AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We look very much alike,” Eli said. “Though he kept his hair.” He gave a wry smile.
“When Haley died...” I started.
“She was very young,” he said. “Barely seven. I thought I had more time. But my father was done being Master of Harrow and wanted Leopold to take over. The ritual binds the Other to Harrow and Harrow to its master. So Leopold took Haley to the center of the spiral and killed her.” His voice was flat, a recitation of facts, but I could tell it was only because if he let himself feel, he wouldn’t make it through the story.
“Leopold always hated mess,” I said. I was repeating his words, remembering as they formed on my lips. He’d told me all of this before, two years ago. Why hadn’t I remembered? “He hated you for loving Haley. So he left the task of dissecting the body to you. He said it was because you were a doctor—you had the necessary knowledge of anatomy.”
“A butcher would be just as capable,” he said. “I didn’t do as I was told. I wrapped her in a quilt, and I buried her at the foot of the standing stone.” He looked away from us, the shame too much at last, and his voice faltered. But I knew the rest—the way the dark soul had grown stronger and more aware until it was able to make itself into a person.
I’d escaped, and forgotten, and lived a life away from Harrow. But because I was gone, no one else was safe. The dark soul was feral without me. Leopold had tried twice to get it under control—first with Celia, which Eli had thwarted, and then with Jessamine.
Bryony’s expression was cold and unfriendly, and she stuckclose to my side. Eli would find no forgiveness from her—but I didn’t think forgiveness was what he was after.
“Leopold knew that you were gone, but he also knew he’d be blamed,” Eli continued. “He never told anyone. He didn’t even tell me—I believed you were as real as everyone else did.”
“The dark soul grew more and more dangerous. Leopold became desperate,” I told Bryony. “Jessamine hadn’t been born yet. Celia was the only suitable sacrifice, and Roman was happy to offer her up if it meant he got to be Master of Harrow.”
“But he wasn’t a Vaughan,” Bryony said.
Eli shrugged. “He took the name. Or reclaimed it, rather. He was a distant cousin.”
“Of course he was,” Bryony muttered.
“In any case, Roman was furious when I told Victoria that she had to get Celia away. Then Jessamine was born.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “A little more time. I was always convinced I needed just a little more time to figure it out. They waited until I was gone to do it.”
“Right after that, I got sick, didn’t I?” I said. “I don’t remember it, but Mom says you came to see me.” That’s when he’d told me this story. I could remember the feeling of the quilt under my hands, Eli sitting in a chair beside my bed.
“I found out about your illness shortly after I learned of the ritual,” Eli said. “I suspected that it wasn’t a coincidence, but it wasn’t until I came to visit that I was certain it was the ritual that had weakened you. You hadn’t only been weakened—you had woken up. Temporarily, at least. You knew what you were. And I realized the true consequences of what I had done.”
“You were the one that wrote that letter, weren’t you?” I asked. “You told Caleb it was your fault that Jessamine died because you didn’t do what you were supposed to.”
Eli nodded. “And I was the one that altered Leopold’s will and named you to the trust. And I was the one that slipped foxglove into his tea. But it wasn’t my idea.”
“So all of this was Iris and Caleb’s plan?” Bryony asked, stepping forward.
“No,” I said. He’d told me all of this when I was sick. We’d talked for a long time. And then I’d made myself forget. But the memory of it all hit me now. “It was mine. I set all of this in motion.” Every horrible thing that had happened here—it was my fault.
Bryony stared. “How is that possible?” she asked.
“I made myself forget,” I said, voice distant. “I manipulated my memory like I manipulated everyone else’s. The same way I forced my mother to love me. That’s why people always hated me. They could feel me scrabbling at their minds, trying to change them. They knew I was a monster.”
“You’re wrong,” Eli said.
“About what?” I demanded.
“Helen, you can alter perception and memory, but your hold is temporary, and it isn’t nearly as complete as you think. If you had forced your mother to adore you, it would have been as fleeting as it was with everyone else. The day you created yourself, you altered her memories. But you didn’t make her love you. She just did.”
“It wasn’t real,” I said.
He made a frustrated sound. “She didn’t choose you, Helen.That’s true. But she was hardly the first mother to have a child she didn’t choose nor to discover an unexpected love the first time she looked into her daughter’s eyes.”
I looked away. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t be sure. And neither could I—I could never be sure what had been genuine and what had been my own manipulations.
Eli rose from his chair. He took my hands in his, holding them gently. “What has been done to you is monstrous. What the dark soul has done, it has done out of blind pain. We did that. We took a beautiful thing, and we cut into it until all it knew was suffering. You have to believe that you deserve to be saved, Helen. Because you are the only one who can do it.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t speak around the lump in my throat.
“I have to get back,” Eli said. “If I leave now, they might not discover that I came to see you. I’ll help you if I can. And Helen—forgive Celia. She was afraid. She thought she was doing the right thing and that Caleb would do the same.” To my surprise, he stepped forward and kissed my brow once, softly. “You’re not Haley,” he said. “But I like to think she’s part of you. Goodbye, Helen. I hope we’ll meet again.”
