Her soul ached, her wrist ached and throbbed, and she hardly had the energy to move, but she was satisfied. Addie was safe. She stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom and simply enjoyed the relaxing way she sunk deep into her mattress. It had been days since she had the luxury of a normal sleep schedule. It had been days since she last got to rest her head on a pillow. Now that she finally had the opportunity to lie in bed, Addie was loving it. She took full advantage of the lazy morning.
Last night, she had made doubly sure that no one would disturb her come morning. She already had to deal with the giant fuss the manor healer spent on her left wrist last night. She certainly wasn’t going to wake up for morning lessons. Today Addie would only rest. She wouldn’t even leave the bed for the entire day. All of the house staff had been notified last night, as Addie made particularly sure that no maids would so much as clean the floor outside her room. She didn’t want to get woken up by the noise.
Lastly, Addie made sure her dad knew that she would be receiving all of her favorite meals for the day, even if the chef had to procure out-of-season ingredients. Mr. Lomain complied, as Addie knew he would.
Thus, she stared up at her bedroom ceiling (which felt a bit unfamiliar after she forced the maids to move all her belongings to a new room in the house). She wouldn’t ever step foot in her old room. The morning Binary light lazily drifted in, light beams tracing past the gaps in her curtains.
Strawberries and whipped cream with powdered sugar sat on her nightstand directly to the left of her bed, within reaching distance.
Addie would even have made Christena spoon-feed her breakfast too, just to knock her down a notch, but she ultimately decided she needed a break from all things maid, at least for a day. Probably even for a week.
Unfortunately, all of this didn’t stop Addie’s mom from barging in, though, as the door flew open causing a slight breeze. Addie adjusted her position to sit up.
“Oh! My little girl is looking so adult! Bonded to her new friend.”
Squishy preened at the foot of the bed, clearly soaking in the praise.
“Hi, Mom,” Addie spoke contritely, and a bit of her exhaustion seeped through. Her mom didn’t seem to notice that at all, as she bulldozed right on ahead.
“Addie, sweetheart! How are you feeling? Doing okay? I heard you wouldn’t be going to your morning lessons today.” Addie was about to speak, but her mom barely paused and instead kept talking, “I heard you roughed it in the forest for a few days. My! Well, I’m certain you are glad now that you had all those camping trips with your father! I don’t know if I could have survived out there like that. I’m an indoor girl through and through.” Her mom explained, waving her arms in small patterns to emphasize her points with her body language.
That was seriously understating Addie’s time in the forest. To be fair, no one had explained the full extent of things to Addie’s mom. Even Addie didn’t want to talk about it.
Addie’s mom had never received a bond, not out of injustice though. She simply waved away the opportunity as a child, something Addie could never understand. Addie wouldn’t give up on the idea of using magic for anything, but she at least knew intellectually why her mom had that perspective: she hated danger.
“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Her mom’s tone suddenly dropped and her face turned serious, “I heard you ran into Hagal.” She paused for a moment and bit her lip, “Your dad should have structured this better. Apparently, and he didn’t want me to tell you this, but you teleporting through the forest like crazy was completely unexpected.” Her mom laughed deprecatingly for a moment, then continued, “I mean—” She huffed a small laugh out, “Dimensional magic? Tom didn’t even know there was such a thing. There were theories yes, stuff left over from the dragons. Ah, those theories are much better explained by your dad, anyways.”
Her mom huffed and again smiled deprecatingly. Some of her frustration leaked through, obviously directed at her husband.
“Trust me when I say, if he had planned to just send you willy-nilly through the forest, and encounter Hagal, without some pre-planning on his part? Well, I never would have let it happen. That’s all I’ve heard though. For some reason, Christena isn’t talking to me. She told me to tell you that she’s sorry.” Her mom whispered that last bit like it was some kind of secret.
Her mom’s words spurred up a deep ache full of ugly resentment. Maybe, if her mom had known about the plan for her bonding initialization, her mom would have put a stop to it. Addie didn’t know if she could ever forgive Christena or her dad. None of this was fair. Addie would never be a danger to the town.
But, precisely because Addie had gone through all that hardship, she had learned so much about her magic, and how to survive. She had successfully escaped from the witch all on her own— a point of pride. Her flight through the forest— avoiding the Aurwolf and making her own fire, finding the river with Squishy, all of those were Addie’s accomplishments, and no one could take that away from her.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
In all honesty, Addie was glad her mom had come to talk to her. Sure, she originally wanted to spend the morning alone, and she was more than a little miffed at her interrupted alone time, but the normalcy was nice. The company was nice. It just plain felt good to talk with her mom and be comforted by her presence.
“Mom, I have to tell you something,” Addie said. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of what she was about to share.
“Dad didn’t just send me out willy-nilly into the forest. They made me think Christena was killing people. Killing everyone in town.” Addie explained in a whisper.
Her mom’s face grew into a new horrified expression with each new word.
