Seance
The house was silent except for the occasional crackle of a branch and hiss of the candles burning low on the table. Outside, the wind whispered through the trees. Agatha sat on a rocking chair in the center of the room, a thick woolen shawl draped over her shoulders, her fingers tracing absent patterns into the fabric. The air smelled of burnt sage and beeswax, the weight of old magic thick around her.
She had prepared the room carefully—salt along the windowsills, a ring of protective runes chalked onto the floor, every candle strategically placed to guide lost spirits home. Not just any spirits. Her spirits.
She had done séances before, many times over the years. Some had been successful, some awoke danger, some had been nothing but whispers on the wind, the faintest tugs at the veil. But this one… this one mattered in a way no other had.
Tonight, she would ask the one question she had feared the most since the day she lost her precious boy. The day her world shattered into the abyss.
“Nicky, are you here?”
She inhaled slowly, steadying herself, then placed her hands on the table. The candlelight flickered, the shadows in the room shifting like something unseen had stirred. Agatha swallowed, her throat dry and tight.
“I call upon the spirits that linger beyond the veil. Those who have walked this earth and left their mortal shells behind.”
The wind outside picked up, rattling the windows. The house creaked as if something invisible had settled into its bones.
“I seek only truth,” she continued. “Only love. No spirits with ill intent may enter this space. You will not be welcomed here.”
A hush fell over the room, heavy and full of expectations. Agatha’s fingers twitched as her eyes flicked around the room, looking for a sign.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself.
“Nicky,” she whispered, his name barely more than a breath. “If you’re here… if you can hear me… show me… please.”
Nothing.
The candles burned steadily. The shadows did not stir in the stillness.
But she felt something—just the faintest change in the atmosphere, like a hand brushing against her shoulder, like a whisper against her skin.
Her breath hitched.
“Nicky? Are you safe?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Are you happy?”
The air in the room shifted, cooling slightly. A shiver ran down her spine.
One of the candles flickered.
And then—
A single gust of wind, whistled through the room, ruffling the pages of the old leather-bound journal on the table. The pages flipped slowly, deliberately, before stopping.
Agatha reached for it with trembling fingers.
Her breath caught and she gasped.
The page was open to a simple, childish drawing—one Nicky had drawn years ago. A house, a sun, a stick-figure mother holding hands with a smaller stick-figure child. And beside them, another figure. A woman with dark hair and bright golden eyes.
Rio.
Agatha’s throat tightened painfully.
Her son had drawn them together. Both his parents, his family.
Tears burned at the edges of her vision, but she blinked them back. Her fingers brushed over the old ink, tracing the tiny hands, the lopsided smiles.
“Are you still with me?” she whispered. “Do you watch over me?”
A single candle sputtered, its flame stretching unnaturally tall before returning to normal. A confirmation. A magical sign. Her son was present in some form.
Agatha let out a shaking breath, pressing her fingers to her lips.
“I miss you, my baby,” she choked out.
The air in the room felt warmer for a moment, as if something unseen had wrapped around her in an embrace, fleeting but real. She closed her eyes, letting the feeling settle deep into her bones.
For the first time in a long time, the ache inside her felt just a little less unbearable.
But the séance wasn’t over yet.
She swallowed hard, gathering herself, then whispered the second name that had haunted her every waking moment.
“Rio.”
A gust of wind slammed against the windows from outside, rattling them in their frames. The flames on the candles wavered but did not go out.
Agatha felt it— felt her.
Somewhere, unseen, but here.
“I know you’re listening,” Agatha whispered, her voice raw. “You’ve been listening for a long time, haven’t you?”
Silence was the only response.
And yet, she knew.
Agatha’s hands curled into fists against the table. “Why won’t you answer me?” Her voice cracked. “Why did you leave me alone in this my love?”
A flicker of something—an unseen shift, like the air itself was holding its breath.
“You were always the one who was supposed to understand,” Agatha continued, her voice shaking now, old anger curling its way up through the grief. “I needed you. And you left. We were a team and you left me,” Agatha yelled out while tears left her eyes.
Another gust of wind slammed into the house, rattling the door.
She laughed bitterly. “Oh? Don’t like the truth? Is it hard for you … honey! Too bad.”
And then—
A weight pressed against her leg. Soft, warm, steady.
Agatha looked down.
The black cat sat beside her chair, tail curled neatly around its paws. Its golden eyes gleamed in the candlelight, unwavering, locked onto hers with something impossibly deep.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then, slowly, Agatha reached out, her fingers brushing over the cat’s sleek fur. It leaned into her touch ever so slightly, just enough to feel real, to feel there.
“You always did hide when things got hard,” she murmured, stroking a hand down its back.
The cat did not react.
But it did not look away.
Agatha exhaled shakily, tilting her head. “Do you regret it?”
Silence.
