A Mother's Love : Rewritten

Regret

Liza Pov (After the reveal)

I couldn’t believe I just did that. I couldn’t have picked a worse time to the reveal truth to Sang. Naked, soaking wet, and locked in a closet was not the ideal time to confess that the women who forced you into said closet was not in fact your mother. God, how could I have been so stupid?

I paced back and forth in the clearing that Sang had found in the woods behind her house. I tugged on the end of my hair, trying to think of a way to salvage this. She hated me. I had never seen such a look of betrayal on her face before. Not even after what those boys said about her. With a groan, I collapsed to the ground and stared up at the sky.

For years I had thought over exactly when and how I would tell Sang that I was her mother. I always knew she would be upset at first, but she had such a loving heart, I’d hoped she would be able to forgive me eventually. I had wanted to wait until she was old enough to understand. Now her entire life had been turned upside down and she was in no way physically or mentally prepared to handle this right now. She was just so stubborn! Why couldn’t she have just left the damn closet and called those boys? Was it truly that hard to ask for help? Of course it was, she was so scared of her Gift and then that woman constantly bringing her down made it hard for her to trust.  I was itching to at least peek in on her, to make sure she was okay. It was killing me all over again to know I’d left my baby in a horrible situation. What kind of mother was I? All I seem to do was cause my baby heartache when all I wanted to do was love and protect her. I reached up and brushed away the phantom tears from my face. With no body, I couldn’t actually produce tears, but the spirit could still cry. We could still hurt, and right now I was feeling utterly hopeless.

I was not sure how long I lay there in my misery, but I was pretty sure I’d seen the sun set and rise again, so I know it’d been at least a day. I couldn’t change what happened. I would give Sang a week to let everything sink in, and then hopefully she would speak to me and we could talk this out so I could explain things better. Decision made, I rose from my resting place on the ground. Until then I would visit some of the other spirits nearby. Maybe I could find out more about McCoy. Even if Sang wanted nothing to do with me, I would always be her Guardian, and I would protect her no matter what.

One Week Later

I stood outside of Sang’s house, working up my nerve to go inside. It was Saturday. Sang would probably already be up cleaning house or fixing breakfast. With a final and unneeded breath, I faded into Sang’s room. Appearing at the end of her bed, I looked around at the messy room with a frown. Papers were scattered everywhere, her bed was unmade and there were clothes strewn across the floor. I had never seen her room in such a mess before. She had always kept her room clean and neat, mostly because of that woman, but also because she hated tripping over things in the floor. Something wasn’t right. Looking around again, I tried to pinpoint exactly why I felt so uneasy. Maybe I was more nervous than I thought about this talk with Sang. I walked downstairs in search of my daughter. As I peeked in the others rooms on my way to the kitchen, the feeling of foreboding strengthened. I finally found Sang in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. A glance around the kitchen revealed that like the rest of the house it hadn’t been straightened up in a while. Dishes piled in the sink, dribbles of previous meals scattered on the counters, the garbage in the corner was overflowing.

It was Sang herself that pushed me into panic mode, though. She looked pale, there were dark circle under her eyes, and her hair wasn’t pulled back in her typical clip, it was hanging loose across her shoulders. Dressed in blue jeans, and a black hoodie, even though it was still warm weather, and sitting on the table beside her was a strange white mask. But it was the large cloud of Darkness that was surrounding her that had me staring at her horrified.

“Sang?” Her name fell from my lips in a shaky whisper. She looked up, her face pulling into an unfamiliar smirk.

“I had wondered when you would show up. Took you a lot longer than I expected. Tsk tsk falling behind on Guardian duty there Mother dearest.” I sucked in a breath and felt dread drape over me like a cold blanket. Her normal bright green eyes had disappeared. In its place were dark, almost black, irises with a faint ring of red along the edges. I shook my head.

“No, Sang. What did you do with her!” The doppelganger who I refuse to call my daughter merely chuckled.

“Why I merely comforted her in her time of despair. I was overjoyed when I sensed a Medium in my school. Unfortunately your girl is stronger than I thought. I was trying to come up with a plan that would bring down her walls when imagine my surprise she showed up at school a week ago and basically invited me in! We’ve been having so much fun.” She grinned and leaned back in the chair. “Those Academy boys have been running around chasing their tails and my plan is almost complete.”

“You won’t get away with this! You will release Sang right now!” Fury and guilt swelled inside of me. I couldn’t believe I let this happen. She’d been possessed. I failed her twice now.

“Who’s going to stop me? You?” Standing up from the chair, the Darkling stalked over to where I was standing and raised a hand to my cheek. “You’ve failed, Mother Dearest. I have your daughter now and there is nothing you can do. Soon little Sang will no longer exist and no one will be able to oppose me, especially those sniveling ungrateful brats in that school. Now LEAVE!” Suddenly I felt a heavy shove on my chest. As I fell back, I felt the familiar sensation of fading. I was dumped out on the sidewalk in front of the house. No. Sang. My sweet innocent baby girl was possessed, and I knew if I didn’t find a way to her get back soon I would lose her forever. I had heard muttering that things had changed at the school, it was one of the things I had planned on discussing with Sang today. I had stopped by the school a few times to catch glimpses of her, and she had seemed okay from the distance I had to stay at to keep both her and the Darkling unaware of my presence. I should have gotten closer. I shouldn’t have waited so long. Noise from across the street had me glancing over at Kota’s house where it seemed all of the boys had gathered. So if McCoy was right, then my guess had been correct. Sang may hate me even more after this, but at least she would be alive. Settling myself, I faded into the living room of one Dakota Lee. It was time to meet the Academy.