Chapter Thirty Eight
Unbidden this time, her labyrinth appeared as her mind settled into sleep. Six women were laid out on their backs while five others cradled their heads. Dahlia recognized the woman she had met at the dark pool as the twelfth who greeted her.
Dahlia welcomed the woman’s embrace and was pleased to find that she had no injuries Dahlia needed to absorb.
“Thank you for helping me these past few days,” she said, inclining her head to the woman.
“It’s been my pleasure, the hunting has been fine.” The woman grinned for a moment and then her face fell, “Some of the others have not fared as well I’m afraid to say. I am glad to see you are here to heal them.”
“Of course, I could never stand to see them injured.” Dahlia moved to the first woman sitting on the ground, supporting the heads of two others. This was the woman who had first appeared as a girl when Dahlia summoned her to defend against her classmate. Always this woman had greeted her first when necessary. That the twelfth woman had done so seemed to imply that there was a current shift in Dahlia’s psyche. Whether it was a temporary result of the series of battles or something deeper Dahlia wasn’t sure and didn’t have the luxury to investigate at the moment.
She lifted a woman off her first puppet’s lap and held her close to her chest. She experienced the woman’s death. She had seen a soldier lunge for Dahlia when Kenny had asked that he buy her time and had intercepted the man. He had seen her coming and she hadn’t been able to block him without exposing her ribs. He had slashed through them. She watched as he brought his blade back and ran her through. As her eyesight failed she had had a moment of satisfaction as another one of her sisters had slit the man’s throat.
Dahlia took the woman’s pain. Then as her awareness was once again brought back to the labyrinth, she felt tears on her cheek. The woman she had held now had bright eyes and a smile. She pulled herself up to her knees, bowed to Dahlia, and moved to sit back on the edge of the mists.
Dahlia proceeded to each woman in turn. Only the original of the twelve and the twelfth woman who had greeted her had avoided injury completely. For every other woman she took on their pain and healed them, paying the cost of her ability.
As she released the last woman, Dahlia felt the twelfth puppet’s eyes on her and turned to find the woman sitting back on her heels with tears in her eyes as well.
“I wish I could have been faster, could have saved her from that,” the woman told Dahlia with her head bowed.
“As do I,” Dahlia said gently, motioning to the other women around her, “but every bit of pain is my burden to bear. I ask it of you and it is I who must experience every consequence.”
“Yet it is we who must feel the guilt of forcing you to endure this. If we fail not only do we pay the price, but we must watch you pay the price as well. It is why I ask you now to use my full strength and the strength that you have buried deep with fear.”
Dahlia sat for a moment, unsure. “I don’t understand.”
“You have accepted me, but still you fear what I offer and you hold yourself back from fully accessing it when you fight,” the woman continued with her head bowed respectfully. “I beg you to accept the strength I offer.”
“I lost myself in that strength and I don’t know if I can accept what it brought me,” Dahlia said softly, thinking back to the nights with Kenny.
“That was not my doing,” said the woman quickly. “It helped to manifest me, but what you felt was pulled from deeper inside you.”
“Deeper…” Dahlia mouthed, feeling something tugging at the edge of her awareness.
“Forgive me, I am limited in what I can say,” the woman dropped her hands to the ground and bent her head still lower.
“Limited by what?” Dahlia was startled to hear this from a woman that was really part of her own mind. Who could limit the woman but her?
“I’m limited by what you will allow. Please, I ask you only to consider my request. Use the strength that I have offered for I fear you will need it soon.”
Dahlia felt unsettled. The pull became a bit stronger and she willed it away. Whatever the woman was talking about had clearly upset her. It seemed there was something more to the internal conflict Dahlia had become aware of than she had thought. She looked to the rest of the women around her. Half of them had bowed their heads imploringly as well. The others were divided between unsure, resistant, and as unsettled as Dahlia herself. Dahlia realized she was looking at a manifestation of the internal conflict and her divide over the matter. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. She hadn’t realized how much of her had wanted to embrace the darkness she’d witnessed manifesting.
Then she looked at the woman on hands and knees with her head bowed. Was this the “darkness” she had feared and labeled “monster”? It was undeniably a part of her and a part that wished to defend herself and others. She had vowed long ago to follow a path of self-acceptance, as she had been taught, when it had been black and white. She had never imagined it would lead to such a difficult choice between different shades of grey.
She took another deep breath and nodded, “I will try to release my fear and accept the strength you offer.”
“Thank you,” the woman said in breathless relief as the labyrinth faded into the mists and then into the darkness of a true, dreamless sleep.