Page 98 of Tracking Snow

Her mouth flaps open and closed a couple of times, her breath quickening. Then it snaps shut. Everything drains out of her face. "Alright, you got me there. My birth family may have died before I knew what that was like, but I found my family. And they love me unconditionally."

I can't help the humorless smile from stretching across my face until I feel like a deranged joker. "That's fae shit, as you put it." I shove my hands in my jean pockets. "Everyone loves each other conditionally. A man cheats on his wife and the wife stops loving him. A friend steals from their friend and that friendship ends. Politics divide and split up people who thought they'd love each other forever. Same with money. People who travel too far from each other stop loving each other after a while. So no, Snow. No one loves anyone else unconditionally, not even mothers."

Her eyes blaze, and I can see the gears running hot and fast as she reaches for her argument, but she didn't have parents. She can't deny what I'm saying. Anyone who has lived on this earth, in these realms, for any amount of time realizes what I’m saying has truth to it.

"I love unconditionally," she finally gets out through gritted teeth.

"What?" My hands emerge from my pockets as I readjust my stance. Whatever I thought she'd throw at me, it wasn't that.

"I know you're wrong because I love people unconditionally."

"No, you don't," I roll my eyes, turning to go. My boot clips the leg of the coffee table. The tray rattles. Flutterbuns scatter into the air, resettle. She grabs my arm.

"I love my friends more than life itself. I loved," she stops and swallows hard, "Rosie more than life itself. I would do anything for them. I would love them no matter what they did. If they killed someone, I'd be there with the shovel to help bury the body. Just like I would for you."

A tidal wave of emotion pressed inside my chest until her last words. The tidal wave crashes and roars in my ears, as my brain struggles to comprehend what she's saying.

For a moment, I don't feel fractured, all of us are wrapped up in the moment digesting with a coherence of confusion and disbelief.

"Don't—"

"I love you. I love you, Two. I love you all. All Seven of you."

My hands tighten into fists as a red mist fills my vision. "Don't fucking say that, Snow. Don't you fucking dare," my sentence ends on a strained whisper.

"You're extraordinary and I've fallen so hard for you I can't see straight." She lets out a near hysterical laugh of disbelief.

"It's your fetish with our magic. That's what's making you say these stupid things."

"No." She tightens her hold on my arm. "I love you with magic, but I'd love you without magic. I love all your different parts, One's controlling behavior, how you pretend you don't care about anything, but you really care about everything. How cuddly you are when you nap. I love Three's shy, deep nature that always leaves me in wonder. Four's passion—you light a fire in me, Four."

I try to pull away but she doesn't let me, instead gripping my face. I put my hands over hers to rip them away, but they don't do it, they simply cover hers.

"Five, I haven’t met you yet, but I love you too. I love you, Six, the way you think, the way you speak. How you make sense of the world, giving me new eyes like Three but in a different way. And Seven can hate me all he wants, but I love you too, Seven. Do you hear that? I know you are just trying to protect yourself and the others. I want the same thing."

We can't hear this. We won't hear this.

If Snow loves us exactly as we are, if she loves us even with our damned abilities, flawed, fucked up, and Mother can't...

No, we can't absorb what that means. We won't.

We push her away, turning so she can't see us. A hot stinging forces our eyes to water even as our jaw flexes wildly, trying to beat back the storm she's stirred up.

"You don't love us. You don't know us. You don't know what we've done." If she knew, she'd never forgive us. She'd hate us. She'd see the monster we are.

I catch a movement from the corner of my eye. Snow shakes her head. "I don't care. I love you."

I whirl around. "Stop saying that!" I roar at her.

She has to stop.

She has to stop saying that.

My world trembles, shakes, an earthquake breaking the ground beneath our feet until we fall to our knees on the carpet.

If Snow loves us just as we are and mother doesn't, that means that it's not our fault. That we aren't wrong. We aren't what we thought we were. That Mother is...

The freed flutterbun on the couch pushes itself upright on the cushion as if concerned. As if it also has a stake in this. Which is ridiculous because it is a worthless creature and I shouldn’t care that it licked me like it was bonding to me. Neither of us deserve that kind of connection.