AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
"I am dead," Carol said.
"You are not dead," Lenora said. "No—not from what we can tell. Not from what I know. No. You are—absolutely not dead."
"So—I'm alive," Carol said.
"Yes—at least, I think you're alive," Lenora said, somewhat exasperated. "It's all very complicated, really."
Carol smirked and her nostrils flared. From across the room, Daryl recognized her amusement and her attempts to swallow it back. Barnabas, who had invited himself into Daryl's lap, flexed his toes in response to something he sensed and sent his claws sinking into Daryl's thigh. Daryl didn't dare to move, feeling that Barnabas would not approve of that and, perhaps, might seek some kind of revenge.
"I'm sure it's difficult for you to answer so many pointed questions," Carol challenged.
Lenora sat next to Carol on the couch. Clearly not amused by Carol's words, she leaned and, grabbing up a good fingerful of the skin on the inside of Carol's arm, she pinched until Carol loudly protested.
"Ow!" Carol spat at her.
Barnabas, surprised by the noise in an otherwise almost entirely quiet house, took off like a shot. He used Daryl's thighs as a launch pad, and used his long claws for traction. Daryl howled louder than Carol had as the cat took off—likely leaving bleeding wounds beneath the denim of Daryl's pants.
Carol pressed her hand over the spot on the inside of her arm where Lenora had pinched her.
"From what I can tell," Lenora said, giving Carol an equally sarcastic smirk to the one that Carol had barely swallowed back earlier, "you're fully alive. We could try some other tests, though, if you'd like."
"Hey! No!" Daryl barked. "No! Stop! We ain't gonna fight amongst ourselves. This shit's complicated enough without us goin' back an' forth with each other." Daryl stood up and rubbed at his thighs where the cat scratches still stung. Once on his feet, he busied himself with walking an unnecessary path around the living room and lighting a cigarette.
Outside, it was growing darker. The day was starting to settle into late evening. Before long, it would be night. None of them had mentioned it, but there was a natural curiosity about the night.
A man, a black cat, a witch, and a spirit returned to flesh spend the night in a once-haunted house that was the site of a hundred-year-old brutal ax murder. It just felt like the stuff that Halloween stories were made of.
"This shit is stressful for everyone," Daryl said. "All of us in our own ways. So, we ain't gonna waste time or energy fightin' one another." Daryl looked at Carol. "I'm fuckin' sorry. I really am. This has got to be so fucking incredibly stressful for you. It does. I can't even begin to think about what you might be thinking…"
"I don't know what I'm thinking," Carol admitted. "I have no idea what's happening. I hear what you're telling me, but…I have no idea what's happening."
"And it's gonna take a while for that shit to sink in," Daryl said. "Let's be honest, it ain't sunk in for none of us. And Lenora? This shit's gotta be stressful for your ass, too. You done—well—you done brought her back from the dead, and that's like burn-worthy in at least some places."
"I thought we agreed to ix-nay the word burn," Lenora said, lighting a cigarette for herself. "Besides—I didn't do anything wrong. This? This was meant to happen. It was practically out of my control entirely. It was going to happen. One way or another, love finds a way or…whatever the hell you want to say. The nexum de comes animae can't be denied. You," she said, gesturing toward Carol, "would have ripped through the fabric of time and space in some way to find him. I just helped direct the energy and suggested a way for things to happen. Listen—I don't know when it would have happened, or how it would have happened, but it would have happened without me. Who knows? Maybe I helped make it one of those things that allowed you to have a chance on this side of the cosmic veil instead of reading about you falling off a ladder and breaking your neck in six months to join her on the other side."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I'm glad my neck ain't broke, for what the hell that's worth," Daryl said.
"I'm not sorry that whatever this is happened," Carol said. She helped herself to one of Lenora's cigarettes and, since the two women seemed to have agreed to Daryl's cease-fire, Lenora lit it for her instead of begrudging her anything. "I mean, if what you say is true, then I was dead. And—I vaguely remember being dead or…or something like it. I'm not dead now, and you tell me that Ed is dead."
