you can throw me if you want

[truthwright]

It turns out that there was really not much point to making a schedule. Kas and Helen visit the witch clan whenever Helen feels like it, and stay as long as she wants, and go when she wants to be somewhere else, and it all adds up to plenty more time spent with the clan than away.

After the aquarium jaunt with Ranata, it's a little more than a month before they visit the clan again.

Comments

[carillons]

"Will Kas be fine?" cries Kalavar, huddling mousily against Castarilan.

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, sweetie," says Ranata. "We'll try the other clans' cursebreakers. Rinda doesn't know everything."

[carillons]

Helen sniffles and hugs Ranata.

[alicornucopia]

Hugs.

"I can call Charlie and he can come here," she offers.

[carillons]

She nods between sniffles.

[alicornucopia]

Ranata has a phone; she calls Charlie.

"He'll be here in an hour," she reports.

[carillons]

Helen nods again and closes her eyes.

[alicornucopia]

Hugs.

After the promised hour, Charlie finds them. He sits on Helen's other side and puts his arm around her; his daemon snuffles at Kalavar.

[carillons]

Kalavar turns into a chinchilla and huddles up to Kesathi; Helen sits between her grandparents and closes her eyes and sniffles periodically, and if she's not crying she only just barely isn't.

[alicornucopia]

"Y'know," says Charlie, "if you can't break the curse - then - well, I died, once, got out easy because I was - special to Isabella."

Ranata makes a hmm sound.

[carillons]

"Is it okay being dead?" sniffles Helen. "Is it better than being frozen?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, it's not bad there at all," says Charlie. "I didn't stay long but - it's not bad, better than being frozen. And Kas was special to Isabella, too."

[carillons]

"Then..."

The thought of killing Kas is terribly frightening. But the thought of Kas just staying frozen forever is also terribly frightening.

Helen falls silent.

[alicornucopia]

Charlie pets Helen's hair.

[carillons]

Helen hugs him and sighs.

"Everything is scary and I don't know what to do," she says.

[alicornucopia]

"It'll be okay, honey," Charlie says.

[carillons]

"Are you sure?" she says plaintively.

[alicornucopia]

"Nobody's ever perfectly sure," Charlie says. "That's one of the hardest things there is. But that doesn't mean it won't be okay."

[carillons]

She hugs him some more. Kalavar nuzzles Kesathi's paw.

[alicornucopia]

Kesathi is a huggy creature. She demonstrates this now.

"It's probably worth checking with a couple other cursebreakers, but if they say the same thing, I don't know what else we can do," says Ranata.

[carillons]

Helen nods and hugs Charlie tighter.

[alicornucopia]

Ranata delegates hugging to Charlie and starts calling other clans.

[carillons]

Charlie is a good hug delegate.

[alicornucopia]

He is.

The first foreign cursebreaker declines to second-guess Rinda at all. The second listens to the symptoms and the circumstances, asks whether Kas happens to smell of mace, and eventually concludes that he cannot be helped. The third's phone is answered by her son-in-law, who says that she's going to be spending the next six months on a retreat in the Alps and will not be speaking to anyone until the end of same.

Ranata puts her phone away.

"Not much sense in waiting," she murmurs.

[carillons]

Helen sniffles and hugs Charlie.

"What are you going to do?"