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Nicholas Scratch had always been surrounded by death, it was a familiar sight and feeling for the boy. Especially given his connection to Death herself, his mother.
Nicholas knew Rio was his mother, but she never visited him during the day when he was with his mama, Agatha. They’d been fighting for most of his life that he could remember.
Now, he sat up every night waiting for Rio to show up, long after his mama had fallen asleep. He’d wiggle from under her arm and talk to his mother for hours it felt like.
Rio would sometimes hold him close, sing him a soft whispered song and lull him to sleep. For such a darkly represented entity, his mother was the kindest person he’d ever known right along with his mama.
As the darkness fell around him, Agatha had tucked them both in to their makeshift bed by the fire and as usual Nicholas had waited for her to fall asleep before wiggling away. The boy now sat on a tree stump, his feet dangling and swaying back and forth as they were not yet long enough to touch the ground.
He hummed and sang softly, “Walk, walk, walk the road…”
Suddenly a smooth voice rang out from behind him, it was as if the shadows had produced a new back up singer for the boy, “I walk the wind-y road…”
Nicholas snatched his head around to look back at the woman, “Mother!” He cried, running towards her and slamming into her with force as he wraps his arms around her.
Rio’s finger hit her lips in a shushing motion as she returned the embrace and her eyes ran over a sleeping Agatha to insure their son hadn’t woken her from her sleep.
As they hugged, green smoke began to swirl around them and they were suddenly in the middle of a field in bright daylight with flowers surrounding them.
Nicholas giggled in excitement and began running around the flower field, jumping and skipping.
“It’s so pretty, mother!” He exclaimed, “I want to have a flower field when I grow up,”
In his spout of happiness he didn’t notice the way his mother’s face dropped, or how her eyes welled with tears that she quickly wiped away. Rio just ran a hand through the boys hair as he went by, “It’ll be the prettiest one you’ve ever seen, my sweet dandelion,”
Nicholas continued skipping and singing for a while before he began picking flowers, pulling them into a bouquet. He sighed lowly and then turned to look at Rio as he picked more.
“Are you and mama ever gonna love each other again?” The boy questioned innocently. Dark questioning orbs met the same shade of dark as they stared into each other’s eyes.
Rio now sat on the ground beside the boy as he picked flowers around her. They held eye contact for a long moment before she let out her own sigh that matched her son’s, “We do love each other, Nicky,”
“Then why don’t you show it?” He questioned, his lip beginning to quiver, “Mama’s always mad at you and she never wants to talk about you.” The boy continued.
Rio pulled the boy into her lap, laying the flowers beside them. “Mama is just going through a hard time, Nicky,” Her son stared up at her with watery eyes as she continued, “But you, our little sunflower, bring her enough happiness every day for the both of us.”
“What if one day I can’t make her happy anymore?” He questioned, a tear falling down his cheek. Rio’s breath caught in her mouth, a lump formed in her throat. How was she supposed to answer this question when she knew what was coming?
“No matter near or far, you’ll always be able to make her happy, Nicky.” Rio stated, wiping his tears away. She brought the boy into a warm embrace and he shook as he cried softly in her arms.
Nicholas had always been a sensitive child, it never took much to upset him when he began over thinking things. He was much like Agatha in that regard, the smallest things could set them off.
His breathing smoothed out as Rio realized he had fallen asleep in her arms. She brushed his hair out of his face and stared down at him.
Rio had exhausted every single option she had that could have saved their son, but she had found nothing that would work. Maybe it was a cruel punishment from this universe, death would always be all she was and all that surrounded her.
Green smoke wrapped them up again and they were back in the place they’d left from. Agatha was still sound asleep, her arm laying on the empty spot that Nicholas had once laid in.
Gently, Rio laid the boy back in his spot, draping her wife’s arm over him. She could see that even under the blanket that covered Agatha, she still shivered in her spot.
Rio pulled the blanket up further on her small family and pulled her green cape off. She laid it over both of them and watched as Agatha cuddled closer to it. She brushed the hair from Agatha’s face and kissed her forehead, then she did the same to Nicholas.
She stared down at the bouquet of flowers she’d brought back with them and as if from a simple wish, the flowers were tied with a green ribbon. A card hung off the side that said, “Te amo, mis amores.”
As she began feeling the tug and cry of Nicholas’ soul to come with her, she felt fear creep through her and quickly placed the flowers beside her sleeping family, then was gone without another trace.