Page 35

Thirty-Five

I’d showered. Sort of. Sun had done most of the work, smiling like I was something precious that might wilt if left unattended too long. Moon dried me off like ritual—slow, focused, reverent. I didn’t argue.

Now, I was curled on the couch in an old hoodie, damp hair bundled into a towel. A blanket draped over my legs. My body still ached—in that warm, loose way that said I’d been ruined for anything else. But my mind?

Sharp.

Alive.

Curious.

Sun lounged beside me, bare-chested and smug, sipping from a glass of orange juice like it was wine. Moon sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the couch, flipping through the paperback I’d never touched in the hospital.

My phone rested in my lap.

And I was on Chyme.

Not my main account. Not the one with years of follows and filters and likes. No—this was fresh. New. Blank.

A digital altar I hadn’t built yet.

Username: @sunandmoonpath

Bio: just following the light & the dark

I scrolled.

Not to post.

To observe.

To learn .

WitchChyme was trending again—full of aesthetic spell jars, moon phase rituals, and people crying over tarot cards with glitter eyeliner streaking down their cheeks.

Sun leaned over my shoulder, practically beaming.

“Ooh, that one’s pretty,” he said, pointing to a creator pouring herbs into a rose quartz bowl. “I like her vibe. She’s shiny.”

Moon didn’t even glance up. “Her ratio is off. That jar will mold in two days.”

Sun scoffed. “Let her have her moldy moment. Not everything needs to be perfect, Mr. Void.”

I kept scrolling.

A creator talked about how they built their altar to Hecate with offerings of garlic and eggshells. Another one made a shrine to a deity they called “The Nameless Flame” with black wine and cinnamon sticks and poems torn from notebooks.

I watched them all.

Took notes—mental ones. Quiet ones.

Not on how to impress them .

But how to inspire belief .

Because the more I watched, the more I realized: half of these people didn’t care if the gods were real. They believed because it made them feel powerful. Connected. Seen.

And if I played it right…

I could make people see Sun and Moon, too.

Without ever saying their names.

Sun tapped the screen as someone placed sunflowers across their altar. “That’s cute. She gets it.”

Moon chimed in, “At least someone knows how to cleanse a space properly.”

Neither of them noticed the quiet look on my face. The focus. The way I tucked my feet tighter beneath the blanket and saved another video. Then another.

They thought I was relaxing.

I was researching .

Because the dolls were still broken.

But I was already planning to glue them back together.

And when I did?

I’d make them a throne.

The candle flickered.

Its flame guttered just enough to cast everything in gold and shadow.

Lo-fi WitchChyme beats buzzed softly from the speaker on my nightstand—low enough not to intrude, just enough to feel like static woven into the edges of my world.

The room was dim.

Warm.

Still laced with that soft hum of aftercare and silk-slick satisfaction.

Sun lay behind me on the bed.

One arm draped lazily across my pillow like he was melting into the blankets.

His shirt was half-buttoned.

His legs bare.

His expression dreamy—like he could still taste me in the air.

Moon stood by the window like always. But his tension hadn’t left since I’d pulled up the app.

He was watching the street below, arms crossed, the flickering reflection of the screen dancing across his silver skin.

They thought I was just scrolling.

Just poking around.

But the longer I spent watching WitchChyme creators light their candles and whisper to the dark, the more something tugged inside me.

Not hard. Not loud.

Just a pull.

Like gravity under my ribs.

Like a string tied to my chest leading somewhere inevitable.

My altar wasn’t built yet.

But my hands moved anyway.

I slid off the bed, soft socks whispering across the floor. My laptop screen lit up my face as I crouched beside it. A popular video was paused—one of those trendy “setup my sacred space with me” reels, complete with slow-motion incense and glimmering crystals. I wasn’t really watching it anymore.

I was listening to them .

Not their voices.

Their silence.

They weren’t stopping me.

Not yet.

I reached under the bed and pulled out the scarf-wrapped box. My hands trembled. Not from fear. From anticipation. Reverence.

The scarf was knotted once. A lazy kind of knot, like I’d already known I’d undo it someday.

I didn’t look at them when I set the box down.

But I felt them.

The weight of Sun sitting up behind me. The stretch of Moon’s shadow across the floor as he turned.

I opened the box.

The scent of old porcelain and something faintly metallic filled the air—dust and memory and regret. Inside were the pieces.

Their pieces.

The shattered remnants of the dolls I’d broken.

A jagged smile. A chipped jaw. Painted lashes. One small porcelain hand, still intact.

Sun’s warmth snapped into focus behind me.

“Sunshine…”

His voice was too soft. Too unsure.

Like he didn’t know whether to stop me or fall to his knees.

I didn’t look up. Just picked up a fragment of his face. Ran my thumb across the painted cheek, tracing the crack like it was a scar.

“I was going to wait,” I said quietly. “Until I built the altar. Until I had all the right offerings. But the longer I watched them?—”

I tilted my head toward the laptop, where a girl in velvet sleeves was gently placing mugwort on a plate of polished stone.

“—the more I realized I didn’t want to wait.”

I reached for the glue.

