Hi there, readers!
First of all, thank you so much for all your feedback on the last chapter. I have to admit I didn't expect it and it was an incredible surprise to see that you actually took time to write me a review. I'll make sure I reply to every single one tonight.
I hope you like the second installment. It's a little bit dark — like most things I write, let's be honest — but if you stick with me, I promise you it will get better. It might still get a little worse, but soon enough there's going to be a breakthrough.
As a final note, and because I was so forgetful the last time, I'd like to thank my darling, darling M for beta-reading this fan fiction for me. She's not even into AHS, and she still did it. That's what amazing girlfriends are made of.
Again, I hope you enjoy the chapter! Have a lovely night!
2.
CORDELIA
I can't sleep. I put down Misty's things hours ago, but that anxiety is still here, the feeling that she might be alive in another realm and her story not quite over, as we expected. As witches, we don't know the designs of the other levels, but we had all presumed she was gone, body and spirit, when she disintegrated; it was too hard to think otherwise, that she's still stuck. But maybe it's the truth.
I turn in bed, one side to the other as the thought that she's suffering makes my heart race and my palms sweat. A few weeks ago she was here, on the other side of my bed, softly singing while I dozed off. There was no doubt in my mind that she would be the next Supreme, and now look at me. I'm the chosen one while she's still stuck in hell.
Or maybe not. Maybe I'm projecting, maybe she's gone and what I gathered were remnants of her experience. Just scattered thoughts that she left on the garment she was wearing, leftovers really. I should believe that. That notion should fill me up and make me satisfied, but it doesn't.
So I get up with a last look at the clock. It's 4.26 am and I'm jumping out of bed, wincing as I put my feet on the cold floor, and grabbing the shawl again.
Zoe's room is across the hallway from mine. I stop at the door, remembering that she sleeps with Kyle; I don't want to interrupt them, or make them uncomfortable in any way. Good god, I'm going insane. When would I ever think of waking up one of my girls — now a member of the Coven counsel — in the middle of the night? This is all insane. I lean my head against the door and breathe slowly, trying to calm myself down. The knots of the wood form a bas-relief against my fingers and I trace the texture like I used to when I was a kid, using it to distract my mind from the piece of cloth that I'm holding in my other hand. Diversion, distraction. That's the method.
"Zoe is alone."
I jump as I hear the deep voice by my side, the simple words spoken with intent. Kyle has his clothes on and is standing outside the door wit h me, his expression blank.
"What?" It's all I can mutter. His sudden appearance startled me to the point of momentarily forgetting what I'm doing.
"Zoe. Alone." He repeats, unfazed. "Girls puked."
Oh. That's why he's awake. Someone vomited and he had to clean up. That makes sense.
"Who was it? Are they okay?" I know I'm being silly in my concern, but I can't help it. The task of taking care of these girls is ingrained in me.
"Eliane. Okay. She's okay." He explains and motions to leave. "Zoe is alone. I will shower." He walks away and I'm left alone again, in front of the door.
I knock softly and then enter the room. She sleeps with a lamp on, so it's not hard to see her in the bed, her chest moving slowly. I stand at the doorway and feel stupid for a moment, my eyes searching for nothing instead of saying a word.
"Cordelia?" She sits up on the bed, rubbing the sleep off her eyes.
"Hi."
Her half smile shows and I remember I'm standing in someone's room in the middle of the night.
"Hi. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm waking you up, but I need your help."
MISTY DAY
I can't run anymore. I just can't, I don't have it in me. Maybe I'm running in the wrong direction, maybe this is not the way. Maybe I'm digging further into hell, and oh lord, please help me.
I know I felt something. I felt a tug on my hand while I was running, and a part of me hopes it's her. I hope she found a way to get to me, to bring me back to the where the girls are so I can continue my trials and maybe become the next supreme.
No. Who am I kiddin'? I don't want it. It's too big a burden for a gal like me, too much to pay attention to. I just wanna go back to that house and be there. Learn from her, dance with her, sleep with her. I don't need to be the supreme.
Deep down, I'm hoping this thought will redeem me. I'm hopin' it'll make them see I'm good, I don't want any of this, I don't need the competition. Bring me back. Please?
