Blood Trial (Zero)
The following fictitious events take place in Reality A (Purple)
It had been most of three years since Zero had seen his wife, Naomi, walk out of their home. They were three long years where he had worked to rebuild his reputation and separate from the cult Naomi cherished.
Until that night.
It was typical Naomi behavior: She must have caught wind that Zero was formally gaining full custody of the daughter — Mara — and the only thing that could mess that up, at that point, was some sort of Naomi disaster.
As he drove down the winding hillside of Sylem’s peninsula, toward the police station Naomi had been detained at, he thought back to the last night with her. She’d come home glowing, exuberant about some success, her hair tied in a studious knot at the base of her neck. She wouldn’t say much, except that she’d thought she could make the perfect familiar and save the babies.
Babies was an unspecified reference to beings under one year old. He doubted Naomi meant it that vaguely.
What Zero hadn’t seen was a festering mental illness entwined in the hope that illegal, life-ending magic could save their son. Nothing would save their son. Zero had done everything within his power and ability, within the scope of ethics, to protect Zach from the torment of disease. It had not been enough.
While Zero grieved, Naomi obsessed over familiars, over the power to bridge the living and dead together, over illegal blood magic.
On top of it all, she had never been satisfied with her own sugar glider familiar, and had demanded a more fierce partner for her magic.
When they met, Zero had been young and naive. He’d seen hints of her nature and assumed they were quirks. Naomi had regressed in her heartache. Where Zero shut down, Naomi rooted into darkness.
Zero exhaled. Edsel, her familiar, was perfect and plenty aggressive. His size had nothing to do with his abilities.
In an effort to bring her back, a misguided effort he would learn, he’d made her dinner. It wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed, to heal. The glass of mourvedre, the short ribs raised in the same bottle — one they’d chosen on their anniversary just before Zach had been born — were perfect for Zero.
He’d learned a lot about the needs of others, though it had taken losing everything.
He hadn’t responded with glee to her inventions, he’d been dismissive.
The next evening, after he had gone home from work, she was gone. The news had her image plastered across it.
He was glad she was gone. Despite the loss, he wasn’t sure he could heal next to someone who refused to. They’d needed space.
Three years later, he parked and dashed up to the police station, bracing himself for demands, sorrow, or repentance. He’d been warned she may be gone, replaced by another soul. He was there to make his own decision, to defend the shell of the one person who had almost destroyed him.
As he stepped into the room, the attorney spoke, “Indigo, this is Naomi’s ex-husband, Zero.”
He studied the way she glanced at him then back to the cookie cutter lawyer she’d been appointed. She showed neither a sign of recognition nor avoidance.
He sat across from her and her attorney, placing his hands on the surface and into a loose weave, “So, it’s Indigo now?”
“You can call me Naomi if that’s easier for you,” she replied. It was a curious response. Naomi was vain, caring about her name and identity, gloating about her mother’s acts and extended lifespan by magic, diving into forbidden magic in a fever.
“Is that what you want me to call you?” he asked, leaning back in the chair, hoping to find out what identity she had created for herself.
She nodded to the attorney, a passive address that again stuck out at him. Naomi would have looked at him, touched his back and exhibited him in the conversation as hers, “It’s what everyone calls me, except him. So no difference to me.”
Zero knew, in the way she didn’t try and convince him, she wasn’t Naomi. Her body language, her voice even, were off. He did notice a hint of entitlement. She seemed confident she didn’t belong within the confines of a jail. She came from some stature in society, wherever she had come from. For a moment, he considered the possibility that she knew there would be a truth serum. If she were Naomi, that would elicit panic or comradery. Old bruises on her arms and a small healing cut on her hairline signified her lack of friends within the prison.
“So either way,” he asked one more time. “You couldn’t care less?”
“I don’t think that what I ask you to call me is going to make a difference one way or another today, no. You’ll make up your mind based on other things. I was with someone, who recognized me in this body, because he knew me well enough to see me and not the body. You were married to her, you either knew her well enough to see that I’m different, or you didn’t. A name is just a name.”
“So, Indigo,” he said. “What happened to Naomi, then?”
“I don’t understand her magic well, but I would guess she’s dead,” she replied, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?”
“My ex died. I know how that feels,” she said as though the memory was fresh, or a piece of a story. It was a possible hole, and he did not want to free her with any gaps in his decision.
“Naomi did unforgivable things,” he told her, without the trace of reaction in her features. “Her death would not be an issue. The issue is her body going on, with or without her.”
“She saved my life.”
He sat up, tense, “At what price? Just her own life?” He was concerned about the damage Naomi had done, the lives she had continued to ruin.
“There was a lot going on. She never said anything about a price, for me anyway.”
He stood as he said, “There’s always a price.” He turned to the attorney and concluded, “I have no more questions, but I have another meeting to get to.”
The attorney asked, before he could leave, “Will you be at the hearing?”
“Yes, it begins at 8:00?”
“It does.”
“I’ll be there,” he said, walking out before any more questions were asked.
Naomi was in another body somewhere. She’d committed crimes and was in line for a hefty sentence. It was very Naomi: She’d left Indigo to deal with her consequences.