Fiona felt it as soon as she put the key in the lock. She wasn't one for getting visions and catching tastes in air, the way her swamp witch daughter-in-law did. The way Cordelia sometimes did as well. Fiona liked to work with what she could see and disregard all those little tingling senses until they gave her something concrete to go on. Still she felt this because the hints of this darkness was so thick it seeped from the creeks of the house even before she entered it. Once she stepped inside, she realized it was the sound of her daughter crying. It was a thin sound, so vague she couldn't separate it from the air on the outside, but in here there was no doubt of it. She walked straight to the kitchen, where the sound mixed with the scraping of service on a plate.
In the kitchen, she found Cordelia and Cage in the middle of breakfast. Fiona had the sudden thought that it wasn't a thirty one year old, but a young teenager who sat by the table, feeding her child. That was how Cordelia looked. Small, quivering and lost, so incredibly close to breaking that her toes must be peeking off that edge. She tried to conceal her crying with hands constantly wiping the tears away, but to no avail as the tears ran down her face in a steady stream anyway and the sounds of her misery still seeped through her lips.
"What's wrong, mommy?" Fiona heard Cage ask. He sounded worried and impatient, as if this wasn't his first time asking today.
"What happened?" Fiona asked, when Cordelia didn't even look up upon her entry. The dark premonition that she wasn't used to still poked at her. "Where is Mi-" She stopped herself when she saw the dramatic twist of pain in Cordelia's face.
Cordelia didn't answer at first, but kept her focus on the boy, guiding his spoon when he stopped eating. He was obviously too distracted by his mother's distress to eat and his mother was obviously too distressed to notice.
"Cordelia", Fiona demanded and Cordelia finally looked up. Fiona flinched at the look in her eyes. It was that haunted expression again. A knot tightened in her stomach at once. The thought entered her mind that psychosis had claimed her daughter again, yet she seemed too lucid. There was only an echo of it, a flicker of transient insanity in her gaze. Her eyes were red and desperate, but not empty. This was not madness but sheer heartbreak and Fiona felt momentarily awful about the immense relief, which washed over her. Then she collected herself.
"Go upstairs and lie down, child. I'll see to that he finishes."
Cordelia looked like she wanted to object, but stopped herself. Then lifted a hand and rubbed her temple. "Thank you", she said with a voice so thin it was barely there and got up from the chair. She walked right past Fiona with those slow, dazed steps that had Fiona second guess the madness and continued on upstairs. Fiona looked after her, not sure if she expected Cordelia to trip on the stairs or something, and then took her place at the table.
Cage stared after his mother as well and then back at Fiona with big worrisome eyes.
"Why is mommy sad?"
"Mommy is not feeling well today. You eat your breakfast now."
But he refused. He pushed the spoon away and gave Fiona a stern look. "Is it the talkers in mommy's head?" Fiona's eyes widened, but she kept from voicing her surprise. She had never heard him speak of Cordelia's illness. Until now she hadn't known that he knew of this aspect of it, but she would be lying to say she was surprised that he knew. Only that he spoke of it. Must be a trait Misty had taught him, speaking of those things best left alone.
"I don't know, darling", she told him. "Do you want your food or not? Your mom wants you to eat."
He shook his head and pushed the plate away as well. Fiona spent a good fifteen minutes trying to make him eat some of it and then gave up. She called Spalding out and told him to clean up, and to watch the kid. Then she made her way upstairs.
Cordelia wasn't done crying when Fiona found her. It had reduced to sniffles and silent tears, but it hadn't stopped. She sat on the edge of the bed she and Misty shared and hid her face in her hands. Fiona grabbed the box of tissues on the way and placed it beside Cordelia before she sat down. Cordelia reached out and picked one from the box to blow her nose. Then curled the paper into a ball and threw it on the nightstand.
"Now tell me everything", Fiona said. The sharpness had gone out of her voice and she tried with patience instead. She had abandoned the initial debate that Misty was somehow fatally injured, because she thought Cordelia's reaction would look more similar to the one she had when Hank died. Or when Myrtle had died. This wasn't like that and so Fiona guessed it was a kind of fight, only she couldn't remember that a fight – and they were few – had ever caused a reaction like this one.
