It pissed rain, but nevertheless, his mother wanted to see the Isle of Skye.
They’d taken the ferry over. Even though there was a perfectly good bridge. His mother said this was part of the experience.
Apparently, the experience she wanted to have was patting his back for half an hour while he vomited over the side rail.
In the rain.
In December.
By the time they reached Armadale, Aidan was colder and more miserable than he’d been in his entire life. Less than four days in this country, and he wanted to go back to Vermont. Not something he ever thought he’d crave.
He wanted to say the island was beautiful. Something about the rows of houses and winding cobbled roads and gnarled trees made him think of home. Not that Vermont had the tenement flats, and the hills in Vermont were more mountains, but something about the smell triggered memories. The wet earth and decaying leaves. The fresh rain.
Or maybe it just reminded him of home because he was finally on dry—ish—land.
They were safely in their B&B. Aidan had showered and put on warm clothes. His mother was reading a guide book by the window, and when he looked at her, his heart ached. Every single second she was in this country, she appeared younger. He felt the opposite, but it was nice to see her feeling better. It had been a hell year for her—her mum had passed away of cancer earlier that year, and her dad of a broken heart a few months after.
It didn’t help that magic was discovered a week or so after her mom’s death.
Magic could have saved her. Both of them.
It just hadn’t been fast enough.
Aidan and his dad had put the trip together for the two of them. A way to get Aidan’s mum away from everything. And a way to get Aidan and her to reconnect.
Seeing as he’d just spent the last thirty minutes vomiting in front of her, it seemed to be going swimmingly.
At least she got to mother him again, something she often said she missed being able to do now that he thought he was too old for it.
“What do you feel like doing first?” she asked.
“Staying dry,” Aidan said. He flopped down on his tiny bed and wrapped his arms around his knees. Everything in this country seemed miniature—the tiny rooms and tiny beds and tiny tea sets. Outside, rain kept pouring down. Didn’t the sky ever run out of water?
His mother looked at him and smiled sadly. “Oh, come on, Aidan. It’s just a little rain. Besides, everything we have is waterproof.”
“I hate being cold,” he replied. “And waterproof is an overstatement.” His coat and pants were currently draped over the heater, though whether they were drying or just making the windows fog was up for debate.
“Why don’t we go for a hike?” she asked, as though she hadn’t heard his complaint. She’d gotten really good at ignoring them over the last few years. “You can wear my extra sweater. And then we can come back and have hot chocolate.”
“I’d rather just watch TV. You know, British television is so fascinating.”
He made his voice as deadpan as possible. And he hated himself for it. A tiny voice inside of him was screaming to stop being an asshole, to stop adding to her pain, but he couldn’t control himself. That part of him wanted to go out and hike with her. It wanted to connect, to talk about his boyfriend and what he wanted to do with his life and daydream about the future.
Instead, he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
He hated himself for it.
Hated himself.
Especially when she sighed and put her guidebook down.
“Well, I’m not going to waste what little daylight we have sitting in here,” his mum said. “I can watch TV at home.”
She stood from the alcove and began putting on her layers. Slowly. He watched from the corner of his eye. Knew he should turn off the TV and give in and go with her. But it was like every second that ticked by was a grain of salt in the wound, a rub against his pride. If he had agreed earlier, he could have gone. But he’d put it off too long and now he couldn’t let himself change his mind.
She sighed a lot.
Every time he hated himself more.
“Okay, well,” she said. She stood by the door. Looked at him sadly. “You sure you don’t want to come along? Just a little walk. Maybe go see some sheep. Baaaah.”
He just shook his head. Ignored her hopeful grin at making the sheep noise.
“Okay,” she said again. Shuffled about. Pulled her hood up over her long black hair. “I’ll be off then. I’ll bring you a hot cocoa on my way back. Would you like that?”
He shrugged.
Fuck, you ass! Why are you being like this?
“Okay. Bye then.”
He didn’t watch her go.
