Page 40 of Curse of Immortality
Maeve stared down at the man and though she knew better than to trust the word of a human, he seemed sincere. In the end, Maeve decided it was better to know with certainty than to kill him right now out of anger.
“Prove it.” She pressed the knife deeper into his skin until it cut through the flesh and made a small dot of blood form around the blade. “And if you’re lying, I’ll kill your wife and children in front of your eyes before I kill you.”
As soon as Maeve removed the knife, he hurried out of bed giving his wife a terrified glance.
“Before we go.” Maeve raised her blade and pointed toward the scared woman in the corner. “I need clothes.”
When the woman received a “do as she says” look from her husband she hurried to her dresser where she pulled out the first dress her shaking hands touched. It was a small gown of cheap fabric, something one might wear to bed or under a dress, but it would do the job of covering Maeve’s naked body.
When Maeve left with her husband the woman knelt by the bed and tried to pray, but that soon turned into more crying.
No words were exchanged as they walked through the sleeping village that would soon be waking. The executioner couldn’t make sense of how this strange woman had come back from the dead. And as they walked, he was deep in his thoughts. He did not know about Maeve’s powers, and being twice her size, he felt confident that he could easily win a battle between them. But though he worked as an executioner, he saw himself as a pacifist – as ironic as that might be. In his mind he brought justice and served the God he prayed to every day. Killing Maeve in the forest had not been a noble act, however, and in his heart and mind, he knew that Maeve’s survival was an act of God. Thoughts spiraled through his head; would God see that he had tried to bring peace to a suffering soul and brought home money to help his family, or would he be eternally punished in the depths of hell for killing out from under the name of God and the law?
“We’re here,” he whispered when they’d reached the place where less than twelve hours ago he had chopped off Maeve’s head.
“Dig,” Maeve instructed.
Not having a shovel, the man got down to his knees and began to dig with his bare hands. By the time he’d gotten deep into the grave, the sun was starting to rise making it easier to see down the dark hole.
When the executioner gasped and flew back, Maeve showed no mercy. “Keep digging,” she said.
His whole body was shaking as he kept removing dirt from the ground until it was clear as day that a headless body lay beneath his hands. Maeve looked down at the body, which she recognized instantly as her own. Her gaze was intense, and her throat was tight.
The executioner had told the truth; he had buried her head and body in separate graves. Yet here she was, alive and looking down at heroldbody lying headless in a grave.
Maeve raised her hands and stared down at them. They looked as they always had, only these were not the same hands she had stared down at yesterday. The answer was clear and felt ruinous. There was no way for Maeve to die because even if her head was ripped apart from her body, she would survive.
Although it was difficult to admit – she knew her head had grown anewbody.
“I told you.” The executioner hurried to his feet and away from the dirty headless corpse. “I did as you said.”
Maeve couldn’t handle the knowledge that she was forced to live forever. She felt mad about Zosia trapping her in her body for eternity. Why hadn’t she stopped to question what that meant before taking that stupid crystal?
In a haze of despair, she felt the need to destroy and tear down everything around her. Unfortunately for the executioner, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Maeve didn’t speak or touch him as she used her powers to let the soil swallow him into the ground next to her headless corpse. The large man screamed and clawed at the ground to keep from going under, but when it didn’t help, he prayed for mercy.
“Please, I have a wife and children. They need me.”
Squatting down in front of him, Maeve looked into his eyes. “Remember Ellen? She never got to have children before you hanged her from a tree.”
“I don’t know anyone called Ellen,” he cried with his head now the only part of his body above ground.
“No, I suppose you’ve killed too many innocent women for witchery to remember all their names.” Tilting her head, Maeve asked, “Do they haunt you? I mean, do you suffer from nightmares or feel disgusted by yourself when you think of their frightened faces begging you for mercy?”
The executioner’s nostrils flared as he tried to breathe. His head was turned upward and as dirt got close to his eyes, he closed them.
“I wish I could die and never feel pain again. But it is a gift taken from me and yet mine to bestow upon others.”
“Please.” It was the last word he said before his face disappeared into the ground.
Standing up, Maeve looked around. It was dawn now and the morning dew covered the layer of moss around her. She didn’t bother disguising where he was buried. It seemed merciful to his family to make it easy for them to find his dead body. She was right of course. Before sunset that day, he was found and later buried by the church, where his wife and children often visited him.
For Maeve, however, there was no peaceful ending. That evening she sat by a lake watching the last rays of the sun caressing the surface of the water.
Misery is a demanding companion that will only stay suppressed for so long. Eventually, the agony of your soul rises to find a way out. Holding back the feelings is futile because trapped inside you, the emotions will gnaw at your intestines like pesky rodents with the voices of those that hurt you in the past. Maeve’s rodents taunted her with the immense betrayal she had experienced from all the people she had loved in her life. And then there was the incomprehensible pain she had caused others. She tried telling her haunting inner voices that her intentions had been good, but they mocked her for getting so utterly lost altogether. With her heart shattered into a million pieces, and her mind drowning in misery and pain, she desperately longed for peace. She wanted to escape the excruciating pain in her stomach and the cruel voices in her head, but with death out of her reach, the only option she had was to distract herself. Looking down at her dirty hands once again, she hated them for growing back. With a steady gaze, she took a deep breath before setting fire to her left hand and watching it burn. The pain was just as intense as it would be for anyone else, but to Maeve, it also brought a sense of relief because in that all-consuming pain there was a complete focus that liberated her from her broken heart and inner demons. Her eyes were wet with tears and her lips quivered as the flames on her hand warmed her face.
As if the fire could somehow cleanse her soul of the pain she had caused, Maeve rose to her feet and used her palm to set the rest of her body on fire. Her arms, chest, and neck were all covered in burn marks and flames as she walked out into the soothing water.
