“Do what?” Marjorie asked. Her rage subsided a bit from getting her story out in the open. She couldn’t rail like that to Batty and she wouldn’t speak of it at Anne’s grave, lest her sister hear what a monster her betrothed had turned out to be.
“Ah, dear, didn’t I say I was a witch? Not exactly the devil you called for, but I have some skills.”
Marjorie gasped and crossed herself. “I didn’t, I wouldn’t,” she said, backing away, shivering now in only her underclothes. But she remembered she had called out for help. From any quarter. Could it be that this wasn’t a random stranger strolling through Sir Walter’s woods, but what she said she was? The help that Marjorie needed? “Can you really do it? Set me free from Sir Harold?”
“I think so. Still working out the details in my mind.”
Taking a deep breath, Marjorie blurted, “I want Anne back as well. It isn’t right she couldn’t find happiness. It isn’t right she died so young.” Oh, she didn’t dare to hope.
“So, you basically want a do-over?”
“I beg your pardon?” Marjorie asked, confused at the odd phrase.
“Sorry, dearie, from a different age. A long time from now. But your pain was so great, I heard it from all that distance and hurried to help you. Wasn’t that nice of me?”
“I suppose,” Marjorie said, crossing herself again. A niggling doubt gnawed at her.
“But what I meant to say was, you want to try again, make things better the second time around?”
Marjorie began to shake, truly frightened now. The woman was so serious, so assured of what she said. She should get away from this self-professed witch, but where could she go? She had nowhere else to turn. And if it was possible … “You can honestly bring Anne back?”
The woman rubbed her temples. “I can’t bring people back from the dead, no. But I could rewind … yes, that would work.” Marjorie realized the woman was mostly speaking to herself now. “How many chances do you want? Three? Three’s a good number. Wait, you said even if it takes hundreds of years, didn’t you? Oh, yes, this will keep me going for a long time.”
Marjorie’s heart beat with so much fear and hope that she felt dizzy. “Yes, I want as many chances as it takes,” she said, filled with a greed like she’d never experienced. “Anne gets to live and be happy. That’s certain, right?”
“It’s your curse, dear,” the woman said absently.
“But it can’t be a curse if it’s to make things better,” Marjorie mused, also more to herself than to the woman.
“Yes, sure, whatever you say.” The woman smiled at her, leaning close. Marjorie noticed something was off about her eyes. Unfocused, hazy. The woman crept ever nearer, holding out her withered hand until she placed her fingertip in the middle of Marjorie’s forehead. Marjorie squeezed her eyes shut, waiting. The woman let out a hot breath against Marjorie’s cheek and cackled again. “Now go to sleep, dear. I’ll work out the details on my own.”
All the air gusted out of her lungs and she jerked her eyes open, looking around wildly at the trees surrounding her. The woman was long gone. Jordan leaned against a tree nearby, his eyes half-closed.
“You’re back,” he said weakly.
She nodded, shaking off the dream she’d emerged from. No, it wasn’t a dream. “I remembered.”
Chapter 23
Jordan didn’t know how long he waited. After he ascertained Marjorie was alive, he was too weak to get her back to the castle. And he refused to leave her in case Lyra tried to take her over again. He dozed off for a while and when he awoke, he felt a bit better. But when he tried to stand and pick up Marjorie, he was overcome with dizziness and had to sit back down. Shortly after that, or it might have been hours to his abused brain, she gasped and sat straight up.
The moment she told him she remembered, she put her face in her hands and cried. He crawled to sit beside her. “Does your head still hurt?” he asked, drained almost to the point he no longer had any curiosity about her memories. Almost.
She shook her head, her voice muffled behind her hands. “It’s for what I’ve done. You were right, it was me. All my fault. Oh, God, I still remember more.” She stopped crying abruptly and looked at him, a fat tear rolling down her cheek. He wanted to wipe it but feared the slightest movement would have her shying away from him. Self-loathing and regret showed in her eyes. “Fay,” she said. “Sophie. You. And … and there were others. How many others? What happened to them?”
