Chapter Five Viola
Arkani need relics to practice their magic.
Mortemagi need relics to channel their magic.
Aspieri need relics to exist.
five | viola
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1939
Four loud bangs jolt me awake.
When no one answers, it quiets into a string of incessant knocks until Mother turns on the hallway light.
Her dainty footsteps pace down the stairs between grunts and muttered curses.
I sigh at the clock, open my bedroom door, and follow her in silence, curious about why someone raps at our door at four in the morning.
My eyes take a minute to adjust. The faint rays of the rising sun break through the kitchen window, and it smells of morning dew. With the calm, the ringing in my ear buzzes, reminding me that I only have hours before it corrodes my brain.
Mother bumps into a dining chair on her way to the foyer. She pulls a thick blanket from the lone fabric seat and drapes it around herself as she drags her feet forward. Inch by inch, she pulls the door open.
“May I help you?” she rasps.
From where I stand between the base of the stairs and the stove, I cannot see who she’s talking to, but at once, Mother’s body goes rigid. An arm reaches out to steady her, and her fingers dig into the stranger’s coat. She shakes her head like a madwoman, choking on words as she tries to speak.
“Ava,” says the voice. It’s the sheriff.
There’s a brief pause, a short moment of hesitation, where they both hang on to the hope that if it’s not said aloud, it didn’t happen.
“We found a body at the lake.”
It doesn’t matter where the words come from, nor the avalanche of questions about to sweep away the sheriff standing in front of my mother.
I already know, so I’m already turning away from them.
The thin fabric of my pajamas clings to my skin when I step through the kitchen door, the frigid Albion winter punishing me for not grabbing a coat or boots. Still, I march on, the slight breeze scraping my face. I have to see for myself.
By the time I reach the lake, I no longer feel my toes, and my fingertips are about to fall off.
A small crowd gathers past the bench where Mara and I had breakfast only yesterday. The gray sky dulls the dark green branches of the trees. They look like they’re weeping. With every step, my stomach knots and my limbs stiffen. They beg me to slow down, to stop.
When the onlookers notice me, they lower their eyes and part to let me through. Someone offers me their coat, but I brush past them. My mind is ensnared by the girl lying where the water meets the stones.
I kneel next to her, or maybe I fall because two red splotches form at my knees. The cold numbs the pain from the sharp rocks digging into my bare skin. I wish it numbed the pain of my heart ripping apart.
Olivia’s face is as gray as the skies. Her eyes are closed, her lips blue.
She looks like she’s made of glass—or maybe that’s all I see through the tears that cloud my eyes.
I’ve worked with the dead long enough to know this isn’t an illusion, that her chest won’t move from my staring, hoping, or praying to all the Gods.
She looks so peaceful I am afraid to touch her, afraid to wake her from her slumber.
A stray strand of brown hair urges my hand forward, and I tuck it neatly behind her right ear. She deserves to look like she always was— perfect. At least, one last time.
When I pull my hand away, she grabs it.
Her eyes open, but they are no longer the green of the early summer days in Nan’s rose garden.
They are ice white, like Albion’s late winter snow.
I don’t move. My breathing stops, and my heart slows.
“Tell me who did this to you,” I beg silently.
“Tell me, and I promise I won’t let them rest a day in their lives. ”
Beware the serpent with one green eye.
Her lips don’t move, no matter how much I want them to.
My shaky hand slips out of her grasp, and I choke back a sob at the realization that my own sister’s words stopped the ringing in my ears.
She’s supposed to help me solve riddles…
Olivia wouldn’t use her last words on a complex riddle, especially when she knew I struggled with them. Serpent could mean anything…
No. There has to be more.
I’m about to reach for my sister again, when someone throws a heavy blanket over me. A rush of warmth takes over. The feeling is an itch I want to claw out of my skin. How wrong it is to be warm while my sister lies cold and lifeless.
“Let’s go, Viola.” Mara wraps her strong hands around my shoulders, pulling me up. I don’t know if she has been here all along or if she’s just arrived, but I can’t leave now. I can’t leave Olivia here. I can’t leave her alone. Not again.
I fight against Mara. I need to hold my sister again. What if she has more to say?
Mara’s arms wrap me in a tight hug, despite my attempts to push her away. I don’t need comfort, I need answers. Will I ever be able to breathe again without my sister’s death weighing on my chest, crushing my insides?
“The sheriff will move her to Dearly Departed, and I promise I will take care of her. Let’s go.” Mara’s grip is firm. It forces me to move.
I take one last look at my Olivia. She looks like a beacon of light against the black rocks.
Her billowy, white nightgown, muddied and soaked— why would Olivia wear a nightgown out in winter?
By a lake, of all places, when she didn’t know how to swim?
Why would she be out of Gorhail in the middle of the night, past curfew?
My eyes snap to her arm. Her cuff is gone, and her arm is covered in claw marks and cuts.
“They took—” I don’t finish my sentence, because Mara pulls me away.
“Let’s go, Viola.” Her voice is sharp, colder than it’s ever been, as she maneuvers me toward the crowd.
After a few more unsuccessful attempts, my fight dwindles.
I glance at Olivia over my shoulder. This is my fault.
I should never have let her go to a school full of mages, knowing she didn’t belong there.
I should have fought harder, spoken louder.
I should have told someone, anyone, that the cursed one with magic was me.
And now, she is dead because of a cuff she was never supposed to wear. My silence killed Olivia.
