Of all the things Cleo expected her sister to say, it wasn’t that. Siobhan was just so doggedly rational. Admitting that maybe, just possibly maybe, there might be more than the scientific world had to cost her sister. Cleo wondered what Siobhan paid to admit that.
Siobhan continued, “But while that was all happening, Cleo, for a moment there you had a partner in this. Ian wanted to know you and help you. Don’t you get how rare that is?”
Cleo’s chest ached again. She was getting nauseous. She grabbed her water bottle, took a swig of the tea within it. Cleo opened the small jar on the counter and began to rub in the salve.
“Maybe that’s just not for me - that kind of relationship,” Cleo said finally. “Siobhan, I know you don’t totally believe it, but I’m cursed. We are cursed. You’re right, it’s probably gotten all tangled with other issues at this point. You read all the time, you probably know it better than me.”
“Attachment disorders, PTSD,” Siobhan supplied quietly. “Large sections of the DSM-5, certainly.”
“Whatever. Either way, this affects more than me. It affects the people around me, the people I inflict myself upon. Ian can make his own decision about whether or not he wants to be with me. I’m not making that decision for him, you know, that bullshit ‘I’m leaving you for your own good.’ What I’m saying is that I don’t want to be with him, not when I’m like this. I don’t want to worry about that disgusting tea and that equally awful salve. I ask myself all the time: is this when it’ll stop working? What happens when it does? I still don’t know what’s happening with the curse. You saw my chest - that’s fucking scary. Imagine living with it. Imagine feeling those thorns dig into you every time you take a breath. I feel them all the time,” Cleo said breathlessly. She wasn’t going to cry. The tears threatened to make her a liar, but she wasn’t going to cry.
Siobhan stood up. “You’re being purposefully obtuse. You’re pushing away all the possible help you could receive. You’re pushing away a possible solution. Did you ever think that maybe other people might have ideas on this? Do you know why scientists collaborate? Because it works. It’s effective, and it’s a logical use of resources. But you’re so locked by fear, you’re willing to stay precisely where you are regardless of the consequences.”
“You talk like you read the dictionary.”
“No, I used to read the dictionary. Now I just pull out the big words when I’m very annoyed. You’re annoying me.”
“I’m so sorry my very rational decisions don’t meet your approval,” Cleo said bitterly.
Siobhan paused on her way out of the kitchen. She half-turned in the doorway, so that only her profile was visible. “It’s not about approval. It’s about survival. How you are right now, how you make your decisions, how you’re living… it’s not sustainable, Cleo. Nor is it okay.”
She walked out of the room. Cleo wanted to run after her sister, throw something at her, but her legs suddenly felt weak. She collapsed heavily into the chair. Cleo held her head in her hands, feeling the pulse of the curse echo the pulse of her heartbeat. She’d just put on salve a few minutes ago, but Cleo could tell she already needed more. It felt like the salve was just helping the surface, but underneath her skin, the thorns were digging tighter into her skin. She breathed through the pain, it didn’t help, but it gave her mind something to do.
Her mind. Cleo wanted to laugh. Like her mind needed something to do. Like it wasn’t busy enough, running through scenarios and garbage willy-nilly. She’d read about Buddhist monks once, who could calm their minds through meditation. She thought wistfully about having that ability, to shut off her overactive conscious mind. To just be quiet in her own skull.
The closest she got to that state was when she was listening to the song of the green space. When she was surrounded by the woods, her woods, and she gave energy as she took energy. She’d tried to go to her woods as she healed, but she never quite made it. It was always something - she was fatigued, she forgot the salve, she needed to pee again because drinking tea every few minutes was hell on her bladder.
She needed to admit it - she wasn’t going into her woods because she didn’t want to go there right now. It wasn’t her place of solace. There’s something about the green space that repelled her, and she’d been too self-involved to wonder about that. Her woods felt dark, heavy, forbidding and managing her curse with the tea and the salve took her remaining energy.
Damnit, she was a green witch. She wanted to be in her woods, even if they were weirdly hard to hear right now. Even if a part of her was frightened by how unfamiliar it felt right now. Cleo wasn’t going to stop herself this time. She went to the bathroom one more time, packed a small hiking backpack with salve and a container of nuts and tied her hiking boots tightly. She wasn’t going to be afraid. This was her woods, after all. Her place of refuge and solace. She was going to the one place of peace in her life.
Cleo made it to the edge of her woods before she needed to rest. She was just so dang tired all the time. It felt like years ago when she could walk without rest in her woods. She sank down to the ground and sat cross-legged. Just for a moment. Just until she was a little stronger.
Cleo closed her eyes. The song of the woods was faint, more like the memory