He wished he had the scroll to show her, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t know the damned curse by heart. “True love and faithfulness are but a lie,” he started dully. “Prove me wrong, you must now try. Fail, return the gown in which I was betrayed and in your grave you will for certain lay.” He cleared his throat. “That’s the actual curse.”
“It’s horrid,” she said. “It’s not even a good poem.”
He couldn’t help it, he laughed. It was quickly cut short by her devastated look. “Sorry,” he told her. “Just so tired.”
“Let me help you. We must get back. I’m certain you need stitches. Then I’ll …”
“Don’t get all self-sacrificing,” he said. Neither of them made a move.
“What else can I be after what I did?” she demanded.
“Tell me what you remembered.”
This started a new torrent of tears. “Anne’s going to die, isn’t she? I lost her already, but it’s going to happen again, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “You never had my fancy medicine before,” he said reassuringly. “If she’s got something that can be treated by it, it’ll fix her right up.”
She moved closer to him and, to his great relief, took his hand. Perhaps she wasn’t lost to him, after all. “It started when Anne died.” She went back to her restored memories, pausing to sniffle occasionally and wipe her tears. “She’d fallen in love with this brash knight at a tournament. Well, it was Sir Harold. Of course, you know him. He came to Grancourt a year later, having increased his riches enough to feel he could ask Fath—” she stopped abruptly, beginning to shake. “You will never believe this, Jordan, but I’m Sir Walter’s daughter. I rashly—I was so angry—I wished I wasn’t a part of the family.” She had to pause to catch her breath. “Everything was wrong, I know that now. I still wouldn’t have wanted to marry him but now I know he wasn’t false. I might not have felt so betrayed, if only I had known.”
“Known what?” he asked as patiently as he could. The story was disjointed and full of tearful pauses but, so far, he thought he could piece it together well enough.
“The conversation I overheard between Sir Harold and Anne. Then I fell ill and woke up after attacking you. But she fears she’s dying. The poor dear must be even sicker than she’s letting on. She made Sir Harold promise to marry Sophie if she dies. She can’t stand the thought of her being alone now that Fay’s going to be moving away.”
“Sophie?” he asked. “I don’t get it. Why Sophie?”
“I didn’t understand at first either. I’m sorry, let me explain more. She worried about Sophie because she doesn’t think Sir Wal—Father will allow a union between her and Sir Leo. And as far as Anne knows, Sophie is her only unmarried sister left. She wanted to make sure she was cared for in the case of her death.”
“Sorry, still in the dark.”
She looked around at the actual darkness that surrounded them and he wanted to hug her. “The thing that made me so unhappy, feel so betrayed, was that only two days after Anne died, Sir Harold proposed to me. I was positive he would be turned away and sent from the castle in disgrace, but Father agreed. And he refused to wait. He must have been so grief-stricken by Anne’s death that when Sir Harold told him of Anne’s last request, which I now feel quite certain she made about me at the time, that he agreed.” She took a gasping breath, the words tumbled out so fast now. She shook her head, shoulders slumping. “I remember now that Mother died of much the same illness as Anne. Poor Father. It must have all come crashing back to him. He
loved our mother so. Which was another reason I felt so forsaken. He valued unions of love and I thought he’d never force a marriage on either of us.” She squeezed his hand hard. “What have I done, Jordan?”
“I think you made some wishes that got granted,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know if you have fairy tales yet, but one thing is for certain, they never get granted properly. The wisher always, always gets screwed. Fairy tale basics right there.”
He thought of the story of King Midas, who’d wanted everything he touched to turn to gold and had almost starved to death, then killed his only daughter when he tried to comfort her. That story had plagued him when he was little and he’d never made a wish again, not even on his birthday. He was certain if he wished for something as simple as a remote control airplane, it would fall out of the sky and blind him. Once he’d heard Sophie wishing for world peace at a fountain and he’d grabbed her coin away. Who knew how badly screwed up such an overachieving wish as world peace could get. He was so lost in his childhood fears that he didn’t notice Marjorie staring at him.