The crowd has quadrupled, and it takes us a while to push through the wall of sympathy. I try my best to return the teary nods, but my heart sears with anger. Everyone loved Olivia. How could someone do this to her?
Our last conversation replays in my head.
From her joke about curfew to her insistence that I wear my relic to help quell my magic.
It was almost like Olivia was warning me, preparing me for her inevitable fate.
I let her down too many times before. I can’t let her down again.
Even if it means betraying myself, I will wear Nan’s cuff.
For Olivia, I will stop at nothing until I find her killer.
Mara walks with me until we reach our gate. She promises to take care of Olivia two more times before she leaves, and I don’t even thank her. Instead of stepping into our house, I head straight into the back garden and sit on the dirt. I don’t know how long I stay here, only that I fall asleep.
When I wake up, it’s well into the afternoon and my clothes are wet.
Cursing myself for wasting precious time that I could’ve used to speak to my sister’s ghost, I drag myself to the house and head straight to my bathroom.
Mother is not here, although I wish she was.
Right now, I want to be around someone who knew and loved my sister.
I tear off my wet clothes and step into the shower. The water scalds my hands as I wash the mud off them. I scrub my skin until it’s raw, but nothing will scrub away the guilt that’s eating me from the inside.
After getting dressed in a sweater and jogger pants, I pull my mattress up, sliding it out of the frame.
In the center lies a small, wooden box with a bronze latch.
I haven’t touched it since Olivia gave it to me a week after she started at Gorhail.
She said Nan’s cuff wouldn’t open for her, and she’d managed to get a counterfeit relic from someone at school.
For the longest time, she spoke about wanting to wear a real relic, wanting to feel magical.
I hate the Gods, for they grant wishes with poisoned gifts.
If Olivia hadn’t insisted on getting a real relic, would someone have killed her? Killed. That word feels so wrong.
My hands shake as I flip open the bronze latch.
I’ve had twelve years to bring Olivia back from Gorhail, and I did nothing.
Pushing the box open with my thumbs, I hold my breath.
On a bed of folded black silk cloth lies a single brass cuff.
Nan’s cuff. And behind it, a yellowing note from Olivia: “Tell me if ghosts are real when you put it on.”
My eyes sting, and I blink away the tears. I have to speak to my sister’s ghost, beg for her forgiveness, and hope she remembers enough from her final moments to tell me who killed her.
I gingerly pick up the cuff, feeling the weight of the cool metal.
Letting out a quick exhale, I slide the relic underneath my sweater.
In one motion, it snaps around my arm. I flinch, anticipating it to be as cold as snow, but it molds to my arm, soft and warm, sitting comfortably against my skin like it had been waiting for me all these years.
“Olivia,” I try.
Nothing.
“Ole,” I try again.
The chirp of birds grows louder outside my window, but I still don’t hear her.
Is my magic gone when I need it the most?
I begin to panic. But then I remember reading that ghosts tend to linger around their bodies for a while.
By now, the sheriff’s office should’ve moved her to Dearly Departed, so I turn on my heels, ready to find my sister.
“I should’ve known.” Mother stands in the doorway, face puffy, eyes bloodshot. She looks wild. “Why did you lie?” The usual dismissal in her eyes has morphed into loathing. She knows. She knows Olivia doesn’t… didn’t have magic.
“I didn’t,” I mumble. But by not correcting Olivia, I was complicit in the lie.
“It all makes sense now, you working at that funeral home.” She laughs without moving her mouth, but her eyes aren’t on me. They’re on the box that held Nan’s cuff. My cuff.
“What did she say?” Mother asks, approaching me like she’s gone mad. “What were Olivia’s last words?”
“Nothing.” I blink at her.
“Don’t lie to me again, Viola.” She grips my arm, and it hurts. “I know how your wretched magic works. What were her last words?”
Tears brim my eyes. The only person whom I shared the last words of the dead with is now dead. “She said nothing.” I double down. Nothing I want to share with Mother anyway.
Mother releases my hand, and I hold my breath, waiting for the slap to come. Instead, she backs off. “Olivia is dead,” she spits. “Her blood is on your hands.”
My head lowers at my upturned palms. Her blood is on my hands.
Mother has a way of pulling to the surface everything that’s wrong with me, every flaw, every misstep.
Looking at her, standing like a shell two steps away from me, I realize that she is but a mother who’s lost a child.
Selfishly, a part of me wonders if she’d be as distressed if I were the one killed.
I shake my head. Why am I so desperate for a love that will never come?
“I’m going to the funeral home,” I say, pausing at the door, expecting more vitriol. But she doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t stop me as I walk down the stairs.
The kitchen feels bigger than usual, as if it knows Olivia is no longer here.
I linger behind the chair she sat in on Monday, hot tears prickling my eyes again.
I reach to wipe them away. We never even had one last cup of tea together.
I never even gave her the letters from DOTS. Now, none of it matters.
The light dims and I glance outside, through the small kitchen window.
Daylight is nearly gone, and with it, my sister will have been dead for more than half a day.
Not dead, killed. I have to force myself to be acquainted with the word, no matter how much it churns my stomach.
Killed. Suddenly, my throat is closing, and my body sweats despite the cold. I need to get out of here.
I run toward the front door, desperate for fresh air.
As I’m about to reach for the knob, it turns.
My gaze shoots up, limbs frozen. The door creaks open slowly, and between the outstretched seconds, I realize for the first time that Olivia may have been killed by mistake.
That they could have been after Nan’s cuff. And now, they’re after me.