Chapter 24

OleanderLovellwasa strange witch. Well, all witches were strange—all people were strange, for that matter. But Andy definitely stood apart from the few other Lovells I"d had the misfortune to know.

They had all taken one look at me, felt my strong elemental power, and immediately set about trying to find a way to use me. But here was Andy, calling upon no power but her own as she braced herself and started unweaving the spells to free yet another trapped being. Her wavy green hair lifted in a breeze the rest of us couldn"t feel, and I could sense the sweat trickling down her face and across the curves and valleys of her body. Her magic shivered through her, solid and fertile as the earth it came from, the energy of life and death, creation, and the seasons. I felt her struggle and I nearly stepped in to help, but one thing rang loud and clear in this Lovell"s aura—she was fiercely independent. It was a source of pride for her. It was the way she had survived being an outcast. So I wouldn"t take that from her, not unless I was certain she was going to fail.

Funny thought, that. I was constantly bombarded with the feelings of the other beings around me—even the whispers of godspark in the plants and trees, if I wasn"t careful to close it down. Over the course of my long life, I had grown…immune to it, I suppose. I still heard and felt it all, but I tended to dissociate, to float above it all, detached. Or, the opposite would occur and I"d catch some echo of thought or feeling that was so beautiful, so fascinating, that I would lose myself in it and forget the outside world existed. Detached or distracted. Always out of step with the other sentient beings around me. Usually that meant their emotions didn"t impact me. That their feelings weren"t as important to me, somehow. But this witch…for reasons I had yet to understand, I cared about her wellbeing. And so, if she was about to die from one of her relatives" boobytrap spells while she was trying to thwart the bestiary, I would step in.

I knew the others felt the same way. Fascinating, the way this witch so easily inspired loyalty in creatures who had so little left to give.

She managed to struggle free of the magical trap and finish dismantling the bindings on the creature she sought to free. We all waited with wary anticipation as the sky darkened to a steely gray. I felt the magic of the boogeyman when its bonds were broken, but then it simply…faded.

I watched the sky changing colors as the others talked about the anticlimactic lack of a boogeyman. Strange…those looked like rain clouds, but I sensed no water in them. I sent out my awareness, seeking for the source of the beautiful gray-blue skies. It wasn"t sunshine and fluffy marshmallow clouds, but I had always found the gray storm clouds just as pretty. I trailed after the others as they headed inside.

"Someone check on me in about fifteen minutes or so and make sure I"m not dead," Andy called out as she headed for the stairs.

Why would she be dead in fifteen minutes? I mentally shook myself and tried to orient to what was going on around me. I"d gotten lost again, in thoughts of storm clouds and silvery rain. Oh, right. Her curse. The human disease was inconvenient, and it made it difficult for her to weather the cost of working magic when the power decided to balance by taking from her physical body. But as with everything, Andy seemed to navigate this with the ease born of practice and years of stubborn tenacity. I smiled faintly. I liked this witch.

The others began to drift off, each seeking their own spaces. I wanted to join them, wanted to be part of their lives in a way that was completely foreign to me. Instead, I went to the plush window seat that was situated along the curve of a turret wall. If it did rain, the water would sluice over those pretty stained-glass panes in mesmerizing waves.

I settled in and made myself comfortable. A soft, crocheted blanket had been left there, and I pulled it over my body as I curled up and watched the rain that had begun to fall. Strange, I thought in a detached way, that I still couldn"t sense the water. But I was right about the show it put on as it trickled over the bright colors of the windowpanes.

I woke feeling confused. I hadn"t intended to nap, but the rain on the window had been so soothing. The storm was over now, leaving behind a dull gray afternoon. I stretched slowly, then emerged from my warm cocoon to go in search of the others. I was hungry, and they generally all like to eat together. I found I enjoyed that. I still felt separate from them. But the way they seemed to just accept my presence whenever I joined them for mundane things like food or entertainment was…warm. It made me feel more grounded than I had in a long time.

Sometimes, I felt like I would come untethered from my physical form and just…drift away, lost in feelings or in the water in the air around me. Maybe I would just return to the source, become water myself one day. But I feared that less since Andy had freed me from the bestiary and given me a place within her growing family.

That reminded me, I should check in on Aahil. The alluring jinn was so lost. But he was also so close to breaking free of the horrors that haunted him. I wanted to help. I wanted to see him in all his beauty, whole and balanced. And he and Andy would fit so well together, I wanted to see that, see them overcome their challenges.

