Page 28 of The Villains of Winter

Finch sank into the cot. “Then why would you die for me? To prove a point to them?”

“Perhaps,” James swept the Danish off the floor and cleared the dirt off of it before his bite. “Perhaps I’m irretrievably in love with you, Finch Hudskin.”

Finch snorted. “You love no one and yet you are in constant need to be loved by everyone. That’s the problem.”

“This was not an act of love.” James didn’t need to be loved by everyone, the guilt made him worthy of death. “However, if we’re being blunt about all this: you’re willing to die on behalf of the liverless parasites that don’t honor or respect you, yet you refuse to honor and respect yourself enough to live. You seek their approval in death before you even grant yourself the approval to relish life. We’re both sacrificial fools for different reasons.”

Finch whispered, his head hung over his hands, “What if…What if there’s not much life for someone like me out there to live?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” James asked, then said when Finch nodded, “There’s not much life there for me, either, but I live it. My life is not for them–it’s for me.”

Finch cut the free end of the crisp pastry, and even though it was cold now, it was still soft and sweet, therefore it was better than most meals in the student infirmary. “Your decision to volunteer to take my place is for your mother, isn’t it? You still want her to be proud of you after all these years. Can I ask you why you love her so deeply? I mean, I adore my mother, and I appreciate her like hell, but…”

James was quiet for a moment. “You wouldn’t understand what she meant to me.”

His mother immigrated all the way from Brazil with only her sundress and a plane ticket. She put herself through education. She scrubbed her classmates’ houses and she scraped by in hostels. She nearly graduated at the top of her class before she fell pregnant with him. She sacrificed everything and James threw it all away.

Finch reminded him, “You’re hardly the first person in the world to lose his mother that he loved.”

James lost his appetite, leaving the rest for the other man. “I don’t need to be the first for it to matter to me, Finch.”

“Would she want you to throw away your life for me?”

“That’s not your concern.” James headed for the doors. He plastered a wan smile on his handsome face. “Your concern should be the fuller life you’ll indulge in now that you must live for me. Don’t let me down, Finch.”

“Memento mori[7].” Finch remained disconsolate. Remember you must die.

“Memento vivere[8],” James corrected him. Remember you must live.

Finch’s voice trailed after him. “What if I still want to die?”

“Then be sure it’s because you want to die, not because they want you dead and out of their sight. Although, I think you would regret death, because we both know you don’t want to die, Finch. You are in fear of letting yourself live because everyone else is convinced you won’t survive. Prove them wrong.”

​​ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE SEPULCHRAL WHISPERS BREWED AROUND Elliott as he returned to his dormitory. His breath was a white vapor, the tip of his nose frozen; he removed his herringbone tweed gloves on the broad steps that led to the red-bricked, white-columned Winterthur Residence Hall.

“It was horrific.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Blood everywhere. His entire shirt went crimson, like in Carrie.”

Elliott’s ears pricked, his heart jackhammered in his chest. Did something happen? He jogged up the stairs. There were dozens of students crammed around James’s dormitory. He could hardly step foot into Winterthur Hall as the freshmen craned their necks in crowds, the sophomores gaped over their friends’ shoulders in packs, the juniors pressed forward in herds, and masses of seniors led a path to the last door on the right.

Elliott shouldered through as many people as he could, but their leather satchels snagged his shirt buttons, their textbooks scraped his tie, their blockade precluded his forward momentum through the grain of onlookers. His mind was a static roar of fear. Did Lucien find James? Was Elliott too late?

“Bloodstains are still on the tables, I heard.”

“Rædwine was closed for the entire night…”

Elliott’s heart stopped outside of James’s dorm’s crowded entry. There were baskets of farewell cards, vigil candles, rosary beads, and Holy Bible passages. Elliott could hardly step forward as heaps of homemade pies, oven-broiled lambs, pot roasts, mashed potatoes, green bean casseroles, and cartons of spiced eggnog were in every direction.

Like a burial.

Every sacrifice season, the Banebury locals rallied to bake funeral meals, send ripe fruits, and harvest baskets of fresh vegetables for the parents, the grandparents, and the victims. The locals’ gifts were mainly to discourage the student from running away, leveraging the guilt of wasting produce in times of scarcity for the working class. However, these gifts were also to help replenish what the parent might lose in their child’s labor, even if it was one less child to feed, it was one less income when the labor force turned elderly, too aged to care for themselves without a son or daughter to render assistance.

Each year, the victims’ parents were given months worth of the wake meals, they were the first to receive the feast. Further, they were honored at the year’s end ceremony for their sacrifice, encouraged by the provost to make more children to replenish their loss, if they still could.