Farraway Mist ?A Wattpad featured story?

Chapter 42: Forgiven

"George!"

His name felt ripped from Scout's lips as she reached uselessly for him. Her freezing fingers closed on nothing but thin air because he was already gone.

But he hadn't fallen. She'd been watching, and even as the nerves in her hands registered emptiness, her eyes watched, disbelieving, as he rose into the air with frightening, unreal speed. He was lifted, as if he were being sucked up some kind of invisible tube. His body turned in midair, so she could see his terrified eyes as he was whooshed off into space, his arms and legs trailing in front of him, until he was nothing but a dot in the sky, mere seconds after he'd stepped off the cliff's edge. He grew too small to see, and simply disappeared into the afternoon sky.

And Scout was standing there alone, with baby Alis sitting a few feet behind her, whimpering.

The cool air whistled around them as it rose, bringing with it the mist and moisture from the waves from below. Bandit let out a howl, and Bess and her puppies joined him in making the mournful sounds.

As if in a trance, Scout picked up the baby, holding her securely as she brushed the little bit of dirt off her legs; then she just stood, looking up in the sky where George had disappeared just minutes before.

What had just happened? It would've been easier to believe that George had jumped off the cliff to his death than that he had jumped off the cliff and had, just, flown off somewhere. Scout felt like she was going crazy, like her sanity was actually coming unhinged from reality. How could that have happened? What had happened?

Eventually the fact that Alis was quaking with cold in her arms sank into her consciousness, or she might have just stood there like a statue all night until she just succumbed to hypothermia herself.

"Oh dear god, I'm so sorry, my darling little girl," Scout murmured, turning toward the house. Bess, Harry and Hermione followed her, but Bandit turned back to the cliff after a few steps, and Scout had to command him into a heel before he'd quit the spot and come with her.

They slowly made their way to the house in the cold and wet afternoon, with Scout on autopilot, trying to shield her baby from the damp spray. They entered the lounge through the French doors, where Scout quickly built a fire and put Alis to the breast.

As usual, the first few minutes of breast feeding were kind of messy because she'd made Alis wait so long, and she had to sit very still, and let the baby take long, drinks to relieve the built up pressure. Alis, who was a pro by now, knew as well what to do, and put her little hands on her mother's body to steady herself, taking good, long pulls as she looked up at Scout unblinkingly, using her tongue to exert pressure and extract the nourishing milk.

"I love you, little baby," Scout whispered to her daughter, because she did, and because she needed to say something normal to anchor herself in the moment, in reality, to keep herself sane after what had just happened outside.

Scout sat and nursed her child and rocked back and forth a little bit, and tried to figure out what she was supposed to do now, now that the only man she'd ever loved, probably the only man who'd ever love her, certainly the only man she'd ever love, and the father of her child, had simply disappeared, literally into thin air? How was she supposed to explain this to people? Was she supposed to tell the world that the ghost of his dead wife had been haunting them for the past year, and had been slowly ramping up her activities, had killed his dog, had made attempts on her life, and had finally culminated her activities by simply taking George somewhere?

They'd lock her up.

They'd certainly take away Alis.

Scout sat her up, burped her, and switched her to the other breast. Alis latched on, and again began with nice, long drinks at the beginning, smiling and gurgling at Scout as she did.