"Real dead, honey," Lenora said. "That's one thing I'm sure of, if I don't know a single damn thing else about any of this."
Carol laughed.
"And even if he's not dead? He's not beating me anymore. He's never going to beat me again," Carol said.
"It's been over a hundred years," Lenora said. "He isn't beating anything. He isn't even worm-food anymore…wherever they threw his corpse when he kicked the bucket."
Carol looked almost disturbingly pleased by Lenora's description, and Daryl thought they might have just become fast-friends over that. He might have felt a little bothered by the fact that she seemed so pleased to think of someone's demise, except that he knew that there was, at times, very little love lost for people who abused you in the past and, furthermore, Carol's abuser had gone so far as to murder her with an ax. Daryl wasn't sure, but he could imagine that might very well finish off whatever lingering affection one harbored for someone.
"I'm free from Ed," Carol mused.
"You are that," Lenora said.
"You free to do whatever the hell you want, now," Daryl said.
"Not exactly," Lenora said. All eyes were on her and she shrugged. "I think we're overlooking a few obvious things. Carol—whether you're real or not, you died over a hundred years ago in a pretty public murder."
"She can get a new identity," Daryl said.
"If that's what she wants," Lenora said with a shrug. "But I don't know how to go about doing that. Do you?"
Daryl thought about it. The movies made it look easy, didn't they? People were always just assuming new identities and starting new lives. There were tons of movies about people who had more than one life and, usually upon their death, their spouses found out about all their various selves that had lived all over the world.
That was the stuff of fiction, perhaps. In reality, Daryl didn't know anybody who had, or who had ever had, more than one identity. He knew the witness protection program existed, but he didn't think that extended to spirits who became flesh again.
"Not exactly," Daryl said. "But—if that shit's somethin' you're seriously wantin' to consider, we'll figure it out."
"Not tonight we won't," Lenora said. "And not anytime in the near future. Even if we were going to figure something like that out, we'd need time to…well…to figure that shit out. It's going to be tough to just strike out on your own as the victim of a hundred-year-old widely-publicized ax murder."
"So—I'll stay here," Carol said. "This is my house."
"Not exactly," Lenora said. "The house was never in your name. It belonged to your husband. From there, it belonged to the bank and, eventually, it's moved into the possession of Daryl. It's his house. You've got squatter's rights, at best, since you've been haunting the place for a century, but it's going to be pretty damn hard to convince a judge that you ought to have some kind of claim of ownership on the place because you were murdered here a hundred years ago and you haven't left the place because you've been caught here thanks to your soul's need to connect with his soul for all eternity."
Carol and Daryl made eye contact.
They had talked about this, of course—the whole soulmate thing—but Daryl imagined that they had not even begun to scratch the surface of conversations that they needed to have. Right now, they both understood the words, but the thought—the thought practically made Daryl sweaty.
Maybe, of course, that was because he felt some truth to it. He felt that truth on a strange, molecular level. Everything in his body seemed to buzz and react whenever anyone mentioned it. He felt the magnetic tug that Lenora had mentioned was a part of the nexum de comes animae. He felt like he could never escape Carol—and that he would never want to—and it was a little terrifying. He was afraid that he might be reading into things, too, but he thought he saw some reflection of the same thing in her eyes.
"I can't just invite myself to stay," Carol said.
"Don't you worry about that," Daryl said quickly, an inexplicable and unexpected panic bubbling up in him at the mere thought that she might truly consider not staying. "I mean it. You—don't—shit—you just don't worry about that. That's what I'm trying to say. You're staying. I mean—you're welcome to stay. I mean—you don't gotta stay, but…"
"Actually, I'm not sure if…maybe she does," Lenora said.
"You mean I'm supposed to make her stay?" Daryl asked.
"I mean that neither of you may really have a choice," Lenora responded. "The nexum de comes animae is what brought you to this town. It's what brought you to this house. It's what kept Carol here, in spirit form, and it's what made it possible for me to bring her back. If it weren't for the nexum de comes animae, she wouldn't have come back. The fact that she's here—made flesh again? That proves that my suspicions were correct. It proves that the connection is real, and that you two share the connection."
