Sumi
I came around the side of the house with the knowledge that something was wrong, was about to go wrong, and saw Andy and Wil staring up at the roof just as tiles started coming down.
Falling tiles that would destroy faces and gouge out eyes.
My magic billowed up inside me and I reached—
Dee yelled. Shoved Andy away, grabbed Will and fell on top of him.
—I yanked back all my magic so hard it burned—
Tiles hit her back, thin edges and sharp corners and she flinched but held on tighter.
— my magic settled into pain that came up my neck, wrapped around my temples, sparkled around lights and sank nausea into my stomach. Still there, but I couldn’t reach it.
Jay dropped from the roof, cursing.
My knees buckled and I faded to the ground.
Sounds started coming back, yelling. Wilyam apologizing through his sobs. Dee crying but in that hitching, moaning way that meant she was trying to be strong but was in agony she couldn’t hide.
And every bit of sound made my head hurt.
My stomach churned. I could barely open my eyes. Had to see—
Jay and Robin and Thom circled Dee. Andy pulled Wil out from under her, but every move made her hiss or moan and none of them were coherent.
Andy clenched one fist, using his magic somehow. Perhaps to support Wil or stop any other tiles from coming down off the roof.
I could do nothing. Nothing. Andy looked at me, tears running down his cheeks, and tears pricked my eyes.
What was he asking? Tiniest movement— shook my head no. Paid for it in starbursts and a surge of bile.
His focus shifted back where it belonged.
Jay and Robin carried Dee into the house. Wil came back for me, his words bubbling in his throat.
“It was my fault, Mom. But I can’t fix her back. It’s too much. I can’t. We can’t…”
“It’s all right.” Carefully, I wrapped one arm around him. Held him tight. She’d saved his life. I owed her. “It’ll be all right.”
“Wil. Andy. I need you.” Jay’s voice cut through my brain like a knife. “Run to the market. To the temple messengers. We need a healer. We’ll pay.”
Wil wiped his face on his sleeve. Blinked at Andy. They joined hands, squinted at the roof. Fast, rough, magically tacked the tiles in place. Then nodded and bolted.
Sooner than they should be, they were back. Time was doing strange things around me. Andy blurted, “The dark temple healer won’t come.”
“Bright neither.” Wil came to my side and tucked himself under my arm.
“But we’ll pay!” Jay clenched his hands into fists.
Wilyam helped me to stand, and Antero came as soon as he saw me sway.
“I’ll go.” Jay’s gaze flicked over me, over the boys. “I’ll make them see reason.”
Goddessi, I hoped he didn’t get himself killed.
“Careful,” I said, and I didn’t know if it was to him or to the boys or to me, but it didn’t matter because he was already gone.
We went into the house and the shift from daylight to gloom helped settle my stomach. I made it to a chair and breathed carefully through my nose, so I wouldn’t throw up.
Dee lay on the couch, face down, limp. Robin pressed cloths to her back.
“It’s not just the cuts,” Robin whispered. Sweat beaded her forehead. “The way those tiles hit her…”
“I know.” My voice was thick with tears.
Robin licked her lips. “She’ll never walk again.” Her voice rasped.
“Wait for the swelling to go down,” Thom said from the doorway. He hid a shudder. He knew better, but said it anyway, “It might not be as bad as you think.”
Desperate hope lit up Robin’s face. The boys turned to me and I could see in their eyes they knew he was wrong.
If there was one person who couldn’t be here for what I was about to do— “Thom, would you help Jay please? Make sure he doesn’t…”
“Do anything stupid?” Thom nodded and disappeared from the doorway.
“Robin, there’s a Rest Third healer, isn’t there?”
“Yes. But—” Not as good as magic.
Her words went unsaid, but I heard them. “Go get them please.”
She looked at Dee. Looked at me. Looked back at Dee. “You’re getting rid of me.” Her eyes were shadowed. “Why?”
“I can’t tell you.” My magic grew and grew in great surges inside me, demanding action. I fed it my headache, soothed the edges of it with a promise, but it kept growing.
I’d need it all anyway.
“This is some kind of dark temple thing.”
“Mmm.”
