Long note but worth a read:
I owe you all an apology. First off, yes, I will be continuing the story. My reason for even posing the question last time came down to a major communication error. Basically, I was under the impression that I didn't have readers left because I hadn't received any reviews since resuming posts. I began to assume I was posting just for myself, and if that was the case - why not just switch over to the original rewrite I intend to do?
Well, turns out I was getting reviews. Consistently. And due to some glitch on ff's part, I just wasn't getting notifications. Which means -a- there are several of you still reading (and I absolutely owe you all the end of this story) and -b- I haven't responded to ANY of the lovely reviews I now see you've sent me. In fact, I was humbled to see the slew I received, so thank you. And I'm incredibly sorry if you believed I'd been ignoring your review.
I have always appreciated every review and strongly believe I owe it to reviewers to show you the same respect you show me.
To those of you with usernames, I went back and responded to your reviews this past week. (I hope you received them.) To those who are "Guest," it's impossible to distinguish between your reviews to respond individually here, obviously, but know how grateful I am for your time and willingness to leave a comment about a story I'm pouring so much of myself into.
I will continue with this story and work hard to respond to reviews in a timely fashion from now on. To those who had questions in their reviews, I'll answer them at the end.
And now, without further ado, the chapter.
[Monday February 10, 2020]
Wyatt and Prue's birthdays fell out just under a week and a half apart. (Yet another reason for Prue to feel overshadowed by her twice-blessed older brother.) If that weren't bad enough, her birthday also happened to fall out two days before Valentine's Day, which was the date the Halliwells had unofficially claimed for Uncle Coop's birthday. Phoebe had chosen it before Prue was born, but Prue still felt a bit slighted by the decision. Coop had been created, not born. He could celebrate any day of the year, so why did he have to take the same week as Prue's day? Every time the family celebrated her birthday, they also partially considered it a dinner for Coop as well, once again leaving Prue with the short end of the stick.
Piper started preparing for Prue's dinner that Monday, two days before the birthday, carrying heavy packages through the house late that afternoon. Noticing her daughter at work at the kitchen table, she called her outside to help empty the car.
Groaning, Prue set her pencil down on top of her math textbook and trudged out behind her mother. Piper filled the girl's arms with packages, then grabbed a couple of her own. They made two additional trips, scattering bags across the kitchen island, before everything was inside. As Piper started to unpack the bags, Prue reclaimed her seat.
Though Prue picked up her pencil, she found herself unable to return to her word problems. Tapping the tip of the eraser against her notebook, she sighed. Instead, she dragged her eyes away to watch her mother set the eggs in the fridge, followed by cucumbers, peppers, and a large zucchini. Next, she unpacked a five-pound bag of all-purpose flour and several spices she had run out of the previous week.
Prue balanced her chin on her fist, staring back down at her notebook as an unexplainable dissatisfaction grew heavier in her gut. She could not ascribe words to this sensation, nor motive behind it, so when she finally found herself speaking she had no idea what she would say until the words had already escaped. "Wyatt and Chris get all the cool powers," she complained.
The moment the statement was out, lingering in the air before her, she realized that this thought had plagued her for much longer than she had even consciously noticed. To her mother the protest may have seemed to come out of nowhere, but it had preoccupied Prue's thoughts for quite some time. The words had come out sounding casual, no more than a flippant annoyance to the preteen, but for her it had taken a lot to admit them out loud.
Piper had turned to stack the spices in the cabinet beside the sink. She had to stand on her toes to reach the higher shelf. Only half paying attention to her daughter's complaint, she replied, "Oh, Prue, your powers are just fine."
Expelling a long breath, Prue folded her arms on the table and propped her chin on her hands. She couldn't bring herself to admit what bothered her about the response straight out, but her mother had not picked up on her discontentment at all. Feeling invisible and inadequate, and unable to say so, she flipped her notebook shut.
"Can I bike over to Maggie's house?" she grumbled.
Piper tucked the flour into the highest shelf in the pantry. "I don't see why not," she said. "Be home by eight." The girl rushed out of the kitchen, leaving her homework behind.
On Wednesday, Piper spent much of the early afternoon in the kitchen, adding finishing touches to Prue's strawberry shortcake while the boys were arriving home from school. She was piping icing in swirls around the sides, the top rimmed with hulled strawberries when Prue called, back at Maggie's house, to say she would return before dinner, she promised. She and Maggie had something very important to do that couldn't wait.
