Ander - Part 5: Subchapter 8
8
It turns out 'a little something' was actually a whole lot of big somethings. Kiana was sitting at their kitchen table, staring in disbelief as Sarah rummaged around in every cupboard and drawer, pulling out the most random assortment of foods and snacks and throwing them all into a basket that couldn't even close anymore. There were some miniature chicken pies, some slices of ham neatly wrapped up in a handkerchief, some spices, a complete set of salt, pepper, and sugar shakers, a loaf of bread, a box of salted meats and even a huge cheese wheel overflowing from the top.
"Um, Sarah? I'm sure Ander would love all this, but I'm not sure I can carry this much."
"Mm? Oh, goodness, you're right! He lives way up on that hill now, doesn't he?"
Kiana chuckled. "Yeah. 'Wolf Hill' they're calling it. Bit unoriginal if you ask me."
"Perhaps, but it certainly fits." Sarah sat down and started to sort through the stockpile she had assembled, giving each item thorough consideration before deciding whether it should go or stay.
The menfolk's voices suddenly came drifting in from outside again. "Dammit, Father, now you're just being cruel!"
"No, 'cruel' would be making you pull up the water yourself. Now stand still, this is the last one, I promise."
"You said that the last three ti-"
Splash!
"Oooaargh!!"
"Hehehe. Maybe one more."
"Father! It is freakin' freezing out here!"
"Well then, maybe you should've thought about that before you went 'hunting', hmm?"
Kiana giggled before she could stop herself. She clapped her hands over her muzzle and was just about to launch into an apology when she saw that Sarah was giggling even harder than she was, daintily holding her hand up against her mouth.
Their eyes met over the bulging basket and then they both burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Kiana said anyway, just to be on the safe side, still trying to get her laughter under control. "I shouldn't be laughing when Mateo's going through such a hard time."
"Oh pish posh," Sarah said and set aside the pepper and sugar shakers. The salt, however, she left in. "Don't you worry about him. Mat may be a lot of things, but a drunkard he is not."
"Really? He could have fooled me."
"I'm serious. He hates the stuff. You mark my words, the moment he calms down he'll go back to being his old self. His old, sober, self. He just needs some time to... heal."
"Heal?"
"Yes, heal. Mat's always been a very sensitive individual. Very open about his emotions, and that can sometimes leave him vulnerable."
"Sensitive? And here I thought he was just a ja-" Watch your mouth, Kiana! You're in Mateo's house, speaking to his mother, who also happens to be Ander's mother, so you watch your mouth! "Um... a Fox with a bit of a temper."
"I know Mat can be a bit of a jackass," Sarah said, nearly knocking Kiana right out of her chair, "but that's because he's so expressive. No idea how to act in any way other than what he's feeling in that exact moment. He must have gotten it from his father, because I am the exact opposite. Always have been."
"But you're not, though," Kiana said, hoping that she wasn't being overly familiar all of a sudden. "At least not anymore."
"I'm not?"
"No. Your son is getting a bucket bath right outside and you're not letting it get you down at all! It might not be my place to say this, but you seem so much happier than you were before. Not that I'm saying you were unhappy, of course not! I only mean that now... I'm not sure what I'm trying to say."
"It's like I've stopped grieving?"
"Yes! That's it exactly! It -" Kiana's smile wilted away as the full impact of Sarah's words started to dawn on her. She remembered all too well what it felt like to grieve for the one she loved, how it felt like she was being eaten alive from the inside out. "I'm so sorry, Sarah, I shouldn't talk like that. I nearly died believing I might lose Ander forever, and I only had to suffer through that feeling for a few days, whereas you have been grieving for him for over twenty years. I can't even imagine what that must have been like."
"I don't want to hear any more apologies from you, Kiana. Not when you're the one who pulled me out of that terrible hell."
That certainly threw her for a loop. "Me?" she asked, honestly flummoxed. "What did I do?"
"I'll be honest with you, dear. All this -" she gestured towards the volumetrically challenged basket, "- was so that I could finally get a chance to speak with you. I've been wanting to thank you for a long time."
Kiana could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. "Is this because of how we snuck out of Grovenglen? Because really, I was almost completely useless throughout the whole thing. It was Bart and Nick and Layla and Devin who really -"
"No, dear." Sarah reached over the table and placed her hand on top of hers. "It was before that, before the sun had even set. I was -
*
- walking down the road, watching her shadow stretch out before her, gliding over the cobblestones. For one wonderful evening, she had felt whole again. For one, miraculous minute she was able to hold her long-lost son in her arms again, the first time since she was forced to abandon him all those years ago.
