21. Chapter 21 #3
“Burden—I couldn’t burden you with the choice you’d have to make.”
Her eyes widened, the dark reflection glistening as she took me in for long moments. “You’re trying to protect them. That’s why you were hiding their deaths.”
“My father had been obsessively researching these unusual deaths for years since even before my mother’s passing.
There was a pattern connecting them all.
And he believed the suppressants witches were taking were causing the suicidal ideations.
He became a heavy advocate against them, even introducing a bill to the parliament making their suicides a national issue.
Alerting apothecaries to not dispense them anymore and trying to create learning spaces for our young to unload some of the mental pressure of suppressing chaos.
Which made him a target of the Basilica.
The clergy called him a heretic for even suggesting they let witches practice and learn about their craft.
They tried to arrest everyone in my family for witchery, until they realised they could use it to their advantage.
The clergy declared this an opportunity to introduce a procedure—a leucotomy which severed a nerve that connected a witch’s body with magic.
The Cleansing would spiritually disconnect the body from magic, and the leucotomy would cut the physical connection out of it entirely. ”
She trembled against me. “That’s just ridiculous. There’s no such nerve.”
“I know, honey. But they were ready to line up witches—every girl, boy, woman, man, from Meridian or Mortdale, with a witch’s mark, with or without suicidal ideations—and perform it on them.”
“Did they—” She shook her head. “They didn’t try, right?”
Thunder rolled over us, and lightning struck close by, grotesquely filling the quiet that fell between us.
She put a hand to her mouth, trapping a gasp.
I let out a heavy exhale. “They were left with only shells of themselves, empty and vacant. But it was a satisfactory result as long as it didn’t kill anyone.
We couldn’t let it happen. If humans had caught even a whiff of the procedure, this would have grown into a wide-spread disaster.
The only way to stop it was to hide the fact that witches were dying.
My father and then Heath tried to keep it as far away from the public eye as possible.
I know…I know you had to save Ethel…I’m sorry, honey, I am so sorry.
” I ran a hand over my eyes. “I couldn’t let you unearth anything about their deaths again.
Piper—I promised Cassandra I would keep her safe. And then you came…I’m so sorry.”
She put her hands to her head. “How long has this been happening for—the suicides?” She shook her head. “How long, Logan?”
“A while.” When you took a rose out of the sun, you had to prepare yourself for it to die in the shade.
“You think they all committed suicides because of these mental suppressants?”
“There’s no other answer anyone could find, Willow.”
Her voice was small as she muttered to herself, “But that isn’t true.” Her eyes swung around the gravestones. I shook my head at Art when she moved slowly around the cemetery.
Stopping before another headstone, she dropped to her knees, brushing her fingers over the inscriptions.
Always loved. Forever missed.
“Who was she married to?”
“Peter Cardiff. The son of a statesman.”
“And where is he now?”
“Dead.”
“Why wasn’t he buried beside her?”
“His corpse was burned. He’d caught the Madness.”
Her shoulders started rising faster and faster. “Did…did they die around the same time?”
It was Art who answered, “She died first.”
“How long before her husband?”
“Willow—”
“Hell, Logan, how long?”
Henry cleared his throat. “A week or so before his passing. I remember. I found him.” And killed him, was what he’d left unspoken.
She looked at me, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “You told me I’d be buried next to you.”
“Willow—”
“Why is your brother-in-law not buried next to your sister?”
When I didn’t state the obvious answer, her eyes widened.
“Were they in love?” she asked, running her fingers over Cassandra’s grave. “Did he love your sister?”
“More than anything in the world.”
She looked around the rest of the graveyard, growing paler, looking weaker as she brought a hand to cover her mouth “Where are the burial registers kept?”
“The local parish.” Henry glanced at me before adding, “Why?”
Willow got up on shaky feet, pale and shivering. “Take me there.”
The head of the parish sat at the corner of the small, musty room, holding a burning lantern on his lap while my wife searched through the dozens of registers.
Her legs gave out under her when she got up to grab another register, and I lifted her, setting her back on the chair.
Pressing my lips to her cold, wet temple, I said, “I’ll find it. Just tell me what to look for.”
“Last name: Atwater.”
