Page 22

Chapter 22

I Love You, I’m sorry

GERRIT

M y stomach hurts.

I stretch out, back cracking, eyes crusted over with sleep.

Where the fuck am I?

It takes several tries to get my eyes unstuck as I blink, trying to make sense of my surroundings.

Why am I asleep on the floor of my parent’s bedroom?

Movement next to me has my eyes landing on Hans. He looks equally wrecked.

“What happened last night?” I ask, my voice rough. “Why are we on the floor?”

“I don’t know,” my stepbrother answers, rubbing his eyes with his fists. “Last I remember is finding out father was getting sicker.”

“Did we go out drinking?” I ask as I stumble to my feet. “Why do I feel so fucked?”

My vision zeros in on my mother and stepfather curled up in his bed. The morning sun casts pretty rays across their faces, and I smile.

They’re so in love.

I hope nothing happens to him.

It would destroy her.

Hans stands beside me, watching them as well. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He looks better.” It’s not a lie. Last night, his face was sunken, his eyes foggy, and his skin pale. Today, he looks like himself, with his rich brown skin reflecting golden tones in the sun.

As we stare at them, my mother begins to stir awake. She flicks her eyes open, and for a moment, shock and fear flash across her face. “Oh! Goodness, you startled me,” she says as she sits up. “What are you doing in here?”

“We slept in here,” I tell her, leaning against the wooden post of the bed. “We were worried about father.” That’s the only explanation I have for why we’re in here.

“He seems much better,” Hans remarks, circling the bed and climbing on it to touch his father’s face. “He’s not warm anymore.”

The Duke’s hand swats at his son. “He’s just fine, thank you very much. I told you both I would be fine.”

Flint is pacing the room behind me, growling low under his breath. Not for the first time, I wish I could understand the familiar. He seems out of sorts.

“Well, isn’t this fabulous news,” my mother says tightly. “All is well in our family again.” She heaves herself from the bed, her green velvet dress wrinkled and bunched.

Why would she sleep in such fine clothing?

She gently kisses my father’s cheek before striding to the door. “You must forgive me. I have something urgent to attend to.”

Hans and I exchange curious glances before turning back to our father. Though he looks well, something feels wrong about this situation.

There is something we’re missing here.

“Well, my boys, don’t just stand here staring at me. You can see I am back to my best self. Go, do something productive with your day.” He heaves himself out of the bed, and his legs nearly buckle as if he hasn’t stood in weeks. Hans catches him and slowly lowers his back to the plush surface of the bed.

“Easy, Father. You seem to have not regained your strength,” he says gently. Flint makes a distressed sound behind us. “Get more rest. We will go check on the village.”

Our father nods and urges us to leave, and when we exit his earshot, I question my brother. “What is wrong with Flint?”

“I’m unsure,” Hans says, feeding his fingers through the fur on the wolf’s head. “He’s not making much sense.”

We exit the home and begin to walk the cobblestone path to the village square. My body is stiff, as if I’ve been in a fight or walking for ages, but that is obviously not the case. I must be too old to be sleeping on floors.

“He said that we’ve forgotten something,” Hans tells me. “Something important.”

“Well, where can we find it?” I ask the wolf. Just because I can’t hear him doesn’t mean he can’t hear me.

“He cannot say, because he has forgotten as well. All he can say is that we must find it and that he thinks your mother knows where it is.”

I grind to a halt. “My mother? Why would my mother know?”

Hans stops with me, and his face scrunches up. “He can’t say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” I snap. Sometimes, the riddles Flint speaks in frustrate me to no end. I will not have a wolf accusing my mother of malfeasance.

“Can’t. He says it is a feeling he has.” My brother places a hand on my arm. “You know we can trust Flint. He always looks out for us.” The wolf nudges me with his nose, and I reach down to stroke his nose. “He also says we need to head to the woods.”

“The Whispering Woods?” I shutter. I don’t care if it’s all just rumors and stories. Those woods hold secrets and danger within them.

But, we listen to Flint.

Familiars are neither born nor do they die. They are eternal. If he says that is where we need to be to discover what we’ve forgotten, then that is where we will go.

After a quick stop at our small home to change into clean clothing, gather supplies, and eat a quick meal, we stand at the edge of the woods.

“Think the witch is going to get us?” Hans teases. “Just gobble us right up?”

“That’s not funny,” I snap. “You know as well as I do that all rumors have a kernel of truth.”

“Well, she’s said to be an incredibly powerful witch, right? What if we find her and see if she can tell us what we’ve forgotten?” Flint lets out an enthusiastic woof, and I cringe.

“Really? The witch of the woods?”

My brother steps into the tree line. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Fuck, I suppose not.”

* * *

It’s been ages since we’ve stopped moving, my legs leaden as we trudge through the forest’s depths.

“Can we make camp?” Hans asks, panting softly. “Flint is worn out.”

Sure, Flint is tired. We’ll go with that.

“Fine. I think we’re nearly there.”

I grab a fallen tree and drag it into a clearing before setting up a campfire. The moon twinkles overhead, mostly full but on its way to a crescent, giving me ample light to stack the branches by.

“What makes you say that?” my brother asks as he throws himself on the tree. “Flint, go get us some food, will ya boy?”

“The air smells like sweetmeats,” I reply, shrugging. “I assume it’s her home.”

He snorts out a laugh. “You cannot possibly believe that part of the tale.”

“I believe all parts of the tale,” I remind him. “I’m still not convinced we’re making the right call here.”

“Well, there is no harm, right? If she’s not real, we just head back.”

Loud footfalls and branches cracking have me on my feet, spinning around.

My mother stumbles out of the woods with twigs in her hair and her black dress ripped and snagged.

