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“DO YOU ACCEPT the payment for this debt?”
Cut’s voice echoed in the room, sending chills down my spine.
Silent tears oozed down my cheeks as the old video played footage of my mother and him. She stood in a pentacle of salt beside the pond. The ducking stool hovered in the background and the white shift she wore fluttered around her legs.
The memories of the day I’d paid the Second Debt merged with the horrifying scene before me.
She held herself like I had that day: hands balled, chin defiantly high.
“No, I don’t accept.” Her voice was lower than mine, huskier and more determined. She’d said in one of her diary entries that I was a stronger woman than her.
I didn’t agree.
My mother was royalty. She might not wear a crown and blue blood might not flow through her veins, but to me, she was so queenly she put Bonnie to shame.
Bonnie was younger, her hair not quite white and her back not as bent. She clasped her hands in front of her, watching the altercation between Emma and Cut. The way Cut stared at my mother belied the lust he felt for her. His fingers grew white as he fisted, regret shadowing his gaze.
Regret?
Cut turned out to have so many avenues and trapdoors. I’d always believed he was mad. A barking, raving lunatic to do what he did. But what if he became who he was because of circumstance? What if he fell for my mother just like Jethro fell for me? What forced him to take Emma’s life if he loved her?
“Get on with it,” Bonnie snapped when Cut didn’t move.
He flinched, but it was Emma who forced Cut to obey.
She scrunched up her face and spat on his shoes. “Yes, listen to the wicked witch, Bryan. Do as you’re told.”
Acres of unsaid tension existed between them. They had a connection—strained and confusing—but linking them regardless.
Cut cocked his head. “You know your orders don’t work on me.”
My mother balled her hands. Her perfect cheekbones and flowing black hair defied the whistling wind, hissing into the camera like a thousand wails. “Do your worst, Bryan. I’ve told you a hundred times. I’m not afraid of you, of your family, of whatever debts you make me pay. I’m not afraid because death will come for all of us and I know where I’ll be.”
She stood proudly in the pentagon. “Where will you be when you succumb to death’s embrace?”
Cut paused, the grainy image of his face highlighting a sudden flash of nerves, of hesitation. He looked younger but not adolescent. I doubted he’d ever been completely carefree or permitted to be a child.
Bonnie ruled him like she’d ruled her grandchildren—with no reprieve, rest and a thousand repercussions.
“I’ll tell you where I’ll be.” Cut stormed forward. His feet didn’t enter the salt, but he grabbed my mother around the nape. The diamond collar—
My fingers flew to the matching diamonds around my throat.
The weight of the stones hummed, almost as if they remembered their previous wearer.
—the diamond collar sparkled in the sunlight, granting prisms of light to blind the camera lens, blurring both her and Cut.
In that moment, something happened. Did Cut soften? Did he profess his true feelings? Did my mother whisper something she shouldn’t? Either way, he let her go. His shoulders slouched as he looked at Bonnie.
Then the sudden weakness faded and he stiffened with menace. “Accept the debt, Emma. And then we can begin.”
My hand fumbled for the remote control, my cast clunking on the table-top.
I can’t do this.
Once Jethro had delivered me into the room, I hadn’t been able to move. My feet stuck to the floor, my legs encased in emotional quicksand. I couldn’t go forward, and I couldn’t go back.
I was locked in a room full of scrolls and videos.
For a second, I’d hated Jethro for showing me this place. I knew a room such as this must exist. After all, Cut told me he kept countless records and their family lawyers had copies of every Debt Inheritance amendment.
But I hadn’t expected such meticulous documents.
Stupidly, I thought I would be strong enough to watch. To hold my mother’s hand all these years later and exist beside her while she went through something so terrible.
In reality, I wasn’t.
These atrocities didn’t happen to strangers. These debts happened to flesh and blood. A never-ending link to women I was born to, shared their hopes and fears, ancestors who donated slivers of their souls to create mine.
But I had to stay because I couldn’t keep them shut in the dark anymore. If I didn’t release their recorded forms, they’d be forever locked in filing cabinets.
Pointing the controller at the TV, I stopped the tape as Cut ducked Emma for the second time. I’d been with her while Cut delivered the history lesson. I’d hugged her phantom body as she awaited her punishment. But I couldn’t watch any more of her agony. I couldn’t sit there and pretend it didn’t shatter me. That while my mother was almost drowned, I’d been alive hating her for leaving my father.
