Chapter 4 Spring #3
With a huff, Marcus moved to her, snatching her wrist and dragging her away from Nessa.
“Don’t hurt her,” hissed the shadow woman. “I swear to the shadows I’ll make you regret it.”
“Don’t threaten me, monster.” With a tug, he pulled Elana toward home. She felt the skin beneath his grip bruising, and she whimpered at the sudden spike of pain.
Behind her, Nessa growled, so low Elana felt it more than heard it. She looked back at the only source of happiness she’d experienced in months, pleading with Nessa to understand. She only went with Marcus to keep Nessa safe.
As the well faded behind them and Marcus marched stolidly toward home, Elana staggered behind, trying to keep up. A feeling was building in her chest, between her ribs, building and building until she had no choice but to open her mouth and release the pressure in the form of a sob.
“This whole time,” muttered Marcus, ignoring her tears, “you knew. You knew the monster was back and you let the priestesses stop guarding the well. Shadows, you knew and didn’t tell them. You’re a traitor. A traitor to this whole valley.”
“Marcus!” At last she stood solidly on her feet and wrenched her wrist back from him. “Use your brain, brother. Nessa has been back for almost a whole year and hasn’t ravaged the valley at all. Don’t you see? She’s changed!”
Marcus eyed her beneath heavy, knitted brows.
“Monsters don’t change, Elana. You are drawn to her because of some freakish shadow monster magic.
Some cursed, wretched desire. You’re broken, Elana.
” He tapped his temple with an angry finger, his eyes wide and wild.
“You have been your entire life.” He snatched up her wrist again and drove her mercilessly toward home.
As they approached the farm, Elana’s family stood on the porch, wrapped in their nightclothes and robes. Mama watched them come, a wrinkle of worry on her brow that had only grown deeper in the past year. Marcus shoved Elana toward the step and she stumbled, crying out as she fell.
“Marcus!” gasped Josie, coming down the steps and pulling Elana back to her feet.
“What is wrong with you?” She shrugged off her shawl and wrapped it around Elana, who was grateful for her sister’s shared warmth.
Between the damp spray of the waterfall and then taking off her clothes in the forest, Elana was chilled to her core.
She hadn’t even noticed that her teeth had begun to chatter, and now she wondered if it was more from cold, or fear, or rage.
“What is the meaning of this, son?” asked Papa calmly.
“Your daughter,” Marcus spat the word as if it were a curse, “has been cavorting with the shadow monster. Who is not gone, but still here, and she didn’t tell anyone.
In fact, she actively hid it from us, so that she could go and…
I don’t know. Be in love? With that thing?
” He was flinging his arms around as wildly as his accusations, but that one word stuck like a thorn in Elana’s heart.
Love? Was that what this was? In an instant, Elana reframed everything she’d ever felt about Nessa and the well, and suddenly, things seemed as crystal clear as the water pouring from the side of the mountain.
She had never felt the way the bards sang about any man, ever, but that was how she felt about Nessa.
The lovesick, hungry desire to be only with that person ever.
To share songs and flowers and kisses… and more.
To want their skin against your skin with nothing but moonlight between you.
That was what this was. It was what it had been her whole life.
There wasn’t something wrong with her. It wasn’t some strange, otherworldly desire that drove her to the well.
It was love.
She almost laughed out loud.
“Elana?” asked her mother, drawing her from her realization. “Is that true?”
Elana glanced to each face of each of her family members in turn, and no one seemed as angry as Marcus.
On her parents’ faces, only calm curiosity.
Josephine was biting her lip as if there were some emotion she couldn’t contain without using her teeth.
Luc looked bored, as any teen might when family drama erupts, but the twins were dancing from foot to foot and tugging at Mama’s robe.
Elana took a deep breath, fisting her nightgown in front of her, twisting and twirling the fabric tighter and tighter in her anxiety. “I think… I am in love. With the shadow woman.”
A low squeal came from Josie then, and she threw her arms around Elana. “I knew you could do it, I knew you could fall in love!”
Elana blinked her surprise. “You aren’t angry with me?”
Josie laughed. “I’m thrilled for you!”
“Papa!” yelled Michel. “Listen!”
Elana’s father shook himself as though from a trance and turned to face the twins.
“The well’s been open a year and nobody has sighted the monster,” said Edward.