“You’ll help her?”
“I’ll try.”
“Fine. Send the boys if you need anything.” She fled.
“Don’t let anyone in, boys.” I swallowed my ebbing nausea, crossed the room, knelt by Dee. She blinked at me, face ashen.
“Thank you.” I brushed hair out of her face. “Thank you for saving my sons.”
She stared at me with glassy eyes. She could breathe on her own, which meant I had some time. I sat with her. Matched my breathing to hers, then slowed mine down. Hers followed. Bit by bit, I coaxed us both into a meditative state.
Then I reached for my magic.
Carefully. Quietly.
Goddessi, it was like touching sunlight after so long neglecting it— hot and fierce and beautiful. And mine, not Maldita’s. Unlike an unused muscle, my magic came to my hands easily, eagerly. Still cautious, I started with my own body— pushed the upset out of my stomach, pulled the last of the pain out of my head. I could feel my limits, unlike when magic belonged to the dark goddess and I had no limits, but I had so much more than when I had tried using magic to clean the floor, months ago.
I reached for Dee.
My breath hiccuped but I smoothed it out again. Broken bones, crushed blood vessels, crumpled nerves— Breathe.
I could do this but we both had to be still.
Using the tiniest amount of power I could, first I pulled some of the pain into me. Pushed it through me into the floor and then the dirt below.
Interior only. She had to keep the scrapes and shallower gashes on her skin or it would be obvious someone had healed her, and then there would be questions—
Sweating from the need to be so still and quiet, I pushed and pulled the largest bone fragments back into place. Then the smaller. Pushed and pulled at them until they started to set.
I faltered. In the time I’d been denying it, my magic had grown stronger, more sensitive, but I hadn’t used it this way.
Andy’s hand then Wil’s found my shoulders, quieted my magic for me, taking half the work.
Inside and around the bones, I soothed the nerves, ensured the proper connections. Eased the blood vessels back to where they belonged. Broke apart blockages. Channeled blood flow and healing and looked and looked again until I was sure I’d done everything I could.
For Dee.
Let myself fall away from her.
I blinked, back in my own body. My magic was gone, used up in the healing, but the shadow of it was still there, taunting me. It would grow again. Demand to be used again.
Dee was staring at me.
I said, “Don’t move.”
“You’ve magic,” she whispered. “You—”
“Like Thom said, once the swelling goes down, it might not be as bad as… well, as bad.”
“Resting betweens.” Dee curled her fingers, then her toes. “I couldn’t move my toes before. I couldn’t bend my fingers—”
“Trauma lies—”
“No. It feels different. You— we met you once. When we brought Maggie to take his place and the high priestess— that was you. You said no. Jay fell in love with you? You’re no servant.”
I stared at her. Wished I could take her memory. Wondered if that was possible with push-pull magic, the same way one of my students had discovered she could put pictures into my head to ‘talk’ to me.
“Dee—”
“Resting—” She swallowed hard. Had to say the words out loud, bless her. “You were the damned high priestess.”
“The high priestess of Maldita died the night the demon hunters attacked the dark temple.” Goddessi, the risk— I had to make her understand. “If she didn’t die, then people might come looking for her. Might do horrible things to the people around her, the ones who hid her. Whether they knew or not. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“We’ve had the high priestess of Maldita living in our house for months. Washing our underthings. Cleaning our floors.”
“You, Robin, Maggie, the boys— none of you are safe if… if she lives.”
She blinked and blinked. Then shook her head minutely. “I— I understand. It’s just a lot.”
“It is. But you wanted me to trust you. I am trusting you with the biggest, most dangerous secret I know.”
“You did magic. To heal me.”
“You’re not healed.” She really needed to understand this part. “Dee, you need to rest. Stay still. I fixed some things—” a lot of things— “but you can’t get up yet. You have to heal the rest of the way on your own. The bones—”
“All right.” She closed her eyes. Then, raggedly, asked me the question I dreaded most. “You couldn’t heal Mom?”
Guilt nearly bent me in two. I could have. I wouldn’t have known how to be quiet with my magic, hadn’t been this strong, hadn’t been this sensitive, and the boys wouldn’t have known how to quiet the magic for me— “That was different,” I half-lied. “Her bones weren’t broken.”
