It's hard to forget the unforgettable. Something horrific as that should not have been lost on the mind. But I was taken to a mage.
He relaxed me, and then asked me to recall what I saw in the ditch. I did. Then he would move his hands and say things I didn't understand. After that, he asked me to recall again. I did. More hand movements, more words. Recall again. I did.
Recall again. I did. But it was getting harder. Things were getting fuzzy, and it showed in my words.
Recall again. I struggled. It was like trying to peer through murky pond water.
Recall again. Recall what?
That was how I forgot. That was how the image was put to rest, because they were right—no child should have to grow up with that kind of memory.
But now I remember. The witcher had told me not to think about it but I did. She made me, digging my fear out of the recesses of my mind in a way I could not fathom. And now, I remember.
When I was a child, I had fallen into a ditch. I rolled while dead leaves and twigs stuck to me, and dirt splattered onto my face. When I came to a stop, I was at the bottom. The first thing I noticed had been the smell. And then I turned my head to realize I wasn't alone.
It was that face that now emerged from the shadow of the bed, following two twisted, rotting arms. Two white, dead eyes pushed deep in a bloated face. A scavenger had gotten to him, but only a part of him.
As a child, that face had scared me because I hadn't seen it as a dead body. I'd thought it was a monster staring at me. My imagination had run away with me in those few seconds before I blacked out.
But now, it wasn't my imagination that had him coming for me. His arms dragged against the ground, the floor peeling disintegrated flesh from the bone. There was no other noise but the sound of him pulling himself across the floor. He was coming at me and I still couldn't move.
Don't think, the witcher had warned me. That's how it gets you. The dead eyes stared at me as they came closer. No sound. Not even a groan. Just the raking of his decaying flesh across the wooden boards with each pull.
He wasn't supposed to be here, I tried telling myself. They'd buried him at the graveyard by the church, in one of the small graves along the edge by the fence. I remembered that too.
Then, it seemed for a second that he disappeared. It happened between blinks. One moment, he was gone. Then he was there again, still coming for me. He was close now, almost to my foot. Panicked, I wondered what he would do once he reached me. I didn't want him near me. But my foot wouldn't retract, and he was almost there. I told myself again that he wasn't supposed to be here.
If my thoughts had brought him here, maybe they could also take him away. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to drown out the sounds of flesh scraping against the floor.
He was buried in the churchyard. They'd carried him out of the ditch on a wooden board with a cloth to hide him from the eyes of curious children. His tombstone was small and unmarked. They'd wrapped him in that cloth and dumped heap after heap of dirt over him. He was there, not here.
Something touched my foot. Immediately, I pulled it back. Then my eyes flew open. I could move.
And that thing… it was gone.
I rolled onto my hands and knees. Stumbling to my feet, I did one final sweep around the bare floor and hurried out of the room. I wasn't completely sure if the nightmare was gone, but I didn't want to stick around and find out. I needed to find the witcher before that thing, that woman, found me again.
I came across a short hallway. One end opened out to a large room. The other was a dead end with nothing but a small table and a dusty vase. I crept towards the large room, one hand in my bag and my fingers wrapped around a pouch of that silver stuff.
The room was much brighter in comparison. Sheets of light slipped in between the half-opened blinds and illuminated the flower-printed furniture. I tiptoed along the edge of the room, watching everything with a keen suspicion. On the other side of the room was an open archway. Beyond it was a large rectangular area—a room between rooms that wasn't quite a hallway. This place was way too confusing. It made me appreciate the cramped living spaces at the academy a little more.
Vases of wilting, neglected flowers sat in pockets along the wall. A small tea table held an abandoned serving tray and dirty cups. I suddenly noticed the dark smears on the floor. This was probably where some of the servants had been found. A shiver crept through me and I threw a quick paranoid glance back at the archway. I thought I heard something and tensed.
Silence. I wasn't sure I heard anything at all.
Without waiting for a definitive answer, I hurried through the closest door. I didn't know why I was flitting from door to door like this. In my flustered mind, the more I moved the better. Maybe it would've been more wise to sit in one spot and wait for the witcher to find me, but I didn't want to take that risk. There was no guarantee that it would have been the witcher who got to me first.
There was a small desk by the window. A little bookshelf with a handful of books that looked as though they would crumple to dust at the slightest touch. Everything about this room looked withered. Gray. It was bizarre. I felt as though I was in a room that had been trapped and forgotten by time. And the strangest thing of all was the small journal that sat on the desk. It looked brand new. A blot of fresh color on old, faded paper.
