No, no, it was impossible. Flick was wrong. She had to be wrong. After all the years that–after everything they’d–after.. They couldn’t believe her. She had to be mistaken. Her and Vanessa both. They had to have gotten mixed up somehow, or they were being manipulated, or… or…

Sandoval Mason came to a stop. She had been running as far and as fast as she could, out of the library, across the grounds, and clear to the beach, where she continued running away from the school. She’d started as soon as Flick and Vanessa had finished explaining why they thought… why they thought… that. Now, she doubled over, panting hard as she planted both hands on her knees while catching her breath, her mind still reeling violently.

The sound of jogging footsteps came a moment later as Scout came to a stop beside her. Sands’ twin looked toward her sister, panting just as much as the other girl was. For a minute, the two of them did nothing besides stand there, breathing hard and looking at each other.

Sands was the first to find her voice. “They-they’re wrong,” she started. “They’re wrong, right?”

Scout’s mouth worked a few times at that before she slowly shook her head. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper. “I don’t know,” she admitted, visibly trembling. “What–what if–” She stopped then, clearly just as afraid to continue with that hypothetical as Sands was to consider it herself.

Sands shook her head as well, almost violently. “But she–she’s dead, Scout. She was killed by that–that monster, r-right? You-we-she can’t be alive. How would she-how would that… how?”

Scout was silent for a moment, biting her lip as she stared at her sister. Both of them knew why they were resisting this so much, why it felt easier to simply say that Flick was wrong than to even try to entertain the thought that she might be right. Because if they thought she was right, if they even allowed themselves to hope, and that hope was taken away… it would shatter them, possibly beyond any repair. To let that tiny trickle of hope in, only to have it turn out that Flick and Vanessa were both mistaken? There would be no coming back from that. It would destroy them in ways that losing their mother the first time had only almost done. It was unthinkable.

And yet, despite all of that, Scout finally straightened. Meeting her twin sister’s gaze, the girl spoke two words that Sands had been too terrified to vocalize, two words that would open the door to the possible tearing of their very souls… yet also opened a door to the mending of them.

“What if?”

There it was. Scout had said it, she had been the first to open the possibility, to open the two of them to the potential of either restoring hope or destroying it. One of them had to say it, one of them had to be brave enough to raise that chance. And once again, Scout had proven that although the loss of their mother may have made her retreat into a much quieter and less outgoing person than she had been before that tragic event, it had not made her weak.

“I–” Sands started before the lump in her throat choked her off. She shook her head, slumping down to sit in the slightly damp sand. It made her pants a little wet, but she neither noticed nor cared. Her attention was focused solely inward, as she stared off into the distance without actually seeing anything. Her mouth worked a little, then shut as a weak whimper escaped her.

For a moment, they sat there like that, unmoving until Sands finally spoke in a voice that trembled as much as a dry leaf tumbling on the wind. “If they’re w-wrong, and she’s… she’s really…” She couldn’t finish the hateful words, eyes closing while flooding with hot, wet tears.

A hand touched hers softly, and Sands moved her eyes over as Scout interlaced her fingers with her sister’s, squeezing firmly. Her gentle, quiet voice repeated the same words she had spoken before, the only words that truly mattered between the two of them in that particular moment.

“What if?”

“What if?” Sands echoed, voice choking a little before she opened her eyes to look at her sister. “What if they’re wrong? What if Mom’s de–” She flinched, giving a weak, pathetic shudder before forcing the words out. “What if we believe this, and it turns out that Mom’s really dead? I can’t–I can’t d-do that, Scout. I can’t do that. If we believe them, and she’s really gone forever, I…” Again, her voice choked itself off, as the stinging tears in her eyes blinded her once more.

Scout squeezed her hand a little more then, raising her voice just a little bit. “Then she’ll be gone,” she announced, reaching out to gently brush the tears from under her sister’s eyes. “And we’ll be okay. Because… you… and me.” They would be together, no matter what. Whether their mother was truly alive or had been killed on that awful day on the boat, they would survive either revelation. Because they were sisters, and they would always be there for each other. As painful as opening themselves up to the possibility, only to have it torn away would be, they would survive it. They would go on being there for one another, come what may.

“But,” Scout continued in that soft yet sure voice, “if she’s alive… if Mom… if Mom is there…”

Straightening her shoulders once more, Sands opened her eyes and met her gaze. No more. No more running from it. Scout was right, whatever happened, they would face it together. Joy or anguish, relief or dejection, hope or despair, they would survive and be there for one another.

“If Mom’s alive,” she started, lifting their clasped hands to finally return her sister’s tight squeeze, “we’ll find her. We’ll find her and we’ll bring her back here, where she belongs. No matter what.”

And they would also make sure that she knew the truth about what their father had done.

******

“I’m sorry, guys, I probably shouldn’t have just blurted that out,” Flick started a bit later once the twins had made their way to where she and Vanessa were waiting further up the beach. The two girls had been joined by Tristan, who had apparently been brought up to speed with what happened.

“No.” Sands shook her head. “You–I probably would have–I mean…” She paused, biting her lip. “How? How’d you even jump to that? I mean… what made you think to ask for the picture?”