Dee curled her fingers over and over. “Thank you for healing me. I don’t know what I would have done—”
“You’d have figured out something. You and your family are the strongest people I—”
Someone pounded on the door. I glanced at Andy.
“Robin,” he announced. “With the healer.”
“Let her in.”
Andy and Wil released the door, opened it to Robin.
Her eyes went to Dee, but her words were for me. “I brought her.”
The person who accompanied Robin into the house was the same Red woman who’d been unable to do anything for Jay’s mother. She was the oldest person I’d ever seen, with a pooch-belly and stick-thin limbs and red-gray hair and wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and joints.
I was up and moving toward a chair before I registered how utterly exhausted I was— my knees gave out and I lurched the last bit, and hit the seat only with help from the boys. Despite being hollowed out, my blood hummed— goddess, it felt good to do magic.
Now, like Dee, I had no choice but to wait. But not to heal. To learn if I’d brought guards down on us all.
Robin dragged another chair over for the healer, tucked it under the healer’s slowly descending body— no plopping for her. The Rest Third healer sighed and I could swear I heard her bones creak.
The healer wiped the sweat from Dee’s forehead. Peeled bits of cloth away from the ruined skin on Dee’s back. Watched Dee move her fingers and toes. “Not so bad as you said.” She shook her head. “If nothing gets infected, she has a chance. Wrap her up and hope for the best.”
Robin held out something and I realized she’d brought the healer’s bag. The healer fished out a linen wrap, peeled the last of Dee’s clothes away from her back, plucked more bits out of the wounds, then started laying the wrap across the whole thing like it was as fragile as a hummingbird.
Which it was, for now.
Jay flung open the door, then hit it again when it rebounded. Thom caught it and Jay pushed past him. Jay’s face flushed and the cords in his neck stood out.
“They won’t come,” he ground out. “No matter what I offered. Said we didn’t matter—”
Feeling stronger now, I rose and wrapped my arms around him. “It’ll be all right.”
“I even went to my— to Nick. Begged him. He apologized but said his mother was the only one who could get a temple healer. I begged him. I—”
“Jay. It will be all right.”
He heard the weight to my voice, stared at me, blanched. “You—”
“The healer says we need to give it time.”
“Sumi—”
“Time,” I said firmly to all of them. Stuffed down my fear and my guilt and my stirring magic. “Let’s give it some time.”
“Go work on the addition,” Dee said suddenly. “While you’re all here.”
The healer nodded. “She needs rest. You all are not restful.”
I hid a surprised grin. Truer words were never spoken.
Jay ducked his head, rolled his shoulders, hugged me hard, then went out the back door. Thom followed after.
With a pointed look, I sent the boys after them— they’d not be able to get the tiles loose until the boys took their magic off them.
I thought I would go after them but when I tried, my knees wouldn’t hold.
So I stayed in the house with Dee, the reek of magic in my nostrils and the marks of goddess tattoos faint on the backs of my hands.
* * *
Jay
Between the afternoon sun beating down on him and his own internal, spiteful voices haunting him while he worked, Jay sweated. Those nasty little voices pointed out he should have stopped the tiles from falling, should have called out sooner, should have protected the boys and his sister— resting betweens, his sister… either she would never be the same or Sumi had done something so foolish—
Jay ripped into the last few tiles on the roof with the same ferocity he castigated himself, taking perverse pride in the nicks and cuts on his hands and the bruises building on his shins.
Thom watched from below. Shook his head dolefully, reached up and took the tiles then stacked them while the boys gaped. Jay wasn’t ready to face any of them, not yet.
He came down long enough to consult with Thom about how and where to cut into the under-roof and found Wilyam and Antero sobbing.
One Purple boy, one Red, crying like their hearts were broken. Hadn’t seen Jay yet, curled in on themselves and facing away.
Jay’s hands made fists. Skin pulled and gaped, mostly at his knuckles. One cut started bleeding again. He ignored it, strained to hear the boys talking to Thom.
