A Dream of Summer Rain: I Am Not Afraid to Keep on Living (Chapter 46)

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***

Lacy retraced her steps, starting with her childhood home. She found it where she’d left it, the only unchanged thing in the entire town. Most of the other houses on the street had been leveled or burnt or overrun by trees, but the crappy little bungalow she’d grown up in still stood. 

A day had passed since Alistair died. Caroline had fled town, taking the remaining generals and loyalists with her. Most of the other ghouls had cleared out, though it was unlikely they’d left the surrounding area. They were liable to be scouring the proverbial shire, as Gwen put it, for at least another week. So Lacy decided to run a few errands while they were there. She didn’t know if she’d ever be back here again- anything was possible, sure, but that also didn’t guarantee anything in life. So if she was gonna do this, now was the time. 

Spring had finally yielded to summer, hot and humid despite the clear blue sky of midday. It was late July now, apparently- how weird, that so many months had lived and died. It felt like a lifetime, and it felt like a flash. 

She stood in front of the house and found the door unlocked. She went inside and found it in ruins- bloodstains on the floors, wallpaper torn off, broken glass everywhere. No human remains left, fortunately, but still: the place was an empty mausoleum for two people who’d left nothing behind. 

Nothing but their wayward daughter. 

Lacy ventured into her old room. It was emptied of all her belongings, mostly containing boxes of paper files and receipts. She raised her hand and conjured fire, holding the flame in her hands. But then she had a different idea, and she snuffed the flame. 

She went back outside and searched the area until she found an acorn, and she planted it in the ashes beneath the front porch, and she willed her magic into it. A tree, tall and proud, sprouted from the ground and tore through the porch and the foundation and the walls, ripping up the house and letting something new take its place. 

After that she retraced the path she ran down that fateful night ten years ago, until she found the old park and went just beyond it into the oldest part of the forest. She found the spot where Drew had died, where she and Gwen had buried him. She stood over it and crossed herself, and she said a prayer for the departed. 

“You did good,” Drew said, appearing right in front of her when she finished. 

“Thanks,” Lacy said. 

“You had me worried there a few times, I won’t lie, but you did good.”

“Heh. Fair enough,” Lacy said. “But seriously, for everything, thank you. I know you’re not Drew, but… I needed you. Needed to see his face, hear his voice again.”

Drew smiled. “Happy to be of service.”

“Are you… Are you gonna stick around?”
 “Mmm… Sporadically,” Drew said, shrugging. “There’s still more stuff to do, as I’m sure you’ve realized. Elf-King still wants to invade.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“But that means I’ll have an excuse to talk to you and Danny every once and a while.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” Danny said from behind Lacy, approaching her and Drew at the gravesite. His arm was in a sling, but it was a clean break and would heal in a few weeks. “Someone needs to guilt trip me constantly and all that.”

“This is true,” Drew said. “Glad to see you’re up and about. Finally.”

“Yeah yeah,” Danny said. “Kick me while I’m still detoxing, that’s real Christian of you.”

Drew rolled his eyes. And then he looked at them, at both of them, and he changed. He wasn’t the sixteen year old Drew they remembered, but an older Drew, and adult Drew. At least a decade passed for him in an instant. “Just so you know, the part of me that is him, that might have been if he were still alive, is very, very proud of both of you. Seeing the two of you here, all grown up… It’s humbling.”

Tears welled up in Lacy’s eyes, and she smiled through it. 

“Love you too, big brother,” Danny said. 

“See you around, kids,” Drew said. 

And then he vanished. 

They both stood there a while, looking down at where Drew’s bones were committed to the earth. “I’d say we should give him a proper burial, but the graveyard got destroyed,” Danny said, wiping tears from his own eyes. 

“How the hell do you destroy a graveyard?” Lacy asked. 

“Eat all the bodies and turn the headstones and mausoleums to ash with Entropy.”

“Ah. Yeah, that’d do it. We should just start a new one, right here, at this point.”

“Why not.”

“Yeah, why not,” came a voice from behind them. Isabella, a cane supporting her limping weight. “Lacy, you’re cool and all, but I gotta say your family is wicked fucking morbid.”