I walked over to it. I don't know why I felt so compelled to stop and read everything I came across. These things lying around—they weren't here by coincidence. It was as though they had been laid out on purpose. A breadcrumb trail.
The book was a diary. The owner of the diary had possessed a very small, neat handwriting. I looked at the date of one of the early entries. It was from 22 years ago. 22 years? That was a little before I had been born.
I skimmed the entry. The writer, I assumed, was female. She was talking about her upcoming wedding. So this was Lady Covier's diary, then? I thought for a second. Their oldest son had been 14. It seemed strange that they waited eight years before having their first child. But people were different, I reminded myself. There were a lot of things we didn't know about the Coviers.
I flipped through a couple of pages until my eyes settled onto an entry where Lady Covier wrote about the birth of her son. Ah, this was familiar territory.
Until I saw the date. It was only two years after their marriage—20 years ago. I read the entry more carefully and stopped when I saw the name of the child. It was the same name I had seen on the death certificate.
I skipped ahead again. There was a particular entry that caught my eye. The handwriting was different. It was sloppier. The lines were crooked, written by a distressed hand. This time, I stopped to read each word.
An accident, they told me while their eyes portrayed cruel, obnoxious pity. An accident. ACCIDENT. That is the worst part of all. My son is dead because of a little bit of negligence. Whose fault was it? The carriage driver? The spooked pony? The craftsman who built the damn carriage? Me?
My husband does not share in my grief. Understandable. He did not care for our son as I did. SON. MY SON IS DEAD.
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT.
That's what they said.
And they haven't stopped. They're still talking. I hear them. I can still hear them. I am a mother who lost her child. I am in a prison that no one else can see, so they do not care. They just talk. TALK. That is all they do! The bars are closing in. I am losing my mind to grief and pain, and THEY JUST TALK.
THEY JUST TALK.
THEY JUST TALK.
THEY JUST TALK.
The rest of the page was filled with those three words, repeating over and over again. Towards the bottom of the page, the pen had left indentions in the paper so heavy they were still there. I could feel them.
I flipped the page. The same three words. They just talk.
I flipped again. This page was mostly empty. There were just two lines. Two short lines.
I will show them. I will show you.
Cold pinpricks ran across my skin. I wanted to close the book, seal the words underneath the cover. But I couldn't because new words were running across the page like an invisible hand was writing them in real time.
I know where you are I'm coming don't run.
Well I ran all right. I bolted with one of those pouches in hand, throwing glances over my shoulder. Something was catching up with me. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it.
Hallways. So many hallways. Countless times I was tempted to veer into one of the rooms and slam the door, but I knew that would only put me in a trap. At one point, that feeling of dread that kept chasing at me heels got so bad I ended up throwing down the pouch. Or maybe I dropped it. Whatever happened, the hallway behind me ended up in a cloud of silver dust. I didn't even look back because I was afraid of seeing what might emerge from it.
I kept running until eventually my legs began to tire. The feeling that something was coming after me was gone and, frankly, I was out of breath. So I stopped. As I slowed, gasping through my burning throat, I wondered what that had been about. Nothing had actually attacked me. All that happened was that I'd run a marathon through half the mansion and painted a portion of it in silver. Maybe I was starting to lose my mind.
I stopped to catch myself on the wall and quickly pushed away from it, remembering what happened last time I was close to the wall.
The witcher had told me that if I ever strayed from him, even for a second, I'd be dead. But here I was, still stumbling around in this damned place—very much alive. A few days ago, nobody had been able to survive. But then again, they weren't aware of what had gotten into the manor.
Even if I did, that couldn't be the only reason I was still alive. Of course not. But I'd also come with a witcher. Even if we were separated, the silver bombs he'd given me had saved my hide. That couldn't have been it either.
But there was another reason—the biggest reason I was still here. It was just a guess. The very thought sent chills through me, but it made the most sense.
I was being shown something. The truth, it seemed, behind the Coviers. That thing, that woman, was telling me something. She'd shown me her journal.
There was a corner up ahead. I headed slowly towards it, weary and worried and just sick of everything about this manor. I'd nearly been killed countless times in this place. I thought I'd seen the worst. And then I turned the corner.
I saw him. The witcher.
Relief flooded through me. My shoulders dropped. I didn't realize that I'd tensed them so much. My steps quickened.
The witcher was at the end of the hall, which ended with a door. His back was turned towards me. I nearly reached him. I opened by mouth to call out to him.
"Jemille!" the witcher cried. But the strange thing was that his voice didn't come from the witcher standing there. It was coming from behind me. I froze. The witcher in front of me didn't move. Then I heard his voice again. It was slow, soft. Tense.
