Once at the hostel, Tara climbed the stairs two at a time, tightening her precious tools against her heart. The blonde hurried in the room she shared with Faith and she closed the door behind her. She deposited her items on the table and turned to Faith. The slayer was still in bed, her eyes now wide-open, looking blankly at the ceiling.
"Faith?" Tara tentatively called.
She got no reply as she expected. Tara turned back to the table and unpacked her ingredients. She mixed some powders, leaves and liquids in a bowl until she obtained a heavy sticky green mixture. She left it on the table and then arranged six candles around the bed where Faith lay. She returned to the table and seized the bowl before coming back to the brunette. She dipped two fingers in the container and spread some of the mixture on Faith's forehead.
"Good," she said out loud, once done.
She put the bowl near the bed and looked around, searching for Faith's jacket. She found it on the floor, scattered with the rest of Faith's clothes and most of their belongings. Tara reached it and rummaged through the pockets until she found Faith's lighter.
"Good," she repeated.
She came back to the table, took the book and went to the bed where she sat cross-legged at Faith's feet. She lit each candle around the bed with the lighter and nodded her approval when six little flames danced in the room.
"Good,"
Then, she opened "Healing magical wounds, volume three" on her knees at the right page. She read again carefully the instructions before picking up the bowl on the floor. She spread some more mixture on her own forehead, inhaled deeply and closed her eyes briefly.
"I can do it," she encouraged herself. "I can do it."
Her eyes returned to the book in front of her where she read the whole spell once more. She held out her hand to Faith's one and opened the brunette's palm. She dipped her fingers in the bowl again and coated Faith's palm with the mixture. Finally, she dipped her own palm in the bowl before returning the recipient to the carpet with her clean hand.
The blonde started to chant words in Latin under her breath with her eyes riveted to the book. Her voice trembled slightly and Tara could feel her heart beat faster and faster.
When she reached the last word of the chant, Tara held out her hand and clasped resolutely Faith's hand in her own.
She felt as her breath caught suddenly in her chest, she blinked at the sudden light and everything around her vanished out of sight.
***
When Tara opened her eyes, she was standing in a dark room and she had to wait a few seconds for her eyes to get acquainted to the darkness to take notice of her surroundings.
She was in a building's hallway. Rows of mailboxes were stuck against the left wall; Tara turned her head behind her where a double glass-door leaded outside where the night was falling.
Tara turned again upon hearing footsteps. In front of her were stairs and someone was slowly walking upstairs. Tara recognized immediately Faith's figure though her hair was shorter and the blonde could not clearly make out her outfit.
"Faith?" she tentatively called.
The brunette did not turn round to her nor did give any sign she heard Tara at all.
"Faith?" Tara repeated.
Faith stopped but she did not turn to Tara and just craned her neck as to see upstairs.
"Faith?" Tara tried again, her eyes glued to the slayer's unmoving figure.
Faith did not reply more this time and Tara finally took a step toward her. As she reached the stairs and was about to put a foot on the first step, everything suddenly blurred and vanished out of sight.
***
Tara was now in a living room. It was a small room, badly lit through a narrow dirty window. The furniture was spare and worn. An old sofa was facing a small TV put on a pile of old catalogues and Tara thought the television set could fall to the ground any minute. A tiny plastic table was pushed against the wall at the immediate left of the window. Two stools were arranged on each side of the table. A patched up dresser was the only other piece of furniture in the room. The walls were white and no pictures were decorating them. Only one door leaded outside the room where Tara could hear muffled sounds coming from.
"What're you doing here?"
Tara jumped at the voice and turned round sharply. A brunette little girl was now in front of her, her arms crossed over her chest, her brows furrowed, looking at her severely. Tara's jaw dropped.
The little girl could be around six and the pout on her face was unmistakable. Tara would probably have let escape a cry of surprise if she had found her voice.
"Faith?" she asked after a rather long silence.
The little girl almost smiled and slightly nodded. Without saying a word, she suddenly turned on her heels and gestured for Tara to follow. Tara obeyed mechanically, as her feet decided to follow the girl without her brain having telling them to do so.
