34. Kiaran #2
“Absolutely not,” Amelie interrupted the request. A huge no-no in the Coven. These conversations were not up for debate nor was anyone besides the Witch requesting and the High Priestess allowed to speak unless otherwise directed. My request was between my mother and I.
“I’m ready.” Amelie stood from the table, chewing on her cheek. She was trying to hide something that threatened to show on her face. “I just need to use the washroom.”
She rushed off, slamming the door behind her, leaving me alone with my blood.
“My request?” I asked as we all stood from the table. My feet weren’t steady and it seemed neither was anyone else’s. Amelie’s wine was strong.
My mother didn’t respond. Instead, Mia spoke for her.
“The High Priestess denies your plea.” She hardly spared me a glance before joining Adan and our mother in the sitting room. The three of them stood around the table with bored eyes and evil souls.
My only other option was currently stabbing into the side of my foot. I reached down for the knife.
Just as I was about to wrap my fingers around the handle, a swirl of bright colors and an assortment of scents whirled around through each McCalmont family member.
Mia’s veil lifted and landed haphazardly around her shoulders, Adan’s greasy curls barely moved save for the ends of the ringlets and my mother’s pin straight hair became snarled.
“What was that?” Mia shrieked. I was sure it was Orla, but I didn’t want them to know about that.
“Just a draft. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this isn’t the family estate.”
Amelie finally stepped out of the bathroom, a confidence emanating from her as if she wasn’t about to be sacrificed.
“Mother, please take me,” I tried once more .
“It’s okay, Kiaran,” Amelie said. Pinky promise.
She spoke through our bond as she discreetly locked my pinky with hers for a fleeting moment.
“Come.” My mother’s tone was sharp as her patience wore thin. She twisted her hand and pointed toward the sitting room. Our cozy living area transformed in front of our eyes into a replica of the High Table’s ceremonial platform. A large stone table sat in the middle with a trough underneath it.
My stomach churned, I had to stop this . Now.
Amelie approached my mother, taking her hand willingly.
What are you doing? I called to her but she didn’t waiver. My mother must have put a spell on her, veiled Amelie into complying. What the hell was she doing?
I tried to reach for the sharp blade again, but my body wasn’t listening to my brain.
I tried to speak but I was mute, I tried to move but I was stone.
The only alternative I had if my mother did not accept my offer was this blade slicing through my neck and bleeding out, effectively ending my curse. But I couldn’t get to it.
My mother was always a few steps ahead. She took away any chance at my interference.
I watched as Amelie and my mother entered the sacrificial stage.
My chest heaved as my heart thrashed hard against my rib cage, begging to be set free. To get to its other half that was being prepared for sacrifice.
Amelie…fight it…
Adan scooped Amelie up, laying her flat on the table.
She turned her head to look at me. There was no fear in her eyes.
They were oceans of sapphire and gold, bright and submissive.
My girl had found a reason to live. This forest, her power, her friends, me .
She showed up with bruised eyes and a broken soul, stitched it all back up on her own and now was willingly laying her life down for me.
Tears pooled in my eyes as I fought for my voice, my throat felt like there were knives being shoved down it. My stomach wound tight into a ball of a thousand knots.
I was trying to scream. Air left my lungs but the sound of my voice went nowhere. Mia and my mother stood on either side of the table, tying Amelie’s arms down on the board that Adan placed underneath her. It looked like a cross that would hang in one of Amelie’s churches.
She wouldn’t take her eyes off of me. If she was trying to speak to me, the magic my mother had working right now wasn’t allowing it.
I kept willing my body to move toward her, but I was stuck.
“Kiaran, recite the curse.” My mother’s voice struck me, throwing my head back for a moment before a jolt of energy allowed my voice to come back.
Without permission from my brain the curse I’d come to now like the back of my hand sounded through the room as the magic of unveiling rumbled the ground beneath me.
“You are bound to the cottage in the mortal realm, in an enchanted Forest. In order to break your curse you will need to make an impossible sacrifice.
You must offer your Coven something of value to you on Winter Solstice.
You will have one chance, each year to be untethered.
It must be of such value that handing it over to us will cause you unimaginable pain.
If it does not mirror the pain that you caused, it will not suffice.
Let the longest night approach and with it, the weight of your choice. Let your mind fill with every other option you think you have and may you find no reprieve. You will spend eternity there, Kiaran McCalmont. Until you feel the curse lock into place, you will be alone.”
My soul unlocked, coming unbound from the curse that had been weighing me down. It unbound from her. My feet were moving before I knew where I was going, but I landed in front of a trembling Amelie.
Fear shook her to her core as she finally met my eyes. The gold in hers was firing, blood began to drip from her nose. Grabbing her face, I noticed water dropping onto her face .
Tears. My tears.
“Amelie!” I roared so loud I wasn’t sure the magic in the room was the cause of its shaking anymore.
Her back started slamming against the stone table, her eyes rolled, showing only the ghostly whites around her iris.
Blood sputtered from her mouth. I couldn’t see her clearly through the blur in my eyes and my hands were slipping against her face.
The metallic smell of blood was taking up every bit of space in the room.