"Jemille," he said again. "Don't get any closer to it. Listen to me. Do exactly as I say. Turn around. Very. Slowly."
I blinked. I didn't understand what the hell was happening. Who was behind me? Who was in front of me? All I knew was that the witcher with his back turned, standing just a few feet away from me, suddenly gave me a bad feeling. I started turning, my feet inching along the ground.
As I did, I saw him standing there at the bend where I had come from. He was holding his silver sword. His body was poised like a rabbit hiding in a bush, waiting to see if the predator noticed it. One hand was held out towards me. His brow was furrowed in a frown, but his eyes conveyed fear. Fear.
"Walk to me. Slowly," he said, each word tapping the air with suppressed urgency. "Don't look back. Don't make any sudden movements. Just walk."
I did as he said, my feet barely skimming over the thin carpet. My hands were fists against my side. I heard noise behind me. The witcher—no, I didn't know what it was—had turned too. Scraping feet trailed mine. Something was breathing in thin, shaky gasps. I swore I felt it on my neck.
When I passed a candle sconce, my eyes flitted to the side to glance at the shadow that the flickering light threw onto the wall. I saw my shadow, stretched from my own barely moving feet.
There was something behind me, following closely. It wasn't the witcher. I didn't know what it was, but I knew its head shouldn't have been twitching that much.
"Jemille." I looked back at him. His gaze held mine. "Just look at me. Keep going. You're doing good." I wasn't even halfway there.
Something touched my shoulder blade. I flinched, the smallest of movements. The shaky breathing turned into the soft hiss of someone sucking air through gritted teeth. My heart raced. Had I messed up?
"Look at me." My head moved back. I didn't even know I had been slowly turning it back. "That's it. You're okay."
The hissing stopped, and whatever was behind me began to giggle softly. Something touched me again. This time, it wasn't a light brush. There was a hand gripping my shoulder. I wanted to whimper.
"Just keep walking," the witcher said. His eyes left mine. He was looking at whatever was behind me. "This is between us," he said, and I knew he wasn't talking to me anymore. "You leave her alone."
The hand tightened. My mouth pressed into a thin line.
His amber, slit eyes returned to mine. They were comforting. "I came from a witcher school," he told me. "I was trained on how to use a sword and aim with a crossbow. I was fed herbs that enhanced my reflexes, sharpened my senses. They dulled my feelings, but only so that I won't feel fear when I should. I learned how to use alchemy and magic to fight monsters." My feet moved, one step after the other. "The boys I grew up with became my close friends. I don't know where they are anymore, but I hope I'll see them again."
He offered me an encouraging smile. And then suddenly, he lunged forward. He grabbed me and yanked me towards him. I was thrown down. My hands came up just in time to catch myself as I hit the ground. I heard the witcher shout and rolled over to see what was happening.
I only saw him for a second. He was on his back, dragged across the ground at an impossible speed. I heard the sound of his boots scraping against the ground. It lasted for only a second. Then the door at the end of the hall slammed shut and he was gone.
I rolled back onto my belly so I could push myself up. But I pushed myself so hard I launched myself forward and stumbled into the wall. I turned towards the door and staggered towards it like a drunkard.
Noises leaked out from behind the door. I heard the crash of something heavy being smashed. The witcher roared something, but I couldn't make out the words.
I slowed to a stop in front of the door and tried the doorknob. It wouldn't work. Then, things went eerily silent inside. I held my breath and listened.
I heard a woman's voice, soft and pleasant. She called the witcher by his name.
"Don't hurt me," she pleaded.
"You're not real," the witcher replied. His voice was punctuated by his heavy breathing. It sounded like he was shaking.
"Look at me." Then, in a tight voice, she demanded, "What's happening to me?"
"You… you're aging." The witcher sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
"I'm dying." The doorknob suddenly became ice cold. I pulled my hand back. "Why did you let me die?"
"No, I… No! You're not real!" The witcher's voice grew louder and louder. "You're not her! How dare you use her against me!"
The woman began crying. Her voice became shrilly as she begged the witcher not to hurt her. I felt sick listening.
The witcher bellowed again that she wasn't real. It sounded as though he were trying to convince himself. There was a loud boom that shook the door in its frame. I jumped back. The woman screamed. She called his name. She told him she loved him. She pleaded for him to stop hurting her. I turned away from the door. Something horrible was happening in there and I couldn't bear to listen.