Phoebe and Paige arrived a couple hours later with their families in tow. Leo got home from Magic School soon after. Even Wyatt and Chris meandered downstairs before Prue returned home. The uncles herded the kids into the living room to avoid stressing out Piper further while Phoebe and Paige joined their sister in the kitchen, reassuring her that Prue would be home soon.
With everything ready for dinner, Piper kept rearranging foods on their platters, restacking drumsticks on top of chicken breasts and stirring the pasta in its bowl, until Phoebe put a hand on her forearm to stop her. "She's a teenager now," the younger sister cajoled. "She's gonna be a bit late once in a while. It's her way of asserting her independence."
Piper started to say something about independence needing to be earned when they heard the front door close. Tossing her dish towel on the counter, Piper rushed out of the room. Everyone had gathered in the narrow foyer to greet the birthday girl.
Prue was wearing the hood up on her winter jacket. When she caught sight of Piper, she flashed a look of extreme apprehension. Clutching her hood with both hands, she said, with a tremor in her voice, "Sorry I'm a bit late."
"It's fine, sweetie," Phoebe rushed to say before Piper could speak. "You hungry?"
"Starved." Taking a deep breath to steel herself, the girl threw back her hood. In an instant, silence descended on the room. Prue, pretending not to notice the stares directed her way, shrugged off her jacket and turned to hang it up in the closet beside the door.
Bobby was the first to speak. Pointing up at his cousin, he announced, "Prue's hair is pink!"
It wasn't completely true. Most of her hair was its normal dark brown, but two thin locks that framed her face had been dyed a blinding shade of magenta. She flipped one of the locks out of her eyes. "You like?" she asked, her voice strained. Although she tried her best to sound casual, she couldn't meet her mother's eyes.
Her cousin Lea stood frozen in astonishment. Prue was far braver than she. Aunt Piper would kill her. She couldn't stop staring from Piper's thunderous face to Prue's studiously blank expression.
"Prue," Piper breathed at last, "What were you thinking?" Phoebe placed a cautious hand on Piper's shoulder while Henry coughed uncomfortably at the tension suffusing the room.
Prue shifted on her feet, gazing just over Piper's shoulder. "Oh, I saw it on the girl who rang us up at the corner store and thought it looked adorable. What do you think?" She aimed for a breezy smile that came across more as a grimace as she twined one lock around her finger.
For his part, Chris could barely watch the slow, oncoming collision he knew would occur. Piper's face had turned a deep shade of red; she looked apoplectic. Her words when she spoke sounded calm at first, but her voice rose incrementally until she was almost shouting. "You copied a girl who works for seven dollars an hour? You thought that was a good role model?"
Prue ducked her head, hunching her shoulders. Eyes growing wider, Lea broke her stare. She didn't want to be here for the inevitable explosion. Quickly, she motioned Katie back to the living room. Following her cue, Henry cleared his throat and slunk out as well, Wyatt and Chris close behind. Coop seemed torn between wanting to keep the peace and wanting desperately not to insert himself into Piper's line of fire.
Eventually, when he met Leo's eyes and the former-Elder jerked his head sympathetically toward the living room, Coop made his decision. He would bow out while he had the chance. Even Paige didn't dare stick around, having enough experience with her sister's temper to know when to make her escape. On her way out, she grabbed Bobby by the back of the collar and dragged him with her. Oblivious to the peril he had narrowly avoided, he complained the whole way out of the room.
Finally, Prue stood alone with her parents and Aunt Phoebe, the only person brave enough to withstand Piper's ire. She still clung to Piper's shoulder as if to physically restrain her. "Piper, try to see this from her point of view," she cautioned in an undertone. When she had mentioned Prue asserting her independence, she had not quite expected something like this.
Piper's expression remained unchanged. If she heard her sister's rushed words, she gave no indication of it. "Prue, what were you thinking dyeing your hair?"
Prue glowered. "I'm thirteen," she grumbled. "I can dye my hair if I want to."
"Not while you're in this house, missy!" Piper nearly shouted.