Cordelia drew a deep, shaking breath and finally answered: "I think I've lost her." Her voice was just as fragile as it had been downstairs, thin like a withering piece of paper.
Nonsense, Fiona almost said and in her own head, it sounded just like Myrtle. But the look of heartbreak in Cordelia's face made her think twice and she packed Myrtle's optimism away.
"What do you mean you lost her?"
"I…" Then she started sobbing. Fiona put an arm around her and pulled her in. Cordelia resisted at first and Fiona felt awkward about her sudden need to hug her daughter. Finally, Cordelia gave in and leaned back against Fiona' shoulder, damp face at her neck, and she curled up to her as Fiona closed the embrace. She felt strange like this, but Cordelia didn't seem to notice. The story came out then, broken into pieces and backwards, the way stories do when the teller can no longer make sense of her own actions. But Fiona understood the meaning. She had the urge to push Cordelia out at arm's length and demand to know why she would behave with such idiocy, but resisted and kept her close until she was done talking.
Fiona couldn't help but think back to that night where Cordelia had admitted her relationship with Misty in the first place. It had been quite a shocker, but not for long, because the more Fiona had thought about it, the more it made sense. And not just because of her sister's hints some twenty years ago. This new revelation was just as much of a shock and what was weird was that it still made sense. But not to Misty, naturally, Fiona thought. She would never be able to comprehend the behavior of the broken mind of the Goode's.
When Cordelia seemed cried out, at least for a while, Fiona made her sit up and prepared for the hurtful but necessary speech she was about to give.
"Darling, I didn't object when it was Misty, because I knew you would choose her in the end no matter what I said. You two always belonged together. But this is goddamn stupid and you know it. This is just you sabotaging yourself, because you can't accept that sometimes life is good to you. So you ruin it the best way you know how and you're good at that. Hell, I know what that feels like. I'm good at it too. But you have to stop repeating my mistakes!"
Her lower lip quivered, but Cordelia didn't cry this time. She didn't even look hurt, but Fiona thought it was mostly because she was already as hurt as she could possibly get, before Fiona entered the room.
"I don't think I can fix this", she said. The utter hopelessness of her voice grew a lump in Fiona's throat. But she swallowed, refused to make them both overflown with emotion. There was no space for that.
"I don't know either, but you can damn well try. There are many ways to cheat and if Misty can understand that your reason has nothing to do with her or your lack of interest, you've come that far."
"She doesn't want to talk to me."
"Not today maybe, but then you try tomorrow. Don't you dare give up."
"I know", she said, sniffled again and cleaned the tears from her eyes with a finger. A silence came over them and Cordelia's teary breathing filled the room for a few minutes. Fiona used the silence to try to imagine where Hank and Misty was right now. Misty had once come into the house with the quest to beat Hank up for hurting Cordelia. Fiona wondered if she planned to pay him a visit again. The fox would most likely make it out with his teeth rattling in his stomach.
Cordelia broke the silence then: "When you say repeating mistakes… Did you cheat on my father?"
Fiona scoffed. "I cheated with liquor and cocaine, but it had the same effect."
"Did you feel this awful about it? Because… Because being insane is the worst thing I've ever felt – second to this feeling. I can't be in my own skin because I hate myself so much for what I did. And I would gladly crawl back into that hole if I could, but I can't just stop being a mother to Cage. Did you ever feel like that?"
Somehow the sincerity of Cordelia's words found its way under Fiona's skin and where she used to brush off the issue, she spoke of it honestly this time: "I didn't. Because the things I took prevented me from feeling it. And he wasn't as big a part of me as Misty is of you. But it did hurt, I'm just not as good a mother as you are, darling. I shut everything out, when your father grew tired of the fights and left. Including you. I don't like to let the world in, you have that from your father. Now, I don't miss him half as much as you will miss Misty, so you need to change the story while you can. This is important, do you understand?"
Cordelia nodded. "Yes, mom." She dried her eyes again, made a grimace and then rubbed her temple.
