Reflections Of Angels

A Liminal Moment

At the end of the day, Nyx closed the door of the bedroom and looked to the bed where she had put down the diary. Now, after all the rigmarole, she still felt reluctant to read. Like she was crossing some taboo; pulling back the veil on a part of her life that before this had remained closed off to her. She was in liminal space; a moment of change, and the anticipation of what might be revealed was almost better than the truth- and in some ways, almost worse.

Walking over to her dresser drawer, Nyx pulled it open; there, inside, was the photograph, the one given to her by Alysha, the one of her and Evelyn when Nyx was a baby. Collapsing back onto her bed, Nyx traced her finger along the straight edges, looking at her birth-mothers young, smiling face; what was she thinking behind those eyes? How had she really felt? What happened?

Unbidden, the one thought Nyx had tried hard her whole life to quash down drifted across her mind. Did she give me up?

One way to find out.

Picking up the book, she turned, snuggling her back against the pile of plush pillows on her bed. Reverently, she stroked the cover of the book as if asking permission, and then pulled it open to the page he had marked.

Three lines of script greeted her:

That's it then.
I'm pregnant.
I don't know what to do.

Slamming the book shut, Nyx tossed it to the end of the bed and buried her face in her pillows. She stayed there for minutes, breathing hard.

A small touch on her arm stirred her attention. "Don't be sad..."

Nyx darted up, eyes wide. The small boy was standing beside her bed, smiling bright as she laid her eyes on him. "What?!"
Task accomplished, the boy dropped down out of sight, Nyx lunging after him, searching around as she landed on the floor to see where he had gone. She saw eyes peeking out from under her bed and threw herself under after him, scrambling around but coming out empty handed.
Smoothing down her now-birds nest hair, she sat back down on the mattress with a tired sigh.
In the chaos, something had slipped from the diary and was lying next to it on the mattress. Curious, Nyx picked it up. It was a photo, but not the one of mother and child; instead, it was a house, an elegant, gothic, Victorian-looking structure, modest but grand, taken artistically from some way back to appreciate its full size.

"I know this place." Nyx breathed, drawing the picture closer to her face. "I used to live here!"

Hurrying, she flicked back through the book to find the place from which it had come. And from there, she began to read.

As her birth mother's words washed over her, pulling her in further and further, tears prickled in her eyes and her breath caught in her throat. "Oh..." Nyx breathed, eyes shining. "She's wonderful."

Very literally throwing things at the wall to see what sticks here. XD Hope you like, please comment your thoughts!