Page 23 of Enthralled

“There’s no use in fussing. It will either make all the difference or none at all. We must wait, and tomorrow, just before midnight, we will set out.”

“Set out for where?”

“Surely you must know of somewhere in this city where the line between Eledria and this world is blurred. Somewhere that feels a little more fae than it ought? You’ve dwelt in our world for some time by your mortal count of years. Your senses must have quickened.”

I bite my lip, my mind spinning. Then I suck in a breath, and my eyes flick to meet Ilusine’s. “I think I know the very place.”

And now, after a long, brutal, restless, and—let’s be honest—hungrynight, I face the enormity of the following day.

I sit on the bed in my old bedroom and let my gaze rove about the space, taking in all the familiar details. The clusters of knots in the wood paneling that Oscar and I called constellations, drawing lines in ink between them to complete each picture. The old, dilapidated wardrobe that once belonged to my grandmother, and would have been sold long ago were the mirror not smashed and the bottom drawer broken beyond repair. Even opening it to fetch a musty old gown from inside was taking my life into my hands; I half-expected the whole thing to fall on top of me.

This dress is another memory—far too small now, particularly around my swollen middle. But I remember when Mama bought it for me, the first cast-off I’d ever had to wear following Dad’s fall from grace. Mama had embroidered little flowers at the cuffs and collar, determined to make the sad, serviceable garment nicer for her fourteen-year-old daughter.

I run my finger along the bumps and knots rendered in faded silk. Mama tried so hard. She wanted life to be better for me and for Oscar. How desperate she must have felt at times—helpless to save the man she loved from himself or to save her children from him. It was easier to invent a fantasy. One in which she was the devoted wife, the rescuing heroine, the only one who truly understood him. The only one he truly loved. In this story she could break the curse . . . and break it again and again and again if necessary. Even if it meant sacrificing her own children on the altar of her chosen idol.

“You will suffer suchpain.Pain beyond imagining. One for each drop of blood.”

The aged voice whispers in my memory, accompanied by a sudden throb in my thumb, index, and middle finger. I grimace. Three days of pain in exchange for the help I needed had seemed a worthy bargain at the time. What is a little pain after all? But this . . . I’d not imagined this. It’s like my eyes have been ripped open and forced to stare directly into the sun. Radiation heat fills my head, boils my blood, hollows me out.

I once saw myself as the hero, self-sacrificing and strong, willing to do anything to protect those I love. I couldn’t see the truth: the selfishness, the small-mindedness. The fear. I’m just like Mama. I invented a fairy tale in which I could save Oscar. In which he needed me, and I could be enough. Then I sacrificed everything, including my children, my friends, my husband. I gave them up for the sake of a story. For the sake of a lie.

You’re not seeing rightly.

I shudder as those familiar phantom hands weigh down my shoulders. But for once, Emma cannot convince me. It would be a relief to sink back into the comfort my Noswraith offers, the obscurity and blindness. If I could, I would pluck out my own eyes and sew them up tight. Better that than to see the truth: I’ve failed them. And there’s no way to atone for it. I know that with the horrible, stomach-sinking certainty of the condemned.

But it doesn’t matter. I might not be able to earn redemption. But I can try to do the right thing. Then the next right thing after that. One after another. I will bargain with the crones. I will pay the price. I will return to Eledria, find my children. Find Castien. And whatever it takes to save them, that is what I will give.

But it won’t be enough.

A new voice whispers in my other ear. Not Emma’s soft croon. This voice is deeper, darker, and multiplied into a hundred fractured parts.

Worthless.

Pathetic.

Guilty.

Useless.

Just like your mother.

The accusations burn in my body, in my mind, corroding all places of safety to which I might crawl. They hurt because they’re true. They’re true, and I cannot hide from them anymore. I am what the Hollow Man names me. Lying back on the bed, I curl into a ball, wrap my arms around my middle. I can do nothing but hold on, hold on, hold on. Just a little longer.

Just until midnight.

Though it sometimes seemed to me that this day would never end, night draws in at last. When the distant chapel bells toll ten deep strokes, I emerge from my room and slip across the little passage to Oscar’s chamber. I’ve already donned an old dress. Now I claim one of Oscar’s ragged coats and a leather satchel. Then I turn to his desk. Though it feels wrong to invade my brother’s privacy, I go through his books and papers, searching for empty volumes I might use. I cannot journey back to Vespre unarmed. I need books, quills, ink, all the weapons of a mortal mage.

Most of his books are stuffed with manic writing. I open them, one after another, searching for blank pages, not bothering to read the tales of horror within. But one book—a little onion skin notebook—catches my eye. I don’t know what it is, for my brother’s scrawled hand is almost impossible to discern, but I find myself pouring over the page, my brow furrowing as meaning slowly emerges from the scribbled mess.

Once upon a time, there was a sister and her little brother, and he was very brave. As long as they could be together, they were both very brave, no matter what happened.

My heart stops. I know this story. It isn’t Oscar’s . . . it’s mine. The beginning of a fairy tale I used to tell him when we were small.

One day—it continues—their mother said to them, “You must venture into the Dark Forest, my children. For your father is sick, and it is up to you to find his cure. But you must be brave, strong, and always loyal to one another, or you cannot hope to survive the journey.”

From there I would vary the tale, inventing new and thrilling adventures for the brother and sister to face on their quest to save their father. It was a story without an end but the same opening and innumerable middles. I never bothered to write it down; that was not the purpose of such a tale.

But my brother’s version of the tale unfolds, made up of all the different bits and pieces of the tales I told. Some of it he invented himself. Those passages are dark and twisted, though a childlike sweetness prevails, and the story never plunges into true horror. I keep turning pages, one after the other until I reach the last paragraph.

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