I slap the surface of the water, thinking I’m going to die. Or whatever it would be called. Maybe you can’t drown here. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

No, it absolutely does not matter.

Because under the water I see something.

What Eric wanted to show me, the reason why Gaia would have wanted me to come here.

Under the surface of the water, I see what I lost.

My own river of sorrow.

With my head under the water, my mother’s kitchen comes into focus. The room is filled with people, and it takes a moment for my eyes to land on those of my mother. She sits at the same worn table, a teacup in hand, but I see she has aged nearly twenty-years. With a gasp I realize this isn’t her as I remember her... this is her as she is now.

My mother has aged so much.

I gasp as I take her in. Her clear eyes are blurry, her blonde hair has grayed, her fingers trembling as someone speaks. Looking around, I try to find the voice and I narrow my eyes, trying on focus on sound.

Miraculously I can hear it, ever so faintly. The voice of --

But then I am pulled from the water and shouts surround me. I’m in Styx, so far from the comfort of my mother’s home. My eyes are wild as I try to figure out what is happening. Lennox has his hands on me, pulling me from the water and I struggle to get free from him. He doesn’t understand staying under that water is not going to drown me, it is going to open my eyes.

“Fuck you,” South shouts across the river, pushing Eric into the water.

“I’m not trying to hurt her. You can see things in this water. She can--”

He doesn’t wait to hear him out, South punches him the jaw, pushing him back into the River of Sorrow. South thinks Eric was hurting me but he is so, so wrong.

“Stop,” I scream, as Eric pulls himself for the water lurching for South. “Please,” I shout. “South, listen to me.”

“Stay back, Ten,” he yells. “I’m taking care of it.”

“Enough,” I shriek, this time aware that everyone does what I ask. Apparently, I needed to scream to get their attention. “All of you, listen. Stick your faces in the water and relax. Hold my hands or something. I want you to see what I see.”

“What do you mean?” Hawthorne asks.

Eric pushes his hair from his eyes, glaring at South as he walks toward me. “It worked then?”

“What worked?” Lennox asks, his hand still on what is left of my shoulder.

Eric looks directly at Lennox, and when he speaks, his voice is solemn, “I drank out of the river and saw some twinges of memories. Like, a still frame of Harlow’s face, her pink hair and bright eyes pierced my heart. I saw her, and I hoped Tennyson might too, might remember her sister.”

My sister.

I need to go back there. I tug on Lennox’s hand. “Believe me,” I say. “Look.”

And so, they all follow suit, hearing my wish. We take hands and create a circle, and we kneel in the river, the group of us waterlogged and exhausted, half-faded, nearly dead. Yet, we still cling to one another.

We aren’t ready to let go. Not yet. Not like this.

Again, I am under the water, and I blink, trying to see my men from this vantage, but I can’t. All I see in front of me is my mother’s kitchen once more. Lennox squeezes my hand, and on the other side of me, Hawthorne holds my forearm.

And then I turn my head, taking in more of the space, and I realize my mother’s kitchen is still full of people and now I notice the women she is with... a pink haired woman with a pregnant belly--it must be her: Harlow. She is crying, wiping her eyes, and sitting across from my mother at the table. Her pale pink hair falling in her face.

And there’s a woman with bright red hair, pregnant also, but she isn’t crying; she looks pissed. And then... then I see her.

Lark.

She hardly looks human... and I know I don’t either, but she looks like a mythical creature more than human. She looks like magic. Her hair is streaked in vibrant colors, her shoulders graceful, her limbs long. She looks almost like some winged creature; like the most beautiful bird, I’ve ever seen.

My heart beats heavily in my chest. The deepest longing I’ve ever known fills my heart, and all I want is to be free of this fucking place and to go see her. The girl who was my best friend before I came to Styx; the cousin who was much too good for me. She was gentle and true and kind. And I was a naughty girl. I had been then breaking the rules, who had stolen the ring--

My breath catches.

