Chapter 4: Part 4

Zoya produced a palm sized golden tart which held a stunning red cherry at its center.

Theoline's jaw dropped, "A coconut tart?!"

"Oh yes, I would make y-"

"Make me promise not to tell mom!" Theoline almost leapt to her feet. She was holding Zoya's free hand in her own now, seeing the same picture of that grip, but with her hand much smaller, as she stepped simultaneously into both the past and the bakery itself. She thought about the enchanting yin-yang of their contrasting skin tones, remembering a twinge of childish jealously at the stunning gradient of midnight-black that had left her own hand looking painfully uninteresting.

"Just so." Zoya braced the tart in a grip as if to break it in half but looked to think better of it, handing the entire treat over, "You're not a child but a woman now, so you get a woman-sized portion." With conspiratorial slowness, she opened her bag wider to reveal a second tart nestled within and hooked it out.

"I'm sorry, my eyes may have expired passed their optimal use," boomed a voice that could only belong to one man of consequence, "They seem to be telling me that Zoya FUCKING Kulkarni ignored me when I forbade her from coming to my wife's funeral. But it doesn't stop there, no. They seem even more adamant to say that she is having a casual chat with my daughter!"

It wouldn't have surprised Theoline if her father's current expression had suddenly begun summoning ancient sculptors from their graves out of pure passion to capture his possibly biblical personification of wrath itself.

Zoya was on her feet before Sebastian even finished his tirade. She looked at Theoline with a stony but sympathetic face and handed her a slip of paper, "If you're staying in the area for a while, don't be a stranger, Theo."

"Thank y-"

"Don't you dare talk to her!" Theoline's father said. He was shaking now. She had never seen him so enraged. Watching his kindly warm face become twisted into a furious scowl was more terrifying than waking up to find a car-sized tarantula above her bed with dripping fangs reared back hungrily.

Zoya was gone then, leaving them both alone, one person suddenly out of breath, the other, watching quietly as the smaller woman disappeared around a corner of the building. Theoline took her time turning back to her father, all the while, her kicking heart threatened to break a rib. Sebastian had his chin welded to his chest, seemingly too troubled to look up at her.

"Theo, that parasite is just trying t- Theo please!"

She was gone, stepping fast, practically dodging around the protests and pleading that erupted from her father. She slammed the door to her car and, in the next handful of minutes, left the more corrosive memories of the mornings' events in the rearview mirror and, more importantly, out of her mind. She only spared a single scanning search around the car that sprouted a bitter seed of dismay. The coconut tart that Zoya had given her, with its golden sweet edge and red cherry jewel, was still on that bench, along with the last of Theoline's patience.

She concentrated the bitterness she felt into a mantle and settled it onto her shoulders. The feeling was familiar and perhaps fit too perfectly. The time of obligation had come and gone. The time of agency, of conviction was finally here. She pulled over to set a new address into her phone. Her mother's old nurse, the one responsible for all this was only thirty-seven minutes away.

It was now the time to move forward, the time to make waves. Finally, it was time to return to the hunt.

And while a grim smile slowly creeped upon Theoline's haggard face, she made a conscious effort to avoid looking at the car mirrors for too long, out of primal fear of seeing the phantasmic echo of her father in the reflection. Despite being miles away, she could almost see him as he was, collapsed to his knees, with his head in his hands.