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Tessa runs. She follows the fox and finds her friends bleeding on the ground, nearly dead (already dead). She strikes a killing blow and holds Undine tightly in her arms as she bleeds out below her.
I can’t take this. I can’t lose them, she thinks.
Undine tries to tell her to keep going without them, but she can’t imagine a world without her friends. They deserve more than this, more than her. She was told she had great power, but look where it got her, got her friends. If she's so powerful, she might as well do some good.
She pours everything into a single spell, a spark of hope, a healing wave. She feels the power draining out of her, falling away from her like her tears.
Take everything. Just save them.
There is a glow, and Tessa feels something pulling from deep within her, being dragged out with such force she feels she might split in half.
She thinks she did. Then she thinks nothing.
-
There’s only one funeral, but that’s because there’s only one body to bury.
Tessa’s funeral is nice. Officials say pretty words over her pretty grave. Her parents snuffle and sob through their own little speech.
Undine feels like she should say something, but just being here feels like a farce. Gwen, Sylvia, and Sally are all still in the hospital, recovering from injuries that should have (had) killed them. Powerless, but alive.
Undine is the lucky one. She still has her power, and whatever Tessa did healed her in an instant. There's not a recovery period, but a mourning one.
Tessa’s parents hug Undine and thank her for coming, but she just wants to run away. Tessa could be hugging her own parents if it weren’t for Undine.
It’s her fault Tessa is dead.
Undine wants to run, but she doesn’t. She hugs Tessa’s parents harder. She leaves sweet peas at her grave. She thinks of some pretty words of her own and whispers them aloud in the middle of the night in her bedroom, praying for a better tomorrow.
-
She should have expected this. It’s been two months.
Sylvia was discharged a month ago, although she still has rehab twice a week to help her regain the use of her legs (snapped like twigs but somehow healing).
Gwen finally went into outpatient two weeks ago. Her broken arms healed better than the doctors thought they would, and her concussion is finally improving (and her head’s a little less caved in).
Sally’s the worst, but even she’s improved. A scar inches up her face from her jaw to her hairline. Sylvia rolls her eyes every time she calls it “badass” (and none of them mention why she has it).
So Undine should have expected the call she gets from Sylvia, asking her to come to the hospital for lunch.
Undine says yes because she doesn’t know what else to say. She hasn’t talked to the others while they’ve been in the hospital. She’s sent flowers, tulips, to all of them, but she hasn’t talked any of them. She knows she should, that she’s being selfish, but she can’t bring herself to see them.
It will remind her that their group is one less than it should be and that it’s that way because of her.
Undine, however, has already said yes. So she finds herself holding three bouquets of orchids and standing outside of Sally’s hospital door on a painfully sunny Saturday.
She can hear laughter, through the door. It sends a pang of longing through her heart. She’s missed her friends, missed the moments she could forget magic and death and just laugh.
Eventually, she gathers the courage to knock. Sylvia opens the door in the middle of a giggle. Undine can see Sally sitting cross-legged on the hospital bed, Gwen laying on her side beside her. Sylvia’s jacket is perched on a chair in the corner, along with her crutches.
“Undine!” Sylvia says with a smile. “Come in! We’re so glad you could make it!”
Undine’s heart swells and she tries to believe it.
Over the course of lunch (turkey sandwiches, courtesy of the hospital cafeteria) Undine reacquaints herself with her friends.
It turns out these lunches have been a regular thing. They started informally, sitting together in the cafeteria between blood-work and medical tests. When Sylvia got discharged they just kept happening, even with Gwen out too. So, they decided to invite Undine along.
They talk about a lot of things. The news, celebrity gossip, hobbies. They don’t talk about that night, and Undine is grateful.
-
School, inevitably, happens.
Undine dreads it, dreads the sympathetic eyes weighing on her, and dreads being alone. But she needs to go back.
Undine made up her mind at Tessa’s grave to keep fighting. The others try to talk her out of it, for a moment, at a different Saturday lunch when school is brought up. Undine is firm though, and eventually, the others concede. Even Sally doesn’t put up much of a fight.
The others, with no power, go to regular school. Sylvia starts the same time as Undine. Gwen starts a week later. Sally’s still in the hospital.
They keep in touch. Undine still feels like she's on the fringes of their friend group, even more so now that they go to different schools. Gwen smothers Undine in hugs after she confesses this. They start to meet up more regularly, after school. Things feel a little more normal.
Undine, slowly, makes some friends at school.
At first, it feels like an insult, like she’s leaving the others behind. She tells them this, but they encourage her. She needs other friends in the field.
Kokoro, Zoe, Bud, and Harley are kind. The days are a little less empty, lunches a little less lonely. She doesn't go out at night to face monsters on her own anymore.
Every day starts to feel like less of a slight to Tessa’s memory.
-
Nothing's perfect.
There’s still some girl, some thing, following her. Sally gets chronic migraines now. Sylvia will always walk with a limp. Gwen faints sometimes, randomly, and her vision's more blurry than before.
They make it work, though.
Undine has Heartful Punch (has Kokoro) now. Sally does school from home. Sylvia uses a cane. Gwen gets glasses and a service dog.
They all meet on Sundays at a little cafe and talk about whatever they want. Undine introduces them to Kokoro and they welcome her with open arms.
Eventually, they talk about that night. They visit Tessa’s grave and cry about it, a big pile of messed up teenagers with too much weight on their shoulders.
They lay a pink carnation at her grave and begin to mend.