by Lenore, Lani
Isabella’s eyes shot open wide. “How dare you!” she screamed.
“That’s not the only thing I know,” said Cindy, gritting her teeth. “You killed my father as well – and sucked him dry!”
“How did you find out about that?” asked Charlotte bursting up from her chair. She grabbed Cindy by her collar and shook her violently. “How?”
“Back up, Charlotte,” Isabella said, pulling her away. “Stay away from the witch.”
Charlotte made her way back to her chair on weak legs. She planted herself and didn’t move, a tear trickling slowly from her eye.
“It wasn’t my fault…” she whispered to herself.
Isabella shot her eyes back to Cindy, still clutching the knife. “Of course we killed him, you dead girl!” she screamed. “He was obsessed with the dead and we did him the favor of sending him to them!”
In a roar of uncontrolled anger, Cindy lurched forward at Isabella. Charlotte let out a scream in surprise at the sudden action and shielded her face. She didn’t want to see what would happen. She had seen too much already. Without hesitation, Isabella raised the knife and forced it towards the girl in her defense.
A thin line of pain was drawn across her cheek and Cindy stumbled backwards, withholding her screams. She touched her face lightly, covering her fingers with thick, red blood. The skin of her right cheek had been slashed with the knife, but Cindy did her best to hold it in as her hands began to shake. As she winced, some familiar words came to her.
Your face will be scarred.
You will be condemned to work in your sister’s household as she claims the Charming name. Your face will be scarred once, and then once more by your jealous sister to hide your identity from her husband. As the years go, he will forget about you until he accepts his unhappiness –
and murders himself.
No! This could not be! Amanda had said that if she went to the party and made an impact with Christian that the first bit of her prophecy would not happen!
And yet it is happening.
Turning away and running blindly, Cindy burst from the kitchen with the blood rushing from her wound.
6
“That’s a lesson learned,” Isabella mused, happy with her work and setting the knife down on the edge of the table. “Come on, Charlotte.”
Isabella grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her from the chair. The girl’s tears fell steadily.
“I didn’t want to do this!” Charlotte cried, as if Isabella was the one she needed to convince. “I thought it was the only way! That was what she told us, Isabella!”
“Pull yourself together!” Isabella insisted. “We can’t have people seeing you like this!”
“How did she find out about all that?” Charlotte sobbed, still in a stupor. “I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t my fault!”
Isabella threw a firm slap across her sister’s face.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me!” she screamed. “Just wipe your face and come on! We have work to do!”
Chapter Ten
1
Cindy crept through the darkness in the chill of the night. She had left the house after her sisters had gone to attend the party for Christian’s bride-to-be. She might have been disturbed by this if she’d stopped to think on it, but Cindy had one thought on her mind, and that was sneaking down to the jail where they were holding Amanda, and perhaps finding some way that she could speak to the woman.
If not, maybe she could at least find out the woman’s fate.
There was no real question in Cindy’s mind about what would eventually happen to her. Convicted witches did not survive long in this town or any other. Furthermore, it was not hard to say that everyone accused of witchcraft would eventually be convicted. They were usually forced to confess through threats and torture. That determined how long they were to live on before their execution, but the courts rarely liked to hesitate.
Cindy pushed herself up on her tiptoes when she reached the stone building of cells. Peering in the side window, she could see four men. They appeared to be talking heatedly, but she could not hear their words. There was no doubt they were speaking of what should be done with the witch. Seeing this as an opportunity to speak with Amanda, Cindy slipped around back to a row of small, barred windows near the top of the short building.
Looking around, she saw an empty wooden crate against the wall. Using it as an aid, she dragged it to the first window to peer inside. Empty. She stepped down off the crate and again dragged the box on towards the next.
She stepped up and looked into the dark room there. Her ears detected a low humming sound. Music? Someone had the nerve to sing here, or perhaps someone had simply gone mad. The sweet melody tickled her senses and sent a chill up her spine.
“Amanda?” the girl asked quietly.
The humming stopped abruptly and made way for the thick silence thereafter, only chided by the crickets. After a moment, a silky feminine voice returned to Cindy’s ears.
“You should not be here,” it said.
Cindy looked through the darkness for a face, but could find none, even after moments of searching.
“I wanted to see if you were alright,” she said.
“Tomorrow is my day,” Amanda said distantly. “I have confessed. I will be hanged tomorrow.”
The girl’s eyes shot open in disbelief. Cindy had seen Amanda do impossible things – knew there was power in her. It escaped her to think that there could be an end.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “You have to get out of here!”
“You must not worry about me. It is you who you must be concerned with.”
“But you'll die!”
The darkness laughed. “I do not fear death,” Amanda assured the girl. “I must fulfill my promise to you. You must use what I taught you. Though I said I would help you, even I must play my part in the prophecy – and I am convinced this is it.”
