Ch. 163 Her Own Again

Chapter 163: Her Own Again

Eleanor kept her hand on the control.

Nobody asked her to move it.

Aurelia stood beside us, watching the light beneath the cloth.

“It recognizes me,” she said.

Evelyn looked toward the channel.

“Can you receive it?”

“Some.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know yet.”

My wife nodded.

Then moved her hand closer to mine.

We had practiced with a bowl.

The bowl had been considerably less frightening.

The first thread crossed the space between the couch and Aurelia.

It moved slowly.

Not because it lacked strength.

Because she was letting it come slowly.

When it touched her wrist, she closed her eyes.

I waited for pain.

Instead, her face changed with surprise.

“Oh.”

“What?” I asked.

She opened her eyes.

“I remember the orchard.”

I thought of the story she had told us at the hut.

“My son’s basket,” she said. “The handle had been mended with red cord.”

The thread brightened.

Then settled into her hand.

More followed.

A little at a time.

Evelyn held the edge of the passage open.

I steadied it when the flow pressed wider than she could comfortably hold.

Aurelia stood between us without leaning.

Behind the cloth, something moved on the couch.

I heard fabric slide over stone.

Then Caroline said my name.

My hands tightened.

Evelyn’s working touched mine.

I looked at her.

She did not tell me the voice was false.

We both knew.

She simply stayed where I could see her.

“It’s using what remains,” Aurelia said.

Her voice had become clearer.

“What remains where?”

“In the house.”

Another thread reached her.

She drew a breath.

“The part of the working that makes the likeness. It is trying to keep us attending to it.”

Eleanor looked up from the plate.

“Then can I quiet it?”

Aurelia studied the second control.

“Yes. But only to the first mark.”

Eleanor moved it.

The voice stopped halfway through a word.

I nearly followed the unfinished sound.

Then I felt my own feet against the floor.

Stone.

Cold.

Real.

I stayed.

The cloth began to sag.

Melody adjusted the pole without entering the room.

“Tell me if that needs moving.”

“It’s fine,” Evelyn said.

The gold beneath it thickened.

I guided a small spill toward the nearest receiving crystal.

It accepted the power with a pale glow.

Aurelia watched.

“Only what misses the return.”

“I know.”

“Don’t try to take the rest.”

I looked at her.

“I’m not.”

She nodded.

I was grateful she checked.

There had been a time when I might have tried simply because I could feel it struggling.

Eleanor shifted the gripping tool on the broken stem.

“Ready for this one?”

Aurelia was quiet.

The channel trembled.

She reached toward it, then withdrew her fingers.

“Not yet.”

We waited.

I could hear Tessa moving in the passage behind us.

A boot against grit.

The wind beyond the broken roof.

Then Aurelia said, “There is something caught.”

Evelyn leaned closer.

“Where?”

“Under the couch.”

Eleanor glanced toward the cloth.

“Of course it is.”

We could not see beneath it from the doorway.

That had been the reason for the mirror.

Eleanor set it low and angled the lamp.

I held the light steady.

She examined the reflection.

Then moved it again.

“There’s a fastening across the channel.”

“Metal?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Added?”

“It cuts through the older carving.”

Aurelia’s expression tightened.

“That keeps the return from opening fully.”

Eleanor looked at the tool on the broken stem.

“Then someone may have broken the handle trying to turn against it.”

Nobody spoke for a moment.

We still did not know who had tried.

We had found what had stopped them.

“Can you reach it?” Eliza asked.

Eleanor shook her head.

“Not from here.”

I looked toward the couch.

“I can lift—”

“No,” she said at once.

I stopped.

“That stone is part of the working. We know nothing about what shifting it will do.”

She studied the mirror again.

Then looked at the long tool beside her knee.

“I can reach the fastening. But I’ll need both hands, and I won’t be watching anything else.”

Eliza moved closer.

“Then we watch you.”

Eleanor passed the tool beneath the cloth.

The gold in the channel drew tight.

Aurelia flinched.

Evelyn reached toward her.

“Wait,” our teacher said.

Eleanor stopped.

The pressure eased.

“Again,” Aurelia whispered. “More slowly.”

Eleanor moved.

I held our working steady while my wife followed the narrow line nearest the fastening.

“There,” Evelyn said.

Aurelia nodded.

“I have it.”

The tool scraped.

A small piece of metal struck the floor.

The room filled with light.

I had expected it.

That did not mean I was ready for how much.

Our shield bowed.

Evelyn gave ground deliberately, widening the passage toward Aurelia while I kept the spilling edges away from the doorway.

The first crystal brightened sharply.

I turned the excess toward the second.

Eliza’s hand closed on my shoulder.

I heard her speaking.

Did not catch the words.

Then Evelyn said my name.

I looked at her.

“Less,” she said.

I was trying to hold too much of it still.

I loosened my grip.

The light began to move.

Aurelia stepped forward.

Not toward the couch.

Into the returning power.

Gold wrapped around her hands and rose along her arms.

Her gown stirred.

The air smelled of roses warmed by sunlight.

For a moment, I could see the garden through her.

The fountain.

The chair.

A child running past a doorway.

Then Greykeep.

Broken stone.

Fire.

I looked away.

Those memories were not mine to enter.

Aurelia cried out.

The sound went through me.

I turned back at once.

She stood with one hand against her chest.

Evelyn kept the passage open.

“Stop?” my wife asked.

Aurelia shook her head.

Then spoke through a trembling breath.

“Slow it.”

Eleanor eased the control back.