The child trotted to the door and turned immediately on her left to cross another door. Tara remained in the doorway and observed little Faith entering a tiny kitchen. A woman was there, standing near the electric cooker. She was probably a little older than Tara, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties; but she looked terribly worn and exhausted. She had deep dark rings under her brown eyes and smiling at her daughter as she caught sight of her, appeared to be a terrible effort. Her dark hair hung free on her shoulders and the only color in her face came from her perfectly bright red lipsticked lips.
She was cooking. Apparently crepes as pointed the thick liquid in the salad bowl at the woman's side and the frying pan in her hands.
"Crepes!" little Faith happily exclaimed. "Crepes!"
She clapped her hands enthusiastically and her mother nodded. Faith jumped on a stool and the woman returned to her task, trying to make the crepes jump and turn above the frying pan. Each time she succeeded, the little girl applauded with much enthusiasm and shouting.
"Mum!" She shrieked suddenly in a high pitched-voice, "Mum, can I try? Can I try?"
She jumped down her stool even before her mother could answer and started to dance around her.
"Can I try? Please mum, let me try!"
"Faithie, please!" interrupted her mother briskly. "Just stop shouting!"
Faith fell silent at once and looked at her mother curiously, the good mood of the previous moment suddenly gone. The woman must have shouted louder than she intended because her expression softened immediately and she bended over her daughter, putting her hand to her cheek gently.
"I'm sorry to yell Faithie," she said in a low voice. "But I'm terribly tired. Just try to be quieter, okay?"
Faith nodded slowly, staring at her mother with an unreadable expression on her face.
"I will be mum," she promised solemnly. "But c-can I try?" she asked finally again after a silence.
Her mother smiled and nodded.
"Yes, you can," she answered. "Try not to break anything."
Faith nodded again and she climbed on the stool once more to be at counter's height. She seized the ladle and plunged it in the bowl. With her free hand, she took the frying pan and covered it with crepe pastry very carefully. Her mother leant against the counter and watched her efforts while taking a cigarette in a pack lying on the counter. She lit it and took a long puff as Faith sent a crepe above her pan. When she received it successfully back in the frying pan, the girl turned proudly to her mother and the woman applauded lightly.
"Good," she encouraged.
"I can do higher!" Faith exclaimed, her previous enthusiasm suddenly returned.
"Be careful," warned her mother.
Faith nodded and resumed her task under her mother's watch. She moved closer to her daughter and seized a bottle near the salad bowl. She drank a big mouthful directly from the bottle as Faith threw her crepe in the air.
Tara caught sight of the bottle's label and noticed it was a bottle of rum. It had probably been used to liven up the pastry. Little Faith received her crepe once more in the pan and she turned happily to her mother.
"See?" she enthusiastically asked. "Told you I could do higher!"
Her mother drank a new mouthful of rum and smiled at the girl who was staring at her, as waiting for her approval.
"You, little firecracker," said the mother fondly.
Then Tara saw little Faith smiling back and discovering dimples she wasn't sure she had seen yet. The blonde leant against the doorframe, smiling too, feeling privileged to watch such a scene. But she had no time to see more: the scene blurred without warning and vanished from Tara's sight.
***
She was back in the dark stairs. Tara looked around and saw the double glass-door behind her and Faith's figure taking slowly the steps a few feet higher. Something in there felt sickening and Tara regretted immediately the scene in the kitchen she just witnessed.
"Faith," she called, looking around again, like waiting for someone or something to attack them any second. "Faith, where are we?"
The brunette did not answer, nor acknowledge Tara's presence in any way. Instead, the stairs vanished once more.
***
In a flash of light, Tara found herself back in the kitchen she had just left. But it had changed. There was no trace neither of a pile of crepes, nor of the frying pan or the bowl of crepes pastry. It did not even smell like crepes had just been cooked. The room was darker than previously: it was obviously later, in the evening. The counter was dirty but Tara could not quite see what covered it.
She felt uneasy but did not know why. A weird feeling of fear was rising in her and if she thought about it, Tara was forced to admit she had no logical reason to be scared.
The reason why just came as she reached that conclusion.
"Faith!"
The anger in the voice that just yelled the slayer's name made Tara shiver from head to toes. It came from where she knew was the living room and Tara recognized this female voice though she only heard it once before. It was Faith's mother's voice. The blonde turned around, looking for the girl and was surprised to find her, kneeling in the semi darkness, near the very end of the counter, seemingly picking up from the ground, something Tara could not clearly make out. Her body was shaking and the little girl had a hard time completing her task.