“We’re sorry,” Andy said. “We’re sorry.”
“Jay will hate us forever,” Wil said. “We should have known. Stayed out of the way.”
He couldn’t let them believe that. He knelt on the tiles he’d helped his father make. Held out his arms. “Boys.”
They came. Snuggled into his dirty, sweaty, bloody chest. Sobbed harder.
“We didn’t mean to be in the way.” Wil’s entire body shook. “It’s all our fault.”
Andy nodded, his nose rubbing against Jay’s shirt.
Knees started to ache, but he wouldn’t stand, not when it would tell them they were right. “Wasn’t your fault,” he said heavily. “You didn’t know the tiles would come down. You didn’t know your Aunt Dee would save you— though I don’t think she could have done anything else.”
“We shouldn’t have stood there. Should have used—”
Andy, still more cautious than Wil, sobbed over the top of him, so Jay couldn’t be sure he heard Wil say the word magic— “We’re sorry. Please don’t hate us.”
“I could never hate you.” He gathered them closer. “This wasn’t your fault, and I’ll tell you that until you feel it in your bones.” His fault, yes, theirs, no. But would they believe him? “None of us knew those tiles were loose. That they’d come down just then. My foot slipped—”
“Not your fault either,” Wil said, untucking his chin and staring into Jay’s eyes. “You didn’t know either.”
The boy was brave, speaking up like that, with his jaw jutting out and snot running down his face. Jay couldn’t tell him how wrong he was, so he nodded. “I didn’t know the tiles would come off either.” He reached for words of comfort. “Sometimes things happen. Things we can’t control. But this thing, this was not your fault, you hear me?”
“Yes, Honored.”
“Yes, Honored.”
“Get up in the tree so you can watch without being in the way.” Jay squeezed them, then set them away. Shifted and stifled a groan, pushed himself back to his feet. Stripped off his shirt, fit for nothing but the rubbish heap.
“That was a kindness,” Thom murmured to him. “What you said. Do you believe it?”
They made their way back up onto the roof, started the first cut with Thom’s borrowed saw.
“That it wasn’t their fault? Of course.” Jay shoved his own guilt down to focus on the saw in his hands. Borrowed, expensive, needed.
“It wasn’t your fault either, son.”
Jay stopped, braced himself on the roof. Buzzing filled his ears. He shrugged it away. “Not doing this right now.”
“Jay—”
“No.” He sawed carefully, hyper-aware the last time he’d let his attention falter, his sister and nearly his sons had paid the price.
“But—”
“No! We’re not at work. You’re not my commander here. You brought the tools, but you’re in my home—” He looked down through the hole they were making. “On top of it anyway. I can tell you to leave.”
Thom sighed heavily and they worked in silence for a long time.
The boys wanted to help, so— though it was more hindrance than help— Jay sent Thom down to help them lift boards, one at a time, up to him. Under Thom’s watchful eyes, Wil and Andy grunted and pushed physically. Who knew what they could do if they used their magic? Not him— and they were being smart enough to keep their efforts purely mundane while Thom hovered.
They’d cut the posts and boards tongue-and-groove as much as they could, to spare the price of the nails, so he accepted the last of the new frame from the boys and banished them back to the tree. Then hefted the first post and angled it into place.
Thom grunted. Knelt. Guided the post. “Do you believe in fate? Believe you were destined to meet Sumi and fall in love? Or do you believe we choose our own fate?”
“What?” Jay felt the groove catch and jiggled it just enough to get it to go in the rest of the way.
“Fate? Or choice?”
This time Thom hefted the post and Jay guided it in. “Choice, I suppose. I don’t think the goddessi care about a man like me or you, or the boys.” Sumi, though— The dark goddess cared a heaven of a lot about Sumi, and if She had any say in his fate, She would have steered him away from Her high priestess.
“Interesting.”
Thom was baiting him, and Jay didn’t have the patience for it, now that his rage had subsided. “Out with it, old man.”
“If you don’t believe in fate, how can you affect it?”
“Say what you mean!”
Thom side-eyed him. “You say you believe in choice, but you’re resting bent on taking it away from others. Not allowing them to make their own choices.”
