Seaside Moors and garlands of flowers

bound by grief and her young brood, erzulie lifted her head as a restless thundering began across the moors.
she had not seen raleska since the day that the sisters had come into the world. nigh a month, and erzulie's cloying grief gave way to a deepened shame. out there, the young daughter of caiaphas struggled alone. who knew if she lived? or her children?
and the edge of her own tongue had perhaps driven raleska out.
her eyes closed in a sodden blink.
she had been too accustomed to departure to expect return.
but a failure tolerated in any other was not one that the harlot could abide in herself. loathing rolled through her; on a whim she called into the teeth of the billowing storm for the girl she had so neglected.
not just for the gravid remnant of caiaphas, a warrior in her own right; it was for nieve's departure and reyes' own. in her heart erzulie lamented to those listening spirits that they had only been wayward together, and that this new mention of scarab might meld the first four into one as it had been.
her cry dissolved into nothingness.