"Faith!" yelled her mother again, her voice ringing strangely to Tara's ears. "What the fuck are you doing? What was this?"
Tara saw Faith looking around desperately, as searching an escape for whatever trouble she had put herself into. The girl hurried to pick up what was on the floor and Tara finally saw what it was: bits of broken glass. Faith collected hastily what she could, cutting her palms in the process and Tara heard her curse under her breath. The kid threw the pieces of glass to the thrash, then passed in front of Tara to take something in the sink.
Tara gasped in surprise. This Faith was older than the one she had witnessed cooking crepes before. She was taller; her hair was longer and tousled. Her face was emaciated and pale. She was probably ten or eleven now and seeing the expression on her face, Tara knew why she had felt fear when she arrived there. Fear was literally oozing from Faith and Tara felt it piercing her like a cutting blade.
The brunette picked a sponge in the sink and rushed to wipe the floor where an amber liquid was spilled. When she was done, she hurried to clean the sponge and left it in the sink.
"Faith!" came the unnerving shouting from the adjoining room.
The girl looked around again, obviously searching for something. Finding nothing, she eventually made up her mind to answer her mother's calls.
"Faith, do you want me to come and get you myself?"
"I… I'm coming m-m-mum…" the girl stammered, panic now overwhelming her.
Tara's heart constricted at the brunette's growing fear and at what she somehow knew was coming.
"Maybe I can help you?" she hastily asked to the little girl in an anguished voice.
For the first time, Faith acknowledged her presence, turning her head to the blonde. She did not smile and Tara saw herself reflected in sad brown eyes.
"You can't," Faith simply said.
"Why is that?" Tara pressed. "I'm a grown…"
Faith shook her head and interrupted her.
"You can't, 'cause it already happened."
She did not give Tara time to reply and headed for the living room, her steps somewhat faltering. The witch followed her and stopped dead in her tracks at the doorway. The living room was still spare and worn. There was no more furniture than the previous time Tara saw it. The room itself had not changed at all. What had changed on the other hand, were the many empty bottles of alcohol lying on the floor among other filths. Standing among the mess, Faith's mother glared at her daughter, fists on her hips, a nearly empty bottle in her right hand. Faith slowly stepped in, her head half bowed, but carefully watching her mother.
"Where is it?" snapped Mrs. Lehane before Faith could open her mouth to say something.
"I…I…" Faith began, almost tearfully, unable to find her voice.
Tara shook violently upon hearing Faith's stammering so badly. She could feel more than fear filling her entire being, and knew it was Faith's she was experiencing. She would do anything possible to help the little girl escape what was coming but her previous words kept ringing in Tara's ears: "You can't help, it already happened."
"I broke it." Faith finally managed to get out.
Faith's mother's eyes narrowed and her daughter did not have to wait for a reaction. The woman's jaw clenched and her eyes then opened wide as the little girl's words sank in. She suddenly threw the bottle she held violently toward Faith without warning. Faith ducked her head to avoid the bottle and it crashed noisily against the wall behind her, exploding in thousands of pieces.
"You! Little piece of filth!" Mrs. Lehane started to yell insanely. "You're not even able to carry a bottle properly!"
She walked to her daughter who instinctively put her hands over her face in a protective gesture but did not try to escape, seemingly nailed to her current spot.
"What will I do with you?" The mother pretended to ask the girl. "Of course nothing!" she answered, even loudly than previously.
When she reached the brunette, she seized her by her collar and started to shake her without any care.
"How can I do now?" she yelled in Faith's ear. "It was the last one!"
"I… I didn't do it on pur-purpose…" Faith weakly tried.
"Of course you didn't!"
Faith's mother punctuated her sentence by brutally throwing the girl against the wall behind. Her body crashed in with a noise of breaking bones that made Tara feeling nauseous. Faith started to cry softly and it was obvious to the witch that the child was trying to contain her tears, maybe in order not to upset her mother more, maybe in a weak attempt to keep some pride.
"Of course you didn't!" repeated the mother, closing quickly the distance to her daughter. "You're just unable to do anything good! You're just a worthless piece of shit!"