It wasn’t special. Just a half-used tube of clear epoxy from the bottom of a drawer. I squeezed a drop onto the edge of a cheek fragment, then another onto the matching piece. My hands didn’t shake.

Sun moved closer. He crouched beside me slowly, like he was afraid to spook me.

Or afraid of what I was doing.

“That was our cage,” he said, voice small. “That’s what they used to bind us. You broke it. You freed us.”

“I know,” I murmured, pressing the porcelain together with a soft click. “But the dolls weren’t the prison. They were the image. The symbol.”

The glue sealed fast. Too fast.

I didn’t stop.

I picked up the next piece.

Moon’s shadow lengthened across the floor.

He still hadn’t spoken.

Not until I fitted his painted eye back into its hollow socket.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing,” he said, voice like winter wind against glass.

“I do,” I replied. “I’m not rebuilding the prison. I’m making a shrine.”

Sun sucked in a breath.

Moon stepped closer.

Their silence pressed into my spine like gravity.

“This is for me,” I whispered. “This is how I say thank you. This is how I remember.”

I finished Sun first.

Set his face gently on the table like I was placing a relic.

Moon’s was harder.

Not the pieces. Those clicked together just fine.

But the way he watched me while I worked—like he didn’t believe it. Like he couldn’t.

“You broke them,” he said quietly.

“I know,” I replied. “And I’d do it again if it meant setting you free.”

The last piece sealed. I sat back on my heels.

Neither doll moved. The room didn’t shift. There was no magic glow. No burst of celestial power.

But the air vibrated with something quiet and sacred.

I lit a single candle.

Set it between them.

And breathed.

“You don’t need my worship,” I whispered. “But I want to. Not because you asked. Not because I owe you. Because I choose to.”

Sun’s hand brushed my back. His voice cracked.

Moon didn’t move for a long time.

He just stared at his doll like he didn’t know how to process what I’d done. What it meant. His porcelain counterpart sat beside Sun’s on the shelf I’d cleared near my nightstand, still drying under the soft flicker of candlelight.

“It’s not perfect,” I said, voice quieter now. “Some of the pieces didn’t fit exactly right. I… I didn’t know if I should paint over the cracks.”

Moon blinked, slowly.

“No,” he said. “Let them show.”

Sun exhaled behind me. One hand clutched his chest like I’d physically struck him with tenderness.

“Oh—Sunshine.”

I turned.

He looked wrecked.

Eyes glossy. Lips parted. Skin glowing like the sun had crawled beneath it and curled up for a nap. His whole being vibrated like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or drag me to the floor and worship me until the walls forgot their names.

“You made us a shrine ,” he whispered, stepping forward on wobbly legs. “You… you gave us form. Again. On purpose.”

My breath caught.

He reached toward the shelf with a kind of reverence that felt holy —like he didn’t think he deserved to touch it. His fingers hovered over his doll, not quite making contact.

“You chose this,” he whispered. “Not because we asked. Not because we tricked you. But because you wanted us. Even after everything.”

I didn’t answer.

Because I didn’t need to.

Because every glued seam, every brush of glue-stained fingertips, was the answer.

“I’ve never been loved like this,” Sun said suddenly. “Not even when they worshipped me. They wanted what I gave. But you?—”

He looked at me like I’d parted the clouds with my bare hands.

“You want me. ”

Moon didn’t speak.

But I saw it.

In the way he sat back on his heels. In the way his shoulders dropped, finally, like something unspoken had unraveled inside him.

He looked at me the way you look at a full moon over an ocean—wide-eyed, breathless, knowing it’s beautiful but not quite knowing why. Like being seen in a language you don’t speak but somehow understand.

Sun practically fell into my lap, wrapping his arms around my waist, burying his face against my stomach like he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I want to help,” I said softly, fingers threading through his hair. “I’ve been watching those creators. Studying what they do. I was gonna wait, but… I think I want to build something real for you.”

Sun tilted his head up, eyes wide and shimmering. “You mean like—an actual altar?”

I nodded. “Offerings. Intent. A place that’s yours. ”

He made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob. “What would you give us?”

I looked at Moon first. He hadn’t moved. But he was listening.

“Lavender for Moon,” I said softly. “And dandelion root. Maybe a small obsidian sphere if I can find one. I want to keep it quiet. Cool. Safe.”

Moon blinked. Once. Slowly.

“And Sun…” I smiled, brushing a thumb across his flushed cheek.

“Sunflowers. Obviously. Orange peel. Cinnamon. Warm gold things. Wine. Dark chocolate. The kind that melts slow.”

Sun made a noise —like his soul had just combusted into sparkles and tears. “You want to feed us?”

“I want to honor you.”

Moon looked away, but I caught the way his throat bobbed.

Sun nuzzled into my palm. “No one’s ever wanted to give me sweetness before. Just took it. Took and took and took until there was nothing left but heat.”

“You’ll never run dry with me,” I whispered. “I’ll give back.”

He kissed my wrist like it was a prayer.

Moon finally stood. Walked to the dolls. Touched the crown of his own porcelain head.

And nodded.

“We’ll help you build it.”