“Elana saved us all, with her weird shadow love.” Michel nodded solemnly, wise beyond his seven years.
“It’s a fairy tale,” sighed Josie happily.
“It’s a shadows-damned tragedy!” shouted Marcus.
“She is a freak, and a traitor to our valley. That monster killed a dozen people. Are you all insane? We have to keep Elana safe, keep her here. We have to protect the valley from another attack by that thing! I am lashing Elana to her bedpost and reporting her to the temple immediately, and anyone in this family who says otherwise is likewise a two-timing turncoat!”
Marcus grabbed her arm again and hauled her into the house.
None of the family tried to stop him, though Elana noticed a pained look shared between her parents.
As her brother shoved her onto her bed, Elana didn’t fight.
She was exhausted, not only from being out all night but from her revelations about being in love with a woman.
With a monster. For now, she wouldn’t mind if she were tied to the bed for a few days so she could get some rest, and get her head right.
But the rope was nowhere to be seen, and Elana noticed a faint, metallic sound followed by the snick of a lock opening. She flopped her head bonelessly to the side, eyeing Marcus with vague interest.
He had in his hands a chain and a padlock. “You won’t be able to untie this. You won’t be able to leave without the key.”
“Why do you even have that chain?” Elana asked dully. “How long have you been thinking about making this bed my permanent home?”
“As long as you’ve been acting strange,” he admitted.
When he finished locking the cuff around her ankle, he stood over her.
“The Umbral Festival is in a week. You will get yourself sorted by then. You will find a man to dance with. You will forget about this nonsense with the shadow monster. You will behave like a normal, human woman.”
“Or what?” asked Elana, shocked at her own boldness. “What will you do to me?”
“I’m happy to have you spend the rest of your life tied to this bed rather than being in love with a monster.”
Much to Marcus’s surprise, Elana snorted. “You won’t change me, Marcus. I’ve already spent most of my life tied to this bed.”
“Then so be it,” he growled, stomping out of the room and slamming the door behind him.
“Marcus!” she screamed, throwing herself off the bed.
She wanted to pound on the door, but her chain was too short.
She crumpled into a pile between the bed and the floor, all the emotions of the past night and day piling into her throat.
She let it all loose with a thick sob, slamming her hands into the floor over and over until her palms stung and the tender skin at all her joints felt bruised and swollen.
Now she knew. She knew what her family would say if they found out she’d been visiting the well. Marcus would ruin her life, and the rest of them would simply say nothing.
Their silence hurt almost more than his rage, and as the day passed and she lay alone in bed, the sting of their absence only grew.
But what could Elana have done differently?
Any other path she’d imagined taking ended up the same way.
If she had denied herself her visits with Nessa, she’d have ended up tied to the bed.
If she had reported Nessa’s existence to the temple, it wouldn’t have changed her desperate longing, and she’d have wound up here all the same.
Maybe she should have tried to stay with Nessa, in the tent, despite the cold harsh winter and wet spring.
Laying on her back in her bed, tears streaked the sides of her face and dampened her hair.
Maybe if she’d only forsaken her family, she could have ended up free.
Just as the thought came to her, the bedroom door creaked open. Hissing whispers, a thump, the clatter of cutlery on a plate.
Elana turned to the side, curiosity pecking at her attention.
The twins came quietly into her room, closing the door behind them and scampering to her bed. Michel leaped up beside her and Edward put a plate on her bedside table.
“What’s this?” asked Elana, eyeing the food.
“Mama sent us to feed you,” said Edward, yawning and scratching his ear. Once the plate was settled safely, he joined her on the bed too.
“What is she like?” asked Michel. “The monster?”
Both boys nodded sincerely, their eyes wide and earnest.
“Aren’t you angry with me?” Elana asked. Her voice was small, a quivering breath of sound.
“You kept the whole village safe!” shouted Michel.
Edward cuffed the side of his head. “Shut up before Marcus hears you,” he hissed in a stage whisper. He wrinkled his nose. “I bet if they knew the shadow monster just wanted a girlfriend a hundred years ago, they’d have just found her one and stopped all this nonsense right quick.”
“Even though girls are icky,” said Michel, his voice lower now.
Elana couldn’t help the exhausted laugh that bubbled out of her. “Someday you might not think girls are quite so icky.”
“Well? What is she like then?” Michel asked again. He palmed his nose and licked his lip, waiting for Elana’s answer.