Chapter 5
Devotion
THE REQUIEM | Present
Open, Stina. Just a little more, my darling.”
The scent of cinnamon from downstairs is gone, replaced by the tang of some medicine in the spoon my Mother is holding to my lips.
“I don’t like it,” I whisper, my throat tight. “It makes the room go wobbly. It makes me feel like I’m underwater.”
“It makes the pain go away,” she counters. Her voice is honey sweet. She doesn’t move the spoon. She waits, her eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that feels like she’s trying to crawl inside my skull. “Do you want to hurt, Stina? Do you want to be weak like the others?”
I shake my head and swallow. The bitterness coats my tongue, a familiar, wretched trail of fire down my throat. Within seconds, the sharp edges of the furniture melt.
From the hallway, a door slams. The sound vibrates through the floor, and I flinch so hard I nearly knock the spoon from her hand.
“He’s home,” I breathe, my heart kicking into its frantic dance.
Heavy footsteps thud against the carpet. My Father’s voice carries through the walls. He’s shouting about a missing ledger, about incompetence, about the way the house smells. Then comes the sound of glass shattering.
“He’s a monster,” my Mother whispers, her gaze shifting to the door.
She doesn’t look scared. She looks disgusted.
She turns back to me, her fingers digging into my shoulders until it almost hurts.
“Listen to him, Stina. Listen to the beast. If he died today… if he was erased from this earth… would you feel bad? Would you shed a single tear for the man who makes you tremble in your own home?”
The question is too big for a ten-year-old. I look at the door, then back at her. “He’s my Papa.”
“He is a cage,” she snaps, her face leaning so close I can see the gold flecks in her eyes dancing with a dark fire. “He is the shadow that keeps the sun from reaching us. Tell me, Stina. Who do you love more? The man who breaks things, or the Mother who heals you?”
“You,” I whisper, the word forced out by the sheer weight of her expectation. “I love you, Mama.”
“Always?” she presses. She’s staring at me as if she wants to consume me, as if my breath belongs to her lungs. “Even when you’re big? Even when men come with their flowers and their false promises to take you away from me? Will I always be the center of your world?”
“Always,” I promise, the drug in my system making my head loll against her shoulder.
“Good. Because you are mine, Stina. You weren’t made for the world. You were made for me. We are the same blood, the same soul. Everyone else is just a ghost passing through.”
The shouting downstairs reaches a crescendo. My Father’s roar gets closer, then the sound of his heavy boots heading toward the study. My Mother strokes my hair, her touch shifting back to that rhythmic, hypnotic grace.
“If he were gone,” she murmurs, almost to herself, “there would be no more headaches. No more shouting. Just you and me in a house by the sea, where the monsters can’t find us.”
She pulls me against her chest, and I’m so small I disappear into the silk of her dress.
I want to believe in the house by the sea.
I want to believe that the medicine is helping.
But as I drift into the grey wool of the drug, I think of the boy with the bruised knuckles I saw yesterday—the one who looked at me like I was a miracle.
“What about Zagreus?” I mumble, my eyes fluttering shut.
My Mother’s hand freezes on my head. For a heartbeat, the silence is more terrifying than my Father’s rage.
“Zagreus is a Vitale,” she says, her voice turning into a cold, sharp blade. “And Vitales are the worst kind of monsters, Stina. They break things. They steal them. They take what is pure and they turn it into ash.”
She leans down, kissing my forehead with a cold, dry finality.
“Sleep now. Forget the Vitales. Forget the world. Just remember me.”
And as the darkness takes me, I realize that I am more afraid of her love than I am of my Father’s hate.
***
“Stina, my child. Wake up.”
I pry open my eyes, gasping slightly as the choking sensation crawls up my throat and settles between my lips.
I think I can’t breathe. But as my eyes adjust to the vision and I see my Mother sitting beside the bed, holding a cup of water and the same painkillers she had yesterday, something nauseous swarms up my spine.
“My head doesn’t throb today, Mama,” I say, my voice thin and hollow in the vastness of the room. “I don’t think I need the medicine.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It remains fixed, a mask of maternal concern that feels heavier than the air.
“You used to take them when you were a child, Stina,” she murmurs, her thumb tracing the rim of the glass. “Your head used to hurt so badly then, too. You would scream for the darkness. I am only trying to prevent the pain before it finds you. You remember how it was, don’t you?”
An oily feeling coats my thoughts. I remember the window seat. I remember the spoon. But the memory feels like a caution, not a comfort.
“Of course,” I manage to whisper, forced by an instinct I didn’t know I possessed. “I’m sorry. I’m just… tired.”
“I know, my darling. Take it for me.”
She holds the glass out. I reach for it, my fingers trembling. As I take the cool weight of the glass, she turns slightly to arrange the small tray she brought: porridge and sliced peaches.
In that split second, I don’t think. I act on a primal impulse.
I slide my hand beneath the heavy silk pillow, the pill disappearing into the darkness of the fabric. I lift the water to my lips, taking a long, deliberate gulp, making sure she hears the sound of my throat working as I “swallow” the phantom medicine.
When she turns back, I offer her a small smile. “See? All gone.”
“Good girl.” Her expression softens, and she sets the water aside. She moves closer, her fingers combing through my long hair, detangling the strands. “You always had such beautiful hair. I used to spend hours brushing it while you told me your secrets.”
As her fingers graze my scalp, a violent jolt of déjà vu strikes me.
The touch is familiar, but the feeling it evokes is wrong.
It isn’t the safety a daughter should feel; it’s the sensation of a bird being smoothed over before its wings are clipped.
I can almost hear the door slamming in the hallway of my memory.
I can almost feel the presence of a boy with bruised knuckles standing just outside my reach.
“Is something wrong?” she asks, her hand pausing near my ear.
“No,” I lie, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Just a bit of a chill. The windows are so tall here.”
“You’ll get used to them. This is your home now, Stina. A place where that monster can never touch you again.”
I nod, leaning into her touch even as my skin crawls. I know it’s absurd. This is my Mother. She died, and she came back for me. She is the only thing I have left in a world that Zagreus Vitale turned to ash.
But as I watch her meticulously peel a peach, her movements look too perfect—rehearsed, though I don’t want to use this word. The fog isn’t just in the medicine. It’s in this room. It’s in her voice.
And for the first time since I woke up in this gilded cage, I don’t want to forget. I want to remember exactly why I’m so afraid of the woman who claims to love me. And everything she has told me—why does it lose its essence every time I see her?
Because I thought escaping Zagreus would give me peace, a home, and a life. But why does it look like the same leash but a different collar?