The Lightning that Jumps Between

Forty

"Eva," Ethan said in a heavy tone, thrusting the paper at her.

When she looked up, eyes alight, Ethan confessed against the wind, "There's something I've gotta tell you."

Eva, Donna, and Alcina stared at him expectantly. Even the horse was looking at him. "When I saw your mom earlier. She was...different. She said that she was..." he gestured, trying to find words. "She was your mom's humanity . That's what this is talking about. Godric must have known..."

Eva hid her mouth with the paper, thinking quickly. She seemed full of emotion, buzzing with this revelation, holding back her every thought about the possibility of a human...a kind, motherly Miranda.

But she only said, in a throaty whisper, "Ethan...Eveline is your...creator."

His face was not appreciative of the reminder.

"Can you reason with her?"

"Eveline!" Alcina's eyes widened, as she made, perhaps, many connections at once.

"I can try," he said in a faint voice. Eva pushed Donna in front of her, pulling the crystal out of the bag and placing it in the black-haired woman's hands. "Quickly."

"What are we doing?" Donna asked meekly as Eva and Ethan moved around her, pulling Alcina into a circle, holding hands. She looked stunned, but allowed them to continue.

"Fighting fire with fire," Ethan said sardonically. Alcina really did have admiration when she looked at him that time, he was sure of it.

"We're going to do the same thing we did when we brought Alcina back," Eva explained, closing her eyes. "Focus, think on the crystal. Make a connection, as if it were an object you loved, wanted to get to know."

Ethan or Eva were both powerful enough to create a regenerated 'person' from a crystallized essence in minutes now. But more of them simply equaled more charge, more banks to draw power from. Ethan saw Miranda reappear in the field, heard the crackling, splintering sound of a morphing crystal from Donna's hands. Then a rumble sounded deep in the earth and Donna rather meekly tried to cradle the burning, glowing thing in her hands. Tendrils of black mycelia shot out from the alive-feeling-thing, and without thinking, Ethan put his palm over it.

Instantly a blast erupted from either his palm, or the thing that it touched; everyone was thrown back this time, even the large bumbling Remnant that by now had grown quite tired of the brothers that pestered it.

Ethan landed hard on his back, but scrambled urgently to his knees. He was the first one up, and he ran back to where, instead of a crystal, a large patch of singed ground smoked, around a thin, wiry figure.

Long dark hair fell into her face. It looked just like Mia's.

Ethan moved forward, still on his knees, and grasped her shoulders. She seemed stunned, or perhaps she was just being regular creepy Eveline, staring down, eyes glazed over. "Eveline. Listen to me. It's me. Ethan. I need you know something. I was wrong about a lot, Eveline, wrong about almost everything that matters, and I'm sorry. You have good in you, do you know that? I know that people treated you horribly. Used you."

Eva moved to shield the duo from Miranda. Her lip trembled, but she stared down the older woman anyway.

"What mirage are you? A weaker, discarded version of me?" Miranda laughed, eyeing the young woman. "What game is Heisenberg playing with this?"

"I'm not you," Eva snapped as Ethan continued to plead with Eveline. "I was your creation. Not that thing back there. I was yours."