Gwen followed close behind and chuckled, an engagement ring adorning her finger. “It’s true.”

Lacy pulled Isabella into a tight embrace. “Yeah, well, there’s compromises in every relationship.”

“Is that what this is?” Isabella said, blushing furiously.

“Could be. Let’s go on a real date, first chance we get. See where it takes us. Okay?”

Isabella gulped. “Okay!”

“Oh sweet merciful Christ,” Gwen said, rubbing her forehead. “I really hope Quentin and I aren’t this gross right out in public.”

Danny ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, sis, I don’t think you realize how awkward it’s been traveling with you two while having my powers.”

“Or mine,” Lacy said. 

Gwen’s alabaster face went beat-red. “Ffffffair enough.”

“Is this the part where we group-hug?” Isabella asked. “‘Cause I’m cool with that.”

Lacy didn’t wait for the others to answer, she just pulled them all in. They held it for a moment, until Lacy heard a twig snap behind her. 

Merab came out of the tree line with a retinue of guards flanking her. “Hiiiiiiiii!”

“Hhhhh,” Lacy groaned. 

“That’s it- that’s what I was forgetting,” Danny muttered. 

“Whomst?” Gwen asked. 

“Merab, Queen of the Ghouls. Pleasure to meet you, hot stuff,” she said, giving a curtsy and eyeing Gwen up and down. “Danny, the detox looks good on you. You’re actually really pretty underneath all the scruff and grunge.”

Now it was Danny’s turn to go red. “Um… Okay, so what’s-”

“We’re at a detente,” Lacy said. “And given the title you’re now using, Merab-”

“It’s official,” Merab said. “I ate Alistair’s heart!”
 “You did what?!” Gwen and Danny shouted. 

“Hey, now is not the time to get all defensive, he’s already dead. And he was a huge cunt,” Merab said. “I snuck in while you guys were performing the autopsy last night, grabbed a few organs, and went on my way to do the ritual. Check it out!” She tapped her chest, and a familiar purple Star appeared before them and began orbiting her.

Gwen scratched the side of her head and heaved a heavy sigh.

“You’re holding up your end of the bargain?” Lacy said.

“Yeppers!” Merab said, her eyes following the purple Star like a laser pointer. “Should only take another day or so to get the stragglers in the area to come to heel; the Ever-Song isn’t exactly instantaneous, you know. And the ones in the rest of the country are going north now on my orders, though the ones who refuse are fair game for you and yours as far as I’m concerned. I’ll rule firmly but justly and all that. Anyway, I’m going home now, but it was nice to see you all. Byyyeeeee!!!”

And then she turned around and left, just as quickly as she’d come to them. 

A moment of silence passed before Gwen said, “Lacy, I get why you agreed to that-” 

“Actually, I suggested it in the first place. I just didn’t think she’d do it.”

“-But you do realize-”

“That’s it’s a temporary fix at best, that it’ll come to a head eventually, that I’m not qualified to make deals with a foreign head of state, and that this will inevitably complicate the fact that we still have the rest of the Sovereignty and the Elf-King to deal with?” Lacy said. 

“Okay, so you do realize it. Good. Just making sure.”
 “Look, I know it’s not ideal, and the feds are probably gonna hate it, but short of wholesale genocide I couldn’t really think of another way to cut the head off the head without twenty more growing in its place.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“And yes, we’ve got more work to do,” Lacy said. “But for now… Can we just enjoy the fact that we actually did what we set out to do? That the good guys won today? Because I’m guessing the feds are gonna put us to work real soon after we get out of here. And I’d really like to just… Enjoy a beautiful day with the people I love.”

Isabella squeezed Lacy’s hand. Danny breathed slowly and easily. And Gwen smiled. “Once again, fair enough. Come on, let’s go join up with the others.”

They left together this time, and they went back to the encampment the Bureau and the National Guard had made just outside of the town limits. Joshua, Quentin, Hannibal, and even Alice waved to them as they approached. There was still work to be done, still a world to be saved, still places for her Star to take her. She and Gwen would need to have a very, very long talk about everything that had happened, as would she and Danny, and Danny and Gwen, and probably all three of them together. But for today… For today, Lacy was happy.