I hadn"t been so vested in people in a very long time.

I drifted through the house, sending out my emotional awareness to locate the others. I stumbled as I made my way across the marble entryway and toward the kitchens. Such darkness and pain. The others were always struggling with their emotions, all of them trying to heal from difficult things, trying to navigate a world where they didn"t quite fit. But there were usually at least some of the lighter emotions woven into their energy alongside the heavy ones.

Right now, every aura in the mansion screamed in anguish.

I hurried through the house, trying to find them, trying to figure out what had them so scared, so lost in pain, loathing, and despair. But…I couldn"t find them. I returned to the entryway, trying to keep a tight rein on my own emotions so I didn"t bombard them with my worry and growing fear. I tended to overwhelm people with my magic, even when I wasn"t trying to. That was part of why there was always distance between me and others.

Where was everyone? I could feel them. They were here, scared and in pain, but I couldn"t see them. I couldn"t even seem to really home in on where they should be. I rushed down hallway after hallway, throwing open doors and searching mostly unused rooms full of expensive antique furniture as I used my wretched compulsion-laced voice to call for them. I was mindful of Andy"s warning that she might have missed some boobytraps or dangerous artifacts in her cleaning attempts. I didn"t want to trigger one of the nasty Lovell creations. But what if the others had? What if that was why they were all in such pain?

My search grew more desperate as my own emotions rose up to swamp me. Where was everyone? The Lovell mansion was huge, but I still should have been able to locate the others using my senses and all the emotions they were putting out.

I spun in a circle, running a hand through my hair and giving it a yank, as my eyes searched the empty hall on either side of me. How long had I been searching? Up stairs, down hallways, through empty rooms. Up more stairs endlessly until I reached an attic space filled with disgusting Lovell artifacts and trunks of old clothes. Back down the stairs, through the same hallways again, down more stairs to the basement that was saturated with the lingering despair caused by generations of dark experiments. Back to the main floor. Through the kitchens. I had supernatural endurance, but my legs were burning, my lungs aching from drawing in breath.

The emotions I felt from the others had started to fade the longer I searched, until finally they just…stopped.

I stretched out my awareness, searching for them, reaching into the echoing void. I felt…nothing. No Andy. No angry, wounded jinn, or defensive fae. No kindly, but damaged gargoyle. No tired, heartsick angel. I was…alone.

I strained harder, sending my senses out wider. Maybe they had left the house. But I felt nothing. No neighbors. No pets. No grass, or trees, or little beetles crawling on the earth.

I shook my head, tugged at my hair, sent my awareness, further. If I really pushed myself, I could feel into the other realms. Nothing detailed, just a fleeting sense of those other lives on the periphery of my awareness.

But this time, I found nothing.

The house, the town, the entire world, and the worlds beyond were…empty. Silent.

I sank to my knees on the cold marble floor. Alone. I was used to feeling alone. I had always been cut off from others because of my abilities, I had to struggle every day not to dissociate completely from reality. But this…this was a new and horrific version of aloneness. It was an endless void stretching on into eternity, with only myself and my weak ties to reality at its center.

My pulse echoed in my head, insanely loud in the absence of all the other sensory feedback I was accustomed to. My skin itched, as if it crawled with a thousand little insects, and I realized I had grown accustomed to the constant sensation of other auras against my own. I gripped my hair in both hands and tugged, trying to rip myself in half right down the middle so I could crawl out of this nightmare.

Sensory deprivation. I knew what was happening, but I couldn"t stop how it felt. My pulse thundered. My breath rushed loudly in and out. Alone, alone, alone. There was no one here to help me. There never had been. I had always been alone. I clawed at the floor, my fingernails breaking as I tried to bury myself, to anchor myself. I was starting to drift away. I couldn"t hear the emotions, feel the life. But the water was still there. It was part of me, and I was part of it. Maybe it was time for me to go back to the source? No. I couldn"t go back there. That would be the end. But…the silence. The deprivation sent both my physical and emotional body into spasms as I lay on the hard marble floor…I couldn"t stay here. I couldn"t take this any longer.

"Help!" I screamed into the silence beyond the thunder of my own breathing and heartbeat. "Anyone. Someone!"

Something shining and silver fell to the ground, and it took me a moment to realize it was my own hair. I"d torn clumps out in my madness. I didn"t care. My body was starting to feel distant. The water called to me. Return. Return. Return….