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I did see him again. Once.
I’d found him hanging limp from a cross a few days later, beaten, broken and destroyed. He was dead, his head bent forward and lifeless. Gone from me for ever.
Or so I thought.
But Edwin had saved him.
“I hid in the tombs under the chapel for a long, long time,” Hans told me. “Edwin told me I should run, but I wouldn’t leave Garway. Instead, he showed me the path to the vault under the chapel and told me to stay away from the world until the torture had passed. So that’s what I did. I stayed hidden in the vault, venturing out in the still of the night and spending the days in silent prayer. Edwin was the only person I spoke to for decades.”
I struggled to comprehend Hans being there so close to me, hiding under the chapel.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still alive?” I sobbed. “You could have told me you were a vampire, and I’d have been there. Hans, I’d have been there!”
“I know.” He rocked me in his arms at the breakfast counter. “But I didn’t want to take your life from you, to pull you into the pit of my own. I didn’t want to drag you away from your family and your heritage to live in darkness with a vampire, condemned by the Church.”
I couldn’t hold the pain back. My voice was wracked with hurt.
“I WOULDN’T HAVE CARED, HANS! I’D HAVE BEEN WITH YOU!”
“I know, sweetheart, and believe me, if I could’ve known what was coming for you, I’d have pulled you into the Garway vault alongside me and protected you from the torture.” He paused. “But then you wouldn’t have had Lillian…”
Lillian.
The memories kept on flowing, as real as life.
I was Mary in my visions, kneeling at the altar at Garway, crying for the man I’d lost. How could I have ever known he’d been underneath me, living out his undead existence while I carried on, oblivious?
It made me tremble as I realised he must have been under there while I married Mark a few years later – my beautiful Lillian’s father. Hans must have been under there as I had Lillian christened, looking at my baby and her bright blue eyes.
Then more…
He must have been lying in a coffin under the floor during the funeral procession, when Mark passed away from sickness. Lillian was just eight years old when she lost her father. And just a few months older when she lost me.
A fresh rush of whispers coursed through my mind…
Mary the witch, from a line of witches. Evil sinners of witchcraft. In league with the devil.
She killed him! She killed her husband with her evil magic!
What?!
No!
NO!
“Yes,” Hans whispered. “It’s painful, little one, but you have to let the past come back.”
I wanted to block out the memories, but they wouldn’t stop.
People had blamed my witchcraft for Mark’s death, convinced that such a strong local farmer, a man in his prime had been taken because of my deals with demons. But I hadn’t, of course. I loved Mark. I always loved Mark. I always would love Mark.
Just not as much as I’d loved Hans…
My world was shaking all around me. There had been so much pain for all of us. So much hurt left unhealed.
“I know,” Hans whispered. “Believe me, the hurt sent me into a turmoil of broken faith for lifetimes. I’m still amazed I ever came through it.”
My emotions were nothing but a jumbled mass of panic, pain and revelation as the spirit of Mary in me came to life in the present. I felt her rising in me, like a phoenix from the ashes, hurt but strong. Delicate but fierce.
