Chapter 106: Be not afraid 1

BONNIE

I lowered her gently to sit against the bedframe, my hands trembling where they gripped her shoulders. I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed around everything Selene had said, everything she hadn’t said, the weight of it pressing down until I thought I might crack.

Fia touched her own face, her fingers coming away clean. No blood. Whatever had been there, whatever manifestation of divine interference had caused Selene to bleed through her vessel, it had vanished with the goddess.

"How much do you remember?" I finally managed. My voice sounded like I’d swallowed glass.

Fia closed her eyes, her brow furrowing. "I remember taking your hand. I remember trying to see your future," Her eyes opened, wide and frightened. "And then nothing. To be frank, all I remember is blackness. Like someone had blown out a candle inside my head."

I sat back on my heels and looked around as if that would explain much of what happened. The room looked exactly the same. The dresser had the same hairbrush. The window was filled with coming mid-noon light. The bed with its rumpled sheets. But everything had shifted. The air felt different, charged, like the moment before lightning struck.

"She was here." I said it to the room, to Fia, to myself. "Sele... I mean Lady Selene. She was here. In you."

Fia’s hand flew to her mouth. "Oh. That was what she meant. Possession requires consent. Preparation. Ritual. You can’t just—" She stopped, her eyes finding mine as she read the truth in my expression. "The goddess asked me about this before. She said there would come a moment when she would need to use my body for something. I suppose she took my permission then." Her brow furrowed slightly. "So what did she say?"

The casual way she mentioned having spoken to the goddess sent an unexpected pang of jealousy through me.

I didn’t understand why.

I’d told the goddess to her face that I no longer wanted her touch or her hand in my life. Not after I spent years begging for that very thing and when she’d even hinted at the possibility of me helping her, I’d rejected the idea without hesitation.

So why did a part of me care that Fia had spoken to her?

Why did the thought of the two of them having a conversation, one I hadn’t been a part of, bother me so much?

I had no right to feel jealous.

And yet I did.

"She said she was breaking the law." I stood up, my legs steadier now. Anger had returned, hot and welcome, burning away the shock. "She said she made a vow to never reach me. Because I’m not supposed to exist."

Fia stared at me. "What does that mean?"

"I wish I knew. She wasn’t exactly giving clarity. But she said I was created to give some... victims a chance." I moved to the window, looking out at the gardens below, at the ordinary world continuing in its ordinary way while my reality had just been torn apart and stitched back together wrong. "She also said something about my father. That my father was cursed and that she cursed him. And then she had to abandon me to see if I’d turn out like him. Is that not the most psychotic thing you have heard?"

I could hear myself getting worked up, hear the edge creeping into my voice, and some rational part of me knew I was being too much. The anger was real, but not all of it belonged to what had happened. Some of it was still that irrational, ugly jealousy I couldn’t seem to shake, and I hated that I couldn’t separate one from the other.

"Your father." Fia was struggling to her feet, using the bedpost for support. "You know who he is?"

"I asked." I laughed, but the sound came out ugly. "Three times. She tried to tell me, but something stopped her. Something that made you..." I faltered, catching myself. "I mean, her. It made her bleed."

Fia went still. "She bled?"

"Through you." I turned away from the window. "It looked like she was in pain too."

The memory tightened something in my chest.

"And then she was gone. Well, not before giving me some poetic speech about how I shouldn’t be afraid of my power. About how it’s everything I am."

We stood there in silence, the two of us, bound by whatever had just happened. The room felt smaller than it had before. The walls closer.

"She’s never done this." Fia’s voice was hushed, reverent in a way that made my skin crawl. "In all the records, all the histories. Lady Selene has never possessed a mortal. Never broken the divine compact. The laws that bind the gods are older than the gods themselves."

"She was afraid of being caught." I remembered that part clearly. The way her voice had dropped when she mentioned consequences. The others. "She said there would be consequences if the others found out."

"The others." Fia sank back onto the bed, her legs clearly unwilling to support her. "Perhaps a pantheon. Other species serve other gods. Hecate,Thoth, Osun among others. Bonnie, if she risked that much to speak to you, whatever she needed to tell you must be important. Vital. You must be important too. You have to see that."

"I told you all she did tell me. And if you are looking for it too, then we have our answer. She didn’t tell me anything." I heard my voice rising, felt the hysteria trying to claw its way up from my chest. "She spoke in riddles. About my father and his pride. About victims of circumstances. About how I wasn’t supposed to exist but I needed to exist. And then she tried to say his name and something stopped her. What am I supposed to do with that? All I want is to be able to sleep without someone trying to kill me?! And now I have more questions than answers."

Fia’s hands were shaking where they gripped the bedspread. "The vow she mentioned. If she swore to another god, or a higher power, that she would never reach you... the magic of that oath would be absolute. Unbreakable. Even for her."

"But she did." I crossed back to her, dropping to my knees so we were eye level. "She found a loophole. Using your body. And there was a time before this. Using my dreams. My head is still in the space of what she said about my father. I might not have known him. And everything I did get was secondhand. But my mother told me that he was good and I believe her."

Fia held my gaze for a moment.

"Bonnie, you need to see past your anger."

"I am trying."

"I know."

"It’s just..."