The ring.

Eric said Harlow put on a ring and everything changed.

I put on a ring and everything changed too. Lightning fell from the sky and splintered my life in two. Before and after. Earth and Styx. I was carried here by a gust of wind, but even as I think it, it makes no sense.

How could such a thing happen?

The girls are talking in the kitchen, and now I can hear them. I push out the competing thoughts and focus on them.

“She’s got to be somewhere,” Harlow says to my mother. I see my mother’s crystal ball on the wooden table, milky and filled with magic.

“I know,” Mother says solemnly. “I know she hasn’t passed to the spirit world but she isn’t on Earth either. It’s like she’s trapped.”

“How do you know that?” the redhead asks.

“Because, Remedy,” Lark says softly “My aunt’s a witch. She knows these things.”

“Convenient.” Remedy runs her fingers through her long hair.

Harlow looks over at her. Squinting, trying to read her as if they hardly know one another at all. “Are you always this negative?”

Remedy shrugs. “I know I was the one who dragged Lark here, but this is stupid. We’re never going to get an answer unless Gaia shows up to help us.”

“She isn’t coming,” my mother whispers, her fingers resting on the ball. She closes her eyes, focusing the power within the orb.

As a little girl, I watched her do this so many times. Now the memories come flooding back. Mom with clients, reading their fortunes, making them cry tears of joy or pain. Mom always said it wasn’t her choice what message was delivered. She was nothing but a vessel for the future, the spirit world, and the great beyond.

“Are you sure?” Lark asks, sitting down, eyes trained on the ball.

“Someone else must act in her place. Come here in lieu of her.”

“Why?” Harlow asks, her hand on her swollen belly.

“Because she has another task to complete.” Mother nods as if the matter is taken care of. “And she isn’t needed Earth-side. Her duty lies below in the Underworld. But someone else needs to return. And they will.” At that, my mother’s eyes fix on Harlow, and my heart pounds in understanding.

Hating the truth.

Remedy scoffs again. “I am so fucking tired of these vague words. You’re just like Gaia. She’d sweep in, tell us half a story, then disappear.”

“She’s sick, Rem,” Harlow says tightly. “I saw her in the ocean, on my way here. She’s dying. I know Lark’s mates say the world is in peril, and that it’s because Mother Earth is dying. But I think it might be something else...”

“Like what?” Lark asks gently. My own lip trembles as I see her there -- a grown woman, before my very eyes.

“I think things started getting bad when we locked up our fathers. Maybe Poseidon, Ares, and Zeus weren’t meant to be behind bars.”

Rem scoffs again. “We literally just spent months locking our fathers up and now you’re suggested that was the wrong course of action?”

Harlow twists her lips. “I know we’re half-sisters and because of that, I want to trust you all but sometimes I feel like we’re going to be at a standstill forever. And I don’t have forever.” Tears fill her eyes. “I’ve already lost so much. My father killed the man I love. Eric will never meet his child, never be a part of his life. I won’t let his death have been in vain. I’m having a baby no matter what we decide. I just don’t want to waste any more time deciding what we’re going to do next.”

“Neither do I.” Remedy pushes back from the table. She doesn’t look angry, she looks tired. Like she could close her eyes and sleep for a year. “I’m committed to this mission or whatever it is, but we’ve got to find our mother. She is somewhere and we need to find out where.”

“Gaia said we needed our sister for that,” Lark says.

My mother exhales, her fingers back the orb. “You need her, but not in the way you thought.”

“Then how?” Remedy asks.

“It’s time for her to pass to the next world. And she knows how to do that. There she will find the one you seek.”

“Our birth mom?” Lark asks. Mom nods, squeezing Lark’s hand.

“So, what do we do then?” Harlow asks.

Mother smiles, and oh, how I wish I could reach out, wrap my arms around her neck, and return to long ago when I fit in the crook of her arm.

“Now,” Mother says. “We wait.”