“I think the witch was from another time,” she said, studying him like he was a rare specimen that had washed up on the riverbank. A mix of curiosity and disgust. “And perhaps Fay. And Sophie.”
“I think you’re probably right about the witch,” he agreed, ignoring the silent question she’d left hanging in the air. If she looked that horrified about Fay and Sophie, he didn’t want to risk losing her. But her whole curse had been based on wanting truth. He held his breath, which did nothing for his head injury and blew it out. Ready or not. “I met Lyra—our witch—in my own time. The same time as Fay and Sophie came from, actually. Get ready to not believe something yourself, but Sophie’s my sister. I found out about the curse and came here to try and save her. But the witch lied to me, same as she messed with your curse. She said I could get back.” He moved so he could face her and took her other hand in his. “But here’s the thing. I don’t want to go back now. I love you, Marjorie.”
“How? After what I did?”
“You didn’t want to marry some guy who you thought betrayed your sister. You wanted her to be happy and you wanted yourself to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that. Lyra took advantage of you because she’s evil. She twisted your wish, that’s all.”
“It’s not.” She pulled her hands away and refused to meet his eyes. “I tried to kill you. This is obviously not the first time I did something like that, is it?”
“Woman, will you get it through your head that you didn’t try to kill me? Or anybody else? You were possessed and had no control, but you ended up fighting her and winning.”
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I think I heard you call me.”
“That’s right. You broke free. None of it is your fault.”
“You’re wrong. I knew she was a witch. She told me and, though I barely believed her, I should never have accepted her help.” She laughed bitterly. “Help. How many lives have been ruined? Will I be constantly tormented by them all?”
He couldn’t answer that right away. He knew what it was like to be responsible for another’s death and whatever the reason or whatever the cause, he didn’t like it. It would definitely weigh on him forever.
“I forgive you,” he said slowly. “I think Sophie and Fay will forgive you. And the others … I don’t know.” He hoped she would never fully remember or she’d never be able to live with herself. And he knew he didn’t want to live without her.
“I didn’t mean for it to be this way,” she said, tears flowing anew. “I only wanted Anne back. I was so angry and so sad. And now I’m so sorry.”
He sat beside her in silence for a while, until she gasped and jumped up. “Your wounds! My selfishness knows no bounds. Let me help you back to the castle.”
He laughed ruefully at her. He hoped he could help her heal, hoped she would let him. “Not yet,” he said, ignoring her tugging at his arm. He looked up at her. “I feel like I’ve told you I love you eight or nine times now. Won’t you please answer me back?”
The look in her eyes answered him before her words, yet he didn’t look away. He still had some tiny shred of hope. “I don’t …” she started, turning to stare through the trees. His heart sank. A bit of orange light filled the distance. They’d been out there all night. “I don’t deserve your love,” she finished. “Please, don’t speak of it again.”
He let her help him to his feet and half-drag him back to the castle. He’d speak of it again. And again. Just not now. But he wasn’t giving up. He’d have preferred she throw herself into his arms and kiss him, but he could wait. He had a feeling they’d have plenty of time now.
Chapter 24
“Marjorie, wake up.”
She dragged her weary lids open and immediately shut them again. She’d never been so tired. She waved off Batty’s continued badgering. She never slept late. Surely a few moments more wouldn’t hurt anyone. But Batty wasn’t having it and she tugged at the blankets until Marjorie felt a breeze on her back. Batty must have been flapping the blanket to annoy her into waking up.
She rolled over, expecting to press herself into the wall her tiny bed was butted up against. Instead she flapped her arms and legs across a large, luxurious mattress. Cracking open one eye, she saw the candlestick on the bedside table, the clothes cabinet and the door to the garderobe. Why was she in Sophie’s bed? How odd.
