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“Leave us alone,” she says.
Without another word, my mother closes the door.
I go to her, wheel her forward. She has an old-fashioned chair and it’s unwieldy, but she refuses a new one, one more comfortable.
Once I have her closer to the edge of the bed, I sit and face her. She reaches out her hands, and I set mine in hers. The contrast in youth and age is striking, hers like parchment, the bone delicate. Mine youthful. Full of life.
“I knew he would choose you,” she says.
And this time, I do cry. I wipe the back of one hand across my face.
She watches me, and she’s so strong. She doesn’t shed a single tear. I’ve never seen her cry, in fact. Not once.
“There’s a reason it was you, child.”
She squeezes my hands and makes me look at her. Her hair, although it’s thinned out, is still as black as mine, that silver streak as bright. She’s grown smaller, though. I guess I have to remember I’m lucky to have had her this long. She’s almost a century old.
“I’m scared,” I say, lowering my gaze when I do, ashamed of my fear when she is so strong.
She squeezes my hands, and I look up again.
“I was scared when it was me.”
“You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“Not then. Not at first. I was afraid just like you are. But our ancestors watched over me, and they are watching over you now. They chose you, Helena. The Willow ancestors chose you.”
She lets go of my hands, and I watch how hers tremble as she reaches into the high neck of her dress to pull out a chain I’ve not seen before. She always wears turtleneck sweaters or dresses, always has her neck covered, even in summer. She holds the thing in the palm of her hand and studies it. I wish I could see her eyes, know what she’s thinking.
But when she snaps the chain with a quick strength I didn’t know she still had, I gasp in surprise. She lets it slide through her fingers and onto the floor and looks at me, opening her palm.
I look down at the ring there, the strangest ring I’ve ever seen.
The band itself is a yellow white, and there are three stones on it. Three jagged amethysts so dark, they’re a purple-black. She turns the ring, and I lean in closer because there’s a small skull carved into one side of it.
“It’s made of bone,” she says, her eyes wide when I look at her.
“Bone?” I’m a little creeped out, honestly.
“Know that not every Willow Girl is broken by them. I wasn’t. I took from them as they took from me and I survived.”
She takes the ring and slides it onto my middle finger. It’s a perfect fit. She then closes her hand over it, squeezes and brings her face closer to mine.
“It’s up to you, Helena. Destroy their line and end this. It’s why you were chosen. It’s time to finish with this insanity.”
My mouth falls open.
Before I can even fully process what she has said, the door opens. It’s my father and behind him, my sisters, all in their jeans and T-shirts, hair in braids, looking like it’s a normal day. Like what just took place in the library didn’t happen at all. Like I’m not wearing my funeral dress waiting to be taken.
“The car is here.”
I draw back and look at my aunt again. I wonder at the faith she’s putting in me, because she’s wrong. I’m not that strong.
She nods once, and I hug her, and she holds me so tight that she presses tears from my eyes.
“You have to hate them to survive them, child. To destroy them,” she whispers before pulling back. “Remember to hate them.”
I stand and take one last look at her, straighten my spine, and walk out the door, out of my house, and into the keeping of my enemy.I’m driven in a luxury SUV by a driver with a face as stony as those carved into Mt. Rushmore two hours to a small, private airfield I didn’t know existed.
It’s dark when we arrive, although not as dark as the Willow property. No light pollution there. Here, the lights of the airport, even though it’s small, spoil the night sky.
It’s easier now that I’m out of the house. Easier not to have to look at my sisters’ faces, my parents’ faces.
But as the car slows to turn through the gradually opening gates and I see the other SUVs there, the gathering of people in the headlights, the waiting jet, my trepidation grows.
I am alone.
With my thumb I touch my aunt’s ring and think about what she said. I try to imagine her younger, my age, and in the same position, and I can. Except that she’s a much stronger version of me. A fiercer one.