Her throat tightened. “Do you regret leaving us?”
The cat’s ears twitched.
Agatha let out a humorless laugh. “Right. Of course. No answers. as per usual.” She shook her head, fingers curling into the cat’s fur. “But you’re here. You’re always here.”
She studied the cat for a long moment, then smiled sadly.
“You know, if you were really Rio, this is the part where you’d say something annoying, infuriating and cryptic.”
The cat blinked.
“Like that.” Agatha smirked, though there was no humor in it.
Her fingers trailed absently through the fur, her touch softer now, almost absentminded. “Nicky would’ve loved you.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. “He always wanted a cat.”
The cat did not move, but its tail flicked, slow and deliberate.
“He would’ve tried to dress you up,” she continued, voice softer now, distant, lost in the memory. “Little hats. Tiny scarves. He’d have given you some ridiculous name. Sir Paws-a-Lot or something equally absurd.”
She let out a quiet laugh, but it ached.
The cat pressed against her hand, firm, grounding.
Agatha swallowed, closing her eyes. “I should hate you, you know.” The words were barely more than a whisper. “For what you did. For what you had to do.”
The candlelight flickered.
She opened her eyes again, staring into the depths of those golden ones staring back at her.
“But I don’t.”
The confession sat between them, heavy, final.
For the first time, the cat blinked slowly, deliberately. A silent understanding.
Agatha sighed, letting her fingers curl one last time through its fur before pulling back.
She leaned against the table, her body exhausted, her heart heavier than it had been in years.
“You’re not ready to admit it,” she murmured. “That’s fine. I can wait.”
The cat didn’t move.
It simply stayed.
******
One Week Later:
Agatha sat at the table, staring at the wax drippings pooling onto the wood, her hands curled into fists against her lap. A sharp ache pulsed behind her eyes, but she couldn’t bring herself to move, to extinguish the candles, to close the book of spells lying open before her.
She was so tired.
She had spent a year whispering into the void, searching for signs, for anything to tell her that her son, her lover, had not simply vanished into nothingness. And yet, no matter how many times she reached for them, they always remained just out of reach.
She believed Nicky had shown himself, but Rio …. She was still quiet.
But not tonight. Agatha was done allowing the silence to keep haunting her.
Tonight, she would not beg. She would not plead for the dead to answer her.
Tonight, she would demand them.
Her hands moved before her mind had caught up. She turned the pages of her book with shaking fingers, her breath shallow, lips parted. A summoning. Not just any summoning.
A call to Death itself.
Her pulse roared in her ears as she scanned the incantation, the old symbols stark against the yellowed pages. It was a spell of desperation, of grief and rage, of those who had lost too much and refused to accept silence as an answer.
You always run when I get too close, don’t you, Rio?
Not this time.
Agatha rose, moving on instinct, gathering what she needed. A lock of hair—her own. A candle burned to its final inch. A silver dagger. Salt. Blood.
She cleared the table, drew the sigils with practiced hands, lined the circle in salt. The dagger felt cold in her grip, heavy with the weight of what she was about to do.
Her breath came faster.
Her heart pounded like a war drum.
She lifted the blade, pressing the edge to her palm.
“No more hiding.”
And then, she cut.
The sting was sharp, a bite of iron as her blood welled and dripped onto the sigils. The candlelight flickered wildly, the air shifting, pressing against her like an unseen force was stirring, waiting.
She ignored the shudder that ran down her spine.
Her voice did not waver.
“I summon thee, Keeper of the Veil, Walker of Shadows, the One Who Stands Between.”
The wind outside howled.
“Come forth and answer me!”
A crack of thunder split the sky. The flames of the candles surged, stretching tall before snuffing out entirely, plunging the room into darkness.
Agatha’s breath caught.
And then—
A whisper. Low. Ancient.
Something heard her.
She was not alone.
A shadow darker than the night itself flickered in the corner of the room. It stretched, twisting, shifting into something almost human—until a sudden hiss broke the moment.
Agatha barely had time to turn before a blur of black shot across the room.
The fucking cat. It fled with incredible haste.
Bolted from its usual perch, claws scraping against the wooden floor as it darted out of sight, vanishing through the open door like something terrified.
Agatha staggered back, her pulse hammering against her ribs.
The presence in the room wavered, a hollow chuckle echoing from the shadows.
Then—nothing.
The air snapped back into place, the weight lifting, the room settling into silence once more.
The summoning had failed.
Or worse—someone else had been listening.
******
Rio ran to the woods as fast as she could.
The moment Agatha’s blood hit the sigils, the moment the air thickened with that impossible force, she ran.
It was instinct. A raw, animal thing that coiled in her gut, screaming at her to get out. This was dangerous.
So she had.
