The silence that fell across the lobby had the exact same quality as when the group had worked their way from the storeroom to where Sheryl now stood, looking down over the second floor railing. She had watched every second of Dale's attack, seen the Qoloni disappear by degrees until there was nothing left, but hadn't thought about whether she should have run down and join in. She kept looking at the other, smaller pieces of the mirror lying scattered around on the floor, and could have joined in at any time.
So she was surprised when she turned after the violence was done, and began walking back toward the storeroom, where Kerren was waiting for her. That call to action was stronger than anything the Qoloni's demise could summon in her. She walked slowly, steadily, quietly, as if in a trance.
She was very aware that she might be experiencing the last moments of her life, and needed to be with Kerren if and when that happened. The arguments the group had with Bruce before the madness truly started had taken root in her mind, and she knew that no one was really sure what would happen now that the Qoloni was vanquished. The horned creature very well might turn out to be the linchpin preventing their tiny, barely tethered world from spinning away altogether. The author's vision of the story-forest, as feverish and strange as it was, resonated with her in some inexplicable way. Against all logic she could articulate, it just *sounded* right, in the way that dreams sometimes do. And if he had fear that the end of his monster would mean the end of this place too, then there might be something to it.
If he did turn out to be right, she wanted to be looking into Kerren's eyes when the moment came.
The sensory change from hall carpet to cold storeroom wood was sharp against the soles of her feet, bringing her back to herself. Her pace picked up as she stepped through the second doorway, finally coming to kneel next to Kerren, who was still sifting her fingers through Glenda's hair. The desk clerk's face was even paler now than it had been against the snow in full moonlight, and Sheryl shivered with more than cold at the sight of it.
As she sat there, content to be part of this quiet tableau while that horrible night's inevitable ending played out elsewhere, she looked down at her wife with changed eyes. After learning what she had about her mother-in-law's history with this place, she had no choice to, and what she found was astonishing...
Kerren had been horribly injured in the avalanche, and had spent the rest of her time immobilized, being ferried from place to place, carried and wrapped and hauled through the snow and laid across sledges like so much freight, forced through proximity to witness the slow death of the woman who still lay beside her. Sheryl realized she would never have been able to handle everything Kerren had and still be able to lie there, a sympathetic look on her face, stroking the deceased woman's hair. Her wife possessed more strength than she could ever hope to have.
Then Kerren turned her gaze up, as if just now realizing that Sheryl was there. Her hand stopped its motion, and for a moment the two looked at each other. Kerren's hand slowly rose through the cool air, rested its back against Sheryl's cheek. It was still warm, despite everything she had been through that night. That gesture, so simple, broke Sheryl's heart, and filled it at the same time. There was a hesitancy about it, an unspoken "Is it all right if I...?" quality that puzzled her.
She closed her eyes as she pressed the soft hand against her cheek, then looked back down at her wife, and almost gasped. There was a new, wholly unguarded look in Kerren's eyes, one that made every time Sheryl had looked before, by comparison, seem like she had been merely staring at a painting. It was as if they were seeing each other as they truly were now, instead of just a projection of what they wanted each other to be. She could plainly see the love and the frailty in Kerren's face, the fear and strength and uncertainty and wholeness. At the same time, she was aware that this was Kerren in her glorious entirety, the way Sheryl should have been seeing her all along, the way any who loved another ultimately should.
A thought flashed through her mind -- was this something like the connection that she had witnessed Kerren make with Harmon? Although neither of them moved, the question definitively formed in her mind -- yes. As Sheryl watched, the strength in Kerren's face dissolved, and she began to sob, tears spilling out from the corners of her eyes to roll back across her temples and into her own hair.
She felt her own facade of strength crumble just as quickly. She clasped that warm hand and held it fast against her, more sure than ever that she never wanted to let it go, marveling at how she could have been considering that option as recently as the evening before this. Soon they were lying together on the floor next to the dead woman, crying over everything the night had brought to them, all the things that had been lost forever, and the bond that had once been broken, now reforged.
No comments:
Post a Comment