Page 96 of Forbidden Dark Vows

Peering more closely, I realize that it’s a postmortem report. My mom’s name is printed at the top of the sheet. I stare at her name, the individual letters dancing about in front of my eyes and making it hard to concentrate. I didn’t know there had been a postmortem. She was sick—there was no need to determine cause of death. But here it is, so why did no one tell me about it?

I skip through the details of the coroner who carried out the postmortem, the measurements and weights, and get straight to the point of the report: why my mom died.

The wordarsenicjumps out at me. Once I’ve seen it, everything else fades into insignificance; even the room has disappeared like I’m floating above the earth, anchored only by the document in my hand.

My mom was poisoned.

My mom ingested arsenic. It was the poison that killed her, according to the report, or rather heart complications and kidney failure arising from the poison.

“What does this even mean?” I mutter to myself.

It’s going round and around inside my head: my mom was poisoned. Ruby was poisoned. My mom and Ruby. The two women I love most in the world apart from my sister Melanie. What are the chances of that…?

“Yeah, I thought it was a coincidence too.”

I’m so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t even hear my dad moving around inside the house. He looks rough. Disheveled. Tired. There’s gray in his hair that I never noticed before, and the heavy pouches under his eyes swallow half his cheeks.

“You’re here.”

“Ha! Thought I’d run away, did you?”

“Celia…”

My brain is still five minutes behind real life, trying to wrap itself around the report in my hand. The house seemed so empty, abandoned, but looking at him now, I understand why. He isn’t living here in the true sense of the word, he’s existing. A man in limbo.

His eyes are bloodshot as he holds the name on his tongue and releases it again, his gaze drifting back to the document. “Needed to check it for myself.”

“H-how long have you had this?” Dumb question. He must’ve requested it after Mom died.

“Wanted to be sure.” He’s holding his own conversation, not following mine.

“About what?” The word is still yelling at me.

Arsenic… Arsenic…ARSENIC!

Then it dawns on me like a river bursting its banks in a torrential downpour. He wanted to be with Celia. He doesn’t want me to marry Ruby. He killed my mom so that he could be free.

“You did this?” My voice barely stumbles off my tongue. “You poisoned Mom?”

He blinks at me, the words penetrating his bubble of self-pity. “What? No. What kind of animal do you fucking take me for?”

The worst kind.

Themurderingkind.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve crossed the room and shoved him in the chest so hard that he staggers backwards through the door. I’m already on him. I grab his jacket, drag him towards me, our noses almost touching, his stale breath making me feel nauseous.

“You fucking poisoned Mom, and then you tried to kill Ruby.”

“No.” His eyes flash a warning at me, but I’m too far gone to read it, too consumed by the overwhelming need to hurt him the way he hurt Ruby. “Harry?—”

I throw him across the landing with a strength I never knew I possessed. He crashes into the balustrade at the top of the stairs, the wooden posts cracking with the force. He grabs hold of the banister, stops himself from hurtling backwards down the stairs, and crawls over the wooden splinters towards me.

One hand outstretched, he says, panting, “Hear me out, Harry.”

My chest is heaving with rage. I barely even register how pathetic he looks on his hands and knees.

“I’m listening.”

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