“Bullshit.” If he had his way, he’d wrap all his beloveds in magic to protect them from the world— but he didn’t. Couldn’t. Allowed them their own resting choices every resting day.
“If you can affect every little thing they do, every consequence, then you believe in fate, boy. Your mere presence isn’t enough to influence every person in this city to do exactly what you want to get exactly the outcome you want. Your desire, your need—”
“Fine! Fine. You’re right. I can’t make everyone do what I want.” That was half the problem. “Are you happy now?”
“If you can’t make them do what you want, you can’t take responsibility for their choices.”
“Resting betweens I can’t.”
“You don’t make the choice, you’re not responsible for the action. Unless you really are all powerful. Then you’re responsible for Litka challenging you, and you’re responsible for her arrogance in the first place. And you’re responsible for Fitz’s failure to show up for work yesterday, so I should punish you instead of him.”
“No—!”
“So you’re not? Responsible for Fitz’s carelessness? Or Litka’s arrogance?”
This he knew. “No.”
Thom handed him the next pole, but then didn’t let go. Made Jay face him. “The same way you’re not responsible for your mom getting sick. Or your sister saving a child she saw was in danger.”
“Old man—” Jay wretched the post away and wanted to throw it, but then he really would be responsible— for wherever it landed and whatever damage it did.
Thom knelt next to the last hole in the roof and cradled his hands, waiting for the post. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. The words were quiet, but they sounded like shouting to Jay, and Thom didn’t stop there. “Just like you didn’t know the tiles would fall the way they did. You didn’t put the boys there. You didn’t make your sister rescue them. You didn’t cause any of that to happen.”
Jay’s throat closed. Every muscle in his back was tight enough to snap, and each one protested as he slid the post into the hole. “My foot slipped. I should have paid better attention. Should have—” The words came out raggedly before he cut himself off.
“No.” Thom rose. Laid a hand on Jay’s shoulder as heavy as his words. “You didn’t know the tiles would fall. Sometimes things happen we have no control over.”
Resting betweens, the words rang true— his own words, but Jay didn’t know if he could force himself to believe them.
He swallowed the bile churning in his gut.
“Not your fault,” Thom said again. “You’re not a goddess, boy. You don’t control the world.”
Jay’s hands clenched. He forced them to relax. Thom’s logic was sound, but it stung, all the same. He felt wet on his cheeks and realized he was crying.
Swiped away the tears and opened his mouth to bellow at the old man, then glanced over at the boys watching him.
He’d tried to be a good example to his sisters, tried to live up to what Mom and Dad had been teaching them, tried to take care of everyone he loved, and now these two precious boys who weren’t blood but were his sons watched him the way Maggie had for so long— like they would do anything he said, anything.
Could they hear Thom’s words?
If they could, Jay had to listen, because that was what his mother and father would have wanted him to do. Because those boys needed to know things happened they couldn’t control, and a stupid accident wasn’t their fault.
Because they deserved to grow up into strong, smart, good men, and being guilt-ridden— ashamed— wouldn’t help.
Maybe he would have felt differently if Dee’s back was still crushed, the way it had been when he’d carried her into the house, before Sumi had healed her. But because she’d used magic and nothing bad had happened yet, he had to believe they were safe, had to believe Dee would walk and run and fight…
It felt as if tiles were sliding off his own back; horrible, heavy tiles that had been pressing down on him from all sides, and for the first time since he’d heard Dee’s scream, Jay drew in a deep breath.
Sometimes accidents happened.
Not everything was his fault— he just wasn’t that powerful.
Maybe it didn’t change what had happened, and maybe he couldn’t bear to think about fault and guilt and shame as they had to do with other things— things like his mom’s death or Sumi’s death or his dad’s death— but maybe just this once, he could let his fault and guilt and shame for Dee’s injury go.
He hadn’t kicked the tiles off the roof. Hadn’t put the boys under that one, most dangerous spot. Hadn’t made Dee save them.
But Dee had saved them and then Sumi had saved her.
Like he’d told them, sometimes things happened. Maybe— maybe— it wasn’t his fault this time.
And for now that was enough.