Chapter 13: Goth What You DeserveOswin was a wreck as she paced the entrance way. Chin had been gone a long time and had told no one where he was going.
"Luther. You're sure you don't... you're sure he didn't tell you..."
"Oz, go to bed. I'm sure he's fine. He's a big boy," Luther said, hiding a yawn. "I'll see you both tomorrow." He shut the door to his room, leaving Oswin wringing her hands in the hallway.
It was half past four in the morning when the front door opened and Chin stumbled through.
"Chin!" Oswin gasped, catching him by the shoulders. Her eyes, usually big and full of bright life, were strained and dark with tiredness.
"I'm okay, Oswin. I'm okay," he promised her, a shaky hand resting to her cheek.
She kissed him with the intensity of fired cannon, her hands gripping his shirt as her tears flavored her lips.
Chin brushed her tears away with his thumbs. "I won't worry you like that again."
"You better not," she cried, punching him in the chest. He nearly toppled over, but stopped himself with a hand to the wall.
"Oh! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry," she gasped as she took his arm and led him back to the bedroom. "I'm sorry."
Chin grinned lightly and pulled her against him as they sat on the bed. "It's okay," he said, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "You can make it up to me later."
"I can make it up to you now," she said before she kissed him again.
Oswin's worry for Chin that night had blinded her to a few very small details. She didn't notice the unusual warmth of his skin, or the strange glow in his eyes.
She did, however, notice these things a few days later. And not only was there just something physically different about him, but something emotionally different as well. He was withdrawing more, and his fuse seemed to be much shorter. Before, he had taken Delilah's pranks with a shrug. But now, he might have flipped the house every time a sink went rogue. It frightened Oswin. She had married a sweet and patient man. This man, well, he was neither of those things.
She tried to talk to him about these changes, but he was dismissive or combative, and Oswin was just not getting what she needed from those discussions.
He retreated to Leo's room during the night, and it frequently unsettled Oswin. She didn't want someone so unstable so close to her son.
But her blindness the night he returned had lasted just long enough to put another child into harm's way.
It worried her, certainly, but she could not help the excitement she felt at having another child on the way.
That is, until the bathroom sink backfired on Chin one morning. The bathroom door flew open, the door knob putting a hole in the wall where it hit. Delilah jumped back as Chin released a surge of furious energy in the little girl's direction.
"What is WRONG with you, Delilah! You have no gratitude! No consideration for the people who have taken you in and raised you since your father murdered your harlot of a mother!"
"CHIN!"
Oswin had never heard such hurtful or mean-spirited things come from anyone's mouth, but certainly not the man she was having two children with.
"How could you say those things to her!" She clutched Delilah to her and kissed her hair, whispering words of apologies to her surrogate daughter.
Chin pulled Oswin away from Delilah by her arm, and it
hurt.
"Chin! Let go of me." She pulled back and turned to Delilah again, but the girl was gone. She had bolted from the house and into the street, wanting to be far, far away from there as possible.
"Oswin," Chin said, looking completely startled. "I'm so sorry." But she had went to the front door, calling after Delilah. It was the late and cold, and her 11 year old "niece" should not have been out there alone, scared, and upset.
"Oswin."
"Leave me alone, Chin," she said sharply, grabbing her coat and walking out into the night to find Delilah.
Oswin had not been able to find her, but the girl was safe. She had sneaked into the school through the back window and just worked on her homework until she felt it was safe enough to return home. But at the rate things were going, it might have been never.
Oswin kept her distance from Chin after that. He had tried to apologize, but she did not want to hear it. He was different, and no apology was going to change that.
It was during this time that Luther had created a workroom for him and Oswin to work on their magical abilities. There were plenty of baubles and books to satisfy even the most experienced witch, and Luther would often give lessons to Oswin on how to use the instruments and tools.
But this had Chin feeling left out. So when the room was empty, he would sneak in to play with some of the pieces. His favorite was the crystal ball. However, he was not particularly skilled in this area. Except for one night, when he was struck with a very powerful and very dark vision.
"Oswin!" he gasped, nearly falling over himself to get into the nursery to find his wife.
"What is it?" She asked him, worried by his tone.
"Something's going to happen. Something bad."
"You mean worse than has already happened?" She asked him, her words pointed.
"Please, listen to me. It's... I don't know what exactly, but I felt it. Something... wicked."
"Wicked? What-- OH!" She gasped, dropping the rattle she had in her hands for Leo as she clutched her stomach.
"Oswin, what..."
"The baby's coming!"
And Chin's warning was lost as the delivery of his second son took the forefront.
"He's beautiful," she said softly, weakly, looking down at his face.
Chin sighed softly. He was beautiful. It lured him into such a state that he'd almost forgotten to tell Oswin that--
The sound of the doorbell ringing filled the house, and Oswin glanced up from the face of her son.
She placed the boy in Leo's crib and headed into the hallway, feeling oddly.
"Luther, who..."
The woman strode through the front door. She was possibly the most intimidatingly beautiful woman Oswin had ever seen, and that included every picture of every woman in every book she'd ever read. She was slender with strikingly dark features on porcelain skin. Her lips were blood red and her eyes where the purple of storm clouds.
She crossed the room to Oswin and took her hand. "Hello, Darling. Your pleasure, I'm sure."
"Oz," Luther said, a brilliant grin on his face. "This is my mother. Morgan Daye." The name, Luther knew, was the name of Oswin's aunt, her father's sister, and the woman who unknowingly raised him. But it was not the name of the woman who stood before him. He knew it as the name of his birth mother, the woman who had tried to give him a position of power, Solanine Goth.