She darted through the trees, her paws kicking up wet leaves, her breath coming in ragged bursts as she wove through the underbrush. She didn’t stop, didn’t slow, not until she was deep in the forest, far from the house, far from her.
Only then did she begin her shift.
Her form twisted, bones stretching, shadows curling around her like living ink. When she rose, she was no longer small, no longer silent.
She was Rio. She was Death.
And she was shaking.
She pressed a hand against a tree, grounding herself, forcing air into her lungs. Her golden eyes burned in the darkness, her chest rising and falling too quickly, too unsteady.
She almost did it.
Agatha had been inches away from summoning Death itself.
She had been inches away from summoning her.
Rio swallowed hard, pressing her forehead against the rough bark, squeezing her eyes shut.
She had seen it in Agatha’s face—the raw grief, the fury, the determination. She had watched the way her fingers had trembled as she traced those sigils, the way her breath hitched as she whispered her name.
And she had fled.
Like a coward.
Rio’s hands curled into fists at her sides.
She still believes I left her.
That was the worst part of all of this. The fact that Agatha didn’t know. The fact that she couldn’t know.
Because the truth was crueler than any lie.
She exhaled shakily, her breath curling in the cold night air.
Agatha was relentless. If she had come this close, she would not stop. Not until she had the truth.
And the truth would break her.
She had spent the year watching from the edges of Agatha’s life, slipping through the veil, taking form only when the weight of it all grew too heavy to bear. She had touched the world again through that small, insignificant form—a cat, nothing more.
It was the only way she could be close to her wife without shattering the delicate balance keeping them apart.
But Agatha was getting too close now. And Rio was running out of places to hide.
******
Agatha was not content to sit in her home and wonder about what or who answered her call. She was determined to find that damn cat. She grabbed her cloak and headed toward the forest.
She had spent months chasing ghosts, whispering into the void, searching for something she was never meant to find.
And now, she had.
Agatha stood in the clearing, her heart a violent thing against her ribs. Rio was just beyond the tree line, golden eyes reflecting the pale light of the moon.
She had been running. But there was nowhere left to go.
Not this time.
Agatha took a step forward. “No more hiding.”
Tall and golden-eyed, the night pressing against her like it belonged to her. Like she belonged to it.
Agatha staggered back, her breath catching. “You—”
Rio didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
But she watched.
And in that moment, Agatha saw her. Really saw her.
She wasn’t just Rio. Not anymore.
The weight of something ancient clung to her like a second skin, a presence vast and endless in the space between them. The air around her shimmered, thick with the remnants of power, the same energy that had filled Agatha’s home when she had tried to summon Death itself.
Because she had.
She had called for Death, and Rio had answered.
******
“Tell me I’m losing my mind.”
Rio closed her eyes, her jaw tight, fingers flexing at her sides.
“Tell me,” Agatha’s voice cracked, “that I didn’t spend a year grieving for someone who never really left.”
Rio flinched.
And that was the final thread snapping.
Agatha broke.
“You let me believe you were gone forever,” she shouted, the force of it ripping from her chest, raw and jagged. “You let me mourn you, let me shatter, let me beg for answers in the dark! And all this time—you were here?”
“Agatha—”
“No!” The pain bled through her voice, trembling at the edges. “You don’t get to say my name like that. Not after this. Not after everything.”
Rio’s expression twisted, grief etched into every line of her face.
“I died, Agatha,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I was just as broken as you. I did NOT have a choice and yet you hated me. I love you and you hated me. You told me to go and never return.”
A gust of wind cut through the trees, but Agatha barely felt it.
“That’s not an answer,” she bit out. “That’s an excuse.”
Rio’s hands curled into fists, her shoulders tense.
“You think I wanted this?” she snapped. “You think I wanted to be trapped between the living and the dead? To watch you cry yourself to sleep and not be able to hold you?” Her voice cracked, the mask slipping, revealing the raw ache beneath. “I wasn’t supposed to stay. I wasn’t supposed to love you enough to stay. Death is NOT supposed to feel, to love, to desire. Yet, I felt it ll with you and Nicky.”
Agatha’s breath hitched.
Agatha took a step closer, close enough to see the pain in her eyes, close enough to feel the heat of her presence, despite the chill in the air.
“You were supposed to take me too,” she repeated, voice steadier now. “But you couldn’t.”
Rio exhaled sharply, looking away.
“No.”
The confession settled between them, a wound laid bare.
Agatha’s throat tightened. “Why?”
Rio’s gaze flicked back to her, fierce and burning.
“Because I could only take one.”
The words were a whisper, but they struck like thunder.
Agatha felt them like a blow to the chest.
“I couldn’t let you go,” Rio admitted, something desperate in her voice now. “I saw what losing Nicky did to you. I saw what losing me did to you. I felt it.” She swallowed hard. “Selfishly, I can’t bear to be without you. I couldn’t be a parent to Nicky alone. It wouldn’t be allowed. I was t even supposed to have him at all. If you were taken, they’d kill him. He would be seen as an abomination.”