"And then you call your psychiatrist or I will." The sudden return of her sharpness made Cordelia's head snap up, but she didn't object. Only gave a silent nod.
O0O
Hank stared at his suitcase. He had packed it and he was ready to pick it up, slam the door and check out of the hotel. Check out of the entire city. Yet he hesitated. The pain in her voice when she rejected him kept him stuck to this fucking place, like a leash caught by a nail. And the thought of his family torn to pieces made him angry, too angry to let it go. He could see the pieces of it lying around like a broken puzzle and the edges didn't fit anymore so there was no way to solve it right. All because of that witch. That fucking amazon woman, who would probably try to hate Cordelia for that betrayal same as Hank and fail just like he had. She would want to and realize it couldn't be done. There was just no way. The only one who could ever truly hate Cordelia was Cordelia herself.
He skulked at the suitcase one more time, then kicked it onto the floor again, found his wallet and left the hotel room. Screw this. He would find a bar. What was sobriety worth anyway? The reason people refrain from being alcoholics is to not fuck their lives up with it. His life was fucked up anyway. Besides, there were theories to test. He was practically undead and he had always been curious to see if that meant he couldn't get drunk anymore.
It wasn't easy finding one. He still had to avoid all his old favorites. The paper filter allowed him at least enough thinking space to remember that. His old self would have blown holes in reason and gone straight to the usual, but this cool distance he experienced allowed him to think clearly. So long as he didn't think about Cordelia or Misty.
He hated the cold, to be honest. He wanted his feelings back. This dried out sense of feeling got old incredibly fast and nothing satisfied. Food tasted like pieces of wet cardboard, sleep was next to unnecessary and desires were all short-lived flames. Kaylee had almost made him feel something, but in the end she was just skin too. It didn't matter. Only Cordelia did. He wondered why she was different. Maybe because she was the only one he really loved in those hours before he died. His heart may be just a muscle now that all feeling had left it, but it kept a spot for her. Perhaps this was Misty's doing. Making sure that he would never stop missing her, even if the rest got caught in the paper filter. And fuck, he missed her. The sight of her, the taste of her, even the sound of her crying. She cried so much that it was one of the first things, which came to mind, whenever he thought about her now. That and her smile, when she was happy. Then the look of disapproval she used to give him, when he was behaving like a boy in trouble. The nervous laugh. It came to him last, but it lingered the longest. He loved that laugh.
She hadn't stopped haunting him. That was why he couldn't leave.
He circled around town for another hour before he stumbled upon a bar he hadn't visited before. Heavy steps carried him to the door and he went in.
It took him about four seconds to realize that it was the dumbest choice he could have possibly made.
O0O
Misty used to always take breathing for granted. It seemed a natural thing to do, as it didn't require conscious thought. Until now.
After leaving the Goode mansion she had run straight for the woods and stumbled through the door of her shack, faint and disoriented from the lack of oxygen. It felt as though she couldn't get the air down and she lay on her bed, hyperventilating. It seemed she had left her lungs behind, because there was only a big hole now, where she used to have something to help her breathe. When she finally caught air, she started sobbing and didn't stop until the light of morning came in through the windows. She thought she must have slept some, but her cheeks were still wet and her throat sore, when she woke up.
Now it was quiet. The rage had left her, same with everything else. She didn't feel anything. She tried to recall that period where Hank had found them out – she used to avoid thinking of Hank, because anything associated with him was just nasty and it was downright agonizing now, but she couldn't help it – and remember how he had reacted. She tried to imagine how he felt. The only thing she remembered was those bruises on Cordelia's arm and the thought gave her back a spark of anger. She would rather feed herself to the wild gators at the river than do something like that. She still couldn't fathom how he could possibly make himself do that, but it must be panic. That she felt. The anger too. Her anger wasn't directed at anything specific anymore, because aiming it at Cordelia ate her up from the inside and overshadowed her every thought and then she couldn't breathe again.
Misty sat up, tried to suck in a few deep breaths to clear the lightheadedness and then rubbed her swollen eyes. Her sight was still blurry in the daylight and her head felt so heavy. All the air she couldn't breathe had gathered up there around her brain and made it cloudy. Her legs threated to buckle when she stood, but held for some reason and she walked outside with wavering steps. Misty thought maybe this was how a hangover felt like. She had never had an actual one, but the nausea sure was real.
