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“Move forward where?” Her voice is shrill, and I realize this is the first time I’ve truly heard her raise her voice. There isn’t a shred of timidness laced within the words she speaks.
“I don’t know. But I do know we can’t stay here. We have to escape Papa Rich and Scarecrow, and we have to stop being held captive. It’s time we’re free.”
She faces the canyon again and nods, taking a step toward the edge. “Yes, I want to be free.”
“Violet!” I stop myself from lunging toward her, fearing that my action could push her over the edge. “Don’t do it. I know you think all will be better, but don’t. Please. Think of Holly. Think of anything but what’s at the bottom of that cliff.”
“Go inside, Ember,” she says.
“I’m not leaving you. I’ll never leave you. Trust me on that. Never.”
She lifts her head and looks up at the sky, taking a deep breath. She extends her arms and says, “I’ve never been free. I’ve never truly been happy. It’s time I stop the suffering. It’s time. I have to escape the darkness, Ember. I hope you understand. I have to escape.”
“Violet, I love you!” I shout, hoping I’m loud enough that Holly and Christopher will hear and come running. I need reinforcements. I need help. But I’m too scared to scream for help, because I feel it’s all it will take for Violet to jump before Holly can see her do it. “Don’t do this. This isn’t your way out. It’s not your way out!”
She looks over her shoulder and gives me a warm smile. “But it is.”
Without hesitation, she flings herself over the cliff, disappearing into the mountain fog.
17
Christopher
Never in my life have I heard such a blood-curdling scream before.
“Violet! No! Oh God, No!”
It’s Ember’s scream. Ember is screaming!
I bolt out the front door with Holly close behind. I know I’m running, but I can’t feel my feet, and I’m not sure how I actually reach Ember at the cliff’s edge. It’s as if I somehow teleported at a hyper-speed. My heart beat once inside the house and then not again until I reached Ember and knew she was all right.
If you call the out-of-control, screaming woman I love all right.
“She jumped! Violet jumped off the cliff!”
Ember’s lying on her stomach in the snow, her arms outstretched over the edge as if she can somehow pull Violet back to land.
I start to reach for Ember and take her into my arms, but then I see Holly charging toward us, her own horrific scream howling through the frigid air. I intercept her run, feeling as if she would also fling herself over the edge, following her sister to her death, if I don’t hold her tightly.
“I tried to stop her! I tried to stop her!” Ember is clawing at the icy earth, madness taking hold.
“No! No! Violet!” Holly is beating against me with her tiny fists as she tries to free herself. “No!”
The sound of pain shattering through the sky stabs at every nerve in my body.
I’m rooted in place. I want to fall to my knees and help the woman I love, but Holly needs me more right now. And Violet… oh, God, Violet… there is nothing I can do to help her, but I can’t help but feel if I lie on the ground and claw at the earth like Ember that I too can miraculously bring her back.
But there’s no bringing her back.
She’s gone.
Violet’s gone.
I’ll fight with Holly for hours if it means she won’t follow her sister, but suddenly her pummeling of fists stop, and she wiggles out of my arms and charges away from the cliff, back toward the house. I see an extremely large man dressed in flannel and furs sprinting out of the thick woods, and Holly is headed straight toward him.
“Violet!” she screams. “She jumped. Oh my God, she jumped!” Her words turn to howls as she crumbles to her knees right in front of the stranger who swoops her up and cradles her in his arms.
He continues toward me, and I’m not sure if I should welcome this stranger or feel guarded. He’s larger than me, thicker. He has a full beard, long hair, and is rugged, but he’s not exactly dirty. It’s clear from his appearance that he is not just a hiker or a camper. This is a man who has been living off the land. He has a deer hide around his shoulders, providing him warmth against the storm. Furs are underneath the leather, and flannel beneath that. He is layered and warm, prepared for the mountain as only a man who lives and breathes it can be.
“No… no… no…” Ember’s cries bring my focus back to her. I bend down and pull her off the snow-covered ground and into my arms.
