“Ran into the doc outside, he seems to be doing alright.” 

At the foot of the bed, as carefully, as delicately as I could, I took a seat, to better see her, and to better hear her too. It was a strain for her to raise her voice too long. More often than not, I hear her more in feeble whispers than anything else.

“He’s a darling, isn’t he?” Mom said, fluttering her eyes to a close, hiding her wheeze with a subtle sigh.  “He came as fast as he could as soon as your Father called. Didn’t even charge us a cent for it.”

Unfortunately, she wasn’t subtle enough.

“Does it even help your illness?” I asked, glancing at her modest pile of prescriptions by the bedside. “The medicine, the treatment he recommends, I thought you guys only bring him here so that Sammy and I don’t get suspicious of your lack of hospital visits. Seems pretty redundant to me, now that we know .” 

“True, very true, what I have, it’s more than likely none of these colored pills here will me in the slightest,” She slightly lifted her eyelids, her black eyes peering back at me in a squint. “But I always like to think that it does. Hope is a powerful thing, and I always like to hope.” 

As soon as she finished her words, a single suppressed cough shook the mattress, and her squint was briefly contorted into a grimace. I didn’t say or do anything for a while, I gave her time to recover, to pretend that I didn’t see what I saw just then. 

I didn’t know how exactly to bring it up, to tell her the reason why I was even here in her room in the first place. It was a valid concern, and I had every right to ask… but I don’t know, seeing her wince just trying to take in a breath… how do I ask without sounding callous? 

Simply, really, apparently… all you needed to do was have a mother shrewd and with keen enough ears to always hear the unsaid.

“This doesn’t change a single thing,” She said, somehow retaining her comforting smile. “Don’t listen to your father, don’t worry about me, you take down that barrier, I’ll be sure to hold up my end of the deal.”

“And how do I know that for sure?” I asked before I could think about it. “You’re barely able to get yourself out of bed.”

“Mmm, well, that’s for me to worry about, alright?” Her hand reached out over the bed, and I felt it rest upon my own, gently, reassuringly. “You have plenty to worry about already, dear. I won’t dare have myself be added to your pile. Trust me, everything we’ll be just fine…”

Then as if to dispute her claim, another violent bout had her retching, and I felt her once gentle touch gripping my hand in a crushing squeeze. The effort took a toll on her and she could barely even lift her eyes up anymore… she really shouldn’t try… but she still did anyway, still gazing back up at me so tender.

“As I was saying,” She cleared her throat. “It’s going to take a lot more than a small cough to break a promise to my son.” 

This is where I really don’t get her. Here she was, ready to go above and beyond for me, but then just the other day, my pleading and begging fell on deaf ears. What’s the difference? Because I promise to prove myself first? Was that it? Does she just want to test my resolve all along? Was she still testing me now? 

“Well, well, I see the marking on your neck has finally faded,” Mom said, tilting her head in amusement. “Though be forewarned, other Matriarchs are still able to sense it right away, so… try to have some patience with Amelia. She can be… quite dramatic when it comes to her darling big sister.” 

Not wanting to add to my pile, she says… and there goes dropping a goddamn thousand-ton worry onto the plate. Honestly, I completely forgot to consider Amelia in this equation. 

I think she noticed my life flashing before my eyes there, because she promptly added after. “But I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure Adalia will have it all under control. She can be very eloquent, you know?” 

Then slowly off to the side, to the darkest corner, she shifted her eyes, her smile, and asked. “Aren’t you, Adalia?” 

I quickly followed her gaze, and in those shadows, just faintly, I could see movement – a blink, a pair of misty whites that were never there before, or at least, not to my knowledge. 

“Very… eloquent…” affirmed a familiar, hushed voice, the shadow vaguely moving in a nod. “Sister… will… listen…” 

At this point, I was only ever so slightly fazed at seeing Adalia in the room with us. Pretty sure at this rate, I wouldn’t even bat an eye if the next time I see something lurking around in the corner when I take shower even, I’m pretty much expecting it now.

I waved hello, she blinked back, and that was the full extent of our good mornings to each other. Like a statue in front of a decrepit mausoleum, she went back to standing ominously quiet in her corner, fading into the background as if her presence was never acknowledged, while I shifted topics to something I’ve been wondering about this whole time.