Nick lay outside in her garden, staring at her when she came out. He looked worried, she thought, and she almost smiled at him. It was just a reflex, yet even this had been dulled. The smile became a vague twitch at the one corner of her mouth and then she slid down onto the grass.
The alligator didn't move, only blinked once to let her know that he wasn't sleeping.
"I can't believe her, Nick", Misty whispered. Her voice was rough around the edges, torn by a long night of crying. She could still feel Cordelia's trembling hands around her wrist and she kept rubbing it, hoping the feeling would leave soon. That last touch was branded onto her skin and she thought she might go insane from it soon.
She kept expecting Cordelia to walk down that path between the trees, but she found herself hoping she wouldn't. Because if she did, Misty would scream at her more and the thought of that made the hole in her chest feel too big for her body.
The sun rolled over the sky in a full bow while she sat there and no one came. At one point Nick grew weary of her tears and waddled into the woods. Then she was alone with the harsh wind and her shattered illusions of love.
In the dark, a distorted memory came to her. A feverish dreamlike conversation with Papa Legba, in which he tried to trick her to stay dead. He had told her coming back to life might hurt her. She realized now that his words wasn't an empty threat, but a premonition. Maybe he knew this would happen. Maybe he really had wanted the best for her.
An hour later it became too much and she got up. Made her way out of the woods and into the city. She had the late shift at work today, but decided to show up early. She had considered staying away altogether, but thought she needed the distraction.
She found Jackson at his usual spot by the counter and sat down beside him. She didn't look to see his surprised face, only heard it registered in his voice.
"Misty! Ain't you a lil' early tonight?" He wasn't drunk yet, she noticed – or rather, he was closer to sober than in the small hours of the night. She thought to answer him, but had no clue what to say and stayed quiet. She picked at the bowl of peanuts and hoped her boss wouldn't come in here yet. The other girl tending the bar was someone new; Misty barely knew her name and couldn't recall it. The girl saw her, but made no motion to engage her yet, for which Misty was grateful.
"You okay there?" Jackson said.
"No." She decided honesty was the easiest thing. She cast a quick glance at Jackson and saw the worry in his eyes.
"Sorry to hear that. You wanna talk?"
"No." She could feel his gaze on her face and turned again to tell him not to look so hard. What she found was a scrutinizing stare.
"Strange seeing you like this. Don't think I ever have." He took a mouthful of his beer. "You and your woman had a fight?"
A cramp managed to form out of nothing in that hole in her chest. She sighed and said: "Yeah."
"Bad one?"
"Yeah."
"What happened? Kid trouble?"
Misty shook her head and kept staring into the space in front of her, so she couldn't look at him. "Don't wanna talk 'bout it."
"But I can't just sit here and let you be miserable alone. Lemme in on it at least. She kick you out?"
"Shut up", she snarled.
"She cheat?"
Another cramp pulsed through her and she closed her eyes for a second, as if darkness made it easier to endure. The hole in her chest grew. How could something that wasn't even there feel so heavy?
"Oh. Sorry, friend. Someone we can gang up on?"
"Ex-husband."
"Wow. That's bad. Hm, can I buy you a drink?" She gave him a tired look and he shrugged. "Dulls the pain, you know."
"I'll deal with my pain without that gross, sour stuff."
"This one ain't sour. Maybe a lil' bitter to a rookie." He slid his own beer across the counter and placed it in front of her. "Here, try."
Misty eyed the bottle suspiciously for a few seconds. Then grabbed it and swallowed a mouthful. The bitter taste filled her mouth, ran right past the hole and settled in the bottom of her stomach with the rest of the nausea. She grimaced and pushed the bottle back in front of Jackson.
"Yeah, takes some gettin' used to. I like the dark kinds." Misty didn't answer and they were quiet for a while. The background noise from the sparse amount of guests filled her ears for a few minutes and she tried to focus on some of them. Anything to keep her mind from circling.
