Chapter Fifty-Seven
Sybil
Sybil shifted her weight from one foot to the other, the shackles around her ankle bones clanking. Jacinda stood before her
one last time, containing a lifetime of secrets. A lifetime of love.
Sybil knew what her loss would do to Jacinda. The pain of that understanding was overwhelming, ineffable. “Jacinda.” She choked
out the single word, barely a whisper.
The guard cast a look of caution before departing, leaving them alone.
“They told me…” Jacinda’s words clotted with emotion. “They told me you are…”
Sybil pulled in a deep breath, letting the agonizing pain in her chest curl inside itself, wrapping into a fragile shell of
indifference.
“That I am to die,” Sybil finished, her voice wooden—dull—knowing that if she infused life into her words, they would swallow her whole. In these last few moments, she was a coward. Too afraid to yield to the intricacies of a life where she was condemned to die.
Jacinda’s expression broke in anguish as she gasped around a harsh sob.
There was much Sybil must convey. And too little time remained.
So little time.
“The house will be taken by the king,” Sybil continued flatly. “The land, the wealth, all of it will be gone.”
Jacinda jerked her head up, eyes flashing with the quick, incandescent rage of youth in the face of injustice. “I care not
for the house, or the coin.”
Sybil calcified her expression, necessary to silence Jacinda’s tantrum. “You will. Henry had a solicitor in London. You will
find his information in my desk. Seek him out. He will aid.”
Jacinda stubbornly thinned her lips.
“There is another matter I must speak of.” The admission caught in Sybil’s dry throat. “I should have told you long ago.”
Her voice wavered, the shield crumbling.
Jacinda’s thumb nail dug into the ragged cuticle of her middle finger where there was nothing but torn flesh to pick at.
The armor of Sybil’s apathy splintered apart, and misery consumed her, so great, so vast, she could scarce draw breath. “You’ve
been raised all this time as my sister—”
“I know.”
Sybil went mute, stunned into silence as Jacinda regarded her, eyes wide and full of expectation. Full of understanding. Full
of love.
“I know.” Jacinda repeated. Softer this time, reverent. “I read it in the book Mother left you.” She shook her head and corrected:
“Your mother left you.”
“Then you know everything.” The words were almost too fragile to say aloud.
Jacinda nodded and Sybil’s exhaled sob resounded off the cold stone walls.
“My daughter.” Her voice trembled. She could no longer hold back her tears. She opened her arms, catching Jacinda in an embrace,
relishing the way her red-gold hair smelled like sunshine, how the warmth of her daughter nestled so perfectly against her
heart.
They clung to one another, mother and daughter, newly united despite a lifetime spent together.
“You could have told me,” Jacinda said in a thick voice. “All this time, I mourned having never known my mother as I was so
young when she died. Now I realize I have known my mother all this time, perhaps better in some ways than I know even myself.”
Something quivered in her tone. Hurt? Anger? Betrayal?
She had a right to any one of those emotions.
“Your father,” Sybil said. “I told him only recently that I had kept you a secret.”
“The man on the street some years ago.” Jacinda hesitated. “The vicar. With hair the same color as mine.”
Sybil nodded. “You saw him?”
“I saw you see him. The way you looked at him, like your heart had leaped into your eyes.” She gave a sad smile. “That and
I’ve never seen someone else with the same color hair as I have.”
In that moment, Sybil realized exactly how much she’d deprived Jacinda of by keeping her secrets. Not only a mother, but also
a father.
How many nights had Jacinda succumbed to the pain of being an orphan?
All these years, Sybil thought she was protecting everyone she loved, but truly, her own wounds were what she sheltered.
For everyone else, she had deprived them of a chance to love with the whole of their hearts.
“His name is John Griffin,” Sybil said. “Seek him out after…” She balled her hands into fists and let her ragged nails bite into her palms. “He will help you.”
“I know his name,” Jacinda said.
“The book.” Now Sybil understood. “The priest hole—how did you…?”
“There was a woman who helped me.” Jacinda bit her lip, the way she did when she knew she’d done something she ought not.
“A woman not from our time.”
The birthmark.
“I presume this woman has a similar mark on her?” Sybil pulled up the sleeve of her shift. “Jacinda, what did you do?”
“I was trying to save you.” Tears filled her large hazel eyes. “I told you I’d find a way to help.”
“But at what price?” Sybil demanded in a whisper. “You will lose your connection to the earth. And the woman… She could not
have known she would be implicated. Every descendant until her will suffer. My child, there are repercussions.”
“I knew that before I performed the enchantment.” Jacinda nodded solemnly. “The cost is one I do not take lightly. I would
do anything to save you.”
The conviction of her words plunged into Sybil’s heart. Jacinda was young, impetuous, she hadn’t had enough experience in
the world to realize how heavy such wrongs could be. And she’d done it out of love.
The door opened. “Enough.”
Pain splintered open in Sybil’s chest, deep and raw. Their time was over far too quickly. Not only these scant precious moments,
but their life together. Once seeming to stretch on for eternity and now ephemeral.
As if afflicted by the same visceral thought, Jacinda threw her arms around Sybil.
“I love you,” Sybil said around the knot in her throat. “I have only ever wanted the best for you, my daughter.”
The sound of Jacinda’s weeping muffled against Sybil’s shoulder, her skin beneath the shift wet with the girl’s tears.
They held each other thus, a moment to love before being forever separated by death.
“I’ll save you,” Jacinda whispered under her breath.
“Don’t.” Sybil said in a tone that brooked no argument.
She would do anything to keep her daughter safe, and that included dying.
The door opened. Jacinda pulled from Sybil’s embrace and turned away, looking over her shoulder as she did so. Likewise, Sybil
watched her, memorizing her daughter’s face, the way a dimple appeared in her right cheek, the stubborn set to her jaw.
Even without the earth’s gifts, that girl would be a force to contend with someday.
These thoughts of maternal pride squeezed at a wounded place in Sybil’s heart. Mayhap that was why she did not see the figure
who entered until Jacinda was gone and the door closed.
But there he stood.
Black robes, a fierce expression.
Her heart stuttered to a stop.
The lock clicked in the door.
And Sybil was alone once more with the magistrate.