“Of all things broken, the mind is the most tenuous. A bone will mend, a root will grow…but the mind will keep on cracking like ice beneath one’s feet.”
—Prof. Gearin, Psychology of The Human Condition: 2nd Class, 5th Cohort.
“Come on Arrick, we’re going!”
The insufferable man frowned down at her, then shook his head, baffled. At least he didn’t complain. She had expected him to.
Talea shrugged off her mother’s arms in annoyance. “Goodbye, mother! I don’t expect we’ll ever see each other again.”
Hurt showed in her mother’s eyes, but Talea cast her mind elsewhere. The woman would have her staying if she kept it up! Best to be on with what she was about. Her father would comfort Hilden, she was sure. The woman was already wrapped up in his arms, sobbing into his chest. When Talea’s eyes met her father’s, she saw that tears stained his ghostly face, too.
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“If we’re going, then we better go,” came Arrick’s voice from behind. She turned to find him studying the sky outside the window. The silk curtains were peeled back to show an overbearing settlement of clouds gathered in the distance. By the gloom of the street, she suspected that everywhere else was much the same. “I suspect it will start raining in less than a minute,” he said aloud. “Best to be off.” He spared her a sympathetic look, his old, gnarled and wrinkly face sagging, then turned and hobbled his way out the front door and towards the car.
Talea scowled. I’ll have no sympathy from you, she vowed, marching after him.
She shut the door behind her, trying to ignore the sounds of distraught coming from the other side. She felt...numb. An odd feeling, considering she usually had none. Well, only when it was expected of her had she ever really showed any emotion. Despite that fact, satisfaction and excitement alike gathered about her like the clouds accumulating rain above, as she sat herself in the front seat of the car.
As if by will, rain started to pour down. Soft at first, but then it began to pelt as Arrick pulled out of the driveway and started down the street. She couldn’t help but think the world was crying over her departure. Why on earth it would want to do that, she did not know. Apparently, it aligned itself with her mother, of all people. If it had been up to her, there would have been sunshine and rainbows darting across the sky to celebrate her victory.
* * *
"Talea!"