Chương 38: “Lauren Sees”

It happened on a Friday night. Late. June was asleep. Lauren came upstairs from the late shift, past midnight, and she pushed open June's door to check on her the way she always did, and she stopped. The room was faintly purple. Hardly bright, dim, the quality of light that was between a nightlight and nothing, soft enough that a person could convince themselves they had imagined it. It was coming from Vorrath on the windowsill.

He had been keeping it dim for weeks, the faintest possible glow, the lowest register of what he could do, because the room was easier to regulate thermally if he could see it and he could see it better if he— He stopped glowing the moment she opened the door. Too late. Lauren stood in the doorframe. June slept. The room was now perfectly dark. Lauren looked at the windowsill. He sat there and was a rock. She looked at him for a long time. Stolen story; please report.

Then she came into the room, quietly, and she sat on the edge of June's bed and she looked at him in the dark and she said, very low, so as not to wake June: "I don't know what you are." He waited.

"I don't think it matters," she said.

"I've thought about it a lot and I don't think it matters." She looked at her daughter.

"She sleeps better than she used to, do you know that? Before — she used to wake up a lot. Bad dreams. She doesn't anymore." She looked back at him.

"I don't know if that's you." He glowed once. Dim. Careful. She nodded like she had expected that.

"Right." She looked at her hands.

"I'm not — I'm not afraid of you. I want you to know that. I just needed you to know that I see you." She paused.

"Not all of you. Whatever you are, I don't think I could see all of you. But enough." He sat on the windowsill. She got up. Pulled June's blanket up. Paused at the door.

"Thank you," she said.

"For whatever it is you're doing." She went to bed. He sat in the dark of June's room for a long time. He had been seen, in three thousand years, as a threat, as a weapon, as a myth, as a prize. He had been seen as the thing at the end of the hall and the reason the fire burned all night. He had not been seen like that before. He sat with it. He stayed. System: Bond Strength: 88%. She sees you. Not all of you. Enough. We've been watching you for a very long time, Vorrath, and we want to say: that was enough too.

What you've done here. That was enough. That's more than enough.