Chapter 570: Meeting in-laws
"I don’t know if that will ever happen. I don’t know if I’ll be alive to see it, if it takes as long as they say it might. But I need you to know, if that day ever comes, if you ever open your eyes again, I’ll be there. I don’t care how many years pass. I don’t care what I have to become to still be standing when it happens. I will be your brother again, Zoe, and this time I’ll do it right. I won’t hide you away to keep you safe. I won’t put distance between us to protect my own heart. I’ll be there every single day, the way I should have been from the start."
He closed his eyes, his hand still resting against the leaves, as close as he could get to holding her one last time, for he knew this was his final goodbye until that day came.
’Wait for me. However long it takes. I’ll be here. I promise you, I’ll be here to bring you back home.’
The current shifted gently around him, stirring her hair, and for one impossible, aching moment, Sebastian let himself imagine it was her answer. He smiled, thinking, ’My little baby sister. I miss you so much. I wish I could turn back time to hold you again.’
Still looking at her, he swim back slowly to give Alex his turn with her, but the more he stared, the more she looked asleep, as if he could pluck her out and take her back home.
’Goodbye, Zoe...’ he thought, with a needle in his throat.
Behind him, Viola watched silently, her own eyes glistening, giving him this moment as her gaze went to the grave, where her best friend lay, and to Alex beside it. She looked at her mother’s grave and all the others, and thought, I have my family down here.
’How can I bring you all back?’ she thought, looking at her palm and remembering how easily Azmira had brought someone back with the Life Root tree.
’I am supposed to be her.’ She thought as she saw the pain in her husband’s eyes while he stared at his sister.
When Sebastian finally turned back toward her, his eyes red in a way the ocean couldn’t fully explain nor hide, she opened her arms, and he swam straight into them. Viola’s eyes stayed on Zoe the whole time, thinking that once she gave birth, she would come back and try her best to bring Zoe back.
’I will give you back your baby sister very soon, my love. I will heal your hurt completely.’
Viola made the promise silently as she held on to him, even as flashes of memories flooded her mind’s eye, each one showing a dagger plunging into her heart. Despite the aching pain those visions brought, she refused to let go of him, clinging to him as though her embrace alone could keep him safe.
’I won’t let him go. I won’t let you come between us, she chanted silently, closing her eyes and listening to the gentle gurgling of the undersea currents. The faint calls of sea creatures echoed through the blue depths as shimmering lights from the fishes
danced over the coral surrounding them.
Even amid the ocean’s quiet beauty, Viola couldn’t escape the memories threatening to tear at her heart. So she held on tighter, determined that no past wound and no unseen force would ever take him away from her.
After awhile, Sebastian surfaced from his own deep sorrow.
"Where is your mother’s grave? I should greet her too." He whispered in her ear, and Viola shook her head.
"You don’t have to if you don’t feel like it, we can go back home." She told him, not wanting to stir him up too much with visiting the dead, when he didn’t like it, but he moved away from her and said,
"I want to. It is rude to come all the way here without meeting her and your father, just like you will meet my own parents." He said this with his face back to being composed, as though he had not looked emotionally raw a moment ago or pained about his sister.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Viola looked at her sister, who understood what she meant and answered,
"He can’t see her face the way he saw his sister’s. Mom is a mermaid, and she’s completely sealed inside her grave. She’s been dead for a long time, but he can still go close to her grave," Ivy explained, pointing toward their mother’s grave before Viola led Sebastian forward.
Sebastian approached the graves and placed one of the artificial flowers he had brought for Zoe and his parents-in-law, carefully arranging it among the leaves covering each grave.
"Good afternoon, Madeline and Vincent. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you both," he said, looking down at the leaves. He wasn’t sure what else to say to his wife’s parents, having never known either of them personally, but he wanted to show his respect.
"Don’t worry about your daughter. She’s in good hands, and I promise to take very good care of her. I hope we get to meet in person someday," he continued calmly, keeping his wife close to his side as he addressed the graves.
He did his best to find the right words because he knew how much these people meant to Viola. Although she had never met either of her parents, he understood that a part of her still longed for the parental love and affection she had never received. When he turned to look at her, he found her wiping the corners of her eyes.
"Thank you for bringing such a beautiful, wonderful woman into this world. If we ever meet, I’d like to personally ask for your forgiveness on behalf of the werewolves for everything our kind has put the mermaids through."
He bowed at the waist toward the graves, following the gesture he had seen Ivy make earlier as a sign of respect.
"If there’s ever a chance for me to make a difference and undo some of the wrongs of the past, Madeline, I will take it. I want to see our two kinds coexist in peace again," he promised sincerely, determined to make a difference in a world still suffering from the consequences of his ancestors’ actions against the mermaids.
Viola turned to look at her husband, a lump forming in her throat as she thought about the atrocities Vaelor had committed and the promise Sebastian had just made to her parents. Could he truly make a difference in a world already so deeply bound by hatred? Even the werewolves had accepted her reluctantly, so would the mermaids ever be willing to accept him?
A few minutes later, as they waited for Alex to say his farewells, Ivy suddenly tensed. Her head turned from side to side as she listened intently to a strange cry echoing through the sea, a sound that resembled the wail of a whale.
"We need to leave."