My Three Cousins

Chapter Seventeen

My instinct was to get up and rush over to my aunt, but I was still frozen to my chair as if my body wasn't my own at all.  Seeing this my aunt turned to my cousins, "you shouldn't have gotten her so involved in all of this."  She said it in a tone that seemed to be an attempt at scolding them, but even when she was alive chastising my cousins hadn't come naturally to her.

"She got herself involved," Joan complained with an eye roll.

Ruth nor Helen defended me, but I didn't blame them since it was mostly true.

"Mom, we can't focus on Addison right now, we need answers."  Joan directly demanded, "the man came after us that day in the store and now he attacked Helen and Addison while they were at a bar last night."

It didn't surprise me that they were up front about telling Aunt Maggie where we had been, and it didn't surprise me that she acted as if this was a perfectly normal place for us to be in the middle of the week.  I wondered if anything could surprise me as I sat frozen by magic watching my witch cousins have a conversation with my dead aunt.  It then occurred me to that Aunt Maggie might have known where we were all along and I decided that if the opportunity ever presented itself, I needed to ask more questions about how the whole afterlife thing worked.

"I'll tell you anything I know."  Aunt Maggie said, drawing my attention back to the conversation.

"What do we do?"  Joan asked as if her mom should have already known what she needed.  Joan wasn't seeking knowledge for knowledge's sake; she wanted explicit instructions on how to keep herself and her sisters safe.

"You girls already know what to do," Aunt Maggie said.  "You need to deal with him the way you deal with electricity."  She added this last part as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, her tone had become almost flippant in the same way Helen's often did.

"When we were in the bar Addison dumped water on him and it put out his power," Helen said excitedly as she started to piece things together.  I felt proud that I had managed to figure something out that my cousins hadn't, but even that feeling of pride seemed to drain my already dwindling energy level.  Aunt Maggie smiled in my direction, as if she, too, was proud of me.

"I was planning to take him down to the lake.  That's where I was going when he," Aunt Maggie's voice caught in her throat and she didn't have to finish the sentence, the sad look on her and my cousins' faces told me what the ending would be.

"We don't have much time, and I can tell there is something else you all wanted to ask me," she said looking directly at me as I felt myself growing weaker.  It was my job to use my energy to sustain her and I was running out of energy.

Joan and Helen looked confused, but Ruth almost immediately spoke up.  "We're not that powerful, Mom.  I can do even less than I could when you were alive.  What do we do if it isn't enough?"  Ruth's voice sounded like it was on the verge of breaking and I realized that Ruth had been holding this fear back from her sisters, not wanting to scare them when a battle with the electric man was clearly inevitable.

"There isn't a way to gain more power," Aunt Maggie answered and the entire room seemed to deflate, "I never understood it like she did, but our family has been losing magic every generation.  Once we lose the magic there isn't any way to get it back.  It's like Addy sitting there giving me energy so I can be here with you all.  I'm draining her.  In our family line, every generation drains us of our magic.  Make the magic you have work, that's all you can do."

I could see the coloring in Aunt Maggie's face go pale as my eyes began to flutter and I became dizzier.  "Fight it Addison," Joan said impatiently and I knew this must be the feeling of passing out that she wanted me to battle against.  I tried to stay awake, but every part of my body felt weaker than it had ever been, and I wanted more than ever just to sink back into the chair and rest.  "I just need to take a break," I thought as I started to let my eyes flutter closed.

"Addy!" Helen yelled as if she was pleading with me to be stronger or to have more energy and I forced my eyes back open to see my aunt's form become a bit more solid again.  

"Who, mom?"  Ruth asked, "who understood more than you?"

"It's too much for her," Aunt Maggie said looking at me, "we need to let your cousin rest.  You girls know all that you need to.  You know all I knew."  She then used my strength to walk toward me and reached out like she was going to touch my face, without ever truly making contact.  "Addison, tell you mother that I'm alright and that I'm sorry.  I love you all."  With the last of my strength, she walked to the shimmering spot in the center of the room and disappeared.

Her last walk had forced my eyes shut as I tried to cling to the already fuzzy memory of her being there.  I heard all three of my cousins walk to my side and begin talking to me, but I couldn't make out any of their words and they all seemed to be colored by Aunt Maggie's presence.  One of their voices chimed like bells like Aunt Maggie's did, one of them had auburn hair just like Aunt Maggie's, one of their callused hand's felt like Aunt Maggie's on my skin.  It started to feel like the air I was breathing was the ghost of my aunt, thick with her translucence.  I wanted to gasp but I couldn't remember if I was supposed to be using my lungs or if I was lending them to her.

The feeling of everything being Maggie swarmed inside me and it seemed obvious I had to give my energy for her to be there.  I was Aunt Maggie, and she was me and we were my cousins.  The world melted together, and I faded into a dream.

In the dream I was alone with Aunt Maggie, and I walked up to her to ask her what it was like to die, but when I opened my mouth, it was Aunt Maggie who spoke my question.  Then she looked at me for an answer and I didn't know what she wanted me to say.  I tried again and again to ask but just as when I was falling asleep my aunt and I seemed to fade in and out of each other like one person.  We were her and we were me and we were my mother, and we were Helen, and we were Ruth, and we were Joan, and we were women I had never met, but none of us seemed to be able to speak to answer.