But when the door latched behind her, he jumped from the bed and went to the window. A minute later, she stepped outside into the rain, her back turned to the B&B, and walked up the cobbled road beneath the dead trees. He watched her go, a purple smudge against the rain. And when she was out of sight, he thudded his head against the window frame, hating himself for doing this. Again.
That was the point of this trip. To make him stop being a selfish ass. To reconnect. To stop pushing everyone away.
Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, and not from the pain.
He could still jump into his rain gear and run outside to catch her. He could still make this right.
But he wouldn’t.
Because he was a coward.
Because he was an asshole.
He deserved for his heart to hurt like this. But she didn’t. He wasn’t supposed to be hurting her. Just himself. He was the only one who deserved it.
“Damn you,” he whispered to himself. That, and a dozen other horrible things. Not one of them made him go and put his boots on. Not one of them would push him from this room.
He knew it. And he hated himself more for it.
No.
No, he could change this. He had to.
He turned from the window to go put on his boots, to run out and say he was sorry, to go join her for an evening of staring at sheep and laughing and drinking hot chocolate in some little café somewhere.
And there, standing between him and the door, was a woman.
Not just any woman. But her.
She stood there, wearing a long black dress that seemed sewn from shadows, her blond hair spilling across her back and shoulders like moonlight through poisonous smog.
“I wouldn’t go out there, were I you,” she said. Her voice was a hook against his heart.
He heard it, and he knew he would follow.
“You know what you will find outside that door if you go,” she continued. Took a step forward.
And he knew. He knew, because this was a dream, and he had already lived this. He knew he would try to make things right—he would put on his shoes and run out the door and it would be raining but he would find her. He would find her in her silly purple parka beside a field watching the sheep and when she saw him, she would smile. Then something would flicker in the field. Something fast—something from a nightmare. The sheep would scream and bleat and run, and she would look between him and the monsters approaching on the field, creatures neither of them had seen before, and she would know. Somehow, she would know. Mother’s intuition. And she would scream at him to run.
Run, as she ran the opposite direction. Away from him. Toward the monsters in the field.
He would scream after her.
He would watch as the monsters overcame her, as her screams for him to flee turned into something else.
And he would hate himself. But he would run.
From her. As she died to save him.
“I could save her,” the Dark Lady said, pulling him from his memories.
“Save her?” He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t save anyone. That wasn’t what he was good at. He was only good at hurting. At destroying. At killing.
After he’d watched his mother sacrifice herself for him—something he would and could never have done for someone else—he had turned to that. To doing only that.
He wasn’t here to save. He was only here to ruin.
“Yes,” the Dark Lady said. Closer now, so close she could reach out and touch his face. “I am the ruler of Death, my child. And those who worship at my feet need never fear Death’s cold embrace.”
“She’s gone. She’s already dead.” The words fell too easily from his lips. Heartless. Heartless. He was always heartless.
“No, my child. She waits here. In my embrace.” She brought Aidan’s hand to her heart.
Her dress changed in that movement, rippled out to become a purple poncho, slick with rain, and then he was staring into his mother’s eyes, and had she not been holding his hand, he would have crumpled.
“Mum?”
His mother smiled. Nodded.
Then her eyes widened in fear, and between one blink and the next, she was gone, replaced by the woman in shadow.
“Serve me,” the Dark Lady said. “Help me return, and I will return her to you. Whole. I will help you mend the relationship you wish you’d always had.”
There should have been a voice telling him not to. There should have been a whisper in his heart that this was wrong, so wrong. This was the Dark Lady, the woman who’d created the Howls and bastardized magic and destroyed the world.
This was the Dark Lady, and in this moment, she was the only one who could give him what his heart truly wanted.
“Promise me,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll bring her back. Promise me she’ll be whole.”
“I promise, my child.” She reached out, stroked the side of his face. It felt like his mother’s hand, her warmth, that small tremble of love. “I will give you everything. All you need do is serve.”
“Then I’ll serve you,” he whispered. He felt something coil through his heart, binding as iron. “If it gets my mother back, I’ll do whatever you want.”
She smiled. Patted his cheek lightly.
“I know,” she replied.
Then, before he could ask what she meant, she—and the dream—were gone.