Aftershocks
BYRD
One three-minute elevator ride. That was all I had to figure out how to tell everyone that Talli wasn’t coming home alive.
It wasn’t enough time.
There wasn’t enough time in the world.
At the same time, it was too much time.
I clung tightly to Quinn in the posh elevator leading up to my condo. My arms were wrapped around her waist, and her arms encircled my back. She twirled one of my locs around her fingers while I toyed with my mother’s obsidian pendant. Neither of us could be still as we were both full of the jittery energy that comes with exhaustion and the aftereffects of sorrow. We leaned into each other like broken pillars still holding up the same crumbling roof. Our wounds were healing, albeit Quinn’s slower than they should, but there was hurt beneath our skin that ran deeper than any magic could reach.
All I could think about was Talli’s girls.
I had been where they were about to be. I had heard the words. I had felt them rip open my chest. I knew the exact temperature of the air when your world caves in, implodes, and everything freezes around you, except for the screaming ofmourning that stretched like an insurmountable void until you went numb, too.
She… She died, Byrd. Your momma is gone.
That moment had branded itself onto my soul fourteen years ago. Yet, it still burned hot with steam curling from it. Thinking of it for too long was enough to make my eyes sting with tears and for that ache to pulse like a fresh bruise.
Your momma is gone.
Back then, I thought it was a nightmare I would wake up from and forget all about. I swore Aunt Max was lying, that Mom would walk through the door. I felt her presence all over the room, all over the house. She was close enough to make my hair stand on end. I could hear her boisterous laugh. I knew her smile and hug would be there waiting for me if I just turned around.
Your momma is gone.
When I took in the room, there was no Mom. Aunt Max wore a frown among her laugh lines, Uncle Everett’s strong and steady shoulders shook as he cried, and Talli was there with her eyes distant and elsewhere. I should have been crying and asking questions, but there was only hollowness.
That was my dialect of grief. Because loss was a different language, a curse the bereaved became burdened with speaking fluently. Now, it was my turn to not only speak it again, but pass it on to a pair of young girls, who likely wouldn’t understand the weight of the loss until later.
Because that was the other part of loss like this. There was the earthquake that tore your world asunder. Then, there were the aftershocks, causing even more cracks. Then, there was the tsunami to drown you. The true damage lasted longer beyond the first disaster, and you would find more and more effects as time marched on.
The agony was so deep that it was maddening. Loud. Unimaginable. Incomprehensible. Still bleeding and hurting.Yet, so very familiar. I had been here before. I had suffered loss before. Mom. Pops. Aunt Max. Everyone I lost I remembered, but the mourning of them was another drop in the abyss of sorrow. The ripples echoed from it, but the water settled back into stillness. In this moment, all I felt was a numb daze weighing heavily and suffocatingly on me. I was underwater, the pressure collapsing in on me on all sides. The luxurious elevator felt so impossibly small, even though it was big enough to fit all nine of us with room to spare.
It might as well have been my coffin.
Quinn kissed the top of my head, squeezing my shoulder. The love and strength she sent drifted in the empty void within me. It didn’t sink in fully, but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it.
No one spoke. I wasn’t sure if it was because we were all too exhausted from the fight, were too worried about the injured, or were already bracing ourselves for what was coming next. Maybe a little bit of everything. Maybe the words would make it all too real.
We couldn’t afford to sit in our grief yet, and we weren’t able to ignore it either. No, we still had to relieve it all. There were stories to tell of the fallen and wounds to explain. Just like when I was rescued from Lilah, I would have to tell it all. I would have to rip off the bandage, untie the string barely holding me together, and then hand them the pain like some twisted gift of trauma wrapped up in my voice.
I stared at the overly-polished marble wall with gold trim glimmering under the soft recessed lighting. I was too scared to let my eyes stray elsewhere. Talli’s body was on the floor just a few feet away. Cooper’s lay in a heap in the far corner. Ayrie had asked one of the Guardsmen who served as the coroner to bring two body bags, so I didn’t have to see my aunt’s or Cooper’s bodies. Still, IknewTalli was there. I knew her body was cold and empty. IknewCooper was there, killed by my own hand andcrystals. Just like his father. My stomach rolled, bile rising in my throat.
How was Quinn going to tell her mother? How was she going to tell her aunts, including Cooper’s mom? Would they understand? How could they?
I didn’t realize I was shaking until Quinn pulled me into her even more. She sweetly, softly, and delicately traced the tattoo of my dragonfly wings. The caress sent shivers through me, but it also soothed me enough for me to close my eyes.
We’d teleported back home as soon as we could. I could barely remember how we had even managed it, but I knew Ayrie was involved, calling in a witch to send us back to Blackbell. As the witch prepared the teleportation spell, Ayrie gripped my hand tightly.
“It’s not enough, but I’m so sorry, Byrdie-Bee.”
I shook my head, tears threatening to smother me again. “I’m sorry that we have to leave like this. I can’t wait to come back without bringing a war with me.”
She gave my hand another firm squeeze. “Well, you had better come back sooner than fourteen years this time, Byrd Pierce.”
I tried my best to smile, but it felt so weird on my face. “I promise I will.”
