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“It belongs in the ground,” he says. “Here.”
I pull my hand away. “Not yet.”
Not yet. But later, when this is over. When this legacy is no longer that, when it’s finished once and for all. When I end it.
Because I’ll be the last Willow Girl.
I know it.
Even if it costs me my life, I know I’ll be the last.
A shudder runs through me.
“Not yet,” I repeat quietly.
Sebastian studies me and he nods, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing. That we’ll bury it when this is over. Really over.
“Sebastian,” I ask, stopping him when he takes a step toward the stairs that lead underground and into that inky black.
He turns to me.
“Do you want it to be over?” I ask.
His forehead is creased, it has been all night. Like he’s deep in thought and maybe mourning.
He nods once, then turns and shines the flashlight of the phone down into the mouth of this dark cavern before disappearing into it.
“Come,” he calls.
I take a tentative step, my heart racing, wondering how I’d done it earlier, how I’d gone down there. I’m terrified of it, of the energy coming from it, like that dank smell of a rotting mouth.
“Helena.” He comes back up and I can see a corner of his face and his outstretched hand. “Come.”
I reach for his hand and shudder, but take a step forward, then another and soon we’re walking down into this forsaken place, and with each step, the temperature drops, until it feels like a cold, damp winter day.
I count the steps, thirteen of them.
Unlucky.
Something scurries across the floor and I scream and if it weren’t for Sebastian holding me, I’d turn and run back up those stairs and out of that condemned place. Out into the night and to the sanctuary of the house.
“It’s a rat. Just a rat.”
“Have you been down here before?”
“Yes,” he says, and shines the flashlight over the room. It’s bigger than the one upstairs and I see along the walls more Scafoni ancestors. We walk toward one and on one of the few where I can still read the inscription, I see it dates back to the 1700s.
“We’ll need to add a floor,” he says, and I am not sure if he’s joking.
“This is creepy. Can we go?”
“Not yet.”
He doesn’t let go of my hand and I’m grateful for that as he leads me around the room and I see along the walls where torches must have been placed at one point to provide light.
But it’s not that that has my attention. It’s the large stone slab at the far end, the one that stands before the altar as if waiting for its sacrifice.
We go to it and Sebastian releases me to wipe off cobwebs, but they’re too thick and an inch of dust or dirt sits on top of every flat surface.
“There should be a sanctuary light here too. Like upstairs.”
He searches with the flashlight on the ground while I try not to hear the sound of rats or other animals and hug my arms to myself.
“Are we done?” I ask.
“Come here,” he says.
I go to him and he holds the phone out to me. “Hold it.”
He crouches down and reaches to pull at what looks to be a heavy chest almost buried by dust.
“What is it?” I ask.
His muscles work as he frees it, then stands back to look at it.
“Your aunt, what she wrote about the marking ceremony.” He reaches down and opens it. “I didn’t realize the middle brother had branded her his.”
“Branded?”
He nods. Hauls the heavy lid open. Inside are various objects, none of which I can make out or give a name too. Sebastian, though, he crouches down again and he’s looking through it, rummaging for something.
“She was blamed for Cain’s murder, but it was his brothers, according to her journal at least. Which makes sense. I can’t imagine she’d have been strong enough to smother him.”
He finds what he’s looking for. Four somethings.
He straightens, sets them on the altar.
“What are they?” I ask, but I think I know.
He picks up the first iron. It’s about a foot long. The handle is woven metal with a few inches of worn wood and it has three prongs that end in a flat almost circular shape but not quite. There are markings, four compartments almost.
He puts that first one down and picks up the second, discards that as well and when he gets to the third, takes that one.
“This one’s mine.” He holds it up for me to see.
“What is it?”
“The coat of arms you saw on the front door, did you notice there were three smaller ones along the base of the door?”
I shake my head. I hadn’t looked that closely.
“See this here,” he points to a mark of some sort with a crescent shape. It means nothing to me. “Second-born. It’s mine. This one here,” he says, pointing to another one. “This is Ethan’s, and this is Gregory’s. Depending on your place in the pecking order, you have a symbol.” He picks up the last one. “This would have been Timothy’s.”