And now he was gone, and she would never see him again. It was like standing in the pouring rain beneath that hellish tree all over again.
I do not intend to die.
How she wished she could believe that. How she wished she could have convinced him to stay. She knew she was being selfish, but if it meant she could have been with him just a few hours more, she would gladly have welcomed doom upon the entire valley.
That thought stopped her dead in her tracks and she stared down at her own misshapen shadow, absolutely repulsed by her own wickedness. It's just...
It wasn't fair.
She glanced to her left, and she glanced to her right. There were Foxes in the gardens, pulling weeds, Foxes on the porches, swaying back and forth in their rocking chairs, Foxes just standing about doing nothing, but all of them, all of them were looking at her. They knew already. It's only been a few hours and already the entire 'Glen's collective tongue was wagging about 'pure innocent little Sarah's torrid sexual liaisons'.
They knew nothing. They did not understand what she had gone through, and neither did they understand what Andrew had gone through, or what he was about to go through, all for them!
So let them gawk. Let them whisper. Let them have their scandal. She didn't care. Andrew had trusted her with his last request and she would perform it to the letter, because she owed him so much, and she was able to give back so little.
Before she knew it, she had reached their front door. With the setting sun at her back, her shadow was like a black mirror image blocking her path. How much courage must it have taken him to step over this threshold? How much has he been forced to leave behind?
Sarah raised her hand to knock and the shadow did the same, except it looked more like the Shadow-Sarah was trying to warn her off.
Stay away, it seemed to say. Just go back home. Never speak of it again. Sleepwalk through life like you've been doing all this time. It's easier that way. Just pretend like nothing happened, just like your Mo-
Sarah rapped her knuckles smartly against the door, almost hard enough to draw blood.
She waited. And she waited. She waited so long she began to wonder if they were even home, but then the door swung open and Bethany appeared in the doorway, looking like she hadn't slept in days, her fur all messed and her eyes red and puffy.
"Sarah?" Her voice didn't sound any better than she looked. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm sorry to bother you, Bethany, but I need to speak to Kiana. It's very important."
"Kiana is... not feeling well."
"I know. Neither am I. And forgive me for saying so, but you do not look particularly well either."
She snorted, but Sarah did not sense any of her usual haughtiness in it. "Let me tell you something, Sarah. This is the face of a vixen who has done the 'right' thing. This is the face of a vixen who put the happiness and wellbeing of her family before all else, and this is what it looks like when that vixen realizes that all of it means absolute bull pies when her family's happiness was the very thing she had to sacrifice to ensure its safety! Now you tell me, Sarah! You tell me..." She leaned in closer, and Sarah realized that Bethany was very close to crying. "...what was the point of it all?"
Sarah shook her head. "I don't think there is a point. The world is simply an unfair place."
"Unfair." Bethany agreed and wiped her eyes.
"Please, I need to talk to Kiana. I know she must be feeling terrible right now, but Andrew asked me to give her a message."
"Andrew?"
"Ander."
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why would Ander send you?"
"I'm sure you'll learn all about it soon enough."
Bethany regarded the tired-looking vixen on her front porch some more, then stood back. "Okay, you can come in."
"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. This will only take a minute."
Bethany shrugged. "Suit yourself."
"Thank you."
She went to fetch her eldest daughter, leaving Sarah standing on the porch with nothing but her own shadow for company, standing in the big rectangular doorway of light spilling into their kitchen. It looked almost as if it were trapped inside a box.
Just go home. Just forget about everything. What point is there in torturing the poor girl with false promises?
But he asked me to. I have to do it.
She was still staring at her too-tall shadow stuck inside that frame of light when Kiana came shuffling into the kitchen like a living corpse, dragging her feet along as if she lacked even the tiny amount of energy required to lift them an inch off the floorboards.
"Sarah?" she said, her voice all cracked and phlegmy, as if she were recovering from a nasty bout of flu.
"Kiana, I -" Words failed her as she stepped into the light and Sarah got a good look at the poor girl's face. Her hair was all tangled and sticking up in weird directions. Her eyes were red and puffy, just like Bethany's, and there were also dark streaks underneath she hadn't even bothered to clean up. She stood there with a vacant expression on her face, clutching her elbows like a greyfur caught outside on a cold night, too confused to find her way home.
