"Skid?" Her voice echoed in the stone hallway leading into the heart of the heart of the cave. The runes on the walls glowed a dull, sullen red, and offered no advise but simply allowed her passage. At least they still admitted her. "Teshid?" she called on the off-chance that he was home. It happened rarely, but it happened.
No one answered.
She searched the living areas - any place they generally spent time when at home - all empty. The living room, the bedroom? The cushioned room she called the Lounge? No one. The laboratory? Empty. The last was the most worrisome. She fed some of the more familiar subjects in the cases because it looked like they'd been untended for a few days: the snapdragons, the pussy-willows, the sun-catchers - as well as the mice and insects that served as prey. Definitely odd.
Even when she'd been there alone before, she'd not felt so alone. Her scalp prickled with it.
"Just my imagination," she murmured to herself.
Everywhere she'd been brave enough to look, she searched. All with the same results. She couldn't find him - not a trace of him - anywhere. Not that she looked everywhere. There were some doors that remained untested. 'I may have to go to hell to heal it,' she recalled him saying. That door, with its locks and forbidding runes and incredible heat, she avoided. Surely not.
There were so many passages where he could be hiding, angry, hurt, not wanting to talk to her. That, too was a possibility. She meant what she said to him. She did love him still. The question remained, though: could she get past what had happened enough for things to be whole again? He hadn't been horrible. Hadn't been cruel. Hadn't wanted to hurt her - quite the opposite; she knew that in her heart. 'I pushed him and pushed him, and when he acted on it, I hurt him,' she had sobbed to Ali later. And she meant that, too. Whatever it was that had happened wasn't simple, and she took the blame for it on herself. She didn't know if they'd ever get past it. But she couldn't imagine her life without him somewhere in it. They had to at least be able to talk to each other. They had to.
"Skid, please!" she shouted in the passageway. "I just wanted to talk to you! I just wanted to see if you're okay." His poor hand. Those welts. The look on his face when he'd left the Inn that night.
No one answered.
No one answered.
She searched the living areas - any place they generally spent time when at home - all empty. The living room, the bedroom? The cushioned room she called the Lounge? No one. The laboratory? Empty. The last was the most worrisome. She fed some of the more familiar subjects in the cases because it looked like they'd been untended for a few days: the snapdragons, the pussy-willows, the sun-catchers - as well as the mice and insects that served as prey. Definitely odd.
Even when she'd been there alone before, she'd not felt so alone. Her scalp prickled with it.
"Just my imagination," she murmured to herself.
Everywhere she'd been brave enough to look, she searched. All with the same results. She couldn't find him - not a trace of him - anywhere. Not that she looked everywhere. There were some doors that remained untested. 'I may have to go to hell to heal it,' she recalled him saying. That door, with its locks and forbidding runes and incredible heat, she avoided. Surely not.
There were so many passages where he could be hiding, angry, hurt, not wanting to talk to her. That, too was a possibility. She meant what she said to him. She did love him still. The question remained, though: could she get past what had happened enough for things to be whole again? He hadn't been horrible. Hadn't been cruel. Hadn't wanted to hurt her - quite the opposite; she knew that in her heart. 'I pushed him and pushed him, and when he acted on it, I hurt him,' she had sobbed to Ali later. And she meant that, too. Whatever it was that had happened wasn't simple, and she took the blame for it on herself. She didn't know if they'd ever get past it. But she couldn't imagine her life without him somewhere in it. They had to at least be able to talk to each other. They had to.
"Skid, please!" she shouted in the passageway. "I just wanted to talk to you! I just wanted to see if you're okay." His poor hand. Those welts. The look on his face when he'd left the Inn that night.
No one answered.