"You know…" Jackson started. He looked serious as he pointed at her with the beer. "I like you two, but if you want I can fix you up with someone else. To forget for a while. I know some women too, if you'd like to stay in that half o' the field. Can't guarantee they're as pretty as yours, but-"
"I don't want nobody else", Misty snarled, infuriated by the suggestion once she understood it, but too exhausted to really show it.
"Right. You're possibly the most monogamous person I've met my entire life."
"I don't know what that means."
He raised an eyebrow. "Means I ain't sure your woman deserves you."
"Don't talk that way 'bout her, you don't know her!"
Her snarls drowned out the bell announcing the opening of the door, yet somehow the footsteps registered with her. The change in the atmosphere. Jackson was about to say something, but stopped when he saw her face change. Misty paid him no mind anymore. She turned around on the chair and found Hank standing in the doorway.
She didn't think. She lunged right at him.
The world tipped around her, but a frenzy had come over her, preventing her from feeling it. Neither did she feel the scrapes on her knees when they hit the wooden floor nor the pain in her fists as they collided with his face over and over. Bone hit bone, her knuckles and his jaw, and shouting filled the air. She barely even saw his face, not until some distance were added, when she was pulled off him.
"Misty! Misty calm down!" It was Jackson's voice shouting in her ear and his arms locking hers so she couldn't move. For a scrawny half drunk, he sure was strong. Misty didn't calm, but snarled instead, her eyes zoned in on Hank at floor level. His left eyebrow was more red than brown now, his cheekbone bloomed pink and his mouth was just as bloody. He breathed as heavily as she did.
"This the guy?" She heard Jackson ask.
"Yeah", she said through her clenched jaw. On the ground Hank's gaze found hers and they flashed with hate. Then he smiled.
Misty tore at Jackson's half nelson, her whole body aching to rip that smile off Hank's face.
"Hey! Hey!" Misty stopped withering for a second. Then Jackson asked: "You know this'll cost you your job, right?"
"I don't care", she hissed.
"Hm... Alrighty then." He loosened his grip. And Misty flew back into the fight. She knocked Hank over again and buried her fist in his cheek. She felt something break loose under her blow, but it didn't stop her from scratching, hitting and snarling at him. Only when the softer flesh of his throat touched her palm did she halter for a moment. With wild eyes, she stared into his cold gaze.
"Go on if you dare", he quacked, spitting blood out as he did. "Choke me. I can barely feel that."
That broke her trance. Before she could do anything more, rough hands ripped her off the floor with such force that she stumbled to her feet.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Her boss bellowed. "You stay there, don't move an inch!" He turned his back to take a closer look at Hank. Misty stared ahead, but saw nothing. Around her, all chatter had stopped, all eyes were focused on the scene that Misty barely felt a part of. She noticed that the music still floated from the jukebox, as the only thing in here untouched by the sudden violence. She looked down at her bloody fists, curled them up and then relaxed. She was done now.
Meanwhile, Hank had gotten to his feet and Cal was talking about getting him to a hospital, but Hank refused. Said he could go there himself.
"If you think so. Now do I need to call the police?" He looked at Hank first, "That won't be necessary", and then at Misty. She shook her head, but said nothing.
"Fine. Show's over, folks! C'mon, get back to your own business!" Cal's voice rung out over the entire bar and he started gesturing people away. It offered a few moments of limbo, moments that left Hank and Misty alone to stare at each other. Some still looked at them, nervous or excited at the prospect of them starting another fight, but neither of the two noticed.
"You didn't do me any favor by bringing me back", Hank said to her.
"I didn't bring you back for you", Misty snarled at him. Hank didn't get a change to answer, because her boss turned around when he heard Misty's acidic voice and walked up to her, thundering with all his mass heavying his steps.
"You don't say another word in here", he pointed his thick finger at her. She looked at it, then at his face. There was more sadness than fury in his eyes, but he tried his best to hide it. "Get the hell outta my bar. Consider your last change blown for good. What the hell's the matter with you?" The last he added in a much lower voice, one laced with disappointment more than anything else. Misty didn't answer him. She cast one look around, at Hank, at Jackson and then at Cal at last, before she turned around and left the bar.
