The Cursed Kingdom

SEVENTEEN

~ THE MOTHER ~

My body felt as though it was floating and my stomach churned at the unusual sensation, making my eyes flutter open and blink with uncertainty at my surroundings.

Dressed in my nightgowns, I was walking and yet I wasn't.

My feet were deciding on their own that forward was the direction to go and, not having a clue of where I was or what was happening, I didn't protest in the slightest. I doubted I could if I tried, my muscles feeling as uncontrollable as the weather and the ground feeling as solid as a cloud beneath my bare feet—sometimes feeling like there was nothing there at all.

Grabbing onto my arms, I gave each of my fleshy biceps a pinch to confirm that the rest of my body was still there. Still, even after I felt the stinging pain from my nails, I wasn't sure.

"Hello?" My voice, scratchy with sleep and confusion, echoed off invisible walls made me jump in fright. Twisting my head in every direction, all I could perceive was the color white, blinding and surrounding me. It was as bright and irritating as the sun but it did not hurt my eyes. It was then I realized that I didn't have a shadow and I wasn't blinking either. No matter how long I kept my eyes wide open, they did not burn or become dry in the slightest. The involuntary response that I'd been programmed with since birth suddenly was completely gone like it'd never existed. "Am I dead?" The question was meant to be reserved for my thoughts only but, like my feet, I was finding more and more that my actions were no longer my own.

Looking for an immediate answer, I slapped my hand over my chest and pressed against it. I breathed—yes, breathed—out in relief when I felt my heart's slow beating under my palm, the rhythm a promise of hope.

"Raena."

My whole body froze like ice. Even my feet finally stopped, whose heels I forced down into the ground with most of my body weight.

Slowly, I turned around and held my breath, scared that if I made one wrong noise that it would somehow disturb or ruin what I thought I heard behind me. Once my body was facing the source of the voice, I didn't need to question or place my hand over my heart to know it was there because of the painful lurch it gave when I saw her.

"Momma," I breathed out, feeling my eyes burn with new tears as I stared at the angel before me, so beautiful and clad all in white like the room around us.

The woman, my mother, smiled at me with sad and almost regretful eyes. Her loose, ankle-length white dress reminded me of the nightgown she wore before she got sick, except this one lacked the stains or the stitches that didn't quite match the fabric where fixed tears along the bottom used to be. To see her in it, her face flushed with health and her distinct and almost light-as-snow hair shining in thick waves down her back and over her shoulders, made me choke on the air itself.

"My baby," she said softly, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. They swept over me, looking as if she couldn't believe I was truly standing there before her. "My poor, poor child." She outstretched her arms to me and immediately I ran to them, wrapping my own around her thin waist. I squeezed her with all the strength I'd mustered in those six lonely, dark years of being without her and the utter fear that I'd never get this opportunity again.

I wailed loudly and shamelessly, equivalent to that of a screeching toddler, into the area where her shoulder met her neck. But in that moment meager things such as acting my age didn't matter anymore. Nothing did for as long as I had her in my reach. "Momma..." My voice broke as I called her by the name I'd stopped using after I started school and my mother shushed me lovingly, her warm hand rubbing my back up and down in small circles, just like she had done when I was little. The gesture made my throat close up and my lips wobbled as I held back more tears, my face and eyes scorching with a fire unlike anything I'd ever felt before. "Momma." Her hair smelled the same too and I dug my nose farther into it, burying myself in it, memorizing everything I loved about it.