I turn to one of the doors that kept appearing by my side. My hand lands on the metal knob and I shiver, I feel cold for the first time since I got here. It turns easily, so easily and then there's noise. At the end of the hallway, in a place I can't see anymore, there are voices. Mr. Cringly, Bobby, the other kids. They're comin' for me.
I slide in the door without even knowing what's inside. That shit out there ain't for me, I need to hide. I don't care if it's dark and it smells like moth balls and I can't see squat in front of me, I'm going to be safe here. A light cord swings by my head and I catch it, turn it on, and that's when my stomach sinks again. I know this place.
It's my room when I was a kid, a small, tiny room by the kitchen where my Momma and my Daddy worked. There's a bed and my Fleetwood Mac posters are covering up the walls and oh God, my Momma is lying in that bed. I know when this is, I know it, I can feel it in my toes. She's in a coma, she's there and I can't do anything, I'm six and she's almost dying, I can feel her taking the last couple of breaths. She's diabetic and the sugar is killing her — I spot an open box of sweets by her side.
I get close to the bed as she exhales one last time and I watch how her skin turns grey. Time goes by differently and she's dead, oh no, she's dead so I put my hands on her face and focus real hard, think about her body when she was alive, try to bring the light into it. Her eyes open after a moment and she's back but she's not happy, she pushes me away and runs to the door.
"You're the devil!" She screams as I recoil, as I try to make myself small under the bed and I remember this, it already happened when I was six, I was here before and I heard her before, calling me that. "You're the devil, child, and you need to be cleaned and purified or to get the fuck away from me!" She's yelling from the door and I'm tiny again and my dad isn't coming in. He came in when I was a little girl, why isn't he here now? Why isn't he comforting me? Why do I have to do this?
I cover my eyes to keep from seeing my mother running away from me and I only open them when the door slams.
Oh, shit.
I'm by the door again and she's back in bed, in a coma. It's all playing out again. It's just like before, and it'll all play over and over again until… Well. I don't know. Maybe forever.
CORDELIA
"Feel the shawl?" Zoe's eyebrow rises and I feel even stupider than before. This was a mistake. A huge one.
"Yes." I scratch out. "I know it's weird, but — listen, I had a feeling and I need you to tell me it's just me, that it's nothing but my imagination and my need to…"
I stop talking before I sound crazier than before. I'm the god damned Supreme of this coven, and I sound like a lovestruck teenager wanting to get a message across the room to her sweetheart.
"Just feel it. Please?"
Another half smile and she holds her hand open, expecting me to put the garment on it. I do it quickly and my breath gets stuck in my chest, unwanted. I'm nervous and I shouldn't be.
Zoe moves the shawl into her lap and moves her hands over it, feeling the fabric with her fingers, the palm of her hands, her wrists. She does it slowly, intently, and I know she's trying to capture anything that might come from it.
I feel slightly betrayed. Like she took it from me, like I wasn't the one to give it to her, to ask her to try it. It feels like she's fondling Misty herself. The pang of jealousy expands when she puts it across her back, so far that I have to take a deep breath in order for it to go away. She closes her eyes when I inhale and I want to shake her to ask what she knows.
"So?" I manage to croak out when she opens her eyes, and she shrugs, pulling it off her back. Her features have fallen, she's sporting a grave, heavy look.
"I'm so sorry." She places the embroidered fabric on my open hands and looks away. "I didn't feel a thing."
"Thank you." I whisper.
It's like the room crashes around me. The glass of water Zoe has on her bedside table shakes softly as I contain my energy and I get up, the shawl bundled up in my hands.
"I think she's gone, Cordelia." Zoe says sweetly, from the bed, and I turn around.
"Yes." It's all I can say before I make my way out.
I walk to bed in a daze, lie down and put the silk around me. It has her smell. Maybe it's all that I felt, maybe I just miss her. Maybe she's gone for good.
I cover myself, the shawl still around me, and I start to mindlessly hum a song she used to sing. I fall asleep quickly, the image of her twirling around filling up my mind.
MISTY DAY
I keep wakin' her up and she keeps on dying and that's when I hear it for the first time. Stevie is singing 'Landslide' and I feel a rush of peace coming over me like a wave. Maybe this is it. Maybe they're coming for me now and I'll get out of this hell.
But it stops after a few seconds and all I can do is crumble against the wall, my mother still dead in the cot and my hands shaking.
I'mma be stuck here forever.
