"Yeah. "
"When was the last time you met someone who had made themselves fall in love with somebody else. Who had willed their feelings in a given direction, when in their natural state, their heart cleaved unto someone else. "
Xhex cursed a little. "Never. It's a recipe for disaster - but you can still be respectful of the way you phrase things. "
"Gift wrapping one's words does not change the nature of truth. " Autumn looked back out to the snowy landscape and the river that was partially frozen. "And I would rather know what is real than live a lie. "
There was silence for a while between them. "Is that enough of a 'why,' daughter mine. "
Another curse. But then Xhex said, "I don't like it. . . but yeah, it is. "
Chapter Sixty-Four
Tohr sat in that parking lot for God only knew how long. Had to be at least a night and a day and then maybe another night or two? He didn't know, and didn't really care.
It was rather like being back in the womb, he supposed. Except his ass was numb and his nose ran from the cold.
As his epic anger faded and his emotions smoothed out, his thoughts became as a band of travelers, passing through sections of his life, wandering around the landscapes of different eras, doubling back for the reexamination of peaks and valleys.
Long fucking trip. And he was tired at the end of it, even though his body hadn't moved in hours upon hours.
Not surprisingly, the two places most revisited were Wellsie's needing. . . and Autumn's. Those events, and their respective aftermaths, were the mountains most climbed, the different scenes like vistas flashing in an alternating sequence of comparison until they blurred together, forming a pastiche of actions and reactions, his and theirs.
After all the ruminations, there were three resolutions he kept returning to, again and again.
He was going to have to apologize to Autumn, of course. Christ, that was the second time he'd taken a hunk out of her, the first being way back nearly a year ago at the pool: In both cases, his temper had gotten the best of him because of the stress load he was under, but that was no excuse.
The second was that he was going to have to find that angel and do another set of I'm-sorrying.
And the third. . . well, the third was actually the most important, the thing he had to do before the others.
He had to make contact with Wellsie one last time.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and willed some relaxation into his muscles. Then, with more desperation than hope, he commanded his weary mind to be free of all thoughts and images, empty of everything that had kept him awake for all this time, devoid of the regrets and the mistakes and the pain. . . .
Eventually the order was complied with, the relentless mental trekking slowing down until all that Lewis-and-Clark cognition shit ceased.
Impregnating his subconsciousness with a single goal, he let himself go into sleep and waited in his resting state until. . .
Wellsie came to him in shades of gray, in that barren landscape of fog and frigid wind and boulders. She was so far away now that the scope of his vision allowed him to see one of the crumbling rock formations up close -
Except it was not, in fact, made of stone.
None of them were.
No, these were the hunched figures of others suffering as she did, their bodies and bones gradually collapsing in on themselves until they were but mounds to be worn away by the wind.
"Wellsie?" he called out.
As her name drifted off into the limitless horizon, she did not look at him.
Did not appear to even recognize his presence.
The only thing that moved was the cold wind that abruptly seemed to marshal itself in his direction, blowing across the flat gray plain, blowing across him, blowing across her.
As it caught her hair, wisps formed around her -
No, not wisps. Her hair was ashes now, ashes that scattered on the invisible current and came at him, hitting him as dust that made his eyes water.