Deftly, Leo stepped in. "Prue. I think you knew we would be unhappy about this. Otherwise you would have asked." Prue squirmed uncomfortably, folding her arms and staring at her feet. "So why would you do it?"
"What's wrong with dyeing my hair?" she mumbled instead of answering the question outright.
Piper's arms flew into the air, shucking her sister's grip, as she scoffed, "What's wrong is you're thirteen. You're way too young for something like that. Imagine showing up to school with—that." One hand waved dramatically at the offending flash of color. "You better believe you're grounded, young lady."
"Piper," Phoebe said again, sensing the quiet plea in Prue's defensive stance, in the waves of complicated emotions—guilt, frustration, fear—emanating off her. "This probably isn't about dyeing her hair."
"Yes it is!" Prue snapped. "I'm a teenager now. If Wyatt and Chris can help you hunt demons, then I can dye my hair pink." She winced inwardly. In her rush to defend herself from her aunt's empathy, she had trod closer to the truth than she had intended.
Piper blinked, stunned at the direction the argument had taken. It was Leo who replied, "I'm not sure what demons have to do with hair color, kiddo."
"Honey," Phoebe piped up gently, "Are you feeling… left out when your mom doesn't ask for your help with demons?"
Piper glared at Phoebe. "No," Prue said without much conviction. That wasn't quite the issue, Phoebe could tell, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly the cause of Prue's hidden melancholy without getting more information from her first. She also knew she couldn't help much with Piper's own whirl of emotions banging around in her head at the same time.
"Sweetie?" she said to Piper instead, "The food's gonna get cold. Maybe you should all talk about this later. When everyone's a bit calmer?" She reached carefully for Piper's arm again, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
Tugging out of Phoebe's hold, Piper took a step toward the kitchen, her lips pressed into a tight line. "Tell everyone we're eating," she barked to Leo, then marched inside without glancing at her daughter. With one pained peek at the girl, Leo headed to the living room, leaving Phoebe and Prue alone.
Phoebe glided toward her niece. "Oh, honey," she sighed, brushing the hair out of the girl's face to cup her cheek. "I wish you had come talk to one of us if something's bothering you."
Prue wanted to be annoyed at her aunt for sticking her nose where it didn't belong, but her emotions melted away when Phoebe tugged her close to embrace her. An interfering busybody she most certainly was, but she gave great hugs. Prue's arms circled around Phoebe's back, and her head shifted against her shoulder.
"Happy birthday, honey," Phoebe murmured. Prue coughed out a watery laugh.
Dinner started off tense, with everyone afraid to break the heavy silence. All but Bobby, who blissfully chattered on while Paige filled his plate. Ultimately, it was his blithe ignorance that eased the friction, and eventually the rest of the table began to loosen up, too.
Paige, who could barely fit in her seat anymore with her stomach having ballooned in recent weeks, shifted so she could sit sideways in her chair. Across from her, Coop struck up a conversation with Prue, deliberately ignoring the blowout a few minutes earlier. He asked her about school and about winter break, anything but the almost neon color cascading from her scalp.
Midway through the meal, people had all but forgotten Piper and Prue's argument, and Phoebe could finally breathe smoothly again. As dinner winded down, more people talking than reaching for serving utensils, Piper got up to prepare dessert. "Who's gonna help clear?" she asked.
Chris was sitting across from Katie, so the instant she looked up he realized what was about to happen. She had kept to herself for most of the evening, but he hadn't thought much of it. She was quiet on the best of days, and she did not react well to witnessing conflict. But in her eyes now Chris saw a fierce determination glitter under the surface. Suddenly, he just knew.
Their eyes connected, and Katie pushed back her chair. "I will," she said loudly, and reached to pick up Phoebe's plate beside her. For the second time that evening, silence plunged over the group.
Lea's eyes glued themselves to her mother's face as Katie stepped over to retrieve her father's plate next. Before Phoebe could even process what she'd seen, tears were forming, then spilling over her cheeks. A shaky hand rose to cover her mouth. Coop's eyes, also supporting an unusual sheen, grew impossibly round. Nobody else spoke.
Katie stopped after the third plate, cradling them carefully, still unused to the weight. She turned to face her parents, expression eager but somewhat shy, as if introducing herself for the first time. Phoebe opened her mouth to speak but let out an unexpected sob instead. Clapping both hands back over her mouth, she wildly shook her head.
