Morgan finds it amusing to meet the woman who has, until this point, always seemed like the put together elder cousin of her youth. A bit like meeting one’s hero, and though this isn’t the first time she’s spoken to Cece since she’s left, the feeling is the same. The image of her in Morgan’s head fading the more her cousin continues on almost awkwardly, leaving behind the very real person that her cousin is. She rolls her eyes with some fondness and some exasperation. “Why wouldn’t it be available? There isn’t enough people staying here for it to be an issue, and I try to make accommodations otherwise before I let people inside. Be grateful, I’ve even kept it clean.” In some much as she can, on top of all the other rooms. Cece’s room is the least used, so she only steps in once in a while to ensure the dust bunnies aren’t clouding up every piece of it. “Your bookshelf broke during some troubles the other year so I had to move all your books into boxes. Didn’t know where else to put them.” And, well, she didn’t have the heart to rearrange anything too badly, not when this was a room even Lettie had refused to touch. She turns back to her cousin with her eyebrows arched. “What? That’s such a poor excuse, you could have sent a postcard, or an email, or something. But, fine, keep your secrets. You’re here, that’s enough for me.” She can’t hold onto her anger, when the relief is so palpable that Morgan can feel a physical weight lifting off her shoulders. A short-lived one as Cece looks around, and Morgan feels a blow of grief to her chest so strong that she turns her back on her cousin for a moment. “She wouldn’t do something like that. Come here, we should talk somewhere else,” she says after a pause, gesturing for her to follow her into the kitchen. She waits for Cece to sit before starting the kettle on the stove, wanting tea, wanting something to do. Wanting to put it off for as long as necessary. She doesn’t turn on the stove, hands resting flat on the counter until she finds the strength to turn back to her cousin and sink into the seat next to her. “Have you kept track of the news from here? It hasn’t been peaceful in town, they’ve had one issue after another, and I didn’t even know about it until I came back either,” she starts, eyes glued to the table. “In June of 2019, something happened. People were just going crazy, everyone said it was like their magic was going haywire. Lettie, she… I’m so sorry, Cece. She died. I don’t know how, none of us do, but she’s gone, I tried to tell you. I…” She falters, because she doesn’t know what else to say and her babble is useless.
She’s not the type to dread things, really. Not after spending so many of her early years in a state of constant dread, constant fear. No, with time she’d had to shed it. Some would probably say that made her reckless now, but in Cecilia’s eyes, that was better than the alternative. That being said, though, dread seems inevitable now. Sinking like a stone in her stomach, hard and fast as Morgan softens, ushering her toward the kitchen. Oh, that’s pity. Cece knows the feelings in her cousin’s big brown eyes all too well. Pity and sadness strong enough to make her skin crawl. Not simply because of the memories they bring about, either. No, they bring dread with them, the type that’s too hard to swallow around. So Cece can only nod, falling into line behind Morgan. Nothing is said when they enter the kitchen, and it only makes her heart beat faster, enough that she’s dizzy with it. Once she sits, the news unravels, coming from a woman who won’t even look at her straight on. “Um – no. No, I mean, there’s not exactly a Facebook page...” God, is she really still trying? Sure seems like it, but any semblance of humor falls flat with haste in the wake of the unimaginable. Cecilia can feel her head shaking, her eyes blinking a few times as she bites at her bottom lip, thinking hard, uncomprehending. “M-My mom?” There are some constants in life. Lethe. The inn. Lettie’s undeadness. Lettie herself. Her mother, doting mother, hovering mother. Loving mother. Too fiercely, too hard, maybe. Suffocating, she’d accused her of once. How unforgivable. “My mom’s...” Dead, she’d always been dead, but not the sort of dead that stuck. That tore the rug out from under her. No, not just the rug. The world. Every constant crumbling. “You changed the walls.” She looks around the kitchen then, swallowing hard. “You, you um, you changed the walls, my mom painted these walls... no, no. Wallpaper, she wallpapered...um...” She’s standing. When did she stand? But her fingers trace the walls, where a pattern once was, now replaced by solid colors. “It was floral, or something. I remember her... on a ladder. Always working, always...” Here. Here, in the inn. Here, in her life. Cecilia turns back to her cousin, finally, her jaw clenched tight, her eyes filled with tears, a rivulet of red beginning its way from her left nostril. “My mom’s dead? Been... been dead? For... for almost... for two years? M-My mom?”
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