Work Text:
Jennifer Kale is not a jealous woman. She falls asleep on that wretched Road, and her lullaby is the thrum of magic that is not her own. She does not cry, and she is not jealous.
We already know this – Jen left, later, with the wind in her pockets and tears on her cold face. The land falls away from her feet. They don’t tell you how much flying felt like falling. But Jen had been drowning for a very long time – even falling was worth it, for just one breath of air.
Jen locks her doors at night and when she smiles at customers, it almost feels real. She learns how to make it look soft and warm, instead of sharp and wolfish. Part of the con is making them love you, believe you, want you. They’ll take any little piece of you they can find – binging YouTube videos and applying creams that they swear their lives on. She wears gold jewellery, lush pink coats and boots that could crush a windpipe, if Jen should get the urge. She gives them enough of herself for them to get a taste for it – it’s a cat and mouse game that gives Jen’s life a semblance of entertainment.
On Saturdays, she walks to the flower market, closes the storefront, and burns sprigs of rosemary in a cauldron. There is no magic, not in this concoction, but Jen leans back, closes her eyes, and tries to feel a little warm.
Because here is the thing – this, more than anything is what they don’t tell you; magic is a loose, feral creature. Losing it hollows out your chest, leaves you wanting and shivering and shaking, leaves you longing. It feels a little like homesickness, and a little like loneliness. Jen sits beside the fire – she is cold, cold, cold. She doesn’t know if she remembers warmth anymore. There is no cure for that ache inside you. He has cut out something vital and left you bleeding.
On the Road, the cursed Road, nightmares resurface in the daylight. Jen’s mind moves faster than her hands – when it freezes it stalls, freezing, so scared, so terrified, so worried, she jumpstarts it back into action. Jen knows many things – she knows this. He has taken so much. He will not take Jen away from herself.
Jen manages to save Lilia, Alice, Teen, and Agatha. Four lives. She manages to save herself – five. She looks down at Sharon’s stiffening corpse and feels her heart beating against her empty chest. She should’ve known – he had already taken Jen, long, long ago.
Jennifer is these things – bitter, calculating, cold. She is also these things – abandoned. Imprisoned. Alone. Shaking. She tells herself she is not jealous. Lies, like smiles, are not unfamiliar on her lips. She hadn’t had to practise warmth, once.
When Jen claws her way out of that goddamn Hell, mud underneath her fingernails, in her eyes, thick on her tongue, it feels like it has been decades. Agatha took, took, took. She cut out something vital and left Jen bleeding. She took Jen, long, long, ago.
But Jen took back. She took it back. She wrenched that stolen piece of herself from Agatha's grip and cradled it close. This is what it feels like, to be warm.
Jen rises – falls – and wonders, detachedly, like the thought occurs to another person, if this, if getting this back, is worth everything, worth Lilia. Her chest is full. Her heart is aching, still aching. There is no cure.
She will rise, and fall, and she will have fought for herself. She will have won a piece of herself back. It is like a missing limb, returned. It is like finding yourself. It is like coming home. Jen will cry as she flies, as she falls, but she will be warm. She will get as far away from New Jersey as you can get before you start to loop around. She will not look back.
This, now, in the warmth, is the return of the High Priestess.