"H-how?" Coop finally stuttered for both of them. He etended a hand toward his daughter, then hesitated, long since having trained himself not to reach for contact.
Equally hesitant, Katie sidled closer. Although her hands were laden with dishes, she tilted her head forward until her cheek brushed his outstretched hand. Coop jerked in his seat when he felt the pressure of her skin against his, and then he began to cry silently but earnestly beside his wife.
"Lea and Chris helped me do it," Katie said softly. Everyone's eyes tracked over to the two for an instant—Chris smiled uncomfortably—but were quickly diverted back to the young girl.
As if Coop's attempt spurred her on, Phoebe surged to her feet and threw her arms around her daughter, kissing her face over and over again. In the sudden excitement around her, Katie lost her grip on the plates, which tipped over her fingers and smashed to the floor. The top plate was unharmed, but the bottom one cracked almost in half and the middle chipped in two places.
Apprehensive, Katie peered up at Piper through her parents' arms, but Piper was grinning. The sound of the plates shattering only made her—and everyone else around the table—start to laugh. The tension of earlier was long forgotten; even Prue wore a smile from one ear to the other.
The rest of the table swarmed to the girl. Only Chris and Lea remained behind, casting glances at each other across the table as they watched the scene. Lea's eyes grew misty as she looked on. The adults reached over each other to touch a part of Katie, caress her arm, pet her scalp. Even Bobby, who likely didn't fully understand the hullaballoo, got caught up in the moment, crawling under legs to reach the center of the group.
Just as Chris began to wonder how much longer Katie would last (she still had not fully mastered the ability for extended periods of time) Phoebe and Coop pulled away. The others, taking their cues from the two parents, backed up to give Katie space as well. Perhaps Phoebe had sensed her daughter beginning to tire. The girl's cheeks had flushed, though Chris couldn't tell if the color came from exertion or excitement.
"Baby girl," Coop cooed.
Phoebe's voice erupted in a wonder-filled laugh. "I don't understand it," she murmured, looking to her older child for answers.
Lea shrugged. "It was mostly Chris who figured it out," she admitted. "I just helped after."
Chris shrank under the sudden scrutiny. "It's… a long story." He wasn't sure how much his mother had shared with her sisters about his other self's visit, about his new powers. It was possible they had no idea he had ever been in contact, and he certainly didn't feel now was the appropriate time to open that can of worms. Today had come with enough surprises. "Mostly just a lot of practice."
"That was…" Phoebe trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she thought. "All those weekends you were getting together—it was this?" Katie and Lea nodded. At a loss for words, Phoebe shook her head. Instead, she reached out to touch her child again, a gentle hand at the crown of her head, reassuring herself that she still could.
Katie went up on her tiptoes to deepen the contact, practically vibrating with pleasure. It lasted a couple of minutes before Phoebe's fingers suddenly slipped through her head. Phoebe jerked her arm back as if she'd been burned, and Chris rushed to explain, "She's still working on turning it off for long periods. She's probably worn out."
Katie seemed disappointed, but the guilt eased once her parents started heaping her with praise. Piper decided it was time to shoo everyone into the living room so she could clean up the broken plates and bring out dessert.
Prue held back as the room emptied out. Seeing her cousin's miracle and the family's ecstasy had reminded Prue in the most visceral way possible that, even within her own family, some abilities were more horrific than having nothing at all. And really, how could she feel like she didn't fit in with a cousin who, until today, had never once physically connected with the family?
Piper went into the kitchen briefly to grab an empty garbage bag for the broken plates. When she returned, she noticed Prue fidgeting in the corner. She paused, waiting for her daughter to express whatever she clearly had on her mind.
"I, uh…" Prue bit her lip. She tucked a fold of bright hair behind her ear. "I can clear the floor. If you want."
"Oh, sweetheart," Piper sighed, extending a hand.
Flooded with relief, Prue sidestepped the table between them and walked into her mother's grasp, the arm folding around the back of her head like a steadying anchor. She so rarely fought with Piper; she had always been a momma's girl. "I'm sorry, Mom," she whimpered into Piper's blouse. "I should've asked first."
Piper kissed the top of her head. "I'm sorry I reacted the way I did, baby. You're growing up a little too quickly for me. It's a little overwhelming. But you know what? You're twice the witch of anyone in this house."
