I rose from the table and moved quietly around the room, gathering the empty bowls and setting them back by the hearth to wash later. As I passed the bed, I slowed to check on Mother.

  She had drifted into sleep, her breathing shallow but steady for now. A faint line of blood still marked the cloth tucked in her hand, but her face was peaceful in a way it rarely was anymore.

  I pulled the thin blanket higher over her shoulders and smoothed the hair back from her forehead, blood draining from my face as I pressed my fingers to hers. It was cold as ice. A gasp escaped my throat before I could stop it, alarming Rheinan.

  “Is it mom?” he asked, rushing to the bedside to put his hand over her head as I had. He turned to me, hands trembling. “Is mom…is she…”

  He didn’t finish the words, moving to give me room as I leaned over her chest. I held my breath, as if trying to lend it to her. After a pregnant moment, her chest finally rose, and I let mine fall.

  “She’s still there, hum your song for her,” I said, softly, knowing it would make him feel better to do something…anything.

  For a moment, I just stood there, letting the sounds of the fire and Rheinan’s humming fill the silence…wondering which breath would be her last. She looked peaceful, lying there, surrounded by her family. Shame twisted in my gut at the relief I’d felt, thinking she’d already gone. I noticed Father mumbling to himself from his chair by the fire, a reminder that he would be of no help, soon we’d be on our own.

  My chest felt tight, my breath catching as I tried to hold back tears with each tremble in Rheinan’s song.

  By the time he’d finished humming I’d fallen into myself, standing there in a daze, until I felt him grab my wrist.

  “Aine please, we have to do something…She’s worse, Aine,” Rheinan’s voice cracked.

  I clutched the balled glove in my pocket, feeling the flower still resting inside as I replayed the god’s words in my mind.

  ‘Dying without their treatments’…

  I didn’t have time to debate it, I realized, lifting my head to meet Rheinan’s eyes. They were already red, swollen from tears as he stared, pleading for me to do something.

  I have to try.

  “Is that..” Rheinan’s eyes grew wide as I pulled the stolen flower from my dress.

  “I think it might help her, but I don't know for sure.”

  Rheinan looked at mother, maybe hoping she could answer for herself, but she only shuddered, eyes still closed. After another moment, he turned and nodded.

  I set my hands to work, grinding the flowers with stone and stirring them in warm water.

  Rheinan stared nervously as I poured the contents into a wooden cup. I smiled reassuringly as I held it to mother’s lips and tilted it carefully, hoping she would swallow. When she finally did, I felt my shoulders sag with relief.

  Rheinan and I both sat, waiting for a miracle.

  I prayed silently, not to the cruel gods in the sky, or to anything I could name. I just prayed. For her fever to break, for her strength to return, for her eyes to open and see us again. But her breathing only seemed to slow, until with a sob from Rheinan that shattered me, it stopped.

  Rheinan stood over their mother, his tiny hands clutching at her shoulders, as if he could shake her to life.

  “Mom.. Momma please,” he looked to me, tears streaming down his face. His eyes begging me to do something.

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  I just stood there, mouth hanging open as if someone had stolen the words. Unable to even console him as he wept. Sound stopped as I stared, his choked sobs fading into the background as if a pane of glass were placed between us.

  A moment later the glass seemed to shatter as Rheinan’s voice cut through.

  “Aine! Aine, she’s breathing!”

  Hope swelled in me as I saw he was right, but something felt wrong as her eyes flitted open. They looked empty, their warmness gone, as she looked around the room like she’d never seen it before.

  Rheinan didn’t seem to notice the change, before I could stop him, he raced across the room to wrap his arms around her.

  “It worked, Aine! You did it!”

  “Rheinan, there’s something wrong,” I said, panic in my voice as I moved to pull him back.

  A voice from the other side of the room froze me a few steps from the bed. My father's, I realized, as I turned my head to look at him.

  “Aine?” he asked, his eyes scanning me up and down, as if he wasn’t completely sure.

