Chapter 41: Elena's Test

Chapter 41: Elena's Test
Elena's Point of View

Suspended in the torn air, the words "THE AUTHOR AWAKENS" sent a chill of ice through my transformed awareness that had nothing to do with ice in the universe. Around us, beings who existed since the origins of time were stepping back from the tears in reality with faces of sheer horror.

"What is the Author?" the Balance Child asked, her tiny voice laced with an anxiety I'd never previously heard.

"The one who writes the rules," drew out the Moon Goddess. "The awareness that decides not only what happens, but what can happen."

"I thought you cosmic folk were the highest point of existence," I snapped back.

"We are within the story," the Primordial Concept of Time replied, its voice trembling. "The Author is above it. If it awakens to fullness, it can redefine all that we are with one mind."

But even while the cosmic alarm rolled across the Council space, I was consumed by something else altogether. The way Nora'd reached out and grasped Kai's hand, the trust she'd chosen to place in him after all Marcus had done.

It should have filled me with happiness. My sister was healing, falling in love, moving past the terror I'd caused. Instead, I was gripped by the old fires of jealousy mixed with something darker.

"She forgives him so readily," I complained, not realizing I'd said it aloud.

"Elena?" the Balance Child shifted to face me, replacing fear with concern on her face. "What is it?"

"Nothing," I answered hastily. But the child's gaze seemed to bore directly through me.

"You're upset Nora trusted Kai."

"I'm not mad. I'm. observing." But even as I said it, I could feel old patterns of thinking reasserting themselves. "It's just interesting how easily she forgives when it's someone she wishes to love."

The words were sour on my lips. I'd thought I'd moved past this, thought that my transformation had burned away the shallow resentments that used to consume me. But watching Nora choose trust over fear, watching her risk opening up her heart, summoned all the bitter boyhood resentment I ever knew.

"She never forgave you," the child murmured, intuiting my thoughts with uneasy accuracy.

"No, she didn't." The admission hurt more than I'd expected. "Even after everything, even in knowing I was corrupted and manipulated, she still regards me as the enemy."

"Because you've given her no reason to see you any differently."

I spun to shoot a look at my daughter - for that's what she was, however improbable the circumstances of her creation had been. "What do you mean?"

"Kai showed himself to be trustworthy by being vulnerable, showing his fears and doubts. You've been showing your strength by hiding your emotions."

With us, the cosmic entities were still shuddering back from expanding fissures, but I hardly noticed. My full attention was on this conversation that was cutting deeper than any cosmic threat.

"What do I do? Admit that I'm still jealous? Watching her happy makes me feel like that bitter child who never got chosen first for anything?"

"Yes," the child responded bluntly. "That's just what you are to do."

"She will hate me for doing that."

"She already doesn't trust you. The question is, do you want to earn her trust or simply demand it?"

I gazed over the devastation to where Nora and Kai stood, side by side, their combined glow fighting against the instability of the dimensions. They were just so perfect together, so simply meant to be.

Just like she and Marcus had been, back when I'd let myself believe that snuffing out that happiness was the right thing to do.

"What if I can't change?" I asked softly. "What if this jealousy is too deeply ingrained a part of me?"

"Then you'll be like them," the child answered, gesturing toward the survivors whose rage had burned out their ability to create anything worthwhile. "And I'll have to learn how to fix you too."

The idea of my daughter seeing me as just another broken object to be mended was more terrifying than any danger the universe might pose.

"How do I demonstrate that I am different?"

"Start with the truth. About what you're feeling, about what you fear, about what you really want."

I took a deep breath and walked over to Nora and Kai, my new body getting heavier with each step. Reaching them, they stood before me with faces that were wary but not hostile.

"Nora," I said, my voice being almost overwhelmed by the cosmic din.

"I have to tell you something,"

"Elena, not now," she replied, but I did not give up.

"I'm jealous," I blurted out before I lost my courage. "I'm jealous that you can trust him when you've never been able to trust me. I'm jealous that you found love again when I destroyed mine with my own choices. I'm jealous that everyone always chooses you, even when I try so hard to be worthy of being chosen."

Nora's expression went from guarded to stunned. "Elena."

"I realize I'm selfish. I realize I have no right to feel this way considering everything I've done. But watching you heal and me stay broken, watching you move on and me still struggle to know who I am - it feels in ways I don't know how to deal with."

Kai was staring at me with some kind of comprehension. "Elena, jealousy is not what makes you a monster. Acting on it in a hurtful manner does."

"I know. And I want to do better. But I don't know how to not feel like this."

"You don't feel it," Nora told me gently. "You feel it and you choose to respond in love anyway."

She moved closer to me, and for a moment I thought she was going to hug me. She put in front of me, instead, a vial of liquid that was transparent. 

"What's this?" I asked.

"Wolfsbane extract. Strong enough to kill a normal wolf dead." Nora's alert senses had sensed what my subconscious had been scheming. "You were going to test me, weren't you? Test me and see if I'd drink what you'd given me, test me and see if I trusted you enough to leave myself vulnerable."

My throat is parched. She was correct. A portion of me had been preparing to offer her something to drink, to inquire if she'd have it, to show myself she could never actually ever really trust me.

"I wasn't going to poison you, seriously," I croaked.

"But you were going to test whether you could." Nora's voice wasn't angry, but sad. "Elena, that isn't how trust is. You can't test people to see if they'll be vulnerable around you. You have to work for the right to their vulnerability."
"How?"

"By being vulnerable first."

I raised the vial, observing myself distort in the glass. This was my decision. I could make excuses, justify my brain, blame my actions on past trauma and manipulation.

Or I could remain true to who I was and wished to be.

I raised the vial to my lips and drank the entire thing.

The wolfsbane blistered through my body like hot coals, but the new nature burned it away quickly, killing the poison before it could find permanent residence. But the message was not to be mistaken.

"I'm not going to test you anymore," I told her as the poison was finally purged from my system. "I'm going to trust you to make your own decision regarding whether or not I'm trustworthy."

Nora's face softened. "Elena."

But before she could get a word in, the cracks in reality grew wider and something huge began to emerge.

Not the Author, but something very close to terrifying.

The first draft of our story, every version of us we might have been.

And they all were looking for the one with the nerve to revise their endings.