Agatha’s nails dug into her palms, breath unsteady.
“And now?” she asked, voice quieter.
Rio hesitated. “Now…” She exhaled, closing her eyes for a brief moment before meeting Agatha’s gaze once more. “Now, I don’t know how to make you understand that I love you. I also do t know how I can leave you again.”
Agatha stared at her, at this woman who was no longer just a woman, this presence that was no longer fully human—but was still hers.
Still the same hands. Still the same eyes.
Still Rio.
She could have screamed at her again. Could have let the rage win, let the heartbreak spill out in sharp, cutting words.
But instead—
She stepped forward.
And for the first time in a long time, she reached for her.
Rio tensed as Agatha’s fingers brushed against hers, but she didn’t pull away.
Agatha’s fingers tightened around Rio’s, her grip the only thing keeping them tethered together in the storm of grief between them.
“Then don’t.”
Rio swallowed, her breath unsteady. “Agatha…”
“You always run.” Agatha’s voice was quiet but sharp, like the edge of a blade. “Why? Why do you keep running from me?”
Rio shut her eyes. She wanted to pull away, to disappear into the night like she had a hundred times before. But Agatha knew. She had always known. There was no more hiding. No more pretending.
When she opened her eyes, Agatha was watching her, eyes fierce, unwavering.
“Say it,” Agatha murmured. “Say what we both know is true.”
Rio exhaled, a shaky, shuddering breath. “I was never meant to love”
Agatha’s lips pressed into a thin line. “No. You weren’t.”
“I didn’t become Death, Agatha,” Rio continued, voice raw. “I was Death. I always have been.”
They stood there, the truth hanging between them, years too late.
Agatha’s eyes burned. “And Nicky?”
Rio’s throat closed.
Agatha’s fingers dug into her wrist. “Tell me.”
Rio clenched her jaw, forcing herself to meet Agatha’s gaze. “It had to be me. I had to take him.”
Agatha let out a sharp, wounded breath. “It didn’t.”
“It did.” Rio’s voice was pained. “You think I wanted to take him? You think I wanted to watch you shatter? I begged for it to be someone else. I would have torn the mantle from my own body if it meant I didn’t have to do it. But it was never a choice, Agatha. It was my duty.”
Agatha let go of her wrist like it had burned her. “Duty,” she echoed, voice hollow. “That’s what you call it?”
Rio swallowed against the lump in her throat. “If I had fought it, if I had refused… the balance would have collapsed. The world would have suffered. You would have suffered.”
Agatha’s hands trembled at her sides. “I did suffer.”
“I know.”
“You still let it happen.”
Rio’s voice broke. “I didn’t let anything happen, Agatha—I fought against it with everything I had. And I lost.”
Agatha shook her head, stepping back. “And then you left.”
Rio reached for her before she could stop herself, her hands wrapping around Agatha’s wrists. “Because I couldn’t stay. Not like that. Not when I knew you would never forgive me.”
Agatha’s breath hitched, but she didn’t pull away. “I hated you.”
Rio’s grip tightened. “I know.”
“I still hate you.”
Rio closed her eyes. “No, you don’t.”
Agatha let out a choked, bitter laugh. “Don’t I?”
Rio opened her eyes again, searching Agatha’s face, looking for the rage, the resentment. But underneath it, buried beneath all the grief and anger—there was something else.
Something desperate. Something aching.
Rio let out a ragged breath. “I never stopped loving you.”
Agatha sucked in a sharp breath, her expression cracking.
Rio’s voice was barely a whisper. “Tell me you don’t feel it.”
Agatha’s hands shook, her pulse thudding beneath Rio’s fingers.
“I feel it,” Agatha whispered.
Rio swallowed hard. “Then don’t push me away. Don’t tell me to leave anymore and then be enraged with me when I do what you ask.”
Agatha stared at her, breath unsteady, eyes searching hers for something, anything to hold onto.
Slowly, cautiously, Rio lifted a hand, hesitating only for a moment before pressing her palm against Agatha’s cheek.
Agatha gasped at the touch, a sound of pain and longing, like she had been waiting for this, aching for this.
Her hands fisted in the fabric of Rio’s coat, as if afraid she would slip away again.
Rio’s forehead dropped against Agatha’s, her own breath coming fast, uneven.
“I can’t lose you again,” Agatha whispered.
Rio’s hands curled around her waist, pulling her in, holding her tight. “Then keep me.”
Agatha shuddered against her. “You’re a bastard.”
Rio let out a shaky, breathless laugh. “I know.”
Agatha pressed closer, burying her face in Rio’s shoulder, gripping onto her like she was something real, something alive.
And for the first time in forever, Rio held her back.