"Mother said... you have a message from Ander?"
"I... yes. He asked me to find you. He said -"
She came to her, walking fast, her gaze locked onto hers like a ghost straight out of one of Herden's horrible stories.
"What did he say? Was it... Did he change his mind? Is he coming back?"
"No, dear. He -"
He's never coming back.
Sarah swallowed back her tears and pushed that terrible thought away as far as she could, but she could still hear it slithering around in the back of her mind like a snake, ready to rear up and bite the moment she let her guard down, because no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, she simply could not believe her own lies. She had left him all alone, and now he had left her. He will never come back. "He made up his mind, dear. He's going home."
Sarah didn't think it was possible for Kiana's face to fall even lower than it already was, but the sudden anger that flashed across it proved otherwise. "Home?" she spat. "That place is no home, it's a prison!"
Without warning, Kadai's smiling face suddenly filled Sarah's mind. She could see him so clearly, laughing in the sun, and then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone, and she was looking down into the face of a nearly hysterical vixen again, caught somewhere between furious anger and hopeless sadness.
It was a feeling she knew so well.
"Kiana, Ander asked me to tell you this: 'I do not intend to die'."
Sarah didn't really know what she was expecting to happen upon uttering those words, but it most certainly wasn't this. Kiana's hair was still a mess, her eyes were still red and weepy, but something suddenly changed within them. She couldn't exactly put her finger on it, but it felt like she was looking at a completely different person, as though someone had come along and blown out the candle of her despair.
"'I do not intend to die'? He said that? Those were his exact words?"
Sarah took a small step back. "Yes, he was very clear on that. Kiana, what are you...?"
She was smiling. It was only a small smile, but compared against the mess she had been before it seemed absolutely huge, and it was still growing. "He really, _really_said that?" she asked, smiling from ear to ear, her eyes practically twinkling in the last rays of the setting sun.
"Yes, Kiana."
"Oh thank you, Sarah!" Kiana said and grabbed her hands, looking up at her with unmistakable gratitude. "You have no idea how much I needed that, I can only -"
"Stop smiling!!" Sarah shrieked and ripped her hands out of the child's grasp. She watched, absolutely seething, as that horrible smile dissolved into a look of shock and surprise. "How can you even think of smiling while Andrew is marching to his death right this very moment!? You've been there! You know what it's like! So how can you stand there and be happy!?"
"Sarah, I -"
"No! How dare you!? I've lost everything once, and now I've lost everything again! You don't know how it feels, so don't you dare smile in front of me!"
Sarah hated being like this. She hated to shout, she hated to cry, she hated feeling so angry and miserable, and worst of all, she hated showing it. She just wanted to go home and lock her door and weep away the dark hours, just as her shadow had suggested, far removed from everything and everyone.
Kiana did not even flinch at her hysterics. She simply stood her ground, and with a calm assurance she replied: "I am worried about Ander. Of course I am! I fear for his life exactly as I would fear for my own! But I will smile, even if he's not here. I will smile because I am happy, and I am happy because I know he will come back to me."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"Because he told you and you told me, and Ander has never lied to me, not even once. 'I do not intend to die'. That's all I need."
Sarah waited to see if the girl would say any more, but apparently that was it. "You are too young, Kiana. You do not yet understand that the world doesn't simply bend to accommodate wishful thinking. You -"
If you want to make me a promise just to make me feel better, then do it properly! Promise me you will come back! No matter what! You hear me!?
I promise I will come back, no matter what.
She's no different from me...
"Sarah? Are you... okay?"
"I..." She's no different from me. Andrew has touched her, too... "I'm sorry I yelled, Kiana. I just... I don't want him to die..."
"He's not going to die!" Kiana reached up, grabbed her by the shoulders, and next thing Sarah knew her whole world was being jerked to and fro as the young girl started to shake her, screaming her lungs out. "Ander is not going to die because I am not just going to sit around on my tail and do nothing! Not when he's trying his damndest! He's always trying to save everybody else, so it's about time somebody lifted a finger to save him!"
Sarah stumbled backwards, brushed the dishevelled hair out of her eyes and stared at the little vixen that had just given her the talking-to she so desperately needed, and Kiana stared back -
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