16. Freddie #4
“Nothing is wrong,” she whispers, her cheeks flushing a rosy pink. She takes his large, calloused hand and drags it down, pressing it flat over her stomach. “I’m, um, expecting.”
Francis freezes. His eyes go wide as saucers, staring down at his own hand on her waist, then snapping up to her face. “You’re…truly?”
“Truly,” she laughs.
A massive grin breaks across his face. Before she can say another word, Francis scoops her up by the waist, swinging her around in a dizzying circle.
Genevieve throws her head back, laughing wildly as the hem of her cream dress sweeps over the grass, and when he sets her down, he frames her face with both hands and kisses her with a desperate, joyful passion that makes me wonder if I’ll ever experience this kind of… happiness. Or love.
And then, the vision ends.
The golden sunlight vanishes, the summer air falls away, and the freezing, oppressive gray of the Witch Wood slams back into my body.
I gasp loudly, my knees buckling under me as my eyes fly open.
I stumble back two steps, my foot catching on a root, and I would have hit the mud sideways if my arm hadn’t caught the rough bark of a nearby tree.
My lungs burn, fighting for air, my head spinning so much that everything starts to tilt.
The strain of using that much of my magic leaves my muscles feeling like lead.
“Winifred!” Callum’s voice calls out from wherever he is now, rough and panicked as he strains against his invisible bonds.
I hold up a shaky hand to tell him I’m fine, trying to get my breathing under control. When I push myself upright and look at Genevieve, the vengeful aura around her has completely melted away.
She’s hovering in the gray mist, a faint, fragile smile touching her ghostly lips. A single tear trails down her pale cheek, glittering like crushed diamond.
“What happened?” Callum asks, his breath hitching as he looks between us. “Fred, what did you see?”
“She…” I swallow hard, my throat dry. I look at Genevieve, my voice barely above a whisper. “She was going to have a baby.”
Genevieve’s brown eyes snap to mine. The bitter malice from before is gone, replaced by a lingering grief that hurts to look at. “I did have a baby,” she corrects softly.
I step closer, my hands coming up to rub my cold arms. “But…the story in town…they said you froze to death waiting for him to marry you.”
“They found out,” Genevieve says, her voice turning dark and biting, staring off into the trees.
“His family and mine, before we could slip away to the altar. My parents were horrified. His father was enraged. He refused to let his son be trapped by a pregnancy he couldn’t prove was his until the child was born.
They agreed to hide me away, let me birth the baby in secret, and told me we could only marry after the child was born, before any vows were spoken. ”
She closes her eyes. “My family locked me in the cellar of our home. They kept me hidden for seven months, ashamed of my belly, ashamed of what I was. I begged them to let Francis see me.”
“Genevieve…” I breathe. It’s gut wrenching to see her so…
broken. Defeated. All I can see is a woman who was once so happy that flowers bloomed at her feet.
Who laughed and kissed and wore pretty dresses.
A real life Princess Aurora, with golden hair and rosy cheeks.
”I’m so sorry. What happened to the baby? ” I ask gently.
“After I delivered,” she whispers, her shoulders sagging as more tears well in her eyes, “my father took him from my arms. I never got to nurse him. I barely even got to look at him. My mother told me he was being shipped off…sent across the sea to live with Francis’s family, so he would never know a witch’s touch. ”
A cold realization drops into the pit of my stomach. My breath hitches. Slowly, I turn my head and look over at Callum, who’s still pinned against the air, his mouth turning downward into a frown as he listens.
“Fred?” he asks, his blue eyes searching my face, sensing the shift in me. “What? What is it?”
“I can understand why she thought you were Francis,” I say quietly as I look back and forth between them. “Callum…it was like looking at you. Just…a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Callum’s posture stiffens, his throat working as he swallows hard. “Really?”
I step back toward Genevieve, my mind spinning through family trees, town records, and old immigration logs. “Where was your son sent?” I ask her, no longer hiding the urgency in my voice. “Francis’s family…you said they lived overseas. Where were they from?”
Genevieve’s eyes bounce between Callum’s face and mine, narrowing with a flickering curiosity. “Scotland,” she says softly. “The Highlands of Scotland.”
My eyes go wide. My stomach does a complete free-fall.
“Genevieve,” I ask, my breath catching in my throat, “what was Francis’s last name?”
Genevieve looks directly at Callum, her expression soft and sad. Watching a girl look at a man and see the ghost of a life she was stolen from makes something twist painfully in my gut. I instinctively take a step closer to Callum.
My heart aches for her. Because even in death, love makes fools of us all.
“McKinley.”