“You said this condition of yours… back then, on the phone, you said you got it by breaking down the barrier around Astra, right?” 

Her palm suppressing a cough, she nodded. “Right.” 

“How does that happen? How does breaking down a barrier do something like this to you? It shouldn’t.”

Another nod. “Right again.”

“So this shouldn’t even be happening to you, it shouldn’t be possible, unless…” I paused, giving it a little more thought than before, all the while, she quizzically stared, “Unless you didn’t do it right.” 

She lowered her hand, revealing a beaming smile beneath it. “Clever boy.” 

“Explain that to me,” I said quietly, not feeling as clever as her expression would suggest. “You’re you, how can you not do something like that right?”

“Come now, dear, I’m only one woman, aren’t I?” She said, playing modest. “Even I can only do so much against the power of all Seven Divines. A barrier like the one erected around Astra demands a lot of patience, focus, and most importantly, time, to ever hope to dismantle it… all three of which I only have so much of, unfortunately.” 

She continued to elaborate, struggling all the while, her voice fluctuating both in strength and volume, fading at times as the pain coarse through her body.

“Normally, dismantling a barrier is a painless procedure provided you do everything normally – abnormally, however, barriers can be painful, you do something wrong somewhere in the process, and you’d be stricken with an agony like no other. Like needles, you know? A million, billion pricks stabbing every inch of your body without any relent, and the more you try to force it, the more it burrows deep. That’s kind of how it feels like… and no doubt, it sounds like a familiar type of pain, doesn’t it?

It did. I knew that pain. In my fingers, my hands, forcing me back from my attempts. So that’s what it was. That pain. I wasn’t doing it right… Adalia was pretty much telling me that too. Go slow, she says… yeah, wish I could.

“But just because you aren’t doing it right doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing it wrong,” She said. “It’s agonizing, it’s unbearable, but you can force through it if you can bear with it – and that’s precisely what I did. I forced it, I pushed through the threshold, and one by one, I destroyed all seven catalysts keeping the barrier holding, all while the pain, as well as the added protection of the Divines, ravaged my body. It took a long, long time to destroy all seven… and as you can see, the result pretty much speaks for itself.”

“So that sensation, those needles, that stabbing pain,” I stared at her. “That’s what you’re feeling now? That’s what you’ve been feeling all this time? Everything you fall sick, this is what you have to go through?” 

“That, and whatever other affliction the Divines had cursed me with, yes… I cough, I get dizzy, maybe I’d faint… but that’s all the visible symptoms, it’s what you don’t see, mystically, that’s what pains me most. But I’ll spare you the details, it is not your burden to carry, after all.”

Something inside me went heavy. A wave of newfound sympathy crashing like raging waves. I was barely able to stand a split-second of that pain, and you’re telling me this was something she had to bear with every second she falls ill? All these years, all throughout my childhood, smiling through the pain every time I’d drop into her with a visit… I never knew.

“No, no, come now, dear, don’t look at me like that,” Mom formed another smile, patting my hand like she’s always had when I was younger. “Don’t think of me as being that weak. Who do you think you’re talking to? Your mother is tougher than that, you know?”

“But why? Why force yourself through?” I asked. “Why couldn’t you have just done it normally?”

“Among various other reasons that I don’t care to explain, for one, it is far quicker to do, you see, far easier too, so long as you can bear with it,” She explained. “So, if say, you don’t have much time… it is an alternative, viable solution.” 

An alternative solution, she says… with that faint twinkling look in her eye.

“And from what I sense, dear…” She continued on. “It seems you’re running short on time too, aren’t you?” 

I veered my eyes, dropped them to the ground. “Right…” 

“Well, then… I won’t dare tell you how to go about your problems, not after the last time I tried,” She slumped her back against the pillow, fluttering her eyes to a close. “My only advice… is to do what you think is right.” 

Hmm…

“And just what do you think I’m thinking is right, huh?” I asked her.

“I don’t know, dear. I don’t read minds, you know?” She said in a wry whisper. “But I do know that you’re always willing to go that extra mile when push comes to shove… if you wanting to save this man’s life is any precedent.” 

“It’s what is right.” 

“Precisely, you’ve always done what you think is right, and no doubt, you’ll just continue to do so,” She simply said, leaning back to rest with a faint smile on her face. “And I’m very keen to see just where that extra mile is going to take you next…”