Aventus sat at the small table, the candle in front of him, the journal open before him. It held the words of the dead hag. He should throw it down and burn it along with her. But what did it say? Curiosity drove him forward. He turned to the first entry. It was written in a youthful hand.
He doesn't know I write this. I hide it outside. He'll never find it. He can't find it. This is all I have.
I should not have started like this. I should introduce myself. Grelod. Fourteen. Now Abelin. Sold to my husband to pay a debt. Aldo Abelin. Forty-two! How could you do this to me, father? Do you hate me so much?
Aventus blinked his eyes as the entry ended abruptly. His eyes shifted to the next page.
Aldo beat me again today. Third time this month. I'm so sore…
Aventus clenched his jaw. So, she had been beaten, too. He glanced over at the bed. You knew what it was like. How could you? Aventus read on. The entries grew short, most only a few sentences.
He choked me today. Called me a filthy bitch…
My arm hurts. He threw me against the wall. Maybe it's broken…
He threatened to throw me out with the trash. He can. I don't care…
I hate sleeping next to him. He stinks and he snores…
I hurt so much in his bed. When I told him he said it was supposed to hurt…
I have to get pregnant. He says if I don't he'll kill me…
I feel it moving. I'm sick all the time…
I hate it. I want to die…
I wonder what he'd do if I killed it when it's born...
Aventus paused. These words, he could sense the hardening of the girl who had written them. He firmed his jaw, but he couldn't stop reading.
It was born. It's a girl. A girl! He told me it couldn't be a girl. I should have knifed her myself when the midwife told me. He said I must have a boy next…
She's dead. She was sick. I buried her. He wouldn't…
I can feel it moving. It's strong. It must be a boy…
I hate being sick like this and all for him…
It was born last night—dead. A boy. He slapped me. I have one more chance…
Aventus ran a hand through his hair. Despite his anger and the fact that he knew these were the words of the crone, he felt trepidation. He had to know what had happened. He scanned several pages of entries chronicling more abuse from the husband until he found the one he'd been looking for.
Movement again. Strong again. Another boy. Must live…
He watches me every night, warns me. Doesn't he know I want a boy, too? Then he'll leave me alone…
Hurting all day. Labor nearing…
Girl. Healthy. Alive. I want to die…
The next entry was written in a shaky hand.
He flogged me for having a girl. If I have a boy next, I'll kill it! He doesn't deserve it…
Aventus' eyes shifted to the cold corpse. Grelod had been flogged? He didn't understand. If she had gone through all this, how could she do the same to him?
She's sick. I think she'll die. I don't care…
He says I'm only good for work and childbearing. He's right…
She's only four months old and I'm pregnant again! I can't do this. Not again. I hate children…
It's not fair! A girl again! He was out when she was born. I covered her nose and mouth. The midwife stopped me…
She died. He flogged me anyway…
I cannot stay anymore. If I don't run away, I will kill myself. I have no other choice.
Aventus thumbed over. The next pages were blank. She must have accomplished her desire to run. He leaned back in the chair. He wasn't sure how to feel about what he had read. He had so many questions. How had she gotten to Riften? If she hated children, why did she run an orphanage? He flipped through the journal. Had she written nothing else?
There! At the back, one more page, written in a scrawling hand. It was quite different from the previous entries, the thoughts more complete. He read.
I returned last evening. I did not expect to find my journal. But I did. I will not read it. I do not know why I am writing. I am old and I am dying. Perhaps I should finish this, not that anyone will care.
I went to Riften. There was no work for someone like me, no decent work. A man in the Ratway said he would pay me good money to work for him. Ha. It was worse than Abelin. Men every night on my pallet. Pregnant often. Every one born alive drowned by my master. Then he died.
The owner of the orphanage offered me a job. I only accepted because I had to. I needed the money and the shelter, but the noise and the rabble! Children pulling on you, complaining, whining. Why Abelin ever wanted boys in the first place! They're filthy, arrogant, rude and the matron did nothing to control them. Well, when she died, I took care of that. The orphanage was mine then. The children learned their place in the world. It's an adult world and if they cannot live in it, they don't deserve it. A priestess of Mara once told me love would solve all problems. Love is a lie. The sooner children learn it the better.
Why am I writing? This is useless…
Aventus' heart had turned to stone. She expected to teach them to live in an adult world? And that necessitated getting a taste of an adult whip? His anger boiled so strongly he wanted to set the journal aside and get to burning the shack, but there was one last scrawl at the very bottom of the page, the writing so shaky he had to work to read it.
Mara, preserve me! What have I done? My eyes dim. Forgive me. Please. Forgive me. It was all wrong, it sh… The word faded away, the last bit left unsaid.
Aventus closed the journal. The last part wasn't clear. Had she regretted her actions? Did she realize the evil she had done? He felt conflicted as he leaned back and stared at the corpse. He couldn't help but feel pity for the fourteen-year-old girl in the beginning of the journal, but he had no compassion for the woman she had become.
The door creaked. Aventus jumped up from his seat and retrieved his sword from the floor. An elderly woman entered and Aventus' heart jolted. She looked so like Grelod had when he was a child that he did a double take from her to the corpse. The woman hadn't seen him. She shuffled up to the bed, tilted her head, then kneeled down and placed her ear over Grelod's chest. She raised her head and sighed. Aventus coughed. The woman looked over and stood quickly, her eyes focused on his sword. "Who are you? I don't have any money with me. Please, don't kill me." Her voice trembled in fear.
