The Séance • Marvel

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier: Chapter 10

EP 4:

As soon as they were settled down, Vanessa asked, "By any chance do you have a candle I can borrow?" "What do you need a candle for?" Sam asked. "Something that I need to do," she said. Zemo brought out a black pillar candle and handed it to her. "Thank you," she said. "What are you going to do Vanessa?" Sam asked. Vanessa sat on the floor in front of the couches and placed the unlit candle in front of her. "Don't freak out if I don't... answer when you call me. Everything going to be fine" she said.

Vanessa sat on the floor with her legs crossed. She placed each hand on her knees, palms facing to the ceiling. She closed her eyes and focused her mind on the world of the dead. The candle placed in front of her suddenly ignited on its own with a bright blue flame, the color of Vanessa's magic. Vanessa refocused her mind to find one ghost in the millions.

When she opened her eyes she was no longer sitting in Zemo's apartment, she was standing. Her surroundings were the same except they had a slight blue tint to them. She could still see what was happening in the world of the living, but they could no longer see her. Vanessa looked around and noticed that the person she was looking for was standing in front of her.

Vanessa started at her for a couple of minutes, nothing but silence between them. She hadn't seen the woman since she was nine. The woman took a step towards Vanessa, as Vanessa took a step back. "Estás hermosa, mija" (You are beautiful) the woman said. Vanessa shook her head at the woman's sudden affection. "Es cierto lo que nos decias cuando eras niña" (It's true what you told us when you were a child), the woman continued, "Que podías ver el mundo de los muertos" (That you could see the world of the dead). Vanessa let out a humorless chuckle, "Que piensas que inventé todo. Porqué haría eso?" (You think that I made all of this up. Why would I do something like that?).

The woman looked down at her hands, feeling rather ashamed. "Porfavor mi amor, perdoname. Lo que hice hace diez y siete años estuvo muy mal. Y ahora lo entiendo" (Please my love, forgive me. What I did seventeen years ago was wrong. I understand that now). "Demasiado tarde. Si me hubieras dicho todo esto cuando estabas viva, alomejor con tiempo te hubiera perdonado. Pero ahorita solo quieres mi perdón porqué estas aquí. Piensas que con mi perdon podras salir de aquí" (It's too late. If you would've told me all of this when you were still alive, perhaps with time I could've forgiven you. But right now you only want my forgiveness because you are stuck here. You think that with my forgiveness you might be able to leave this place) Vanessa said.

From her spot, Vanessa saw that Bucky arrived at the apartment and told Sam and Zemo something. Vanessa ignored that conversation and focused back on the woman. "Un error. Hice un error, pero me merezco tu perdon" (One mistake. I made one mistake, but I deserve your forgiveness) she said. "Y to me merecía una madre. Una madre que me amara. No una madre que me hizo tanto daño. Pero no vine a hablar de eso. Quiero saber porque lo hiciste" (And I deserved a mother. A mother who loved me. Not one that caused me to much harm. But that's not what I came here for. I want to know why?) Vanessa asked.

The woman was silent for a minute, thinking of an answer. Because the truth is she didn't have a reason, she doesn't know why she did all of those things. "No lo se" (I don't know) she says. Vanessa shook her head. All her life she wanted answers from this woman, to know why she'd abandoned her own daughter. And now she learned that there wasn't one.

"Deje que me trataras horible durante años. Lleno de maltrato. Me decias que yo tenia el diablo adentro. Y lo crei, por años deje que me dijeras todo eso porque tenia la esperanza de que algun dia me quisieras como antes. Todo lo que deje que me hicieras para poder tener una madre" (I let you treat me horribly for years. Full of abuse. You told me I had the devil inside. And I believed it for years, all because I had hoped that you would love me like before) Vanessa yelled, tears filling her eyes, "Tu no sabes por lo que pase todos esos años. Las cosas que hize para sobrevivir. Tenia nueve años, yo no sabia como sobrevivir yo sola. Todo lo que necesitaba era a mi mamá. Pero ella no me quería, no me amaba" (You don't know what I went through all those years. The the things I did just to survive. I was nine, I didn't know how to survive on my own. All I needed was my mom. But she wasn't there she did't love me.)

"Perdoname, por favor" (Please, forgive me) she said. "Un simple perdon no es suficiente" (A simple 'I'm sorry' is not enough) Vanessa said. The woman nodded her head, "Ve a visitar a tus hermanos. Ellos no tienen la culpa de lo que to hize" (Visit your siblings. They are not to blame for the things that I did) was the last thing she said before Vanessa gathered her magic and pushed her out so that she could no longer see her.

Instead of leaving and going back to the world of the living Vanessa broke down then and there. She cried like she hadn't in a really long time. "You should be here," said a voice. Vanessa looked up to see Nate crouching in from of her. He opened his arms and Vanessa fell right into them. "I just wanted to be enough for her. Someone who she would love" Vanessa said in between sobs. "She's not worthy of your tears. Besides you have a mother. She might be gone now, but Dabria was your mother. She gave you everything a mother should give their child. That woman is never going to accept you for who you are, you just need to remember there's someone who did. Who loved you very much, even if you weren't her blood" Nate said, "You should go back. He looks like he's about to pull you out himself."

The black pillar candle suddenly went out and a few seconds later Vanessa opened her eyes. "Oh good, you're back. Now, do you mind explaining what it is that you were doing?" Sam asked, who stopped pacing the moment she opened her eyes. "I was just conducting A Séance," Vanessa said as if it was no big deal, "I needed to talk to someone. Get some answers." "She says as if it's the most normal thing to do," Zemo says. "It is for me. In case you haven't figured it out by now, apart from being an incredible fighter and being drop-dead gorgeous, I also see dead people. The person I needed to talk to was dead and I didn't exactly want to summon her to me because one it tends to freak people out and two I didn't want her to know my location, otherwise she'll follow me around. Therefore A Séance" Vanessa explained, "Also, you might want to throw this away and never light it otherwise you might call upon something that shouldn't be there." "Okay, now that you've officially broken Zemo, here's what we are going to do," Sam says.