The gold thinned.

We waited.

Aurelia’s eyes filled.

I wanted to hold her.

My hands were occupied.

For the first time in many months, that felt unbearable.

Melody came forward.

She did not touch the working.

She took Aurelia’s free hand.

“I’m here.”

Our teacher gripped her fingers.

For a while, nobody asked anything of her.

The room continued giving back what it had taken.

Aurelia breathed.

Once.

Again.

Then looked at Eleanor.

“A little more.”

The figure behind the cloth stood.

I saw its shadow rise.

Tall at first.

Then smaller.

A child’s shape.

Aurelia’s gaze moved toward it.

Melody held her hand.

The shadow reached out.

No voice came.

The quiet control held.

For several heartbeats, our teacher watched.

Then she turned her face away.

I did not know what that cost her.

I knew enough not to call it easy.

At last, the light beneath the couch began to fade.

The receiving crystals held steady.

My arms hurt.

Evelyn’s hair had slipped from its pins.

She pushed it away with her shoulder and kept working.

Aurelia looked toward the plate.

“Now.”

Eleanor took the gripping tool.

The broken stem turned.

This time, it moved freely.

The third channel opened.

A narrow golden line rose from the floor and drew taut between Aurelia and the last set of pins.

There it was.

After every letter.

Every road.

Every room in which we had watched someone explain why she must remain confined.

A single line.

I stared at it.

Aurelia reached out.

Her fingers closed around the light.

It did not burn her.

It shook.

She looked toward the hidden couch.

Then at us.

“I’m ready.”

Evelyn nodded.

So did I.

Aurelia drew her hand back.

The line followed.

For a moment, it seemed to come out of her as much as the wall.

Her breath caught.

The pins rang softly against the stone.

Then the final one went dark.

The gold gathered in her palm.

She closed her hand.

And the room became still.

I kept holding.

So did Evelyn.

Neither of us trusted stillness immediately.

Aurelia stood before us.

No light reached from her to the wall.

No answering pull moved through the floor.

Behind the cloth, the shadow had vanished.

Our teacher opened her hand.

Empty.

She looked at it for a long time.

Then she laughed.

One small, astonished sound.

“It’s finished.”

Evelyn let out a breath that broke halfway through.

I released the last edge of our working.

My knees weakened.

Eliza steadied me before I could discover how hard the floor was.

Aurelia turned toward us.

“Nothing,” she said.

Her voice trembled.

“There’s nothing holding me.”

I reached for her.

This time, my hands were free.

We held one another in the doorway of that dreadful little room.

Evelyn on one side.

Me on the other.

Melody still close enough that Aurelia caught her sleeve and drew her in too.

Eleanor sat back on her heels.

She wiped her face with the back of one wrist.

Then looked at the tool.

“That,” she said, “was a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work.”

Aurelia laughed again.

Then began to cry.

We stayed where we were.

We did not leave the house active.

After Aurelia had rested, she examined the channels with Evelyn.

The return was empty.

The dream working had gone quiet.

Eleanor removed the added fastening and disconnected the wire at the door.

The three controls were left in their resting positions.

Only then did Melody lower the cloth.

The couch was bare.

Stone.

A worn hollow where a pillow might once have rested.

Nothing waited upon it.

I looked until I believed my eyes.

Tessa met us in the gallery.

She took one look at our faces.

“Well?”

Aurelia stepped into the daylight.

“Yes,” she said.

Tessa nodded.

Then glanced at the sky.

“Good. Let’s get you off my mountain.”

I laughed.

It hurt my throat.

I had not realized how close I was to crying too.

We stopped beyond the broken boundary.

Aurelia stood with her face turned toward the wind.

Snow moved from the roofless house in little streams.

For a moment, gold gathered around her.

My hand moved toward Evelyn’s.

Then Aurelia vanished.

I stared at the empty place.

“Aurelia?”

Warmth touched my shoulder.

She stood behind us.

Her eyes were wide.

“I wanted to know whether I could.”

No invitation.

No hand held out for us to reach.

She had gone.

She had returned.

Entirely because she wished to.

The descent was slow.

Everyone was tired.

Eleanor allowed one of the guards to carry her tools without making a single objection.

That told me more than any complaint could have.

At the hut, Aurelia sat beside the hearth while we made food.

She kept looking toward the door.

Not fearfully.

As though the fact that she could go through it had become interesting.

Evelyn sat beside her.

“Will you rest?”

“Yes.”

“Here?”

Aurelia looked around the crowded hut.

The wet boots.

The repaired hinge.

The pot Melody was defending from criticism.

“Yes,” she said. “Here.”

That night, she asked whether we wished to tell Helena and Garrick.

I looked up.

“Can you reach Greykeep?”

“I believe so.”

“Without us?”

She smiled.

“Yes, Uriah.”

I sat very still.

Then nodded.

“Tell them we’re safe.”

“And that we’ll be home as soon as the road allows,” Evelyn added.

Aurelia stood.

Her hand rested briefly on each of our shoulders.

“I won’t be long.”

She returned before we finished washing the bowls.

Helena had cried.

Garrick had asked whether everyone had eaten.

Carol had been asleep.

Her brother had not.

“He pulled my hair,” Aurelia said.

“That sounds right.”

“And then he laughed.”

She sat beside the fire.

Evelyn leaned against me.

For a while, none of us spoke.

There would be other things.

Questions for Thesra.

Roads to repair.

A house on the mountain that should never be allowed to do this again.

Tonight, Aurelia had gone home.

And come back to tell us about it.