Aventus sheathed his sword. "I'm not a bandit," he said. "I won't hurt you."
"Then, who are you? And why are you reading my mother's journal?"
Aventus' eyes widened. "Your mother?"
The woman nodded sadly at the bed. "Her only child."
Aventus glanced at the journal. "You're the infant that lived."
"Yes. I live here."
Aventus raised his eyebrows. She lived in this squalor? "Why?" he blurted out without thinking.
The woman shook her head. "I have nowhere else to go." She sat down on the other bed next to Grelod's. "Now, who are you? Why are you in my house?"
Aventus rocked on his feet, not sure how to answer.
"Be honest, young man," the woman said. "I'm too old to put up with lies."
Aventus lowered himself back into the chair at the table. "Have you read this?" he asked, tapping the cover of the journal.
"I have. She stopped writing in it two days ago."
Aventus breathed out slowly. "I was a child in her orphanage."
The woman's mouth hardened into a line. "She did not explain in detail, but I can guess she was not kind. What did she do to you?"
Aventus stared at the woman. He had never told anyone the story of his time in the orphanage.
The woman gestured to his side. "You brought a sword and you had it drawn. She must have done something for you to approach her this way."
Aventus swallowed. "She…flogged me. I was ten."
The woman's eyes lowered. "I'm sorry." Her empathetic tone opened the floodgates. Aventus went on, telling her his story, how his mother had died and he'd been sent to Honorhall, how Grelod had beaten him so many times he'd lost count and how he ran away after she flogged him. When he finished, the woman's eyes glistened with tears. "It wasn't fair for you to bear the brunt of her life. It wasn't fair for anyone."
Aventus bit his lip as he had as a child. "She hurt you as well?"
The woman snorted. "She left me with my father."
Aventus sucked in a breath. Aldo Abelin. The man who had so abused his fourteen-year-old wife.
"He treated me much the same way he treated her. He would not let me marry. I have lived alone here since he died."
Aventus glanced at Grelod's body. "Why did you let her stay here?" If she had been his mother, he would have thrown her out.
"For good or ill, she is…was…my mother."
Aventus shifted in his seat.
The woman fixed her eyes on him. "Perhaps it is hard for the young to understand. I'm old, young man. If I hold onto regret I will die as bitter as she." Her head nodded to Grelod.
Aventus fingered the journal. "Her last words. She wanted forgiveness from you?"
The woman shrugged. "I cannot read her thoughts. I would have liked her to ask it of me. She only demanded my care. I gave it to her."
"So you forgave her?" Aventus asked incredulously.
The woman twisted her lips in thought. "Forgave her? That is easier to say than to do. It is better to say I have let her go."
Aventus narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"She does not control me. I will not give her that power."
Aventus drummed his fingers on the table.
"You can do what she never did. You can escape your past." The woman stood, shuffling over to a chest. She reached inside and withdrew a shovel. She walked up to Aventus. "I am weak. I will need your help."
Aventus blinked at her. He took the shovel.
Aventus dug into the dark soil next to the shack. He'd long ago removed his shirt, too hot in the noontime sun.
"Have you finished?"
Aventus glanced up at the elderly woman, Grelod's daughter. He wiped sweat from his brow. "It's deep enough." He pushed himself up out of the grave with both hands and stood, lungs aching with the exertion. The woman handed him a cup of water and he drank it gratefully.
"Then let us get her body."
Aventus finished drinking as he followed the woman. Moonshadow nickered and he brushed her neck with the back of his hand as he passed. Once inside the shack, he set the cup down on the table and walked over to Grelod's bed.
"Take her with the blanket. I don't need it."
Aventus did as the woman commanded, picking up the corpse. She was limp and light in his arms, nothing like the solid rock he had once believed her to be. He carried her outside and set her beside the grave, then lowered himself back in. The old woman helped, pushing the body towards him until he could lower it into the grave himself. Aventus pulled himself back out. He looked down at the dead woman for a moment, then dug the shovel into the pile of dirt that had accumulated. The old woman stood by the pile.
"Do you want to say anything?" Aventus asked.
The woman shook her head. "I don't have any words."
Aventus lifted the dirt and threw the first shovelful in. The earth scattered on the dingy blanket and across Grelod's face. He didn't have any kind words, but he did have words. He had words to speak to her from the depths of his soul and he said them as he shoveled. You are dead. You cannot control me. I will not let you any longer. With every mound of dirt that filled the grave, he let go of the crone that had ruled his memory and stunted his life. When he was finished he packed the dirt down, then pulled back to stare at the grave. It was done. Grelod was gone.
"You have been most gracious, young man," the old woman said. "I offer you my house as lodging."
Aventus looked to her. "I must go home. But…you will be alone here. I'm the ward of the Jarl of Eastmarch. You can come with me."
The woman laughed. "It does tempt me, but I don't want to leave Ivarstead. The river and the mountains have been my companions for many an age. I will not abandon my old friends."
Aventus smiled thinly. He picked up his shirt from the ground and put it back on. The woman followed him to his horse. She handed him a small bag. "It isn't much, a few berries, some dried meat. Please take it with my thanks."
Aventus took it and nodded to her. "Farewell."
"And you."
Aventus retrieved Moonshadow's reins and mounted. He nodded once more to the woman so like her mother and swung his horse back towards the river. He did not look back, but spoke to the corpse once more in his mind. Farewell, Grelod the Kind. I leave you where you lie. You will not come home with me.