“You know. That one I like.”
She laughed. “You likethem all. You need to be a little more specific.”
“I don’t know how to say it.”I chewed my lower lip, trying to sound out the word in my mind. “The part mum.”
She looked at me funny for a moment. Then she laughed. “The part mum? You think that’s what it’s called?”I giggled, and her smile widened. “I’m glad that’s your favorite one. Most little boys would prefer the one about the war.”
“I don’t like that one so much,”I muttered. “Please tell me the part mum.”
“I’ll make you a deal.”She patted the couch beside her. Jumping to my feet, I plopped to the sofa and gazed up at her. “I’ll tell you the story, and then you have to lie down, close your eyes, and you have to sleep all night long.”
Smiling, I nodded fast.
She smiled back, lifted out her arm, and I collapsed into it. Wrapping her arm around my waist, she held up her pinky finger.“We have a deal?”
I locked my pinky with hers. “Deal.”
“Alright, where to begin,”she murmured.
“At the beginning.”
“Oh, of course. At the beginning.”She sighed, hugging me in close. I curled deeper into her chest, eyes on the flames, basking in the warmth of her embrace. “Well, the story says that long ago, before you, before me, before this world, there were people that loved one another more than the sun loves the moon.”
My smile grew, holding my stuffed animal tighter.
“They were the most powerful creatures the universe had ever seen. Stronger than all the stars, stronger than the waves in the ocean, stronger than the quakes that shake the ground. They were stronger thananything.
“But their strength didn’t come from magic. Their strength didn’t come from the sun and the moon, or the tides in the ocean, or the tremors of the soil. Do you know what their strength came from?”
“Each other,”I said.
“That’s right.”She kissed my forehead. “Their strength came from each other.”
My eyes grew heavier, heart rate slowing, but my smile stretched higher. Her voice was so soft, so melodic, when she told this story. Maybe that was why it was my favorite.
“Because the power of their love was stronger than anything in the cosmos. Their power was so strong that no amount of time or space could come between them. Because even when they weren’t side by side, they were always connected.
“Two separate entities, they may have been, but once they were tied together, there was no separating them. When their eyes closed, they could see through their counterpart’s. When they were on opposite ends of the world, they could hear through each other’s ears. And when one of them was hurt, they could feel their partner’s pain.
“Their souls were bound so tightly that nothing could break them apart. They were one another’s strength in moments of weakness, one another’s shoulder when they needed to cry, one another’s friend when they were lonely. Their love surpassed all suffering. Their love was so strong that it could birth entire worlds.
“They were everything our little blue rock needed and more. They were…”
The door clicked.
I jolted forward on the hospital bed. The only luminance came from the open door and blue moonlight seeping in from thin, plastic blinds. My heartrate was erratic on the monitor beside the bed.
“Sorry about that,” a nurse said. I saw her in my peripheral vision, but I barely paid her any mind. “Just had to come in and grab your vitals.”
Yanking off the blankets, I said, “I have to go.”
“We talked about this last night, Declan. You need to be monitored. If you leave against medical advice, I’m going to have to call your—”
“That’s who I’m going to see,” I snapped. “Where are my clothes?”
CHAPTERELEVEN
DECLAN