Chapter 15: Between Worlds

Cora floated in darkness, disconnected from physical sensation. There was no pain here, no fear, only a profound sense of completion. She had fulfilled her promise. Mia was free. The entity was bound. Her task was finished.

Gradually, she became aware of a presence nearby—not threatening, but familiar in a way she couldn't immediately place. It approached slowly, taking form as it drew closer: a young girl with Cora's face but softer features, brown eyes warm with recognition.

"Mia," Cora breathed, though she had no physical body to produce sound. The recognition traveled directly from consciousness to consciousness.

"Hello, sister." Mia smiled, the expression lighting her thirteen-year-old features with the warmth Cora remembered. "You did it. You actually did it."

"The binding worked?"

"Completely," Mia confirmed. "The entity is sealed in its own dimension. It can't return to our world."

Relief washed through Cora's non-physical being. "Then it was worth it."

"Worth what?" Mia asked, moving closer. "Dying?"

The question should have disturbed her, but in this place between worlds, Cora found she could consider it with detachment. "Am I dead?"

"Not yet," Mia replied. "But close. You're in the space between—the same place I've been for twenty years, watching from behind the entity's consciousness, unable to break free until you completed the binding."

"I'm sorry it took so long," Cora said, the guilt she'd carried unknowingly for two decades surfacing even here. "I forgot my promise. Forgot you."

"You were a child," Mia reminded her gently. "Your mind protected you the only way it could. I never blamed you for that."

They existed together in the darkness for what might have been moments or centuries—time had little meaning in this place. Finally, Mia spoke again.

"You have a choice to make," she said, her form beginning to shimmer with soft light. "You can come with me, move on to whatever comes next. Or you can go back."

"Back?" Cora echoed. "To life?"

"Your body is still fighting," Mia explained. "That man of yours—Mason—he refused to let you go. Got you to a hospital in time. They've given you blood transfusions, stopped the bleeding. Your heart's still beating, but your consciousness is here, with me."

The news was surprising. Cora had been certain the ritual would claim her life—had made peace with that outcome as the necessary price for binding the entity. The possibility of return hadn't entered her calculations.

"If I go back," she said slowly, "what happens to you?"

Mia's form brightened further. "I move on. Finally. After twenty years of being trapped between worlds, I can go where I was meant to go."

"And if I choose to go with you?"

"Then we go together," Mia replied simply. "Like we were always meant to."

The choice hung between them, weighted with implications Cora could feel even in this non-physical state. Return to life, to Mason, to the future they might build together. Or move on with Mia, the other half of herself, the sister whose sacrifice had given her twenty years of life.

"He loves you," Mia observed, not unkindly. "I've watched him all these years, keeping his promise to protect you. He deserves the chance to be happy."

"So do you," Cora pointed out. "After everything you've endured."

Mia laughed, the sound pure and untainted by the darkness that had claimed her. "I'm thirteen, Cora. I'll always be thirteen. You're thirty-three. You've built a life, become someone remarkable. Someone who deserves to live."

"Because of your sacrifice," Cora reminded her.

"A sacrifice that would mean nothing if you throw away the life it bought," Mia countered gently. "Don't stay because of guilt or obligation. That's not why I pushed you toward the surface that day."

The truth of her sister's words resonated through Cora's consciousness. Mia hadn't saved her so she could spend her life feeling guilty for surviving. She'd saved her because that's what love did—it put the other's well-being above its own.

Just as Mason had done for twenty years, watching over her from a distance, protecting her from threats she couldn't remember.

Just as she, Cora, had finally done by completing the binding ritual regardless of personal cost.

"I don't want to lose you again," Cora said, the admission carrying all the grief of their original separation and the joy of their reunion in this strange between-place.

"You never will," Mia assured her. "Part of me has always been with you, even when you couldn't remember. That won't change, no matter which path you choose."

As they communed in the darkness, Cora became aware of something new—a distant voice calling her name. Urgent, desperate, familiar.

Mason.

"He's not giving up on you," Mia observed, smiling. "Stubborn, isn't he?"

"Always has been," Cora agreed, warmth suffusing her non-physical being at the thought of him fighting for her, refusing to accept her loss.

The voice grew clearer, pulling at her consciousness like a tangible force. With it came sensations long absent—the discomfort of a hospital bed, the pinch of an IV in her arm, the antiseptic smell of a medical facility.

"It's time to choose," Mia said, her form beginning to fade as Cora's awareness of the physical world strengthened. "Stay or go."

Looking at her sister—eternally thirteen, unburdened now by the entity that had claimed her, radiant with the peace that had been denied her for two decades—Cora found her answer.

"I love you," she said simply. "I always will."

"I know," Mia replied, understanding the choice without needing it stated explicitly. "Live well, sister. Live for both of us."

Her form dissolved into pure light, expanding outward before vanishing completely. But as she disappeared, Cora felt a final caress against her consciousness—not goodbye, but until we meet again.