She pulled herself upright, wondering if she’d walked in her sleep, fallen into this bed, and Sophie had been kind enough not to shove her out of it again. Well, there was nothing for it now. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be admonished later. She stretched, feeling like she’d been sleeping an age and still wasn’t fully rested. Was she coming down with whatever had been ailing Anne? She stopped with her arms over her head, her mouth open in a huge yawn. The last she recalled, Anne had been very ill. Speaking of her imminent death to Sir Harold. Fear gripped her and she glanced around wildly. How long exactly had she been asleep?
“Is Anne all right?” she asked, jumping up and hurrying toward the door that adjoined Sophie’s room to her own.
“I don’t know if she’s going to be all right with you being such a layabout. Come on, let’s get you ready. We have much to do today,”
“What?” she asked stupidly.
Batty’s laugh tinkled from the wardrobe. She pulled out a fine gown and held it up for approval. Why was she in Sophie’s bed and why was Batty helping her get dressed as if she were a lady of the manor? “Anne’s wedding, of course. Did you fall asleep reading again and forget everything about real life?”
Everything came crashing back. She remembered everything. And burst into inconsolable tears. If Anne was marrying Sir Harold, did that mean the curse was broken?
“Goodness gracious,” Batty said, hurrying to her side and hugging her. “I know Kings Way Keep is terribly far and I’m going to miss Anne desperately, too. But think of how happy she is. To be reunited with her one and only love after giving up all hope. It’s truly a miracle, don’t you think?”
Marjorie continued to wail. Batty had it all wrong, but how could she ever know what she was truly crying for? If the curse was broken, all the long, lonely, repeated years were as naught. If everything was back to the way it should be, that meant Jordan was gone. She’d lost him forever and no one would know he’d existed. She couldn’t even share her pain with Batty.
“And Sophie and Fay,” she sobbed. In her distressed state she barely noticed she said the words aloud. “I’ll miss them, too.”
“Now, you’re being a goose,” Batty said, still hugging her tight. “Fay is only a few hours’ ride away. And Sophie hasn’t left yet. You know she put off her wedding until after Anne’s. And she’ll only be on the other side of the forest. I think you’re being a bit dramatic.”
Her head jerked up. Sophie and Fay still existed? She hadn’t doomed them to instant death? They were still … her sisters, she realized with a gasp. Could she poss
ibly dare to hope, then?
“What—what about Lord Jordan?” she stammered, barely above a whisper.
Batty pulled away and shook her head. “Whatever frightening book you were reading last night, I think you should throw it in the fire. This is why Edgar tells us we should only read scripture. Anything else upsets our humors.”
“What about Lord Jordan?” she demanded, louder. “Where is he?”
“You needn’t shout,” Batty said, looking hurt. “I suppose he’s eating his breakfast and waiting for his layabout, soon-to-be betrothed lady love to get herself dressed and meet him.”
“What?” she asked, her jaw dropping to her chest.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it when I tease about that. But anyone can see how absolutely besotted he is with you. He’s certain to ask for your hand any day now.”
Marjorie threw her arms around Batty and kissed her on both cheeks. “Then help me, I must hurry down.”
*
Jordan sat on a bench, watching the early morning training session. He ran his hands through his hair, feeling nothing but his tangled mop. He’d gone to sleep with Edgar grousing at him to be still while he stitched and awakened without even a tiny lump. No headache, no blurred vision. His shoulder was fine, too. Something had happened. He didn’t dare to hope, didn’t dare to think, in fact. He only watched the squires hitting each other with wooden swords. The only thing he allowed himself to feel was gratitude that he was still there. He still had a chance to convince Marjorie she deserved love. Specifically, his.
Sophie stormed toward him, clearly in a snit about something. She plopped herself onto the bench beside him, made sure no one was within listening range and hissed, “I’ve been looking for you since dawn. What did you do?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said calmly, giving his sister an irritated look. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re so fired up?”
Evermore (Knight Everlasting Book 3) Page 20