Tears started streaming down Addie’s face, even without sobbing. She still managed to continue her explanation calmly, “They... They made me think Christena was trying to kill me. I thought we were fighting to the death in the forest. I almost killed Christena.”
Now Addie’s mother started crying too. She jolted forward and wrapped Addie up in a crushing hug.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. They keep me out of all the magical stuff, you know? I should have stopped it. It’s my fault. I won’t let anything like that happen to you again.” Her mom promised.
Then, Addie finally sobbed. She became a blubbering mess, and couldn’t speak more about it even if she wanted to. The sobs from mother and daughter filled the room for a time. Each new sob felt like Addie was letting out another piece of her trauma, another moment of bottled-up fear finally released back out into the world. Addie hugged her mom tighter.
They cried together for a time, and slowly, the sobs came to a gradual stop. Then, they just hugged together in Addie’s bedroom, silent for a time. Addie felt empty. The gentle embrace of her mother was the only sensation Addie felt, as all of her emotions were simply drained.
Finally, within the embrace, her mom whispered into Addie’s ear, “I’ll talk to them. We’ll talk to them. This.. What you went through, Addie, it’s unacceptable. Do you understand? What your dad did is absolutely unacceptable.”
Even though it wasn’t directed at her, a slight shiver went through Addie’s spine. It was weird to hear her mom take that scolding tone with anyone other than her. She knew her dad deserved it. Whatever her mom would talk about with him, whatever kind of justice could be done for this situation. Addie would be there to witness it.
After that, they continued to talk, for a time, about non-magical subjects. Just catching up, some mother-daughter-alone time. Addie enjoyed it. Her mom did, too.
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Now that it was time to confront them, Addie’s earlier angry feelings of retribution got pushed to the side as her nervousness consumed her. She wrung her hands and fiddled her toes on the leather armchair she was sitting on. It was slightly too tall for her, so her feet dangled into the air a bit. On her right, Addie’s mom sat next to her in solidarity, the two of them holding hands.
Across from them, in opposition, were Addie’s dad and Christena. Christena seemed just as nervous as Addie, but Addie’s dad had a hard look. He didn’t seem angry, but Addie thought he might have been for a second. Instead, he just looked deep in thought.
“This ‘plan’ that you two went through— it was unacceptable. I want explanations, right. Now.” Addie’s mom said.
Addie gave her mom’s hand a quick squeeze.
“Love,” Her dad began.
“Don’t ‘love’ me!” Addie’s mom said while symboling quotation marks with her fingers. “Tom, what you did was liable to scar Addie for life!”
Addie cupped her hand and put her mouth next to her mom’s ear, “What does liable mean?” Addie whispered.
“It means,” her mom started saying to the room, “That your dad is the reason all of this horrible stuff happened to you. And Christena! How could you go along with all of this?”
Christena put her eyes on the floor and didn’t respond.
“It’s not her fault,” Addie’s dad sighed. “I made her go along with it. Love, I need you to understand—”
Her mom interrupted her dad again, “What I understand is that you let our daughter get chased by an Aurwolf! She could have died!” her mom shouted.
Addie wrung her hands together and uncrossed her legs, only to cross them again on the other side. Squishy whined.
“Stop,” Addie’s dad said. “Addie could have cascaded. The fact of the matter is that we did not lose Addie. But if she had cascaded, not even I could have saved her.”
The room was quiet for a moment, and Addie’s mom let out a shuddering breath.
Monitoring the room, Addie’s dad spoke up again, “Addie, sweetheart,”
Addie looked away from her dad.
“What you needed was purpose. Bonding initializations are dangerous. Leah, you know that.” Addie’s dad looked at his wife. “If Addie didn’t have purpose from the first moment of her bonding initialization, she would have cascaded. We decided Addie was ready for magic, but still gave that power to a ten-year-old. No one can help with a bonding initialization, except for maybe the dragons of ancient lore.
“I’m not a dragon,” her dad emphasized. His eyes started going red. “I never wanted Addie to get lost in the forest. I never expected her Squishy to find her through the strings of fate. I had another creature ready for her to bond with. When they disappeared into the forest, Christena and I searched for them for days. Somehow Hagal found Addie first. For all I knew, that crazy old woman could have caused Addie’s already disturbed soul to cascade even further!” He gripped the handrest so tightly Addie could see his hands go white.
“Then how does letting her get defeated by Christena, helpless on the forest floor, help Addie’s bonding initialization?” Addie’s mom said coldly.
“We exhausted her magic. Then I confirmed her soul had not cascaded. Until then, Addie needed purpose. To ensure she didn’t cascade further. We were lucky that she hadn’t cascaded from the very beginning! But I had no way to know that. Not me, I’m just a man.” A tear ran down his cheek.
“Addie, I’m so sorry. Do you understand at all why we had you grow through all of this?” Her dad tried.
Addie shook her head. She refused to look at him.