“Mother!” I shout, running toward her. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, my son,” she says sweetly, pulling me into her arms. “I’m so glad I found you. It’s not safe here.”

“We’re grown men, Mother.” She’s constantly treating me as if I am a child. “We’re in no danger.”

Her hands shake as she releases, reaches towards her waist sash, and unties her small pouch. “Be that as it may, I am your mother. I purchased a protection spell for you from a psych mage. Let me place it on you two.”

“We’re just fine, Mother.” Hans’s voice is strained, and he’s looking around the clearing. Probably for Flint. “We don’t need a charm from a low-level mage.”

“Humor me.” There is a bite to her words that can only come from a mother. “Sit.”

I lower myself to the tree, and Hans rolls his eyes but stays seated. She empties her pouch and begins to line up the items from inside it into a strange shape. Hans narrows his eyes as he watches her work.

He uses sigils for more complex work, but this is different. I’ve never seen the addition of objects, and if the way Hans is looking at it, he hasn’t either. My mother waves her hands over it, her mouth moving slowly, when Hans starts to cough. I pat him on the back, but he waves my hand away.

My mother doesn’t look up from her sigil.

A coughing fit overtakes Hans, and he falls to the ground, unable to catch his breath. I follow him, shoving my waterskin into his hands. He takes a sip, but the coughing doesn’t stop.

My mother still does not look up from her sigil or stop her mutterings.

Hans narrows his eyes on her and begins to sketch his own sigil. When he slams his hand into it, powering it up, vines explode from the trees around us, wrapping around my mother’s arms and legs, heaving her into the air.

“What the fuck, Hans?” I shout, leaping to my feet. “Put her down!”

“I can’t,” he says between coughs. “She’s cursing me.”

“You foolish boy, I’m protecting you,” she says, but her voice wavers. “It’s just a simple protection charm.”

Flint comes barreling through the woods, howling. He runs underneath my mother and begins to snap and snarl at her feet.

“It was not a protection charm.” More coughing from my brother. “You’re trying to kill me. Why?”

“That’s preposterous. Your father will be so upset when he hears how you’ve treated me.” Her haughty tone doesn’t carry the bite it usually does.

I don’t know who to believe or trust. Something is wrong with Hans, and it started when my mother began to put together that strange sigil. But does that mean she did it?

A vine snakes down her arm and wraps around her throat. It tightens just enough that she begins to wheeze. “Tell the truth, Mother, ” Hans snarls, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “You’re trying to kill me.”

Her eyes narrow at my stepbrother, and a chill runs down my spine.

In my soul, I know that I will not like the words that will leave her mouth.

“It’s not personal, Hans. Gerrit is the better choice to be next in line for Duke.”

My stomach does a flip.

“The only way I can be next in line is if I am his only son,” I say slowly. “Since we are not blood.”

The look my mother gives me could melt glass.

Oh.

“So you decided to kill me?” Hans coughs, blood flying from his mouth. When he looks at me, I see the whites of his eyes have yellowed. “Is this what we forgot?”

Whatever this curse is, it is fast-acting. He is getting weak, and the vines are starting to sag. Even though I don’t think my mother finished the casting, whatever part of the curse latched itself to him may still spell his doom.

“How could you?” I ask her, taking a slow step forward. “How could you do this to my brother? To our father?”

“I said it isn’t personal!” she screeches.

“Those words don’t absolve you of guilt!” I shout, feeling like my chest is cracking in two. My mother did this. My mother tried to kill my brother right in front of me and thinks I’ll be okay with it.

Bile rises in my throat.

She thrashes against her restraints. “This is the only way to protect myself and ensure I am always taken care of!”

“Because if Father dies,” cough, cough, cough, “I become Duke, and you worry I won’t support you.” Hans stumbles and slams onto the fallen tree, barely remaining upright. Flint immediately props my brother’s body up with his furry one. “Greed. That’s all this is. A bigger piece of the pie for you.”

“I don’t want to be the Duke!” I shout. “I love my brother. And you try to take him from me?”

Despite being suspended, her face curves into a wicked grin. “It’s too late. Part of the curse took hold. It’s only a matter of time now.” Her smile is sickly sweet as she stares down at Hans. “All you did by stopping me was take a fast death and make it excruciatingly painful and slow.”

Anger boils my blood, pure animosity running in my veins.

There must be a way to weaken the curse and give me time to save him. I cannot have a life without him.

There has to be something I can do.

Flint growls in my direction, and I run over to him and Hans, dropping to my knees in the dirt. Flint buries his face in the crook of my neck.

For the first time in my life, in the faintest of whispers, I hear the resonant voice of Flint in the back of my mind. The amount of magic that must be required to allow me to hear him without us being bonded is unfathomable.

“Weaken the curse by killing the caster .”

I stumble backward, tears brimming in my ears. “No,” I whisper, not taking my eyes off the wolf. “I can’t.”

He makes a soft sound in his throat like he’s sympathetic to me.

Kill my mother to maybe save my brother?

What if I kill her and I still can’t save him?

Then I am alone in this world, having to tell my father what I did.

But if there is a hope of saving him… Mustn’t I?

My stomach hurts.

My vision starts to blur at the edges as I stare at my mother.

My chest aches.

The woman who gave birth to me.

Who wiped my tears.

Who kissed my scrapes.

My breathing slows.

What motivated her to do this?

Why has she become this?

I resent her. I resent her for making me do this.

My resolve firms.

I take a step towards her, caressing her cheek with my hand.

“My boy,” she says softly. “You know everything I do, I do because I love you.”

I shake my head. I don’t believe that, but no need to call her out on her lies - not now.

What good would it do?

“I love you, too, Mother,” I say quietly. “I truly do.”

I pull my hunting knife from my waistband and slide it between her ribs.

“And I’m sorry.”