  I just stood there, mouth agape, trying to wrap my head around everything happening. He was awake. His eyes as clear as the day he left with the gods.

  “Mairwyn,” he said, staring at our mother, his voice clear as I remembered as a girl.

  A thread of hope wove itself together, only to snap as my father howled. It was the saddest sound I’d ever heard anyone make, low, as if despair had forced the wind from his chest.

  I turned in time to see Rheinan’s headless body tumble to the floor.

  No…He was humming his song only a moment ago…that can’t…that isn’t real. This isn’t real.

  My knees buckled. My lungs spasmed, breaths coming in jagged bursts, each catching in my throat.

  I wanted to die, I wanted to pay for this mistake, this horror I had wrought unto my family.

  She sat straight up now, drenched in my brother’s blood, his head still resting in her lap as she stared into my eyes.

  “Come, Aine. We can finally be a family again,” My mother’s voice echoed inside my skull.

  This thing was not my mother, still the words borrowed her voice as they flooded my mind. I felt myself grow weaker as they drowned out my will to act, to flee. I sat paralyzed as she leaned toward me, her face inches from mine.

  The room melted away, the rough-hewn walls and bloodstained floor replaced by an endless meadow of blossoms. Their petals pulsed with colors I’d never seen, bleeding light into the air. My skin warmed as the glow enveloped me, I drew them in with each breath, as if they were the air itself.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I breathed, marveling at the swirling hues, feeling at peace in a way I never had before. I wanted to stay there forever.

  I looked up to see my mother, no longer wearing my brother’s blood. She looked down at me with warmth on her face, her eyes as loving as I’d always remembered them. She seemed whole, as she’d been before the sickness had taken her strength. Her arms no longer bore the streaks of blackened veins as they outstretched to embrace me.

  ‘It worked,’ I thought, ‘We can be a family again.’

  I stood, ready to throw myself at her, to throw my arms around her just as Rheinan had.

  Rheinan .. The thought made me freeze.

  “Rheinan,” I managed, my voice catching slightly as I stared into my mother’s eyes. “Where’s Rheinan?”

  “He’s with us now, I will take you to him,” she said, a warm smile still etched onto her face, but her voice was wrong.

  It sounded like a hundred voices, all speaking the same words with different emotions. I heard my mother’s voice say them as if she were angry, and happy and horrified all at once. Her face contorted as she stepped closer, her smile more unnatural now.

  I stepped back, fear returning as I started to remember that this was not my mother.

  But maybe she was in there somewhere, maybe this thing was just controlling her.

  I gurgled pitifully, throat dry as old bark. I couldn’t make a sound.

  If I could only call out to her.

  I felt cool tears streaming down my face as I sat there, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare into its eyes... Eyes that once held a mother’s love, hollow now. I scanned them, praying for a trace of her, but only the monster stared back.

  Its eyes seemed to swallow me as my world slipped into darkness.

  Am I dead? I asked myself, unable to feel anything as I drifted there, suspended in endless quiet.

  Something broke the silence, something distant. A voice, I realized. It grew louder as I strained to focus on it. It sounded like my father; he was screaming…something. I concentrated, struggling to make out the words.

  I rose through the darkness, willing myself towards the sound. Pushing, clawing upward until finally I burst through its surface, my senses flooding back to me at once.

  “Aine-AINE…RUN!” He shouted, fear cracked in his voice as he struggled to hold her down. His hand clutched a knife, planted firmly in her eye, yet she still struggled beneath him. He turned to look at me, begging me again to flee.

  “Aine, you have to run…you have to-” the words died in his throat as my mother’s arm burst through his spine. A sob wracked my lungs as his arms went limp, the flat of my mother’s hand dripping his blood as the life left his eyes.

  I killed them…I just wanted to help, and I killed them all.

  My mind reeled as I bolted for the door, thrusting it open.

  “I’m so sorry,” I rasped, looking back as I ran.