Page 47 of Hexual Healing
I could tell he was about to mansplain something to me, so I cut him off at the jump, “No, I need to do something.I can't just sit here feeling the curse eat me alive while everyone pretends everything’s fine.”
I walked to the doorframe, trying to focus my magic into something useful.Something normal.Something that wasn't bedlam and madness incarnate.
“Just a door,” I muttered, tracing symbols in the air.“A nice, normal, boring, basic-bitch door.”
The magic swirled, gathered, and then?
The doorframe sprouted arms.Actual arms.They reached out, growing impossibly long to grab up pieces of debris from the yard, and constructed what looked like a door made entirely of sticks, twigs, and dried grass.
“That…” Zelda tilted her head.“That’s actually kind of beautiful.”
“It's weird,” I said.
“It's perfect,” Baz countered.“It's you.Wild, free, and beautiful beyond words.”
The curse flared at the compliment, but I was getting used to the pain.It was quickly becoming background noise, like a headache you've had so long, you forget what it's like not to hurt.
“We should catalog the town damage,” Dee Dee said practically.“See what needs immediate attention.”
“I'll help,” I offered.
“You'll rest,” Zelda corrected.“You just fought a dragon, had multiple magical surges, and you're still actively in the midst of a pretty janky curse.You need some sleep.”
“I can't sleep.When I close my eyes, what if I see…” I stopped, not wanting to admit I’d seen Baz dying in my dreams.The curse feeding on him slowly, inevitably.I wrapped my arms around myself in a self-soothing hug.
“Then don't sleep alone,” Gary said simply.Everyone turned to stare at him.A few of them made kissy sounds, and I swear I heard a giggedy-giggedy.“What?It's practical.The curse reacts to proximity, yes, but it also reacts to isolation.Find the middle ground.”
“That's actually not terrible advice,” Zelda mused.“Make sure you sleep in a room with a connecting wall if you can.Close enough to desensitize her, while being far away enough to minimize proximity pain.”
It sounded logical.A little too logical.It reeked of the kind of logical that would either be the perfect solution or would backfire spectacularly.
“Fine,” I said, too tired to argue.“But when this goes horribly wrong, I'm blaming all of you.”
“Noted,” Zelda said with a smirk.
* * *
That night, I lay in the guest bed, hyperaware of every sound in the house.Baz was in the room next door.I could hear him breathing if I listened hard enough.The curse throbbed in warning with each heartbeat, uncomfortable but not agonizing.Zelda had been right about the middle ground.
“Can't sleep?”Baz's voice came through the wall.
“The house keeps trying to sing me lullabies,” I admitted.“It's deeply disturbing.”
The house immediately stopped humming.I swear it was pouting.
“Sorry, house,” I added.“Your lullabies are…unique.”
Satisfied, it resumed its off-key song.
“Tell me about the Berserker thing,” I said, needing a distraction.
Silence for a moment.Then: “It's not athing.It's what I am.”
“Were you born that way?”
“Yes and no.”I heard him shift in his bed.“The ability is inherited, but it has to be awakened.Usually through trauma.”
“What awakened yours?”