Prue peered up at her mother's chin. "No I'm not," she whispered.
"Don't argue with me," Piper chided gently. "I've been at this long enough to know a top-notch witch when I see one."
It shouldn't have surprised Prue that her mother managed to get to the heart of the issue so incisively, especially with Aunt Phoebe's nudge earlier that evening. Prue buried her face back into Piper's shirt. "I don't have all that firepower like Wyatt and Chris do," she mumbled.
Piper carded through her hair. "The best witches have nothing to do with the powers they do or don't have. It's all about dedication to the craft." Tucking two fingers under Prue's chin, she lifted her face to force their eyes to meet. "Sweetheart, you've got that in spades."
Piper smirked conspiratorially, "And I'll let you in on a secret. Your brothers goof off a bit too much to even be contenders." Prue smiled in spite of herself. "Mark my words, when you're older, you'll be spinning circles around all of us. You already do when it comes to potions."
Hearing her say what Chris had nearly admitted the previous week made it seem truer in a way. Feeling somehow lighter than she had in months, Prue tucked her head back into her mother's hug. Piper clung to her for a moment, then added, "But we are putting your hair right this weekend." Prue sighed. "Now, go. I'll clean this up. It's your birthday; you shouldn't be doing anything like that." She nudged Prue toward the entryway and watched her shuffle out of the room.
That night, Chris found himself once again in the abyss. He always appeared there after meeting a new version of himself and often after witnessing a monochrome vision of the past or future, but aside from those times it seemed to occur at random. He wondered if he could learn to control it over time. Or perhaps his subconscious could sense that he had news to share with Perry. After that evening's events, he'd certainly had trouble falling asleep.
When Chris arrived, Perry's wedge was empty. Confused, he peered around the giant circle the different wedges shaped together. Ian was with Mutt on Mutt's playground. The boys' laughter echoed as they chased each other across the monkey bars. His non-magical self, Merlin, was, as expected, moping in his bedroom. There—Chris found Perry just next door to his own wedge, sitting at the large, round table where Sir Christopher lived.
Sir Christopher was standing beside the seated man, chattering loudly over his shoulder with animated arms that waved in every direction, though Perry seemed to mostly ignore the knight. He focused instead on something spread out in front of him on the table.
"Guess what!" Chris called out. When he neared, he saw Perry had a deck of cards, four of those cards face-up on the table before him. The man flipped a fifth card and set it down at the end of the row, rubbing his chin in thought.
"Katie—Kat—she did it. The tangibility thing. She showed everyone tonight at dinner." As he stepped inside the wedge, Chris's brow furrowed. "What are you doing?"
Perry glanced up with a distracted smile. "Congratulations," he said.
Sir Christopher, who had been interrupted mid-sentence, turned to face Chris. "Ah, squire, welcome," he said. "I was telling your comrade here the best way to approach a dragon. I've slain quite a few in my day." The knight rested a hand across his heart in a display of utmost scrupulousness.
Chris rolled his eyes, passing by Sir Christopher to peer over Perry's other shoulder. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "Reading your fortune?"
Perry glanced at him briefly, seeming to weigh something in his mind. Finally, sighing, he said, "I can't read for myself anymore. In this timeline, I have no future. All of us here…" He sat back in the chair, waving an arm to encompass the other occupants of the abyss. "We're all just… memories." He looked back at Chris. "This is a reading of you."
"Oh?" That piqued Chris's interest. He pointed to the one on the far right that Perry had just set down. It depicted a heart at its center, skewered by three swords. "What's this one mean?"
With the tip of his elbow, Perry nudged Chris's hand away. "You don't start the reading there," he explained, instead tapping the middle of the five cards. On this one, a winged woman rode a carriage drawn by two horses. "The Chariot," Perry said. "It represents your present. Your core self."
Sir Christopher, seeming to grow offended at being ignored, grumbled under his breath and marched to the corner of his wedge. Unsheathing the sword clipped to his waist, he gave it a few practice swings and jabbed it repeatedly into an invisible enemy.
Chris didn't even notice him leave. "So what does it mean, the Chariot?" he asked Perry.
"It means you have determination." With half a smirk, Perry remarked, "But I doubt that's news to you."