Cindy shook her head and closed her eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek. She had only known Amanda for a short time, but she could hardly bear to lose someone else that she had put her hope and trust in.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Amanda approached the window and peered up at Cindy with a bruised face. The woman looked exhausted and old in the faint moonlight. She leaned her tired body against the wall near the window, reaching up to place a hand on Cindy’s. Her fingers were broken.
“You must not cry for me,” she said. “Everything must take its course. This is my purpose here. It is my destiny to be part of the prophecy. I will die a public death, just as it was foretold.”
Cindy shook her head. “But it is only my sisters’ fault that you are here! It is not destiny!”
“Everything has its own course of action,” said Amanda. “Like your mother.”
“My mother?” Cindy asked, stunned. “What about my mother?”
Amanda took a deep, shaky breath. “Your mother knew. She knew that they were killing her.”
“What?” Cindy asked in shock, clutching the top of the stone window tightly. How could this have been possible? Her father had never even known Anna and her daughters until after her mother’s death!
“It’s true,” Amanda insisted. “They killed her as well. The van Burrens were after money. That was all they wanted. They came to this town and saw that your father was wealthy. They poisoned your mother as they later did to your father. They also killed other innocent people to make it look like it was some sort of strange illness. The woman was young and beautiful back then, but after her girls had grown, she decided to use their wiles instead.
“Your mother found out near the end – just as your father did. She was ill with fever and could no longer speak. With her last strength, she called to me. She promised her soul in exchange for protection beyond mortal boundaries. She wanted you to be safe and she wanted revenge against those who killed her. It was not your father who was chosen to bring this justice. He could not. But it is y
ou!”
“She promised her soul to you? But, that would make you…”
Cindy wanted to withdraw her hand, but she could not. Amanda stared back at the girl with her hollow eyes.
“I am not what you think,” she said. “I am neither good nor evil. I am whatever I need to be. I am a keeper of souls. I make the deals and pass the souls on to whoever wants to have them. Sadly, most souls that are given only want wicked things that God will not tolerate. The Devil, however, has no problem dragging souls to work in his endless mines of burning coal and acid. He will give them what they want – for a price. Your mother made a noble sacrifice, but it could not save her soul.”
Cindy lowered her eyes as more tears came.
“I don’t want that to happen to me,” she said.
“It will not,” the woman assured her. “Your mother’s sacrifice was to protect you. You will not be held responsible for conjuring these forces.”
“The sacrifice has been made…” Cindy muttered, remembering the demon’s line from her dream.
Amanda nodded.
“But what about this?” Cindy asked, brushing back the hair in her face to reveal the cut that Isabella had given her. “You told me that if I went to see Christian this would not happen!”
“I told you that if you made an impact with Christian.”
“But I-!”
“Did you?” Amanda asked.
The girl fell silent and lowered her head. She thought of the night at the party, when they had danced, talked so earnestly, when he had kissed her… Had it all meant nothing?
“I don’t know,” she answered quietly.
Amanda nodded in thought and looked across her cell. “Perhaps it is your resolve that is wavering,” she said.
Cindy looked down to her with wet eyes. “What should I do?”
The woman shook her head. “That, I cannot say. It is on your shoulders now.”
The girl stared back in disbelief. What? How could Amanda be saying this to her?
“You cannot leave me alone!” Cindy insisted. “I don’t know what to do!”
“You must leave now. Tomorrow I will be no more. You must not think of me again,” Amanda told her, turning her face away into the darkness.
“How can you give up like this?” Cindy asked. “I need you beside me! I’m afraid!”
“You must think for yourself. I can help you no longer. Go now. Before your sisters get home.”
Cindy’s tears fell steadily, but Amanda refused to respond to her any longer. The girl stepped down from the crate but didn’t bother moving it to its first position. She was too overcome with grief at Amanda’s simple acceptance that she could think of nothing else. She raised her eyes once again to the window.
“You were a mother to me these past few days,” she said quietly.
Those last words said and with no way of knowing that Amanda had heard them, Cindy lowered her head and moved back to her prison on the hill.
2
The distraught girl trailed back up the lonely hill, tears streaming down her face. What could she have possibly done wrong? Had she not made that impact with Christian? She was certain that she had felt it happen. Had he not promised her anything she would ask – felt close enough to her to give her his ring and to not want her to go?
Nevertheless, Cindy did as Amanda had instructed her. She returned to her own mother.
The hazel tree stood alone behind the house. Cindy had wondered once if her new family had known that her mother had been buried there, would they have had the tree chopped down? Or maybe they did know and perhaps it was too much trouble.
Cindy felt a small bit of strength from this tree, and at this time, she fell down on her face before it as if worshiping a god. She cried loudly into the soil. Why was she so cursed? Amanda had been wrong. She was not protected by some unseen force. She was being torn apart by it! The girl sobbed until the sky also began to cry for her, soaking her with its tears.
“You said you would watch over me,” Cindy said, resting her face in the mud. “You said that if I was good, God would take care of me! Why did you let them take my father away?”
