Atop the Mountain

Epilogue

Dahlia Keen

3 Months Later

Leon and Hop never come home. It's not a surprise to a lot of people. Once they've been gone for more than a few days, with no leads and no trace of them left behind, everyone starts to tell her that she should prepare for the worst. But Dahlia Keen has never been one to roll over and take what people give her. So she goes out and she looks for herself.

Leon has never been someone to wander off on his own. He goes everywhere with a purpose in mind, and he seldom acts solely out of his own benefit. He's always been a protector- her little knight. Maybe something happened, maybe he was trying to help.

This is all theory, of course, and some people, she knows, simply roll their eyes to themselves and murmur about how sad it is that she's desperate for them to come back, even when they obviously aren't.

She really hates being pitied.

It feels, sometimes, like the whole town looks at her like that- like a poor, lost woman. But Flora and James don't. Sonia's parents are in much the same boat as her, and they've come along with her a lot, trailing her to the outskirts of town, searching for any signs of their children. By the time they're a few months in, sometimes Dahlia thinks that a body would be preferable to nothing at all.

But nothing at all is what she gets.

"Dal," Flora rests a hand on her shoulder. Her hands are always cold- icy, even, against Dahlia's naturally warm skin. It's almost four months into their search, and Flora looks weary, her normally bright green eyes ringed with dark circles from a lack of sleep. "I don't think I can keep doing this anymore." Dahlia turns, forcing herself to meet the other woman's gaze, to take in the hurt there, so she can convince herself not to let out the anger boiling inside her. She wants to snap, to insist that they have to keep looking, but she sees the tears, the strain, the uncombed hair and smudges of dirt under her fingernails, and she knows that Flora isn't giving up now out of choice.

Dahlia's shoulders slump, and she gives a tiny nod. She can't bring herself to say anything in response beyond that, but she stands and watches as Flora and James walk home, hand in hand.

It's hard, for Dahlia, going home to an empty house. It feels cruel to think that Flora and James somehow have it easier, because they have each other, but the thought enters her mind unbidden. Her parents, who had lived with them when Leon was young, spent most of their days in the hospital now, and when they come home, they're only a shadow of their former selves. Or maybe Dahlia is the shadow. She can't tell. She enters her home and looks ahead, at a family portrait, her ex-husband torn out.

Leon hated when she did that. He didn't know how much it hurt her, to see his smiling face. Leon loved his father. He didn't know-

He didn't know.

She misses her sons in ways she didn't expect. She knew she'd miss their smiling faces, their jokes, their hugs, their stories. She didn't know she'd miss Leon's cooking, or the way Hop always put her toothbrush back in the holder when she left it on the counter, because it grossed him out. She didn't think she'd miss the way Leon would watch the same movie over and over for weeks on end.

She's scared that she didn't appreciate them, in all their quirks, while they were with her.

A couple of days later, after not being able to sleep, she makes herself call Flora again. The other woman sounds tired- as tired as Dahlia feels herself, when she answers the phone. "Hey," Dahlia whispered into the receiver, free hand fiddling with the ends of her hair, "can I- Flora, I don't think I can stay in this house anymore."