"We were kind of figuring that shit out, Lenora," Daryl said.
Lenora shrugged dramatically and looked a little bored before she rolled her eyes and lit another cigarette off the one that she hadn't entirely finished. From the several burning cigarettes and the fact that they'd only bothered to light a couple of lamps around the living room, the room took on a somewhat eerie quality.
"The nexum de comes animae is not optional. It must be fulfilled. It is not temporary. It is forever—it is time eternal. Time beyond time. You could not be kept separate by space, time, or even life and death itself. Mortality is not stronger than the connection. Now that you have come together in flesh, you must fulfill your connection. You're supposed to have a life together. At the very least, you must remain together. If either of you were to leave, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be possible. Time and time again, no matter what, you would come together. Forever. And, presumably, even beyond that."
"Did you create this connection between us?" Carol asked. "It's some kind of spell?"
Lenora laughed.
"I'm hardly powerful enough for something like that. Who knows who creates the nexum de comes animae? I suppose the answer to that question depends on your beliefs. It's like asking who creates the universe? Who sets the stars in the sky? The hand that decided that those stars should twinkle where they are, is the hand that decided that your souls should be one—or, rather, that they should be two parts to one whole. Until today? I've hardly ever been able to make even the simplest spells work. I'm a dud. A failure. I can read palms and, really, even that's just smoke and mirrors…"
"I'd bet that shit's a lot more smoke than mirrors with you," Daryl said with a laugh. Lenora, luckily, though it was amusing.
"My point is that I'm hardly some kind of sorceress. The reason that I was able to make this work had very little to do with the spell that I performed and a great deal to do with the fact that this was simply something that the world—no—the universe—or something beyond that, even—wanted to happen. It couldn't be stopped. And it won't be stopped. None of us have the power to stop it, even if we wanted to."
"So—what do we do?" Carol asked.
Lenora smiled.
"I suppose a great deal of that is up to you two," Lenora said. "It's up to you to decide how you intend to fulfill your destiny. In the meantime…I'll order pizza. You got a preference for ingredients? Daryl's paying."
"What's pizza?" Carol asked.
Lenora smiled.
"Oh—you're in for a treat. And it's bound to be a long night. I'll order two."
111
AN: For those who have read this on other stories lately, feel free to ignore.
I'll be putting this on my works for a while to make sure everyone sees it, so please ignore if you read multiple stories. I just wanted to let everyone know that it was somewhat brought to my attention that one reason people may not review, or may not review works often or past the first chapter, is that they feel unappreciated by not having their reviews responded to for each chapter and, therefore, don't really feel motivated to continue to read and/or review. I certainly don't want you to feel that way.
Admittedly, I come from the era of fic where we used to sort of consider (perhaps wrongfully) reviews as an acknowledgement that people were reading and wanted more of the story, since I have no other reliable way of knowing who is reading and cares about the story. I have always simply gone on to work on the next chapter. I have only responded to reviews that were personal and, of course, to personal messages. I, of course, read and appreciate every single review, but I have always simply put my time and energy into trying to write more for people to read and, hopefully, enjoy. I never meant to be dismissive of everyone.
I know that it feels bad to feel that what you do is unappreciated or unnoticed. Fic writers often feel that way with a lack of reviews. I wouldn't want other people to feel unappreciated. I absolutely appreciate when people review. It lets me know that people are reading and enjoying the story. It's a sign that I'm not wasting my time, and it gives me motivation to keep going. However, I don't want people to feel unappreciated either. So, I'm going to start doing my best to respond to your reviews. Please note that, the more you say to me, the more I'll obviously have to say in my response. (If you're one of those people who may find this awkward, please let me know, and I won't respond to you. My goal is not to make anyone uncomfortable.) Also, I appreciate your patience, as this will be something that does take time and, as such, it may take me a while to respond to them out of the time that I do have outside of work and adult life, since my free time and the energy that life leaves me is quite limited. I thank you for your patience and understanding.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please don't forget to let me know what you think.