Thunder rumbled gently overhead, and still the girl cried. She wondered if it was possible to completely cry herself dry so that she could simply shrivel and sink into this earth, letting this be her grave as well. She wondered; she cried more. She noticed that someone was standing over her.
Cindy lifted her eyes into the rain, focusing on a pair of bare feet that led past bruised ankles and to the hem of a white dress. Her eyes moved further, focusing on the woman who stood there. Wavy black hair fell down around her like a second covering. She was untouched by the rain.
Cindy stared up at her, unable to move away. The woman had no arms.
“Mother?” she gasped, her eyes growing wider. Was it possible? No; she was seeing things. Still, she could not look away.
Beneath her notice, the softened earth began to stir. Before Cindy even had a chance to scream, two hands shot forth from the ground beneath the hazel tree and gripped her arms.
The night and the rain around her faded away and she began to see a vision. She saw whiteness before her eyes, and it was only a short moment later that she realized it was a sheet. It was floating through the air, rippling with an unseen wind. All was silent in her dream, and as the sheet turned itself over, she saw that there was a bloodstain upon it. Cindy felt an ache down below in a very sensitive place where she’d never felt pain before. The girl winced through it.
She saw the sheet again. It was folded up, and within it, she saw her bundle of cut hair and Christian’s ring. The sheet wrapped itself around those objects and then it opened shortly after. When it did, she saw something shiny, like black glass...
Cindy awoke, wet and cold, in the morgue.
3
Isabella and Charlotte were already inside the Charming house when the rain had started. The water splattered against the windows and brought a chill to the air. Had rain been called for tonight? Neither of them knew. Everyone else at the party was concentrating more on the young woman that they had never seen – the one who was to be Christian’s bride. While Isabella and Charlotte were soon to give their own attentions to that very thing, they could not ignore the rain. There was something about it that brought them an inner pain as if the pressure in the air was squeezing them.
This rain was foreboding. They could feel it deep in their bones.
Both of them shivered.
4
Within the silent morgue, Cindy sat. She hoped that perhaps no one would find her here. Perhaps they would simply let her die alone. That would be better than a life of servitude under them now. She had put her apron to her cut to soak up the blood when the wound had reopened, but the cut was definitely in need of a stitch or two.
She folded her blood-covered hands in her lap and sat sobbing in the darkness. Amanda herself had fallen victim to her own prophecy. She would die a public death tomorrow. Now, six more people would die. Cindy wondered if perhaps one of the spaces was reserved for her.
She was a mess now, emotionally and physically. She could think of nothing else to live for. Perhaps she should just kill herself now and add another death to the prophecy. Though Amanda had promised that she would be the one to have revenge, Cindy was convinced she couldn’t do it without the woman – she couldn’t do it alone.
She could not shake away the possibility of Amanda’s other prophecy coming true. Perhaps she had not made an impact with Christian. What if she was destined to serve her sister in his house? Her face had been scarred once already. Christian would kill himself in the end, thus adding to the other prophecy. Perhaps it was all tied together.
Her tears picked up again and she drew her knees in to her chest, sobbing with ceaseless tears. In the gleam of a droplet, she saw an ounce of light reflecting as it fell to splatter on her skin. Looking up, she could see that the curtains were drawn in. Where was the light emitting from?
Li
fting her head slowly upwards towards the top of the desk, her breathing stopped suddenly when she saw the lantern – once again lit. There was a sound behind her, like a box being shut…
She wiped some of her tears and blood away, pulling herself off the floor to search the desk for the drawer key. Quickly locating it, she fit the teeth in the lock and pulled out the drawer, carefully reaching out for the box inside. Opening it, the lantern light danced across another piece of folded paper. Curious… She lifted the note and unfolded it, reading the carefully written words inside.
Cindy,
I’m deeply sorry for these events that will fall upon you, but my end is near, I’m afraid.
Do not give up or hesitate after my death.
You have been touched by a dark force, Cindy. People will tell you that your soul is condemned but you must not listen. Find the one that smells the dead bouquet and there, you will find your true soul. You need a bond of blood. Wrap the sheet around these two things I have left here and wait until the morning. Then you will have the tool you need.
Cindy, the object you will be left with is a magical item, but it will not bring powerful results just by wearing it. But, like an ordinary item, when placed within the right obsession, even the unthinkable can happen.
Use what I have given you wisely, Cindy. I think you will know the best way to use it.
The sacrifice has been made for you. It’s what you see in your dreams. I wish you luck,
Amanda
Cindy’s tears had stopped falling and a smile was beginning to cross her face. She closed her eyes and considered her dream. It made sense – all of it. In her dream, her mother sank to hell because she had sold her soul for protection, while her father floated to heaven and he could not look at her – he had been protected. The demon told her not to be afraid because the sacrifice had already been made for her. The roses were the symbol of her mother’s promise – the symbol of a dark force.
Find the one that smells the dead bouquet and there you will find your true soul. Her mind was full of thoughts, but one came through her mind clearly now. Christian. He was the one who smelled the bouquet. She had to see him. There was something that needed to be done.