There was a moment of hesitation from the blonde girl, who looked uncertain before slowly responding, “I’m not sure. It was mostly just a… gut feeling. I can’t explain it. I’m sorry, but, uh, intuition? I dunno…”

Nodding slowly to that strange explanation, Sands took a breath, trying to find the right words. “If you’re right, then… then it’s… amazing. If our m–” Choking a little, she forced herself to continue. “If our mom is alive, then… But if she’s not…”

Of all people, it was Tristan who stepped up then. His voice was a far cry from the cocky, fearless tone she’d grown to expect from the boy. “It sucks,” he started slowly, “trying to hold onto that kind of hope. When I was a kid, and the Meregan kept trying to send me back to my family, only for me to always pop right back there… I thought I’d never see them again. I thought I’d never know who my family was, or get back to them. I thought I was gonna be trapped with the Meregan forever, and that wasn’t that bad because I like them. They were nice to me.”

Taking a breath, the boy continued. “Then Flick and Shiori came.” He gestured to the blonde girl. “And I knew I wasn’t crazy or anything. Everything happened. You guys showed up, and we found out that Nicholas was my great-great… whatever. After you left, he kept me with him. He taught me pretty much everything I know. And he started trying to find a way to undo the banishment and send me home. He was trying to help me. And… I almost told him not to.”

That made Vanessa blink over at him, eyes widening. Tristan took his sister’s hand before continuing. “Not because I didn’t want to come back. But because… if I got my hopes up about being able to find my family again, and it didn’t happen… it felt like that would be worse than never hoping for it in the first place. It was like, if I just accepted that I’d never see them again, that they were gone, it might hurt a little less than trying to find them over and over again and always failing. Because when you get your hopes up about that kind of thing and they get taken away, it’s one of the worst feelings in the world.” Trailing off at the end, Tristan swallowed hard before meeting first Scout’s gaze, then Sands’. “But if I’d told him not to try, if I’d never opened the possibility of being hurt again, I wouldn’t have Nessa right now. I wouldn’t have any of this.”

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“But,” Sands hesitantly spoke up, her voice cracking a little, “what if it didn’t work? What if you did all that and still never found your family, and never found a way to bypass the banishment? What if you opened yourself up like that, and it didn’t work? What if you hoped for it and failed?”

“Then I’d still be trying,” Tristan answered simply, giving them a slightly crooked smile. “I’d be back out there looking for another way to make it work. Because when you don’t even try, it’s like…” He paused, considering. “It’s like there’s two rooms. One is failure, one is success. When you don’t try, you’re not closing the door on the failure room. You’re standing in the failure room and closing the door to the success room so you can never go into it. You’re living in failure.”

Sands absorbed that for a quiet moment before giving a slight nod. “Okay,” she started quietly. “You’re right. If our mom is alive, if she’s out there… then we’re gonna find her. Even if she’s trapped all the way out in Seosuck territory. So… I think–” She looked to her sister for a brief moment, just to make sure and got a nod in response. “I think we’re ready to talk about it now.”

So they did. Vanessa and Flick went through the explanation of everything that the genius girl had experienced during her not-dream. By the time they had finished, now that she was calm enough to actually listen properly, Sands had to admit that it was pretty compelling. Vanessa wasn’t the type to just make something like that up, and if it was true…

“But why is she in Seosten space?” she asked a bit plaintively. “Why would she be all the way out there, and why is she with Vanessa and Tristan’s dad? This doesn’t make any sense. Even if Mom did survive, why would she be there?”

“Fomorian,” Scout spoke softly, drawing everyone’s attention to her. The brown-haired girl ducked her head, staring at the sand. It was obvious that the last thing she wanted to do was relive that day. “The monster that attacked, it was a Fomorian. I remember… her saying… the name. Not at first, but… I remember.”

For a moment, everyone stared. Flick’s mouth opened, and Sands knew that the other girl was about to ask why Scout hadn’t brought that up before, the first time she’d remembered it. Instead, she stopped herself, biting her lip.

Sands knew why Scout hadn’t brought it up. The trauma of that day had driven her twin sister so far inward that she still barely spoke at all. It had been the day that their mother died, or had supposedly died, the day that had destroyed Scout so thoroughly. Thinking about how a Fomorian had been the one to kill their mother must’ve… yeah. And she had no reason to think that it was actually relevant to anything that was going on, rather than just another surviving Fomorian attacking a Heretic.

She shook that off, straightening. “Okay, but still. She was attacked by a Fomorian, not a Seosten. They might all be gigantic pieces of shit, with certain exceptions,” she added with a gesture toward Vanessa and Tristan, “but they’re still, like, super mortal enemies, right? Mom was killed by–I mean, maybe taken prisoner by the Fomorians, not the Seosten. If she’s alive she should be with them. So what gives?”

Flick straightened up suddenly at that, her eyes widening. “Wait a minute,” she exclaimed. “Wait just a minute, if it was a Fomorian who attacked…” Her eyes widened as she trailed off, gaze snapping toward Scout. “The woman on the boat, your mom’s friend that saved you when the Fomorian showed up, can you describe her?”