But I couldn't imagine his agony until I saw him come out of that room. The door flew open and he was leaning on the doorframe as if it were the last thing holding him up. He was trembling so hard that he dropped his sword. It clattered loudly onto the floor. The witcher made to pick it back up, but sank onto his knees instead. His hands were bunched into claws against the ground.
And he was crying.
I wanted to say something. I didn't. The words just failed me.
Then, the witcher's hand moved. He grabbed his sword. He raised it and jabbed its tip into the ground. The witcher rose, leaning heavily on the blade. Then, he wrenched it out, held it above his head, and slid it back into its sheath. His eyes were red. Pain etched out the lines of age on his face that had been previously invisible. For the first time, he looked old to me.
A red shine caught my eye, and I realized he had a bloody cut on his neck. Still speechless, I could only point at it. The witcher tilted his head and touched it with the tips of his fingers. Looking down at his wet glove, he announced in a heavy voice, "It's done."
"You mean…"
"Lady Covier is no more."
"Lady Covier?"
The witcher reached down to a satchel on his belt and pulled a journal from it. This one was different. Its edges were messy from the loose pieces of paper that were crammed between the pages. Tossing it to me, he said, "You'll get your answers in there." The witcher exhaled heavily and adjusted the sword strap that ran diagonally over his chest. Disturbed by the movement, his medallion emerged from behind his collar. The witcher didn't fix it, either because he didn't notice or didn't care. I thought I saw something else sharing a chain with the medallion, but I didn't get a good look before he spoke again.
"Go outside," he told me. "I'll meet you in a second."
"What are you doing?"
"The boy," the witcher said, "has to be sent off too. It shouldn't be too much of an effort. Just make sure he doesn't follow you out."
Right. How was I supposed to tell? The witcher walked me to the main foyer. He stayed at the top of the stairs while I descended. Before I walked out, I stole a quick glance over my shoulder. I noticed how heavily he leaned on the bannister.
I didn't know what I expected when I stepped out of the manor. Peace? Quiet? There wasn't any of that.
What I saw was a gathering of guards at the foot of the manor's long path. Behind them were townsfolk. I recognized some of the faces. They were waiting for something, but it appeared they were too scared to get close to the manor.
I paused and saw their faces change when they spotted me. They looked like they were surprised to see me alive. I couldn't blame them.
The guards were waving me down, calling me to get away from the manor. I tucked the journal into my bag and trotted down the path. My parents were pushing their way through the guards. It suddenly came to me that I never told them I would be going into the manor. It wasn't exactly something I had planned this morning. Yeah, it had been a completely dumb thing to do, but there was no need for this kind of overreaction.
My mother rushed forward with a look like she hadn't seen me in years. "Did he hurt you?" she asked.
I assumed she meant the ghost. "She," I corrected automatically. "It was a—."
"Is he still in there?" Her wide, frantic eyes flickered down to my body. "Did he… did he touch you?"
"What?"
"That man, he-he…"
I was slow on the realization. Exhaustion from nearly being killed over and over again could do that to someone. "It wasn't a man," I insisted. "It was a ghost, or—or a wraith? I don't know."
My mother stared at me. "The witcher," she said. "Where is he?"
It was slowly dawning on me. I looked past my mother at the guards. Their weapons were already drawn. They weren't waiting on the witcher to pay him, or thank him for getting rid of the Coviers' murderer. They were going to arrest him. Or kill him, even.
"What's going on?" I demanded. "What are you all doing?" That's when I learned of what happened out here while the witcher and I had been in the manor.
Irene had—just what was wrong with her? She had told everyone that the witcher had seduced her. Taken advantage of her. Rape was essentially what she was implying, but she didn't seem to want to use such an ugly word. The witcher had raped her and everyone was set alight. Did she spread those lies for attention? Maybe to bask in the pity that people now showered her with.
But there was no evidence. No logic. The witcher had been in the manor all day. That didn't matter, apparently. All that was needed were words. Talk.
I looked back at the manor. He was still in there, and he didn't know what was waiting for him out here. He wouldn't fight back—that would involve hurting innocents. The witcher would never do that, even if that was what these people were doing.
Turning back, I told my parents I needed to head back in. Find the witcher. Of course, they were horrified. Why would I do that? The witcher was dangerous.
What was that word? Irony.
I told them I was going to get the witcher to come out. They still didn't agree, but I had long since outgrown the need for their approval. I headed back up to the manor, ignoring their calls. It was funny, but the closer to the manor I got, the more they sounded like the bleating of livestock. Sheep, almost.
He was sitting on one of the curved staircases in the main foyer. His hand was by his neck, worrying something between his fingers. It was that thing around his neck—not the medallion, but the other thing. As I looked, I thought I saw gold. But then his eyes came up, and mine pulled up to meet them.