Her fingers shakily skimmed over the records.
“Only three days after his wife died, he caught the Madness. Alfred’s report is attached to it.
No indication of a bite mark or any other exterior wound, so he most probably caught the first strain.
Every single report in the newspapers I read would state that the nobles were widowed only shortly before they died. Nobles married to witches.”
“Willow—”
“I need—” Her eyes fluttered shut. “Could you find me—”
“Honey, please,” I pleaded. “Let’s stop here tonight.”
She stared down at me with tears streaming down her already wet cheeks. “I have to do this. I need to. I don’t know how much longer I—” She sucked a sharp breath and sealed her lips shut, shaking her head. “It has to be tonight.”
Warm breaths slipped past her parted lips as I kissed her tears. “We will do it together. You’re not alone.”
“I wish I was,” she whispered. “This would have been so much easier.” She cried, her trembling fingers sinking into my skin as she held me tightly, almost as if I’d vanish if she let me go. “You’re making this so much more difficult.”
“I’m sorry.”
She put a hand over her mouth, drowning a cry. “You don’t know what you’re apologising for, lover,” she whispered, resting her forehead against mine.
“I’m still sorry.”
“Why did you never consider that the witches dying was related to the Madness?”
“Logically, it can’t be,” Henry said, frowning at the possibility. He glanced between us all. “How…why would they be?”
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
“The scabiosa had grown around the graves, same as the tunnels. And the honey scent coming from the infected—” She shook her head.
“Scabiosa are known to be worn by widows. They’re a symbol of heartbreak, the loss of a loved one.
Heartbreak and mourning,” she muttered to herself, bracing her hands against her eyes.
“The suicides, the rage-induced sickness. Everything makes sense now.” Her shoulders shook.
“They were in love. The catalyst is love. They died because they were in love. Sybil warned me that night that whatever I do, I cannot fall in love with you. She knew falling in love with a vampire would lead a witch to her death.” She tried to take a few calming breaths, and failed.
“You couldn’t have done anything to save Cassandra.
She was doomed the moment she fell in love with her husband.
None of them could be saved. That’s how the poison works. ”
She got up, swaying on her feet. Colour had leeched from her skin, her lips, only the dark of her eyes piercing through the weakness. “I need to find out what caused this. I need to see what is poisoning the water in the well. It has to be something dark…something—”
Her eyes fluttered shut, and I grabbed her before she fell. “Art! Call the doctor.”
“It’s useless,” she muttered, pressing her face to my chest and breathing out a sigh of relief.
“He’s the best in the continent. If there’s something wrong with you, he will find it.” I kissed her tired eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She pressed her face back against my chest and sobbed.
Each cry punctured straight though my skin, pulling each of my ribs apart until my sore heart was left wide open and unprotected.
“You can’t find what’s wrong with me. No one can.
Trust me, I have spent every day of my life trying to figure out what killed me, and I’ve come up with very few useful answers. ”
An unfamiliar coldness slipped into my veins. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m dying, Logan.”
The world around me paused and my ears filled with thick static. “Say that again.”
Tears slid down her cheek. “Someone has put a malediction on me. I suspect that was the reason my mother left me at the steps of the orphanage, but not before she tried to kill me first. The headmistress loved to remind me of it every day. Of my bruised, colourless face. I couldn’t have blamed my mother no matter how much the mistresses wanted me to loathe her.
Better to die than live like this. I wish she would have been able to do it.
Because I never could.” Her eyes screwed shut as she shook her head.
“Curses are like mould eating away at wood. Everyone breathing the spores gets sick, too. So, everyone has been terrified and repulsed of me all my life until…until I came here. Until you.” She brushed off tears with the back of her hand and briefly pressed her palm to my face.
“The malediction has been slowly killing me the more chaos my body accumulates; the older I grow the worse it gets. I’ve already outlived most who carry a malediction.
This is just borrowed time. It has always been borrowed time.
I’m as good as dead. A walking corpse.” She pulled her sleeve down her shoulder.
“I noticed it after you left the bathroom this morning. My witch’s mark is completely gone.
I had to do this for Ethel,” she whispered, lifting her dark eyes to mine.
“For you. For Piper. So the both of you can love whoever you want without being afraid.”