34. The Child of Light II

thirty-four

The Child of Light II

*FLORA*

I keep my eyes tightly closed. Celeste helps me even out my breath, so that Elden thinks we are asleep. He has been with me for hours already, and I know he has work to do. I don’t want to be too selfish. Just a little bit. I was his first priority tonight, but now he needs to go and look after the pack. No matter what he says, no matter if he says he wants to quit, I know he doesn’t. One part, a big part of his heart and soul, belongs to me, the other part belongs to the pack.

It's who he is, and it’s part of what I love so much about him.

I almost believe my plan backfires when, finally, a nurse enters the room and Elden is forced to leave my side. He gently kisses my forehead. “Sleep a bit, my love,” he whispers. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

My chest feels warm at his touch, but the moment he leaves, an icy cold hand wraps around my heart.

Grandma, what am I going to do without you? You were all I had left. It’s true, I have Elden, but my granny was my mom, my friend and my protector in one person. I only had her, my only family.

It’s like there is a hole in me now.

I hear the nurse leaving, and someone else enters the room. The scent is familiar, reminding me a bit of Grandma. New tears spring into my eyes while Geneva gently strokes my head. She doesn’t say anything, just like me, she pretends I am sleeping.

“Oh, Hazel,” Geneva mutters. “She was such a wonderful soul. She will illuminate the night sky for sure. Some souls just shine so brightly, and she is one of those.”

Her words make me feel sad yet also comfort me slightly. Geneva talks some more about Grandma, and with her calm voice and presence surrounding me, I find myself drifting off to sleep. Something nudges me softly, stirring me awake again, and I look directly into Celeste’s eyes. I am… I am in the dream world again. Without thinking any further, I wrap my arms around Celeste, burying my head in her fur and bursting into tears. I can cry here as much as I want without anyone judging me. When I am back in reality, I will need to be strong for the pack. The only person I can break down in front is Elden.

But here, I can cry as much as I want.

Grandma is never coming back. She is gone forever. Only yesterday, she baked cookies for me and showed me how to make a fancy holiday dish. Only yesterday, we laughed and gossiped, and I told her all about my day and about Elden. Grandma always listened to me. She never made me feel like I was talking too much or that I was weird. When everyone laughed at me, when I was a child, she always told me that nothing about me was weird. That I am perfect the way I am. She never wanted me to change, yet supported any change I wanted to make myself. She accepted my mate with open arms, and she had my back whenever I stood up to someone. She taught me so much and, above all, she taught me she loved me unconditionally.

Now, she will never hug me again. I will never come home to the smell of her perfect apple pie. I will never hear her voice again and her soft laughter. Her scent will become less recognizable every day until one day it’ll be gone forever.

I know I have Elden, but it’s not the same. Grandma just left a void, she left her footprint on my soul, and it can’t be exchanged with anything else.

Both Celeste and I are so caught in our grief that we don’t notice another presence pushing closer, until I feel two arms wrapping the both of us into an embrace. Ersa’s skin is cooler than mine, but instead of freezing me her hug feels comforting.

“My dear child,” she whispers. “I am so sorry.”

“Now I am alone,” I mutter, my voice hoarse. I am sobbing, but have run out of all the tears I had. It’s just hiccups leaving my lips.

Ersa keeps rocking me in her arms, and it’s oddly comforting. “You are not alone, my dear.”

“I know I have Elden,” I mutter. “And our friends, but it… it’s not the same. I don’t want to be ungrateful, but Grandma was Grandma, and Elden is Elden. And I love them both, differently. Now one of them is gone, and there is nothing to fill the hole she left.”

“I know,” she says. “But I promise I will never leave you. I know I wasn’t able to be there for you the way I wanted to, I was forced to do this by the law of nature, but-” Her voice trails off. “My very own Child of Light,” she mutters.

Child of Light.

Wait a moment, Grandma said that too. “What does that mean?” I ask. “What is a Child of Light?”

“You are the Child of Light,” she says. “The only one.”

I pull back from her, looking into her eyes. What is she talking about? What was Grandma talking about? Something rings a bell but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Ersa has always felt so familiar to me. She has visited me in my dreams ever since I can remember. She always listened to my problems, and was always so happy to see me. It became natural to me to see her like that, and I stopped questioning it. And Grandma, Grandma wasn’t surprised either.

“They say you are the Goddess Selene’s daughter,” I say.

“I am,” she affirms.

“You are the Goddess of dew,” I add.

“Do you know how dew is made?”

“Of course,” I say. “It’s a process of nature. Rivers, lakes, rain, everything that produces water. Plants take that water up. At night, the air gets colder which leads to condensation.”

“Correct.” She smiles. “And plants need light,” she adds. “I am Selene and Zeus’ daughter, and while I am not as powerful as they are, I inherited some of their powers naturally, not much, but some. I have some moonlight in me, which helps me in nurturing the plants and flowers of this world. My mother sometimes calls me her light.”