Scout’s mouth opened, but she hesitated and glanced around for a moment. That was too much talking, around more people than just Sands. She had been getting better all year about talking in front of people, but this was too much. So, she leaned over and whispered to her sister, passing the description of the woman from that fateful day through her.

“It’s her,” Vanessa confirmed, the awe in her voice audible as she stared at Sands and Scout. “That’s our mom. Our mom is the Alter who was friends with your mom.”

“That is some kind of giant freaking coincidence,” Flick murmured with a thoughtful frown. “Scout said they were friends, right? So maybe she was anchored to their mom like Tristan was anchored to me, and now to you. Maybe she was anchored to their mom, and the two of them were trying to find her family. And then when the Fomorian showed up, she flipped that anchor so that when she was yanked back to space, Sands’ and Scout’s mom was yanked with her.”

After she finished, Sands raised a hand. “But why isn’t she with her right now then, instead of with their dad looking for their mom? And how did Professor Katarin end up with them out of all of Seosten space? I mean, the place is huge, right? How did he just happen to wind up with the only other two Heretics out there, that we know of?”

“That last part I have no idea about,” Flick admitted. “But for the rest of it, maybe the anchor thing was severed somehow by yanking her back, and they got separated? I dunno, but she’s there. It makes sense. If the Fomorian was going to kill her, and their mom saw no other way of saving her except to pull on that anchor…” The girl shrugged helplessly then. “Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best explanation we’ve got right now. Unless you guys have a better one?”

Sands added her shrug to the collection from the other three. “You’re right,” she admitted, “it’s the best explanation. Still, it’s just…” She slumped back, putting her hands down in the sand while staring out over the water. “Mom. Mom might not be dead. She might be alive, and… and if she is…” The thought still hadn’t sunk in fully. Every time she thought she had a handle on it, the realization snuck up on her again. Her mom. Her mom might be–no, was alive. If Vanessa and Flick were right, if that dream was more than a dream, then her mom was still out there. After all the time and pain that she and Scout had both gone through to cope with the death of their mother, the sudden news that she wasn’t actually dead was… it was more than she could take. She should have felt happy. And she did. There was definitely happiness there, as well as excitement. But there were also an entire laundry basket worth of other feelings. She felt scared, elated, angry, joyful, even sick. Mostly that last one. Sands actually felt physically sick deep in her stomach, and she couldn’t understand why. She should be jumping up and down, screaming with joy until her voice gave out. Instead, it felt like any attempt to move like that would result in her stomach heaving over completely and making her lose her lunch right there in the sand.

What was wrong with her?

Feeling a hand on her arm, Sands glanced up to find Flick meeting her gaze. “It’s okay to feel weird about it,” she assured the other girl. “And it’s okay to not know how you feel about it. But whatever’s going on, we’ll get her back. All this means is that you guys,” she nodded from the first set of twins to the other, “are on the same page. You all want to get your families back.”

Vanessa tentatively spoke up then. “And we know that our dad’s okay. He’s not a prisoner or anything. He even remembers Mom. They’re out there causing trouble for the Seosten.” She looked to Sands and Scout. “It sounded like your mom and our dad were tearing them apart.”

There was that feeling like she needed to puke again. Sands straightened, taking a breath as a tiny smile played at her face. “I…” Glancing to Scout briefly, she felt the smile come on a little stronger. “Good,” she replied firmly, as a strange feeling that she belatedly recognized as pride swelled up in her. Regardless of everything else she felt about this whole impossible and confusing situation, she could be proud of that much. “I hope they make those wannabe angel cocksuckers regret the day they decided that coming to Earth to fuck with us was a good idea.

“Except your mom,” she added then, looking at the other twins. “She’s pretty…” Trailing off, she sank back once more on her hands with the realization. “Wow. A Seosten saved our mom.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Flick agreed while shaking her head. “Especially after everything we’ve been dealing with. I mean,” she added belatedly with a look to Tristan and Vanessa. “We knew your mom was good and all, but it’s… somehow it’s different when you think about it like this.”

“It’s more real,” Tristan confirmed flatly. “Trust me, I get it. We spent a long time fighting Seosten and their armies when I was with Nicholas. It’s weird thinking that one of them is my mother, and that she’s… different from the rest of them.”

“Is she?” Flick asked with a little frown before quickly correcting herself. “I don’t mean is she good. I mean is being good that different from the rest of them? We haven’t exactly met a lot of them, and the ones we’ve heard anything about are here on these missions. Come on, my entire point this year, my mom’s entire point through her rebellion was that Alters aren’t evil just because they’re not human. Her entire point was that being evil is a choice, that there are good Alters and bad ones just like there’s good humans and bad ones. So that has to extend to Seosten. We don’t know how many object to what they’re doing, or would if they knew more. An entire race can’t be evil. Tristan and Vanessa’s mom proves that.”

The five of them sat there, thinking about that for a few long moments. Finally, Sands spoke up. “I don’t know how many good Seosten or bad ones there are. But I do know one thing.

“The ones that try to stop us from getting to our parents are gonna have a bad fucking day.”