Mrs. Lehane served her insults with kicks and slaps at the girl crawling helplessly on the floor. Her tears intensified but it did not seem to soften her mother.
"Was it difficult Faith, what I asked from you?" the woman demanded. "Was it a great effort to carry me that little bottle? Did I forget to tell you how important it was?"
She shook her daughter's body again and Faith did not even try to defend herself and let her mother move her body like she was a jumping jack.
"Answer me!" she shouted, releasing finally the girl.
"N-no," Faith immediately complied her mother's order. "It-it wasn't difficult…"
"So what does it make you girl?"
"I… I am..." Faith started.
But she could not finish. A new slap from he mother interrupted her reply.
"You're what?" insisted her mother, her eyes shining with a mad glimmer.
"I'm just a worthless piece of shit…" Faith recited, like a lesson well learned.
"Exactly! A worthless piece of shit! A worthless waste of time and money!" went on the woman. "And now a waste of whiskey!"
Faith did not earn a reward for her good answer but just new kicks and blows. Tara heard new bones crack and saw blood oozing from the child's nose. Maybe it was the blood that made the mother stop hitting her daughter, but she finally indeed stopped.
She grasped Faith's shoulder and pulled her to her feet without care.
"Now, try to be of some use and go find another bottle."
Faith made the best of that break to wipe as quickly as she could both her tears and the blood oozing from her nose.
"But mum…" she began hesitantly. "It's night…" she finished in a whisper.
Her mother now inexpressive face returned to anger as quickly as it had turned to blank. A resounding slap knocked Faith off her feet.
"And why should I care?" yelled the mother. "I want that bottle, d'ya hear me?"
She kicked Faith again, ignoring the fact that her daughter now begged her for mercy.
"Mum, please! I didn't do it on purpose! I'm so sorry! I won't do it again, I promise!"
"Oh, you chose your moment to put on your show, didn't you?" the mother mockingly asked. "And what do you think? That your fake cries of remorse will get me? Who do you think I am?!"
She had yelled louder and louder and Tara wondered how the neighbors weren't awake already and how on earth nobody had already called the police. Maybe there were no neighbors. Maybe they were deaf. Or maybe they pretended not to hear. Cause everything outside the flat was desperately silent.
Tara wanted to cry. She wanted to yell. She wanted to throw up. This was now too much for her to bear. She could not just stay here doing nothing when a ten-years-old was being hit in front of her very eyes. It did not matter it already happened. She HAD to do something. Witnessing this was sickening her. She took a step toward the pair, her steps uneasy as her legs trembled.
"Stop," she said hesitantly. "Just stop now."
It did not affect the actions of Faith's mother, this one going on beating her daughter with much enthusiasm and strength.
"Stop! Now stop!" yelled Tara at the top of her lungs, the complete sight of a bruised and beaten childish Faith she caught, making the scene even more unbearable than previously.
And it stopped. But not as Tara intended. The scene blurred suddenly and Faith and her mother vanished out of sight. Tara felt like the world was spinning around her. She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was back in her Trillium hotel room.
***
Tara blinked several times before understanding where she was. She tried to catch her breath and unlinked her fingers from Faith's, raising her trembling hands in front of her unfocused eyes. It took her several minutes to clear her mind and to get her pounding heart and short breath back to normal. Tara looked slowly around: the candles were still burning quietly on the floor, the magic book was still open on her knees. Faith was still lying in the bed in front of her. Tara hoped for a brief instant that if the spell had ended, it meant that Faith was out of her catatonic state.
She was disappointed. Nothing had changed in Faith's state, the slayer still looking blankly at the ceiling.
"Faith?" Tara nevertheless tried carefully.
The brunette did not answer as expected and Tara sighed. Faith's memories weren't exactly a welcoming place and Tara wasn't in a hurry to come back there to see what would come next. On the other hand, she could not just stay there doing nothing because she was afraid of what she would find in Faith's head.
Tara looked down at her right hand. It was still covered with mixture, just like Faith's palm. Tara sighed again and her eyes returned to the book. She chanted the incantation once more and just like before, as she reached the last word, she clasped Faith's hand in her own.
And just like the previous time, the motel room vanished out of sight.