“Good. Accompany us to the Stone Throat you will.” Turning, Mother L’rin marched off through the long green and pink grass at a surprisingly fast pace. Kat had to scramble up and almost run to keep up with her.
The lovely wilderness of the Healing Gardens was a blur around her as they walked quickly through the grass and flowering bushes. Kat was feeling more and more uncomfortable though she couldn’t put her finger exactly on why. But when they came to the mouth of a cave made of brownish-pink stone, the feeling grew even stronger.
“Wait a minute,” she said, when Mother L’rin started into the low stone entrance. “Where is this place? I have the strangest feeling of deja-vu but I know I’ve never been here before.”
The old woman only gestured toward the cave. “Inside we must go.” She went in and the pink giant followed her, leaving Kat no choice but to join them.
They walked down an echoing stone hallway with Kat feeling worse all the time. By the time they came to the green wooden door with the tarnished handle in its center she was shivering and it wasn’t from cold. But it wasn’t until Doby swung the door open, revealing a vast, round chamber with a red-streaked white obelisk at its center, that Kat nearly lost it.
“Oh my God! This room!” She walked into the echoing chamber on unsteady legs. “I dreamed this. I saw…” She whirled to Mother L’rin. “I saw him.” She stabbed a finger at Doby’s mottled pink hide. “He took Deep in here. And he…he…” She couldn’t go on. Mutely she went to the white obelisk, pointing like an accusing finger toward the narrow stone chimney above. The red streaks were there, just as they had been in her dream. But now she knew what they were. “Dried blood,” she whispered. “My God, he whipped Deep. Whipped him until he bled.” She turned back to Mother L’rin. “I saw it all in my dream. What does that mean?”
“Dream sharing you were,” the old woman said quietly. “Saw everything you did.”
“You mean what I saw was true?” She had a sudden mental image of the night before—Deep’s broad back, covered in a twisted pattern of white scars. “Oh my God—it was true!” Suddenly she felt so faint and dizzy she couldn’t stand up anymore. She started to fall and Doby put out a huge hand to catch her. “Get away from me.” Kat pushed away from the giant, feeling sick to her stomach. “You’re the one who did it to him.”
“No, you are.” Mother L’rin pointed a crooked finger at her. “Your pain he took.”
“But I don’t understand. How could he—?”
“The whip.” Mother L’rin nodded at Doby who opened the green lacquered wooden box he carried. Inside was a plain black handle which Kat found sickeningly familiar.
“I…I’ve seen that before,” she said weakly. Only last time it had long silvery tongues attached to it. With spikes on their ends.
“Transfers pain, the whip does,” the old woman explained. “Someone had your pain to take.”
“And Deep volunteered?” For some reason Kat found tears in her eyes. “Why?”
Mother L’rin put a hand on Kat’s arm and looked into her eyes. “Why do you think, child?” she said gently.
“I d-don’t know.” Kat sniffed and blotted her eyes against the long sleeve of her toga-dress. “I honestly don’t. He hates me. Or at least he doesn’t like me very much.”
“Himself he hates,” Mother L’rin said, releasing her arm. “Cleansed of his hate he must be before you bond.”
“But I can’t bond with him and Lock. Don’t you see? It would never work out.” Kat thought of her parents—the constant shouting, the cold silences, the ugly accusations and names. Her father calling her mother “a fat, lazy whore” and her mother telling him, “Every time I see you, I hate you more. I wish you were dead.” And all that was before the beatings started.
Up until they’d finally gotten divorced and her grandmother had taken her in, the only peace she had was when she went to Liv and Sophie’s house. Their parents had loved each other and it showed in the little acts of affection, the kindness and consideration they showed each other. But Kat’s home had been a war zone. And though neither parent had ever physically laid a hand on her, only each other, she still carried the scars of their many battles.
“You don’t understand,” she told Mother L’rin, aware that she was crying again but unable to help herself. “I can’t be with them. I can’t be with him.”