The light was just coming up and the morning mist was creeping away from the swamp until it would return at nightfall. Aella’s heart was breaking. It would not be a long parting, just a few weeks that Chanterelle would be gone with the baskets, but it would be the longest time she’d been away from her.And the last time she let someone leave….She swallowed back the foreboding feeling forcing herself to remain calm. She would not allow her mind to go there. No, she would not have it.
Chanterelle smiled at her one last time, glancing back over her shoulder.
Sure as the sun rises.
Aella woke up with a start, her head feeling foggy and thick. For a moment, nothing and everything was real. It was a blissful oblivion where Chanterelle was there and their children were there—all four. And then it shattered as though someone had dropped it for the fragile thing it was.
Because none of that was real. But how could this nightmare be real? How could someone like Chanterelle, like their baskets…be gone?
Then she felt that heavy ache she had grown all too accustomed to. Of course, Chanterelle didn’t know about Witness. Witness had come long after Chanterelle had been gone.
There wasn’t much time though until the foals were awake, and she could not let herself fall apart in front of Witness and Epitaph. She would not let them see her weep like this. But still, the tears came unbidden to her eyes. Her throat burned and the world turned hazy.
I have to be strong for them, she thought. I have to.
It was hard though, to wake up and think about how Chanterelle was gone from her. The beautful life that lingered sometimes in her dreams always had to fade away come morning. Sometimes there was that blissful moment between waking and sleeping when Chanterelle was there touching her skin, smiling and all the world was right. Then she would truly wake up and it would be gone.
She did not want this day to be about loss, she didn’t want to dwell on it if she could. But this day was one she had been long dreading that opened up like an empty hole in the ground to walk around.
Aella knew that it was going to be a long day, perhaps the longest day of her life. The air seemed too thick and it was hard to breath. The air around her had solidified and she could not taken in a breath of air. The world rocked before her and then centered as a tiny voice spoke.
“Mama?”
She opened her eyes to Epitaph standing there, still a foal but moving into that akward gangly phase. Witness was just waking up behing him. Aella took a deep breath knowing that this day would be hard, and there would be many more anniverseries of this day. And it would depend on what she made it.
Smiling, she nuzzled Epitaph gently, “Today we’re going to play a bunch of games, okay?” His eyes lit up as he nodded and ran back to Witness to tell her. The best way to do this was to value what she had, to distract herself from today as much as she could.
By the end of the day, she was exhausted and the small warm bodies curled up to her in comfort. And as she fell asleep, for just a moment, there was not just the three of them, but the six. Their family safe. Whole.