Margery cannot speak. For her voice has been destroyed. Alice took it from her, I am certain.
Gentry sucked in a sharp breath and hastened to turn the page, but the parchment was half consumed by rot and time. The faded ink barely clung to the surface:
It is done. My Maggie hath stained her hands with the blood of her own sister. Alice lay cold and broken in the root cellar, her life fleeing in a crimson pool, my wife’s hand still clutching the cruel knife.
She hath bid me silence those who would speak against her — to cut the tongues of the accused so no whisper may reach ears that could bring harm to Margery.
Yet I tremble not for their fate, but for my father’s fury, which I know to be merciless. Maggie is with child, and I am bound to protect my family, whatever the price. Such is the bitter burden of the Tempests.
The room fell deathly silent.
Gentry clicked through the next few pages, landing on a page that looked different from the rest of his writing.
“Dudley found this when he was scanning in the pages. It’s not Alban’s handwriting, and was folded and tucked inside the journal. I think…”
I scanned the screen, eyes frantic and heart thudding.
There on the screen, written in looping scrawl, my curse taunted me.
At twenty-two, the clock will freeze, but blessings turn with bitter teeth. No joy, no peace, no love shall last. All sweetness curdles into past. Each daughter born shall wear my scorn, till Death himself their fate is torn.
Standing abruptly, my chair fell behind me clattering to the floor in a haunting echo. My lungs tightened. The room closed in around me. Gentry was moving—maybe speaking—but his words were swallowed by the thunder pounding in my ears. My vision blurred, a tremor shaking my hands as the truth settled in my bones.
Even if Alice had whispered that dark spell, she was silenced—murdered by her own sister. Over what? Pride? Fear of ruin? Betrayal of heart and blood? The weight of it crushed me.
A panic clawed at my chest, breath coming too fast, too shallow. I couldn’t breathe. The curse wasn’t just some distant story, it was etched into my veins.
But then—
In the stillness, I felt it: a presence beside me, cold and inevitable. Death, in his quiet certainty. He was there, always watching, always waiting.
And something fierce ignited inside me.
No. Not this time.
I refused to be the sum of their sins. The product of their blood-soaked betrayals.
I would not be the vessel for their pain. My breath hitched as the final truth settled in my chest. The story wasn’t about curses whispered by some shadowy other, it was blood, betrayal, and secrets buried too deep to breathe.
“It wasn’t Alice who cursed us. It was Maggie. And the lies…our silence kept it alive.” The words fell heavy in the silence, more powerful than any spell. The air thickened, then shifted, as if something unseen loosened its grip.
And maybe that was the curse all along. Not magic. Not fate. Just pain passed from mother to daughter like a poisonous heirloom.
But I had named it. And I had chosen to live anyway.
My heart pounded, and the tight coil of pain that had nested in my ribs began to unwind. I felt the cold edges of fear and grief soften, the shadows receding.
No longer would I carry the weight of generations of silence, secrets, and fear.
I met Gentry’s steady gaze, finding not pity, but a shared strength. I let the truth out. And in that moment, something inside me shifted. Silent and invisible, yet undeniable.
Gentry wrapped me in his arms, pulling me to his lap as he settled on the floor against the wall. Tears streamed from my cheeks as everything I’d ever carried bled from my heart, until the rotten core of it was no longer smudged black.
“I think this is it…” he whispered. “Sometimes, to banish the dark, all we really need is to give it a name and tell it to flee.”
The weight in my chest loosened, as if the shadows that had clung to me for centuries finally pulled away. Gentry’s arms were steady, grounding me, but it was something else that shifted inside.
I swallowed hard, voice barely more than a whisper. “It wasn’t me. Not truly. Every time I brought someone back, someone else had to go… but it wasn’t my curse. It was Death’s bargain. The balance he kept.” My fingers trembled against his shirt. “He let me believe I was the monster, the curse itself…to help me break free.”