O0O
Marie bent over the sink and washed the blood off her forearms with careful swipes. It hurt like no other pain in the world. Not because the scratches were deep, they weren't. Some of them were barely punctures. They hurt because they were made by tiny fingers and she had failed him again. All her potions were packed away now, the old spells put back in a little locket in her brain. There was no use for those anymore. She had given op for the day.
Just then her sister stepped into the bathroom. Her eyes fell on the bloody sink and they widened.
"Marie, what the hell is going on in here?"
Marie only shot her a glance and then bowed her head again to avoid the worry in her sister's eyes. "It's fine, Chantal. I'm done now anyway."
"It sure as hell ain't fine, look at your damn skin! You have to stop this!"
"I can't!" Marie shouted. "Not until I succeed!"
Chantal looked devastated and shocked at the same time. As if some part of her knew Marie would say just that, but the other part still couldn't believe it. "But you won't, don't you get that? You know I'm just now acceptin' that all of this is real, but they ain't forces to be messed with. It was almost funny when you had that fat ass cracker doing our beck n' call, but you're scarin' me now!"
Marie turned off the water, dried her hands in the towel and finally looked Chantal in the eye. With a voice as calm as the real dead, she said: "If you don't want no part of it, then leave. I ain't done yet. Not until that bitch and her entire family is buried."
Chantal ran a frustrated hand through her wild hair and then placed them at her hips. "No part? You know how much I loved him also! You know I'd love to chase that woman out of New Orleans if I could, but this revenge of yours is too extreme. How about you just bury your poor boy instead? No good havin' him lie there on-"
She didn't get to finish her sentence. The mention of Damian was too much. Marie screamed, lunged forward and pushed Chantal away so hard she almost tumbled to the floor.
"You don't get it! I can save him! Don't try to stop me!"
Tears welled into Chantal's eyes and she slowly shook her head.
"You can't, honey. You think I'm too stupid to notice, but I heard your little spies. That girl's beau you trieda save, he ain't alive. He never gon' be alive. I was wrong to encourage you with this, okay? You can't possess the powers of the dead and expect to make life. That ain't how it works. I know that much."
"If you won't help, then leave me alone", Marie whispered.
Chantal gave her a long, hard look. She sniffled and nodded. "Fine." Then she left the doorway.
Marie swallowed her own hurt and went outside. She needed cool air on her face. It had been another hot day, but now at the brink of night there was a breeze cold enough to clear her mind. She walked away from the house, out to the borders of their small land. Then a little further. This was were the box was placed. Not on their premises – Chantal and the others wouldn't have it – but close. Walking distance, but not in line of sight.
She stared at the wooden lid. This box hadn't been used since she put Delphine in there from time to time. It was barbaric, locking someone in there, Chantal said. True, it was. But what Delphine did was far too cruel for a sweet word like barbaric. She deserved to rot in here. So did Fiona. She was just as bad in her own way. Letting all this happen. Brushing the incident off, leading the newspapers away, so no one knew what monstrous thing had happened in that house. And now her adopted witch child. Marie had thought she was just a kid, a simple girl who didn't know better, but then Marie had done her research.
This kid was no simple girl. She was wild; she lived with alligators as if they were her own kind. She aged slowly. She didn't think people noticed, but Marie did. She neared thirty now, but she didn't look a day over twenty two. Marie didn't give anything for the rumors in town on her sexuality – people like that who connected the heart's desire with witchcraft were either stupid or prejudiced – but the relationship with the wild animals caught her attention. The Louisiana swamp was vicious if you weren't careful. Marie knew that and she knew where the gators went. She had been at the swamp many times but the first time she ran into the Goode witch…
Marie thought Misty deserved just as much punishment as Fiona herself. But maybe a different one. And Fiona was still the main target. She was the root, the puppet master. The manipulator. She deserved to be stripped of power. Marie had thought the box would do, but now, looking at it, she wasn't so sure. In fact, she knew It wouldn't suffice. Even if Fiona Goode starved to death in that box, it wouldn't be enough. Because inside the box, Marie wouldn't be able to see the terror on her face, when she realized she was taking her final breath.