Seaside Moors a roiled soul is calmed anew

They shared a kindred soul, then. Raleska loved the sea as well, though there were times she watched the rising swell and swore she saw her mother's face in it.

She wanted more than anything for her children -- though they were not truly hers anymore -- to grow up by the sea. To love the sea. To have the good parts of the childhood Raleska had missed. To play in the waves, chase crabs and seagulls, laugh and lounge in the sand.. A bitter smile curved her slim muzzle. Erzulie (and Rosalyn) would do them well, she knew.

"It did, for a long time." Raleska confessed. "When I was a puppy and we first went inland, I dreamed about it. I missed it. Sometimes, even though we were on a plateau miles away, I thought I smelled it on the breeze." Raleska closed her eyes softly, breathing deep of the briny air.

"Stryx found me where I was born." There was little harm in sharing the story, now that it had been said and done. Yet for all of the weeks that had passed, Raleska still could not fully say why in her fevered state she had made the voyage. A small part of her suspected that the location had been picked by the darkness which still sometimes stirred in her heart: the amoral other-will that kept her alive. She knew too that this other-soul had been the thing that had kept Caiaphas alive all those long years she should have been sleeping in the cold dirt.

When Raleska opened her eyes, she was looking plainly at Erzulie. "I was going to leave them there to die."