VICIOUS (II) : peter pan ouat

How to Say Good-Bye

Chapter 17

Back to the black again. Every time I go unconscious now, I wake up in this spaceless space. There's nothing here except for the darkness, and the ground rippling beneath my feet. That and the woman who stands before me.

Even after death my mother still looks beautiful. A porcelain doll threatening to crack at the slightest movement. Her cheeks have no colour to them, a pale white spreading across. I'm pale too, I guess. Recently I've become tan, but that's more do to circumstance than anything.

She seems younger than I ever remember her to be. Her hair blonder, her skin tighter. I couldn't put my finger on it, it's been many years since I've seen her alive after all, but there is something odd about her. She's too sharp at the edges, cutting into the black that surrounds us.

"Sweetheart, wake up." She has a sad smile. A single tear runs down her cheek, darkening it in colour.

She looks away from me for a second, before looking back up.

She's never been sad before.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She brings a hand up to my face. She looked like she was half a dozen yards away, but now she's so close. As if the emptiness is pulling us together at our cores. Time and space aren't really a boundary wherever it is that we are.

She shakes her head, biting her soft lip. "This is the last one you get. Or at least, the first one I've done."

I never thought I looked all that much like my mother, but as I look at her, I begin to see more of myself in her. Our hair colour is different, as well as our eyes, but we have the same skin. Mine may have a few freckles here and there, but the overall colour and texture is the same.

I wonder if I look like I'm threatening to burst into a million pieces. I wonder if I am.

"This isn't fair." Her voice echoes out.

Her voice sounds similar to mine too. Much less motherly than I remember. She is much younger than she was when I first got here, as if this very room is making her age backwards. She seems to be near my age in fact. I've never even seen a photo of my mother before my own birth. She had a drawing of her own face, same as the one of my father. Why they have no photos has always confused me.

The younger she gets, the more I realise she looks exactly like my sister. Brae and my mother share a remarkable similarity; one that I have always coveted. As far as I can tell, I don't look that much like my father either, but that could be chalked up to a bad drawing.

She told me I looked like my brother's family, but that doesn't help when I don't know who they are.

"I was supposed to see you this old." She continues, getting upset. "I was supposed to watch you marry, and fall in love. I was supposed to be there with you."

I feel almost taken aback. "You were."

I didn't think my own voice would come out of my throat.

She shakes her head. "I could have stopped our fate."

I know she is right, but I shake my head in front of the sad girl in front of me, and her breathing relaxes.

"You're right." She sighs. "I agreed to this."

I still don't know what she's talking about.

"Listen, Charlotte." She begins. "Ask for more girls. You must have more girls with you. Find more girls."

She begins to cry again, moving her hands to her mouth. "I haven't even met you, and I'll never see you again."

"What do you mean?" I ask. "Aren't you dead?"