Page 74 of Strange Lights

“I’m leaving. I’m taking my sisters and I’m leaving.”

“You’ll be back. You’re too much like me to stay away. But I’ll let you go for now if you leave the Gauntlet.” She holds out a hand expectantly.

“I’m nothing like you.”

“Of course you’re like me,” Adele scoffs impatiently. “Why else would the Gauntlet work for me?”

“No, I’ve done bad things. I don’t deny that. But I’m not a bad person. I’m trying to do the right thing despite no help from you, despite your trying to turn me into a monster. You were supposed to be my mother. You were supposed to love me.”

“You think I don’t love you?” She says it as if it were blindly obvious, as if she were offended I would even question her. “You almost just destroyed yourself to thwart me. The only reason you’re still here at all is because of my love.”

Rage, red-hot and blinding, floods my mind. “You have a hell of a way of showing your love. You never loved me; you never even liked me.”

“Don’t talk about what you don’t understand. The only reason you have grown up is because of me. I’ve done everything I can think of to keep you from your destiny, Regina, with no help from you, I might add. Maybe I should have just let you jump. The only reason you’re still here is because of my sacrifices.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! You never give me a straight answer, never tell me what you mean with this bullshit, all this nonsense about destiny and love and sacrifice! You never tell me the truth.”

“Fine, you want to know the truth?” Adele laughs coldly. “I am not your mother. You aren’t even human.”

I can’t help it; I laugh.

“There’s nothing remotely funny about what I’m trying to tell you. You are not a human being. You are not my child.”

Truth, truth.

“What are you talking about?” I say, shock reverberating around my mind, knocking everything else away.

“What is a mother anyway, but a creator? You aren’t my daughter, Regina. I’m not your mother because I didn’t give birth to you. I created you, though. You are nothing more than a few lines of recycled genetic code and a bit of borrowed soul. You might wear a human skin, but you are not like the rest of the species. I cloned you.”

A ringing silence follows Adele’s words. But inside my mind, a storm of voices rages.

Same, alike, one, clone.

Clone, clone, clone. The word reverberates in my skull. I shake my head, though I feel the truth in her words sinking in.

“So no matter how much you criticize me, how much you hate me, remember this: You and I are exactly the same.”

“We are not the same,” I whimper.

“Why else would this work for me?” she says, the Gauntlet mirroring her hand gestures, my control over it having evaporated. I shake myself out of my stupor and try to fight her, but it’s no use; I can do nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.

“Meredith, Zara, the other babies⁠—”

“I tried the cloning experiment only the once, to create a safety net. You are adequate for my purposes, but you aren’t the improved version of myself I was anticipating. I certainly wasn’t going to bother with another cloning attempt. I picked Meredith and Zara from a pool of magical embryos. Unfortunately, they didn’t turn out to be the family I was searching for. So far, my experiments in parenthood have been rather abysmal. I’d agree with you on that point.”

I’ve always clung to the idea I’m different from Adele. It was supposed to be Zara, Meredith, and me apart from her, against her. But I am her. We are one and the same. I am everything she is. Every trait, every action, everything I hate about her, it’s all me too. I lied to myself. Convinced myself that my true nature was in the part of me that lives when the mask was off. How wrong I was. I am an abomination, unnatural, and no better than Adele. Worse than Adele, because I saw who she was⁠—who she wanted me to be⁠—and instead of facing down that ugly truth and fighting to be different, I closed my eyes.

“You’re so close to figuring out the way to do it. You’re so close to succeeding where I can’t. When you created the Gauntlet, when you reemerged from that place unscathed . . . there’s still hope. Stay and I will explain it all. You can help me.” Adele holds out the mask to me. “I’m sure your sisters will be happy to hear you’re staying here with them, because they certainly aren’t going anywhere but back to bed.”

“They aren’t my sisters,” I say numbly, “any more than you’re my mother.” I tug on my arm that still remains outstretched toward Adele.

“I can return your family to you. If you work with me to rebuild it. I want to love you.”

I want to love you. Not I love you. I want to love you. My mother has never loved me. A truth I knew, but it hurts all the same.

The little voice inside my head speaks, sounding as anguished as I feel. It’s a fleeting thought, flying by like a flower petal on the wind. Pain, so much pain. Pain. Yes, I know, I tell myself; I know.

The small boy is behind me. He creeps forward, tugs on my legs as if he could free me. I nudge him back, stepping backward as far as I can, with Adele still controlling my arm.