"Did you…? You know."
The witcher nodded. His fingers had stilled around the thing. "This place is cleared." He must've read my face like a book, because he added, "What's wrong?"
It was difficult for me to say it. I never liked delivering bad news, and this was horrible, horrible news. I opened my mouth. The start of the sentence never came to me. Finally, I nodded towards the door behind me and said, "You can't go out there."
"And why not?"
"Something… happened."
The witcher raised his head, beckoning for me to continue. So I explained to him, as best I could, that there were people waiting outside for him. When I told him why, he lowered his head. He dropped the thing between his fingers and it, with the medallion, fell heavily back against his chest.
"Why am I not surprised?" I heard him mutter. He raised his head back up and asked, "So why are you here then?"
It was a strange thing to ask, I thought. "Because," I told him, "they're wrong. You didn't do anything bad."
"I see. And you didn't think that, in the event the lovely mob out there found out what you're doing, you would find yourself on the unfortunate end of their near-sighted judgment?"
I didn't like what he was trying to imply. "They're all crowded near the front," I said. "If you go out through the garden at the back, you could cover some distance before they realize that you're gone."
The witcher gave me a single nod and rose to his feet. "Back garden, huh?" he said. "Thankfully this manor's on the edge of town. Figure I'll be able to reach Maecht before sundown." He walked just a few steps before I remembered.
"Wait!" I already had the coin purse in my offering hand by the time he turned. He looked down at it like I was holding out a frog or something. "It's not the amount you were promised," I said apologetically, "but it ought to be better than nothing."
The witcher glanced back down at the pouch in my hand. "Two wraiths," he told me. "One was much stronger than the other, but we agreed on a flat rate, didn't we? There had better be 4,400 florens in there." Then, he shed the humor with a weak smile and a shake of his head. "I'm not taking it."
"But…"
"You know," the witcher continued in a louder voice, "if more people were like you, think of how much better the world would be. Offer me your word instead of coin." He turned completely towards me. "Hold onto what you have. Your innocence. Your kindness. And yes, even your naiveté. That's what the world needs—not armies or witchers. Do I have your word?"
If that was what he wanted, that was the least he deserved. I nodded.
The witcher began to turn back. "It was nice meeting you, Jemille." Before his medallion disappeared out of view, I spotted the bit of gold that nestled with it. It was a wedding ring.
It was deserted at the Imperial Academy because the four weeks of summer vacation had not yet ended. I came here early because I felt I could not call Trivant home anymore. I knew more than ever the true nature of the people there, and as a result they became strangers. Distancing myself was the only way I could stay sane.
The witcher made me see this way. He had handed me the book. As I'd gone through it, the written words of Lord Covier and the letters and documents he had tucked in between the pages told me the story.
Lady Noelle Covier, mother of Alani, had not been Lord Covier's first wife. She was his second, married three years after Lady Viviette's death. After her suicide. She had hung herself from a noose in one of the manor rooms. It had been noted that the month prior to her death, she had grown increasingly reclusive and agitated. It was understandable. Her son, just shy of two years, had died in a carriage accident in which the carriage had tipped over and collapsed.
I never knew until now. I'd just been a baby when it had happened. But I could imagine how everyone reacted to the tragedy. I thought back to that entry in Viviette's journal.
If there had been someone, just one person, who had turned away from all the gossip and stopped by the Covier manor to ask her if she was okay, would things have been different? Would the path have diverged from a woman taking her own life out of misery and loneliness? I didn't know. But I knew one thing—Trivant would never change. In that town, people talk.
When classes started up again, I tried my best to focus. It was hard. But one thing I clung onto was the witcher. Never change, he had told me. I thought I knew what witchers were like. I thought I knew how they felt. But I couldn't stop thinking about what happened in that manor—what the monster had resorted to in her last moments before the witcher had done her in.
He had been clutching the ring when I found him sitting on the stairs. The stare he pointed towards the unseen distance had shown that he was gone—submerged in some old, guarded memory.
Seeing him in that moment told me one thing: I didn't know how witchers felt. And they did feel. Maybe even more than most of us. Definitely more than the sheep back in Trivant.
And then he had left, fleeing the wrath of the people he had helped just because of the throwaway words of some dumb moron. It wasn't fair. What happened to the Coviers wasn't fair. The fate Viviette had been driven to wasn't fair.
People talk.
When the air grew a chilly bite and students started packing up for Yule, some noticed that my belongings were unpacked. They asked me if I was going home for the winter.
"No," I told them.