I stare at her. “Light,” I mutter. She and Grandma called me the Child of Light. I stand up abruptly, staring at her. Her eyes have a depth to them that I have always felt intrigued by, but now that I look into them, I notice a tiny spot of brown swirling in them, just like I have. Her eyes are just like mine. “Mom?” I ask, too stunned to grasp what I am even saying or thinking.

Grandma said that my mom loved me, that she never wanted to leave me, and Elden is convinced there is a relationship between Ersa and me. Maybe I am silly and na?ve for hoping to have found my mother, just to be crushed by reality again. I am stupid, I know, but I want to cling to this thread of hope until Ersa herself rips it away.

“Yes,” she says quietly.

She doesn’t rip the thread away!

“No way!” I blurt out.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t be with you the way I wanted to be,” she says sadly. “But my body can’t stay in the human realm for too long, and I was bound by rules.”

“Rules?” I ask, too stunned to even think coherently. I have so many questions! Where do I even start? How can I make sense of this?

Ersa takes the brooch from my hands and attaches it to my clothes, right in the middle of my chest. “This was supposed to happen during your birthday,” she says. “But you found out the truth yourself, which means I haven’t broken any rules. It’s never well-received when a deity falls in love with a mortal being, but my mother believes in love and helped me have the child I was pregnant with, without passing on. My body has always been weak, but with her help I was able to give birth to you, before I lost my human form.”

My mouth drops open at the insane revelation. “The Goddess is my grandmother?” I ask, shocked.

“Yes. She is looking forward to meeting you. We have all been waiting to meet you once you turn eighteen.”

“And Zeus?”

“That’s more complicated,” she says. “It’s why I chose a mortal man for me. They love differently.”

She clenches her hand around my brooch. “The rules are important,” she says. “We can never share our truths with the mortals. You are half deity, so the rules apply to you too, though not as strictly. We know more than others, and knowledge can be very dangerous. We don’t directly intervene in the fate of the mortals. Most of your powers won’t work when you use them on your family, for that reason. The balance must always be kept.”

“I will not keep secrets from my mate,” I state.

“I know,” she says. “You decide yourself what you can and will share with him.”

I reach out my hand to catch some of the beings of light. “And they?”

“They are a gift from me,” she says. “I sent them to you to be with you and guide you. They will always stay with you.”

As Ersa removes her hand, the brooch dissolves and then moves into my body, filling my heart and soul with a new sense of belonging and a whole new truth. It’s like I can feel so much clearly now, as if my mind has been opened. It feels as if a window was closed, and suddenly it’s opened, all the senses and scents flooding in. Grandma was not silly when she went back to retrieve this item. She knew I needed to have it.

“You are still young,” my mother says. “But with this, you are not a child anymore. You are a deity and a shifter. You have a responsibility and a calling. You and your mate will reign strongly one day, strong and unbreakable, like iron.”

“Celeste’s form gives away who we are,” I whisper.

“Exactly. Your grandmother, Selene, blessed her when you were born. Her fur shimmers under the moon like dew drops in the moonlight. Be careful who you reveal yourself to.”

“It means I need to lie constantly,” I mutter.

“No, you just need to find your own truth,” she says. “And make sure those around you understand the boundaries you set. You can share your knowledge if you need to, but you cannot tell anyone where you know it from. And not everyone will want to do good. There are evil people out there who want to hurt you for your power. The secret is supposed to protect you, not punish you.”

“Well, good thing I am good at manipulating people,” I say. Finally, my annoying, doe-eyed, childish look will come to my advantage. They will all just believe I am a cute and a silly klutz if I tell them one of my truths, as Ersa called it. Actually, if I put it like that it could be fun, just like messing with the biggest asshole on the planet; Elden’s dad. I shift my gaze back to Ersa. “I don’t know what to say,” I admit silently.

“Your powers have steadily grown with you. I watched you treat the plants around you like I always did. I watched how you were bonding with the beings of light, and now you even know how to use your silver powers – another gift from your grandmother.”

“The Moon Goddess gifted me these powers?”

Ersa nods. “You see, you don’t need to worry.”

“That’s not what I am worried about,” I admit. “It’s- I never thought my mother was still alive. Grandma was vague when she talked about her, but I thought it was because she didn’t want to tell me how she died. And now, I suddenly know she has been here all along. I have been talking to her and meeting her.”

Ersa is quiet for a while. “I don’t know how humans feel, I don’t always understand it,” she finally admits. “And sometimes I have difficulties grasping their emotions, but I know that I have always loved you, and I will always love you.”

“And my father?” I ask.

Disappointment flashes over Ersa’s face, giving me more of an answer than her words do. “Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine him leaving. But he did. And since I lost my human form and a lot of my powers, I wasn’t able to reach out to him anymore.” She pauses. “Maybe I could have found a way, but I’d rather use my remaining strength to meet you. Hazel, however, she was everything.”

“She really was,” I say quietly, feeling deep gratitude for the way Grandma was there for me, and looked out for me with her never-ending kindness. She did everything for me, and I will make sure she won’t regret it. Even if she can’t see me anymore, I want her to be proud of me.