Rhonda Rose
Yes, I had left her—my student, my protege, the closest thing I would ever have to a daughter.
But in a way, I had done nothing of the sort. I had left so much of myself behind with her, whether she knew it or not. And I had left so much of myself behind with him. Deliberately, pushing it onto him and into him in a way that made his bright companion more than curious. “She will not welcome you,” I had told him in the end. “But if ever there is a thing you cannot handle, she is the only one who can help.”
It had been past time to leave her, little as I had seen it in the moment. Lisa had become strong—so strong. Stronger than me, and that was a thing I could never let her know. And I could see the bigger picture now—how the skills I learned in my physical life had prepared me for my role with young Lisa, and how the skills she would push me into learning would prepare me for this new existence—a role in which I could now reach the worlds closest to my own in this layered ethereal existence, glimpsing the stirrings of dissent and trouble that will soon reach out to trouble mine.
A role in which I might also glimpse the one who, with Garrie, might well make the difference in the struggles to follow.
Or perhaps not. That, I have feared, I will never have the privilege to know.
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