“You’re able to do this to me, Stephen? Lock me away?”
Stephen turned Liv to face him, his hands pressing hard into her numb arms.
His crystalline eyes searched hers, but they lacked the power they’d held in their youth. His eyes had grown empty. No light danced in the spheres of blue.
He led her to the bed and helped her sit. She considered kicking him. The door was still open, she might escape, but she didn’t.
Her fate unfolded before her, and she could not run away from it - not this time.
“Liv, did you really think I’d let you turn us in? Destroy everything I’ve worked so hard to create?”
Liv shut her eyes.
“It’s coming, Stephen,” she whispered. “The end is coming for you.”
Stephen’s eyes darted sideways, his mouth turning down.
He took a strand of her thick blonde hair, unruly even when pinned back, and pushed it behind her ear.
“You are the only person I ever loved. Did you know that? The only person in my entire life.” He gazed at her as if mystified, and then he laughed. “But puppy love is all that was, wasn’t it, Liv? A summer romance.”
“That ended in murder,” she spat, glaring at him.
He chuckled and stood.
“Let the past go, Liv. Haven’t you read the new books about living in the now? This,” he gestured at the attic, “is all there is.”
He undid the bind of her straightjacket but did not loosen it or pull her arms free. He stood and strode across the room, quickly, as if he feared she might wriggle free before he could escape through the door and lock it behind him.
Liv listened to his footsteps disappear down the stairs.
It took several minutes, but she freed her arms. She shoved the straightjacket to the floor and drank half the pitcher of water in two gulps.
“What now?” she asked the empty room.
The bird had returned to its roost. It watched her from its small black eye. It stretched its wings, ruffling its feathers. Liv watched the tremor move up the bird’s body. When it shook its wings, a black feather drifted down and landed on the dusty wood floor.
Liv stood and retrieved it. She tucked it beneath her pillow and fell into a dream-filled sleep.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” George said.
He stood in the doorway of the cabin, aged and yet the same.
Liv hung her head, tucking her long wavy hair behind her ears.
“Don’t fret, Volva. You’re home now.”
He opened his arms, and she stepped into his solid chest. He smelled, as he always had, of a wood fire and chamomile with other heady scents like garlic and dill. In the hovel, she would find tea and soup simmering.
In autumn, George prepared for the long winter by making tonics, satchels of healing herbs, and divining the best remedies for the coming season of disease.
As she stepped across the threshold of her true home, the tension in Liv’s shoulders melted away. She nearly fell as she stumbled to a chair near the fire and collapsed, dropping her head into her hands and sobbing.
She cried until her sinuses were fat and sore. Her face had grown puffy, and George had not spoken a word.
When she lifted her head, he placed a mug of tea in her shaking hands and sat opposite her.
She sipped the chamomile tea spiced with cinnamon.
George gazed at her, his eyes soft and misty. Liv had never seen George cry, and after a moment the sparkle cleared and his eyes were dry once more.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Liv started. “I wrote you letters. Hundreds of letters, but I couldn’t send them. I…”
“I know, child. I know. Do you think we haven’t spoken in all that time? I’ve followed you in my dreams.”
Liv swallowed and looked away.
Did he know? Did he know her secrets?
“We have little time, Volva, so listen to me carefully. A curse is most powerful at the beginning of another ten-year cycle. It is the weakest at the end. To unbind yourself, you must draw the spirit of the cursed back from her Eternity in Darkness. Do you understand me, Liv? You must reawaken the cursed?”
Liv blinked at George. He did know. He’d always known.
“But… I can’t. The spirits have abandoned me, George. I’ve tried to call out to them…”
“Then you have asked the wrong questions, Volva. It is time to try again. The door has already been opened.”
“The door?” Liv shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“When a curse is contained, it grows strong. Open the doors and let the light in. Banish the darkness.”
Liv tried to follow his words, but George often spoken in ambiguities that made little sense to her.
George slid from his chair and knelt, leaning toward a cast-iron pot suspended above the fire. He inhaled the steam before plucking a ladle from a wood block and stirring the contents.
“Garlic and leek stew?” she asked.
“The winter will be unseasonably cold. I fear the influenza will strike early and spread fast.”
Liv sighed and thought of the children she’d left behind in Boston. Little Maggie Sue had been born premature. She regularly took a chill. Only Liv had been able to heal her when illness took hold, but now Liv had gone, and she wondered if she’d ever return.
“I’m sorry I left, George. I have so many regrets.”
George did not respond, but merely sat stirring and stirring. The liquid bubbled and popped. Something rancid had replaced the garlic smell, and she wrinkled her nose.
When she peered closer at the pot, a bit of bone floated up to the surface, and she saw a skull peering out from the oily broth.
She jumped from her chair.
When George turned to look at her, she saw all the flesh from his face was gone. His black hair hung in tangles on his bleached scalp.
Without a word, George stood and slipped through the cabin door and disappeared into the forest.
Liv tried to follow him, but the forest closed in.
She’d never been lost in the Stoneroot Forest. She’d never been frightened. Now she was both.
She turned in circles, chest heaving, until she spotted a wisp of something. She ran after it.
A black crow soared between the trees. He dove at the forest floor and disappeared into a pile of brush.
Liv ran to the foliage and pulled at the tangled branches.