother? She was the iron ball in a chain wrapped around the ankle of everyone she loved, she was the weight on their shoulders. A weight heavy enough to kill. A force strong enough to drive her husband into the arms of death. All because she could not choose. Who would it be next? Her mother? Misty?
Misty was a star in her clouded sky and sometimes she shone just bright enough for Cordelia to consider fighting. But it wasn't enough. "With her, I don't need fixing", Cordelia had told Hank once. What a silly lie that was. She knew she needed fixing now. She just didn't think anyone should bother trying. You don't fix murderesses, you lock them up. This house worked just fine like that. The voices liked this place better than the hospital, they didn't scream as much here. She could serve her sentence in this place. The house no longer felt like home. It didn't feel like anything. Just a hollow container to sleep in, to wander around in. With windows to gaze through, just to keep her hoping. The voices loved it, when she started to hope.
The front door opened and hasty steps ran down the hallway. There was a time where Cordelia could tell the people she knew apart by their footsteps, but abilities like these faded away in her black hole. She could tell voices apart, most of the time, faces too, but much else became a mass of the unknown.
There were scrambles in the kitchen, a glass being sat down with force and violent pushing of a chair. More steps. Cordelia remembered getting up to drink water earlier, but she couldn't remember how she got in here. She wanted to wait for Misty, because without her, even going to sleep felt like an impossible quest to conquer. She was too vulnerable at the threshold to sleep. Too many thoughts could take shape and hurt her.
She heard someone exclaim something. It sounded like her mother. And she thought she heard another familiar voice, a ghost of the recent past. Somehow it coaxed her hazed mind a little closer to the surface.
"Cordelia, get out here!" It was Fiona calling for her. Her voice was remarkably shrill and the urgency of it cut through. Cordelia felt for the edges of the chair, got to her feet, wavering slightly. She made her feet work through the haze and carry her to the entrance hall.
Fiona appeared in the doorway, rushing to get her to see whatever it was. She vaguely noticed Spalding standing by the door to the kitchen, staring down the hall. She followed his gaze.
Hank.
She heard herself gasp. He was here. For a moment, she only saw his face and the whispers in her mind scattered as immense relief bathed her system like a cleansing flood. He was alive. His eyes were alive. She didn't understand how at first and she was too shocked to even notice what he was carrying.
"H… Hank?"
He wasn't smiling.
Cordelia's mind finally took time to scan the rest of him and she looked down at the body in his arms. And she saw her. Her pale face wiped clean of expression, her eyes closed. Her arms and legs hanging limp from Hank's grasp. Unmoving.
A pain so deep and so sudden, it momentarily made it impossible for her to breathe, ripped her chest open and clenched around her fragile heart. She grasped for support, so faint she could fall into death right then and there. Arms caught her and held her steady, but she didn't register who they belonged too. She only stared at Misty and for the first time in weeks, her mind was painfully clear.
"N… Misty, no…"
Her whole body blazed with hot and cold. Heat rushed up into her throat, made her nauseous and she could barely feel the rest of her body. There was ice in her brain. She tried to move forward and the arms, which held her, helped her closer. Each trembling step made Misty seem less real.
Cordelia desperately searched Hank's eyes.
"Tell me she isn't…"
There was none of the hatred left in his gaze. "I don't know."
Cordelia looked down at Misty again, looked for something, anything, in Misty's face that could save her from this feeling she had. For a second she even wished for the haze to come back, but now it had been blasted way, her mind shocked back into focus. Cordelia reached out a hand, one trembling so bad she could barely control it, and put it to Misty's face and neck. Her skin was ice cold. Ice cold and still.
It was this above all, which hauled her back to reality. Cruel, when all she wanted now was to drown in darkness. It woke her up in the most agonizing way imaginable, every nerve screaming out, a sob wrenching from her throat and tears springing in its wake. The sound of it bounced off the walls and back to her, but this time there was no fog to shield her.
She was wide open.
