Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 24

(Author's note: A short chapter today -- sorry everyone. Next one's in the works. I love you all. ❤️)

She stood silently in the middle of the emptiness that was room #6 of the Duskwood motel, still shivering from the cold that she had just come inside from. She had stood outside for a long while after Alan's car had become a memory only, her eyes staring down the deserted highway stillness in the direction that the two men had disappeared into.

She had stood on the highway's asphalt for a time, feeling her feet on the ground, unwilling to walk away from the symbolic artery that it was - Jake was gone, but he was still on the same highway as she was, the last remaining physical connection that she had to the man that had disappeared almost as suddenly as he had arrived. It had only been the relentless cold that had reluctantly driven her inside, where she stood now in complete silence.

It smelled like him, the room. His aftershave, the soap that he used. It was a gentle, spiced scent that she breathed in slowly as she looked around the room, her first real opportunity for observation since she had first stepped inside of it.

It was exacting in its neatness, she saw. Even though bits of technology lay on every available surface, things that could be stacked had been done so and things that could not be were lying together in tidy bundles. It was only the bed that had any evidence of a living presence; the sheets rumpled slightly from their previous dalliance.

As she stared at the bed, trying very hard not to picture him laying in it while he slept, she slowly became aware of something glittering softly on one of the pillows that lay flat on the mattress. She tilted her head slightly and frowned as she tried to identify its cause, but she was too far away for any chance of success and so walked towards it.

As she walked, the glittering intensified, and when she came up beside the pillow, she saw what it was. She stared down in silence as her eyes took in the necklace that was lying there; it had been placed with exacting precision in the direct centre of the pillow where it lay in sparkling relief against the crisp white of the pillowcase.

She sat down slowly on the edge of the bed as she continued to stare at it, letting her eyes comb over it intently. It was a silver chain with a pendant. The chain itself was a brilliant silver-white, slightly heavier in weight and width than would be typical for her to wear, and longer too. She traced the individual links down to its apex where a similarly brightly sparkling pendant lay in repose, and her eyebrows slowly began to knit together as she took it in with curiosity.

It was in the shape of a star, with eight points. The vertical rays were significantly longer than the rest, and the entire shape was edged with a jagged bevelling that caught the light and caused it to glitter. The soft golden glow of the desk lamp was the only light that was in the room, and its rich depth of colour bathed the pendant in a wash of citrine that sank into four engraved words on the otherwise blank surface.

PER ASPERA

AD ASTRA

The necklace was placed too perfectly in the middle of the pillow for her to believe that Jake had mistakenly left it behind. He had carefully placed it there, and he must have done so while he was packing because she had definitely not seen it there before.

He had left it there for her to find.

Slowly, she reached out a hand to pick it up, the cool weight of the silver feeling somehow soothing against her skin. She stared at the engraving on the pendant surface for a moment, and then reached into her pocket to pull out her phone.

It was Latin, that much she was confident of, but not much else. She activated her still broken phone screen, opened a browser, and typed the words into Google. The results were instantaneous, and she stared at the first entry in silence.

Through hardship to the stars.

Her chest felt tight again.

The pendant was old, older than the chain, certainly. And the chain - she remembered it now. He had been wearing it when she had first laid eyes upon him at the Donfort's. It had been tucked into his shirt, but she remembered the way that it had sparkled in the light around his neck, drawing her attention.

After a time of gazing at the words that had been engraved onto the pendant, she opened the clasp that held the chain together. After a moment's hesitation, she lifted it to her neck and secured at her nape. She looked down at it as it draped over her chest, the star coming to rest directly over her cleavage.

As she stared at it, the pendant rose and fell with her breathing, causing the gold of the lamp light to sparkle and glint off of the bevelled edges of the star. It was a hypnotic effect, and she soon felt fatigue sinking into every bone and muscle in her body. She kicked off her shoes and, still otherwise fully dressed, crawled underneath the covers of Jake's bed and instantly fell asleep, holding the pendant in a tightly clenched fist.

* * * *

To be continued...