Chapter 3 Miranda
"Cadmus, you don't know how much I love you", whispered Miranda as he kissed her. And it was true. Her love for Cadmus was all consuming, almost an obsession. It was strange, really, she had never noticed him before, and then he asked her out to dinner and suddenly she realized how truly wonderful he was. After that his shining hair and always smiling features occupied her every thought and she was never satisfied unless she was in his embrace. When he had proposed to her, her heart seemed to burst in an explosion of joy and she accepted before he could even finish the sentence.
She passionately kissed him back, his lips on hers forming an explosion of feeling that amplified her desire for him. He broke away from the kiss and she looked at him, confused. "I have to be going home", he explained lovingly. "I will be here tomorrow", she promised, "oh, the hours will pass like years if I am not with you." "The same is true for me, my sweet untouched Miranda", Cadmus whispered before departing. Miranda watched him leave, tears almost coming to her eyes as she bid goodbye to the one she loved above all else. She knew that she would be his forever, and only hoped that he would always be hers.
She walked home, still thinking about Cadmus and of their upcoming marriage in the spring. Miranda remembered when she had first told her father about Cadmus' love for her and her love for him. He didn't take it well. "Why do you wish to marry Cadmus Peverell of all people? He's not rich, his family is a mess, and the boy's barely even good-looking." "Isn't humility a virtue?", she had said, "Then my affections are most humble, for I have no ambition to see a goodlier man" But still her father had remained obstinate, until Cadmus had visited her house. Then his derogatory words for him had changed to words of praise, and he declared that in all this town, no, in all the world, there was no better match for his daughter.
Miranda remembered that day as the day when her last worry was removed and all the days since had passed in utter bliss and a nonstop desire to see Cadmus, to feel his lips on hers, and to hear words of love fall from those lips. No, she decided, I can't wait for tomorrow. I have to see him now.
She changed her course and headed away from the rich, decadent street she lived on, to the worn down cottage of the Peverell's. Miranda felt glad that she would soon be able to rescue Cadmus from this poverty and give him his rightful place in comfort and luxury at her side.
She walked into the house where Antioch was attempting to talk to his brother, Ignotus, who seemed unresponsive. "Where's Cadmus?", she tentatively asked. "Upstairs", Antioch said tersely, gesturing towards the stairwell. Then his sullen look changed to one of astonishment as Ignotus got up, walked over to her, and placed his palm on her forehead. "See better, Miranda", he whispered and then sat back down on the floor. Miranda hurriedly ran up the stairs. Cadmus was the love of her life, but his family was just plain strange.
However, the sight that greeted her when she opened the door wiped away all thoughts of Cadmus' family. Cadmus was kissing Mariah Reynolds, with as much passion or more as he'd ever kissed her. She spent a second just blankly staring at him and then she walked across the room and slapped him full on the face. He stared at her, utterly surprised by her actions and then gestured to the other girl to leave the room. She looked at the pair of them guiltily and then ran out of the room and down the stairs. "Miranda, darling, you still love me, don't you?", he asked in his usual charming fashion. She looked at him, words of agreement ready to spring from her tongue and her body ready to fall into his arms, but suddenly her forehead burned, and she felt her desire for Cadmus lessen. "No", she said, almost hesitantly, as she looked at him. "No?", he repeated incredulously. "No", she shot back, more confidently this time," After what you have done, who would? I'm going home to my father and telling him that the engagement is off."
Cadmus stared at her disbelievingly, and then desperately as he realized that she was serious. Cadmus pulled out a slender piece of wood from his pocket, immaculately polished, pointed it at her, and said a strange word in a language she didn't recognize. Immediately she felt dreamy and heard Cadmus' voice in her head. "Pretend like nothing's wrong", it commanded, "Don't speak of this to anyone." Miranda nodded her head dreamily and walked down the stairs as one in a dream.
Although her movements and facial expressions remained calm, a furious battle was going on inside Miranda's head between the bespelled willingness to acquiesce to his commands and her own rebellious spirit. As she passed Ignotus on the way out, their eyes met and her mind broke through the effects of the Imperius curse and the remainder of the bespelled love she had for him and she was herself again.
Miranda realized that the only thing she could do to remain herself was to escape this town of Little Bartholdsby and seek her fortune on the other side of the river. She ran to the bank, gathered all her courage, and stepped into the small, splintery, rowboat. Wincing as the cold water splashed over the side of the boat and onto her best dress that she had put on for Cadmus' visit, Miranda pushed off. The river was violent and the rushing waves battered her boat this way and that until the boat was overturned. Her dress spread out around her, keeping her afloat long enough to say a final goodbye to the world before the waves took her too.
Under the water, everything suddenly seemed to calm. Miranda opened her eyes and looked at her own body from outside it and then at the figures hovering in the water beside her, a tall skeletal man, his face hidden by a robe, his hand outstretched, and a woman with pointed teeth and shifting markings across her body. Realizing what had happened, she put her hand into the skeletal hand of Death and departed this world.