Within these walls

The cards, part 2

"Hello, Dari! I have but a little time. Good thing The Lady knows the Keeper of the Keys. Good friends that they are. She promised to entertain the old man for a while, to give me a minute with you. I'm sure they're in for a good time. Gigi brought sweet oranges and the good rum."

"Bisa?" Daria saw the ghost of her grandmother, as it broke from Brigitte's own flesh. The woman looked radiant, bathed in a golden light, younger than she ever was.

"The one and only, child. This is our chance, our one opportunity to talk after all words are spoken. And all I gotta say is, don't cry over me. And know that, if I ever shed a tear over you, it has been long wiped away.

"I'm beyond, but you are here, and so is your daughter. Don't tie yourself to the past, child. There are things that even the oracles know nothing about. Most of all, where there has been love, it endures."

The woman vanished before her eyes and, as she tried to stop her, rushing towards her, Daria found herself hugging Brigitte.

It was an odd moment for the oracle, who was no stranger to physical contact but preferred to chase after hedonistic pleasures. Brigitte had always been for Brigitte. At that moment, she understood what it felt like to be human, to long for things that are ephemeral lost in the blink of an eye. She finally understood her brother, not only his quiet contemplation, but the joy found in simple things.

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"Follow the sssilver light. Don't abandon the path."

Gabriel's eyes fixed on the pale light that drizzled soft silver onto the fragrant, dark earth, marking the way, above and below. He heard voices calling out to him, promising the fulfillment of his every desire, if he were just to turn, or stray. At the end of the road, he found what he had been looking for.

The trail led him to a tree, where a tiny girl with light-brown skin and abundant black hair fixed in a bun waited. Her face was washed from traces of makeup, except for the finest trace of black kohl that made her deep-set hazel eyes look bigger. She was dressed in a white blouse and a blue skirt trimmed in pink.  Her arms were bare, except for a couple of bracelets. Her bare feet drummed on the fresh grass.

Seeing him, the girl's face lit up with recognition. Gabriel had been readying himself for many things, but a girl running at him with arms wide open was not on his list. He was forced to lean in as she planted a kiss on his forehead.

The girl was close to Vivienne in age, and perhaps, missing his daughter, he saw something of her in that stranger.

The way she held his face when kissing him didn't feel like the type of affection expected from daughters, though. It was a kiss from someone older and wiser; a grandmother, perhaps, which made the situation awkward, to say the least.

The girl circled him a couple of times, holding his hands and making him move along. Her joy was infectious.

"Look at you!" Her Italian accent was almost musical. "Lombardi, you must be! Even if your hair is lighter than wheat, the eyes give you away. Big, warm, the color of chestnuts. That, and the dimples. Your nonna did right, pressing those cheeks! The Lady told me she'll send the girl child, but you do fine. A good woman loves a son."

Gabriel couldn't help but laugh, and he did, as if he missed it. Sitting next to the girl, as he had done so many times with Vivienne, he tried to guess at one thing or another. Brigitte had mentioned a mother, and he needed to know if she were it.

"Who are you?"

"Oh, that!"  The girl replied, doing accounts with her fingers and fluttering her eyelashes. "I'm part of the past, that has come to collide with the present. But that is too poetic, I guess. I better tell you, I'm the mother of your mother's mother, with some others in between. I've lost count. But if you must know, I'm a Lombardi witch. And so, your daughter will be, once she defeats the spirit that possesses your house."