Page 1 of Sweet Silver Bells
1
CHAPTER ONE.
If there were ever a song of love, a ballad of heartbreak and beauty and strife, it would be the sound of Olivia’s voice through the trees. Her song lingered in the forest, the trees absorbing her melodic cries of loneliness and longing. When the magic of the holiday stars glimmer overhead, when the trees sway mightily to music that no one else can hear, Olivia finds herself on the edge of the darkness, looking for retribution, looking for love, looking for a ghost who can find eternity before they disappear together again into the bark.
Outside of Stockbridge, MA | 1914
“Olivia, stop!”
But she did not stop.
Instead, she listened to the sounds of her boots crunching in the snow, cursing the heels that made her move so slowly. He was going to catch her, and she couldn’t let him. His life wasdependent on it, dependent on her moving, always as far away from them all as possible.
The phantom holy music was there.
It was always there, trying to soothe her, trying to seduce her into the trees.
Today, it would win.
She continued to pump her legs, focusing on not falling over the hem of her gown. The cold stung her lungs as she panted, her heavy breaths blowing warm air—a cloud that followed her, struggling to keep up. She didn’t have time to think, to feel—the feeling of knives piercing down her throat while she coughed and gasped.
“These rotten skirts,” she cursed under her depleted breath while she worked to peel off her burgundy-stained leather gloves. Her exposed fingers curled as flakes of snow drifted down from the leaves of the dark, ancient trees towering above her.
“Olivia!” a voice shouted behind her.
He was close. She’d hoped he would have given up by now. That he–that they all–would let her disappear.
Don’t stop.
Placing her hands on a fallen trunk, she propelled her body over, instantly regretting the gloves abandoned in the snow. They were quickly swept up, though–her father was closing in.
Olivia’s skirts ripped, caught on the trunk, the emerald green fabrics embroidered with dark cherry reds trampled. It made it easier to run now; with only two layers of cloth covering her legs she would trip over rocks and brush less often.
She moved as if she were flying, her hands moving to the back of her corset, untying the knot that kept her breaths so short, so painful. The fabric gave way, the bones instantly loosening. Olivia took a deep breath. She could do this. She could get away.
You can’t stop moving. You will hurt everyone if you go back.
Tears streamed down her face, her pin-straight, dark-brown hair falling out of the elegant plaits that her mother had spent so long working on. The festive bow had fallen out a long time ago.
“Just stay away,” she yelled over her shoulder. “I can’t control it. I have to leave.”
“Olivia, please.” Her father’s voice was further away. She was losing him.
You can save him.
Her stomach cramped, her thighs burned, but Olivia did not give in. She was the only one who could protect her family from herself.
A witch.
They had pretended not to know—her mother and father—so politely ignoring the growths, the vitality that responded to her voice, her songs. But time had changed things, and civility was no longer enough. Not now that she had come of age. Not now that it was her first Yule Ball, where she was to meet suitors.
And yet, her stomach still leapt at someone's touch, someone's lingering gaze. A small hope of an everyday life—a small wish for love to find her—fleeting, before it was crushed. Before she revealed herself to everyone who knew her family.
She had almost killed him in front of them all—that boy with wild blue eyes who made her stomach tighten. The boy in the white silk shirt with puffed sleeves, his blond hair slicked back with a single loose curl softening the dimples in his cheeks when he bowed and held out his hand.
Her first dance.
She had moved acceptably, though not exceptionally, eyes downcast, lips tilted in a slight smile, bending into a modest curtsy. Olivia was modest, quiet, and, above all, impeccably dressed. She hardly looked like herself.