The laughter of the two boys on the playground behind them grew muffled suddenly, making both Chris and Perry look up. They could still see the playground but only just. In front of it, at the center of the wedges, appeared a translucent scene. Chris in an alleyway on his hands and knees, eyes squeezed shut. The demon Agramon towered above him, an energy ball raised and ready to hurl. The ground beneath the demon's feet lurched sideways. A split in the concrete opened between the fallen Chris's hands, racing out toward Agramon.
The picture faded, but in its place came another, Chris on bended knee before a shy, hesitant Jake, one hand on the boy's shoulder. His mouth moved, but no sound reached them. They didn't need to hear the words for Chris to know, from memory, that he was promising Jake he would not abandon him.
Even before this image had vanished, another one appeared beside it, this time of Jake in his kitchen inching forward and reaching out to Chris, his first time initiating an embrace. This, too, dwindled away, leaving Ian's and Mutt's laughter to fill the silence once again.
Chris turned back to Perry, who continued to stare at the now-blank center of the abyss with a pensive look. Chris prodded him carefully with his elbow. "What about the rest," he asked, jerking his chin toward the deck.
Perry glanced back at the cards on the table. He pointed to the leftmost card, a creature with elongated features, a snout, and two curling horns perched atop its head. An upside down pentagram was drawn on its forehead. "The devil," Perry said. "It represents your past, your nature."
Chris raised his eyebrows, feeling a bit defensive at the perceived accusation. "Are you saying my nature is evil?" he demanded harshly. Against his will, his mind flashed back to an older witch with silver hair, the woman whose throat he had cut without a moment's hesitation. He swallowed hard, clenching his fists against the emotion that swelled in his throat.
Perry shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. "Tarot isn't that literal," he said. "This card signifies both your greatest asset and weakness: your obsessive nature. We've always been like that, no matter the timeline." His gaze drifted automatically back to the center of the circle.
After a moment, an unfamiliar scene sharpened into view, one of an older version of himself outstretched on his mother's bed with his father kneeling by the bedside. Chris had not seen this one before, but it took the work of only a few seconds to realize that this man, together with his father looking younger than he'd ever known him, meant this must have been a memory of Perry's. As their father sobbed over his chest, the prone young man struggled to speak, his lips moving silently. Then, slowly, the man faded out of existence, leaving his father clutching the empty sheets beneath him.
"I saved Wyatt in my timeline," Perry said from beside Chris as the image vanished, "But dedication to my mission is what got me killed." He cast an assessing eye over Chris. "It's pretty clear even now that you share that trait."
His finger slid to the card between the Chariot and the Devil. The profile of a weeping woman's face, beside which lay five overturned chalices. "The five of cups," he said, "Your recent past."
"It doesn't look good," Chris remarked.
"Tarot doesn't show good or bad, per se," Perry explained. "It just reveals things we may be unwilling to admit to ourselves. This is a card of regret. It shows you something you need to forgive yourself for."
Chris folded his arms. "I don't have anything I…" But even before he could finish his sentence, the sound faded again and a scene wavered into view. He had known it was a lie; the memory that had arisen in him when he saw the Devil, the witch he had murdered in cold blood, told him as much. Now, he had to witness it again, a bystander to his own horrific act.
A translucent version of him knelt before the sobbing witch. Her lips moved. They heard no sound, but Chris knew her entreaties by heart. "Please, please," he remembered her whispering. Chris watched himself tip her chin up with two delicate fingers.
He closed his eyes just before the memory self sliced through her carotid artery. He stood there gasping for breath as the memory faded away. There was silence, save for the faint sounds of Ian and Mutt chattering in the background. Eventually, he felt a hand touch his elbow. He opened his eyes to stare at Perry's fingers, refusing to look up.
"You have to forgive yourself eventually," the man said gently.
Chris shrugged, but the grip stayed at his elbow. "I killed an innocent," he said.
"It wasn't your fault," Perry reminded him.
Chris blinked and met his gaze, expression pained. "She's still dead," he said.
Solemnly, Perry nodded. "You can't fix it," he agreed. "That's why the five of cups. You can never un-spill the cups. You just learn forgiveness." When Chris said nothing, Perry exhaled, sliding his hand back to the table. "Well, it doesn't have to be right now. But someday. Just something to mull over." He turned back to the spread of cards. "Do you want me to stop? This can be overwhelming if you're not prepared to hear the truth. Counterproductive, even."