The darkness receded, replaced by harsh fluorescent lighting and the steady beep of medical equipment. Pain returned—in her hands, in her head, throughout her body weakened by blood loss and trauma. But with the pain came certainty: she was alive. She had chosen life.

"Cora?" Mason's voice again, closer now, thick with exhaustion and hope. "Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

With effort that seemed monumental, Cora forced her fingers to tighten around his. The response was immediate—his intake of breath, the pressure of his hand returning her weak grasp.

"She's responding!" he called to someone else in the room. "Get the doctor!"

Forcing her eyes open required even more effort, the lids seemingly weighted with lead. But finally, she managed it, blinking against the brightness until Mason's face came into focus above her—unshaven, haggard with worry, but transformed with joy as he registered her consciousness.

"Hey," she whispered, her throat dry and voice raspy from disuse.

"Hey yourself," he replied, tears tracking unheeded down his face. "You had us worried for a while there."

"How long?" she managed.

"Three days," he said, bringing her hand to his lips. "You've been unconscious for three days. The doctors didn't think—" He broke off, unable to complete the sentence.

"Didn't think I'd make it," she finished for him.

He nodded, swallowing hard. "Blood loss was severe. They had to give you multiple transfusions. If the tribal elder hadn't called for help when he did..."

The implication hung between them, unnecessary to verbalize. She had come very close to death—had, in fact, been in that liminal space between life and death, communing with her sister one final time.

"The binding worked," she told him, needing him to know their efforts hadn't been in vain. "The entity is gone. Sealed away completely."

"I know," Mason confirmed. "The lake—it's different now. Peaceful. The tribal elders say they can't sense the malevolence anymore. People are reporting their nightmares have stopped."

Relief washed through her, followed quickly by a more personal realization. "I saw Mia," she said quietly. "In the between-place. She's free now. Moving on to whatever comes next."

Mason's expression softened with understanding. "She was with you the whole time, wasn't she? Even when you couldn't remember."

"Yes," Cora whispered. "And she'll always be with me. But now, she can rest."

Before Mason could respond, medical personnel entered the room, alerted by the change in her condition. The next hours passed in a blur of examinations, questions, and careful explanations of her injuries and recovery timeline. Throughout it all, Mason remained by her side, a steady presence in the controlled chaos of medical intervention.

It wasn't until evening, when the doctors had finally finished their assessments and left them alone, that they had a chance to truly talk.

"You knew," Mason said quietly, sitting beside her bed. "You knew exactly what the ritual would cost. That's why you wrote me a letter."

Cora nodded, no longer having the strength or desire to conceal the truth. "I didn't expect to survive it. The amount of blood required—my father's notes were clear about the risk."

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question held no accusation, only the need to understand.

"Because you would have tried to stop me," she replied honestly. "Or insisted on finding a way to share the risk, which would have compromised the ritual." She met his gaze directly. "And because I needed you to be there, to close the binding if I couldn't finish it myself."

Mason was silent for a long moment, processing her explanation. Finally, he asked, "What did the letter say?"

The question brought a small smile to Cora's lips. "You didn't read it?"

"No," he said simply. "I was too busy trying to keep you alive. And afterward, when you were stable, it felt... wrong, somehow. Like reading it would be accepting that you might not wake up."

The admission warmed her. Even in his darkest moments of fear and grief, Mason had refused to give up on her, had maintained hope against all medical probability.

"It said that I love you," Cora told him, her voice soft but steady. "That I think I've loved you since we were children, even during the years I couldn't remember you. That meeting you again, remembering our connection, was worth everything that came after."

Mason's expression shifted through a complex series of emotions—surprise, tenderness, and finally, a fierce joy that transformed his exhausted features. "I've waited twenty years to hear you say that," he said, voice rough with emotion.

"I'm sorry it took so long," she replied, echoing the words she'd spoken to Mia in the between-place.

"Worth the wait," Mason assured her, leaning forward to press his lips gently to hers—a kiss that carried all the promise of the future they now had permission to imagine together.

When they separated, Cora felt a sense of completion that had nothing to do with the ritual and everything to do with the man beside her—the boy who had watched from the shore, the man who had kept his promise through decades of separation, the person who had helped her recover not just her memories but her complete self.

"What happens now?" she asked, the question encompassing far more than their immediate future.

Mason smiled, the expression lighting his tired face with renewed energy. "Now? Now we live, Cora Evans. We live the life your sister wanted for you. The life your father protected. The life we deserve after twenty years of shadows."

Outside the hospital window, stars appeared in the evening sky, reflecting on the surface of a lake that was, for the first time in centuries, just water—clean, clear, and free from ancient malevolence. Somewhere beyond that sky, Cora knew, Mia was finally at peace.

And here, in this hospital room, Cora herself had found a different kind of peace—not the completion of death, but the beginning of life unburdened by forgotten promises and shadowed by loss.

A life she had chosen, with full awareness of its value and its cost.

A life she would share with the one person who had never stopped believing in her, even when she couldn't remember herself.