Legacy to Zero

24: Returning, Remembering, Reeling It In

Harlow

After a few hours at the Rift, I was starting to remember why I left.

It wasn't that the town had changed, if I could even call it a town. My mother's house was still the stagnant, unchanging, one-floor building that was more windows than walls. I could have been convinced that nothing had moved, could have been convinced that stepping on the bridge had sent me back in time. To do this whole story from the beginning. To recoil into the shrouded nest of spiderweb darkness in the childhood bedroom that laughed in my face. Because it hadn't decayed, the core hadn't turned rotten.

It had stayed in waiting, the same as it always had been.

I had good memories in this house.

Maybe that was part of it. Part of why I wished it would tarnish, part of why it was still haunting the tails of my own ghost.

My mother had given me some of her clothes, of which she owned a few similar-looking outfits that were necessities. Her white long-sleeved shirt bore ruffles, and matching grey pants came down past my socked feet. I fixed them in the mirror in the corner of my room. Large enough to reach the ceiling with its whirls of silver, the chipped face had been like that since Mom had saved it from beneath layers of the mossy forest floor.

The slice landed on the upper half of my eyebrow, so small that it often tricked my eyes into thinking I had a cut. I'd forgotten all about the mirror. There were no others in the house, meaning I'd spent many nights and days sitting on my bed, helping my mother choose her outfit or Aunt Leala apply her makeup.

As I slid on my shoes, I passed the open windowsill, gulping down a breath of much-needed fresh air.

"Okay," I whispered to myself. "Time to go."

Unsurprisingly, my mother was already dressed in the living room. The house was so open that every location flowed into the next, giving me nowhere to hide. The instant I stepped out, I was right by the dining table.

"Hey," she said. There was nothing foreign in the way she greeted me, but her words sounded different now. Less like herself—more like Revel and her one-marionette, all-the-time act. "You ready?"

I groaned, both inwardly and outwardly. In celebration for any of the returned—sorcerers who had come back from the dead and come back to the Rift—there was a ceremony. Held usually early in the morning, to catch the sun breaking out of the clouds.

Suffice to say, my mother had dragged me to a few when she was chief and my presence was mandatory. I'd zoned out during all of them.

Mom split her piece of toast, and offered one half to me. "Revel brought it. Said it would help with the scent of an empty house."

The bread was still warm. It tore like a cloud. "You coming?"

She shoved the rest in her mouth, shaking her head. "Have to go see your father. That's more important, anyway. You can tell Revel thank you for the welcome. If you want, you can even make it sound like we're happy to be back."

As if. Instead of scoffing, I said, "Are you going to see him again tomorrow? I want to come."

She nodded slightly, blinking as her eyes flicked to the door. Dad was the reason she kept coming back, and yet, we'd never discussed it. Never lingered too long on the topic of his vigil, as much as I wanted to.