Page 5 of Sweet Silver Bells
They will be better off without you.
They were better off without the whispers from high society and without the shame of having a daughter no suitor would touch. Olivia would be alone with the flowers, roots, and dirt.
You love the dirt.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
But first, she’d need to sever a few threads of the heart. It would hurt. God, it would hurt. Her parents would heal. They might even have another daughter. Her mother was still young enough.
This is what is best.
She dropped to her knees. Her hands hit the cold ground, pine needles and stones biting into her skin. Olivia turned.
Her father stood there, chest heaving, hands on his thighs as he caught his breath.
“Oh, good God. You’ve come to your senses,” he said, half-laughing.
“If you don’t go, I’ll have to make you,” she said. Her voice shook; even her soul didn’t believe her.
His head tilted. The slight smile faded, confusion taking its place.
“I wouldn’t just leave you out here, Olivia. You’d freeze.”
“Father, go,” she said.
A final plea. One last hope.
Please don’t make me do this.
“I will not. Not unless you come with me.” He stomped a foot into the snow. His chin lifted with that familiar, stubborn pride. He wouldn’t yield.
But she wasn’t being silly.
“You’ve left me no choice. Why can’t you just go?” Her voice broke. “Leave!”
She sucked in a breath. And then she sang.
I have to protect them, she thought.I have to protect them from myself.
“Hark ... how ... the ... bells,”she sang, slow and broken. The melody warped, no longer a hymn. No longer holy. It became a curse—a threat.
“Olivia,” her father whispered.
With each word, his face collapsed. His pride crumbled. Fear filled his eyes.
"I will not leave you."
She wasn’t supposed to sing. She had promised him when she was small. The memory was blurred, filled in by stories her parents had told her. But the promise had been real.
“No,” he whispered again. Tears welled in his eyes.
But the earth had already begun to respond.
Her boots trembled against the ground. The dirt shifted, thickened, and churned like quicksand. Branches, snow, and ice moved with it.
“Go,” she yelled. Her voice didn’t waver this time. “Go!”
The land between them pulsed, crawling toward him.