A sob wracked from me, I let my tears soak her chest as I laid over her heart. I tried to pull her to me, hold her, but the ties around her wrists wouldn’t allow it.
“Come on, pretty girl, come back to me…” I rasped, unable to catch my breath. Her shirt was soaked. I lifted from her chest, hoping to see life still fighting in her eyes, but her entire body was red.
Blood.
So much blood.
From her ears, it was coating my hands.
From her eyes, her beautiful eyes.
From her nose, steadily flowing. An unstoppable river.
From her stomach, as if she’d been slashed straight down the middle.
It was purpling her beautiful blue dress she’d worn today, her birthday dress. Her fucking birthday dress.
“Someone grab towels!” I couldn’t breath. “Mia, please. Help me!”
Somewhere in my frantic state I thought I could cup her blood back in my hands and give it back to her.
Amelie, here. Please, you need this.
“Mother, she won’t have any blood left!” I screamed out loud, but my mind said that’s the point . That’s what the trough was for. That’s what the sacrifice was.
“Please!” I cried. “Have mercy on her…”
Blood stained her eyes, the blues and golds disappeared into a haze of bronze as she stared lifelessly at where I was standing before.
The last thing she saw in her short life was me unbinding myself from her world, from her.
“Mama…” I begged my mother again. No longer speaking to her as a member of her Coven or the cursed McCalmont son. Just as a boy to his mother.
I wouldn’t withstand the pain.
I didn’t want to.
I shouldn’t have to.
I reached for the blade, at peace with laying my Earthly body next to Amelie’s and walking into whatever the afterlife could look like for us.
But before I could, a powerful hand laid upon my shoulder, I kept cover over Amelie with my body. They didn’t deserve to see her. Not like this. Not like anything.
My crimson painted hands stuck to the tulle of her dress.
“When we get home, mommy will take all the pain away.” My mother’s voice was a siren song.
“I don’t want to go home. Please, let me stay with her.” I sobbed into Amelie’s neck, pressing kisses into her blood soaked hair. My mother blocked my reach to the only way I could end this suffering.
I had to bury her. She couldn’t be left here like this. Ethel and the Fae would come, the Lost Souls would come, they…she can’t be left here like this.
“She’s gone. A life for a life,” she repeated those fucking cursed words to me.
“Then take mine! Bring her back.” I turned, shouting into my mother’s face. My voice rumbling like a boom of thunder at the end of a storm.
“What’s done is done. It’s time to go.”
She couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t end like this, I checked once more for my girl to show me that she was still in there.
Wink at me …
I needed to see her wonky eyes try to wink one more time. She’d never gotten it right. She had to learn how to wink before she could die.
This was her grand fucking plan I wouldn’t fucking listen to?
I shook her shoulders, her head scraped against the stone. Pressing my face to her heart, I quieted everything that wasn’t just me and her. I listen for the thump, thump, thump that should be there but there was no beat. No song of life.
Nothing.
“Time to go.”
Amelie was dead.
Amelie died.
This wasn’t how the fate was supposed to cross.
Al said it would be okay, Ethel told her it would be alright. Orla showed her our future. We had a future.
We were going to have a tomorrow, the day after that, forever.
You pinky promised . I reminded her, but it was dead quiet on the path from her mind to mine. My words went nowhere.
Today wasn’t supposed to be her last day. Our last day.
I didn’t get to kiss her one last time. She said she had a plan, why didn’t she do it? I would never kiss those lips again.
I would never hear her sweet voice, or the one she used when she was pissed at me. I would never get to say the wrong thing and then show her I was worth another chance again, even if I wasn’t. She’d never challenge me to be better again.
I let her down. I failed, again . I was supposed to protect her. She shouldn’t have to bear the weight of my life. She’d taken on too much from every fucking person she’d ever met. She took care of everyone, all I had to do was take care of this and I fucking failed.
She was my first real friend, my only and best friend.
The first person to not acknowledge my darkness and instead bring it into the light.
She took my tattered soul, burned the edges of it off, then sewed new pieces of herself into it.
Pieces I didn’t want anyone else to see now that she was gone.
The threads of color between us that were normally vibrant and winding, a mirror of Amelie’s soul, were fading to black, a mirror of mine.
“I love you so fucking much, pretty girl.”
I kissed her forehead, leaving the imprint of my lips stained in her blood.
Standing on weak legs, I turned to face my family.
Adan was picking at his nails but Mia had tears in her eyes.
The first sign that the little girl I once knew might still be there somewhere.
But my mother, she was standing tall and proud.
She’d defeated the Morgensterns once and for all.
The smile that was painted on her face could have made the Devil himself weep.
Then, she lifted her hand and snapped her fingers.
Compliance. She was compelling me.
I fought it only long enough to stride to the counter where Amelie’s bouquet laid. I plucked the pale blue one I put in the middle then walked back to my girl and placed it over her heart. My head whirled as I fought my mother’s spell.
I took a deep breath, rolled my shoulders back and stuck my chest out to keep the sob that was threatening to wrack out of me tucked deep beneath the shell that only one person was ever successful in getting under.
“Take me home.”