Chris shook his head, forcing his mind away from the blood on his hands. "No. Tell me. I want to know." Pulling out the chair beside Perry, he slid into it so they sat almost shoulder to shoulder. "If those two were my past…" He ran a finger across the top edge of the fourth and fifth cards in the row. "Then, these must be the future?"
Perry nodded, pointing to the fourth. "Your near future." He pointed to the fifth. "Your distant future."
The fourth card had a tiny hourglass at the top. Below it was a skeleton wearing a crown. It held two scythes, one in either hand, that crossed over his chest in an X.
"Death," Perry said softly.
"Oh, please," Chris scoffed. "I've met the Angel of Death. He looks nothing like that. Besides, that happened already." He flicked his fingers as if shooing the card away. "I'm over that fear."
Perry glanced over at him, one brow raised. "This card doesn't reveal your fears. Or your past. This is your future."
Chris huffed, waving a dismissive hand as he slouched in his seat. "So I'm going to die in my near future, but I still have a card in my distant future? How does that work? What happens after death?"
Perry shook his head. "Like I said, they don't have to be literal. They—" But he paused then, gaze sliding past Chris. He nudged the boy, who turned to stare at the center, where a version of himself stood shading his face as wind whipped around him. Nearby stood the imposing form of the true Angel of Death, the one he had met while under the influence of darklighter toxin, stepping aside to let the boy in the memory turn toward a pinprick of white light growing in the distance. And just behind the angel, exactly as Chris remembered it, a haze solidified into a dark figure. Shorter than the angel, with a face cloaked in shadows so thick Chris couldn't make out his features. From beside Perry, Chris squinted, but the image did not become clearer.
Entranced in the scene, he murmured, "I remember that guy. Who was he?"
He was surprised when his older self replied, "I don't know. I don't recognize him." Somehow, without realizing it, he had come to rely on Perry to have information on anything unfamiliar to himself, expected him, in a sense, to know everything. "But he will obviously give you insight into your life at some point in the future." The scene before them melted away.
The last card gave Perry pause. His finger carefully traced the thrice-skewered heart that Chris had asked about when he first arrived. "Well?" Chris asked impatiently. "What does it mean?"
Perry pursed his lips, watching Chris intently as he contemplated whatever made him hesitate. Finally, he said, "Three of swords." He released a slow breath. "It represents… heartbreak."
Chris barked out a laugh. With Perry's reluctance to share, he had expected something far worse than even the omen of death. This seemed to pale in comparison. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind if I ever get a girlfriend," he remarked dryly.
Perry didn't seem so easily dismissive. He shook his head but said nothing. "If you ask me," Chris added to fill the silence, "Tarot cards are a bunch of hocus pocus nonsense anyway." As Perry collected the cards and shuffled them back in with the rest of the deck, Chris pushed back his chair to stand.
"For mortals, maybe," Perry replied. "But for people with actual temporal abilities—Phoebe, your sister, us—it's very real."
The gravity in Perry's voice made Chris uncomfortable. He was quite relieved when the edges of his vision finally began to soften, and he let himself get carried off to the world of dreams.
This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but this was an organic end.
Responses to a couple of guest reviews:
One of you asked me why, if I have 47 chapters done, have I not posted them. It's a reasonable question, so I wanted to clarify. I DON'T have 47 chapters done. They're all half-done. The way I work is by chugging along chronologically, occasionally skipping scenes when I find myself struggling, and continuing on so I don't get bogged down in writer's block. It also gives me time away from the writing so I can come back to edit it with a more objective eye, and it also ensures that I never fall too far behind with writing, even if I have writer's block, that I need to go several months without posting. The week that the next chapter is "due," I come back to it with a clear head and write the scenes I omitted, rewrite the scenes that need heavy edits, and do basic editing for the parts that still work. Trust me, if I had 47 completed chapters, they would be up. I hope that clears it up.
To those of you who said you're still reading but would understand if I stopped posting, I am absolutely humbled by your graciousness. It makes me more determined than ever to complete this. You deserve nothing less!
Apologies for the long-winded Author's Notes at the beginning and end. I assure you I'll be much more succinct in future chapters.