Chapter 72: The Interstice
There is a place after endings, before beginnings—thin as breath on glass.
I hung there.
Not falling, not flying—suspended in a lattice of light and shadow that hummed like a thousand clock hands turning in the same heartbeat. Space wasn’t space, and time wasn’t time. It was a river unpinned from its banks, a skein of glowing threads braided and unbraided by an invisible weaver. My name felt distant. My body, distant. Only the ache in my chest remained, hot as a star and gentle as a memory.
—child…—
The voice did not stab the way the other had. It lifted.
I turned—if turning was what it could be called here—and the Interstice folded into someone. A woman with storm-gray eyes. Hair the color of burning autumn. The kind of smile that makes you brave.
“Mom,”
