Page 27 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

Leehy shook her head. "Maybe in a month or two. I'm still getting used to all this."

"I know." Sullha took her hand. "You're doing great. Much better than I thought you would."

"I'm trying." Her mother squeezed her hand. "For years, I've been waiting for death to come and free me from the ugliness of my existence. I'd given up and never expected to truly live again. You gave me a chance at a new life, and the least I can do is not squander it."

"I'm proud of you." Sullha leaned in and kissed her mother's cheek, something she hadn't done in so many years that it felt like a different lifetime.

Leehy brought her hand to her face. "Thank you," she said, so quietly it was barely audible. "I don't deserve you."

"You deserve a life, and I'm glad you are not hiding from it." Sullha got to her feet. "I need to get ready, or the van will leave without me."

Her mother nodded. "Wear the green dress."

"I think I'm going to wear the blue."

Leehy rolled her eyes. "You've always been like this. You'd ask for my opinion, then do the exact opposite."

"You said blue, then green, so I can't do the opposite when you suggest both."

Sullha hung the green dress back in the closet, which still had more space than things to put in it, and stood there for a moment with her hand on the door.

The transformation her mother was undergoing was incredible. In the enclosure, she had been like the walking dead. Eyes on the ground, feet shuffling, barely speaking even when spoken to.

She didn't remember ever asking her mother for advice on anything, nor did she remember receiving any or doing the opposite.

Was Leehy remembering a past that hadn't happened? Or had Sullha forgotten?

She'd stopped letting her mother's indifference hurt her after Tomek's birth, and now her mother had opinions about dress colors and false memories of giving advice, and she didn't know what to do with it.

Sullha put on the new pale blue sleeveless dress, with a skirt that swayed when she moved. She'd picked it out herself at a place called a mall. Margaret had taken her shopping, and they had eaten at a place called the food court, which was indoors. She had walked out with the dress in a bag with handles and had cried in the car because she'd never bought anything in a store before. Margaret had told her that it was okay. She had cried the first time she had gone shopping after spending many years in something called a cult. Then Margaret had explained what a cult was, and it reminded Sullha of the Sacred Mothers. From everything Margaret had told her, the Sacred Mothers fit the definition.

Leehy came up behind her and gathered her hair off her neck. "You should try wearing it like this." She twisted her hair up.

"I don't like how it feels." Sullha removed her mother's hands. "I like it loose and free."

Something clattered onto the living-room floor.

"Nana!" Tomek shouted. "It wasn't me!"

"It's never you," Leehy called back. "Put your shoes on. We are going to the playground."

Tomek was in the kitchen with one shoe on, holding the other, and the fruit bowl was upside down on the floor, with most of the fruit still inside.

"I was climbing to get an apple."

"Naturally. Just pick it all up. We will wash the fruit again when we come back."

After he finished with the bowl, he sat on the floor and put the other shoe on. Leehy crouched in front of him and did the Velcro straps, and Tomek let her, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.

Sullha shook her head at how quickly those two had slipped into the roles of grandma and grandson, with absolutely no foundation to justify it.

Her mother had never held Tomek.

Not once, not as a baby, not even when Sullha had come out of the birthing room at fourteen, stood in the dormitory doorway with him in her arms, and waited for someone to say something. Leehy had looked at him for a moment, then turned away. Sullha had made her peace with it by deciding her mother was too hollowed out to offer anything.

She'd stopped expecting anything from her, or at least that was what she'd been telling herself.

"We're going to the playground," Tomek said. "Kotev and Vashie will be there." He stood up and inspected his new shoes with a smile on his little face. "They can hang upside down, and so can I. Nana said I can do that if I'm holding on with my hands, not just my knees."