Forgive me.
Forgive me for ever cursing you. I didn’t know.
Leaning over the table, I ejected the cassette and inserted the tape back into its sleeve.
I’d gone through her file. I’d watched the beginning of the First Debt and fast-forwarded over the whipping. I’d spied on security footage of Emma strolling through the Hall like any welcome guest. I held my breath as she sewed and sketched in the same quarters where Jethro had broken, made love to me, and told me what he was.
I couldn’t watch anymore.
Whatever went on in her time at Hawksridge was hers to keep. It wasn’t right to voyeur on her triumphs over Cut or despair over her moments of weakness. It wasn’t for me to console or judge.
My mother’s presence filled my heart, and in a way, I felt her with me. My shoulder warmed where I imagined she touched me. My back shivered where her ethereal form brushed past.
I’d summoned her from the grave and held her spirit, ready to release her from the shackles of the catalogue room.
I have to free them all.
Shooting out of my chair, I rubbed my sticky cheeks from unnoticed tears and rushed to the other filing cabinets. Each one was dedicated to an ancestor.
I couldn’t catch a proper breath as I yanked open metal drawers and grabbed armfuls of folders. Working one-handed slowed me down. I dropped some; I threw some, scattering them on the table.
Cursing my cast, I lovingly touched every page, skimmed every word, and whispered every sadness.
Time flowed onward, somehow threading history with present.
Jethro was right to leave.
As a Hawk, he wouldn’t be welcome.
The longer I stood in that cell, the more I battled with hate.
Folder after folder.
Document after document.
I made a nest, surrounded by boxes, papers, photographs, and memorabilia from women I’d never met but knew so well.
Kneeling, I sighed heavily as their presence and phantom touches grew stronger the more I read. Their blood flowed in my veins. Their mannerisms shaped mine, their hopes and dreams echoed everything I wanted.
No matter that decades and centuries separated us, we were all Weavers taken and exploited.
My jeans turned grey with dust, my nose itchy from time-dirtied belongings.
Lifting images from the closest file, I stared into the eyes of an ancestor I didn’t recognise. She was the least like me from all the relatives I had. She had large breasts, curvy hips, and round face. Her hair was the signature black all Weaver women had and looked the most Spanish out of all of us.
So much pain existed in her eyes. Trials upon trials where the very air solidified with injustice and the common hatred for the Hawks.
I didn’t want to sit there anymore. I didn’t want to coat myself in feelings from the past and slowly bury my limbs in an avalanche of memories, but I owed it to them. I’d told my ancestors I would set them free, and I would.
Tracing fingertips over grainy images, I worshipped the dead and apologised for their loss. I spoke silently, telling them justice had been claimed, karma righted, and it was time for them to move on and find peace.
My fingertips smudged from pencil and parchment, caked in weathered filth. The video recordings ceased the earlier the years went on. Photographs lost pigment and clarity, becoming grainy and sepia.
I hated the Hawks.
I hated the debts.
I even hated the original Weavers for condemning us to this fate.
So many words.
So many tears.
Reading, reading, reading...
Freeing, freeing, freeing...
There wasn’t a single file I didn’t touch.
The eerie sense of not being alone only grew stronger the more I opened. The filing cabinets went from full to empty. The files scattered like time-tarnished snowflakes on the floor.
I lost track of minutes and had no clock to remind me to return to my generation. I remained in limbo, locked with specters, unwilling to leave them alone after so long.
Eventually, my gaze grew blurry. The words no longer made sense. And the repetition of each woman paying the same debts merged into a watercolour, artfully smearing so many pasts into one.
By the time I reached the final box, photographs had become oily portraits. The last image was cracked and barely recognisable, but I knew I held the final piece.
The woman who’d started it all.
The original Weaver who’d sent an innocent girl to death by ducking stool and turned a blind eye to everything else.
She didn’t deserve the same compassion as the rest of my ancestors—she’d condemned us all. But at the same time, enough pain had been shed; it was time to let it go.
They all deserved peace.
The small space teemed with wraiths of my family, all weaving together like a swirling hurricane. The air gnawed on me with ghoulish gales from the other side.
Taking a deep breath, I re-entered the land of the living. I moaned in discomfort as I stood. My knees creaked while my spine realigned from kneeling on the floor like a pew at worship, slowly working my way through a temple of boxes.
I didn’t believe in ghosts walking amongst us but I couldn’t deny the truth.
They were there.
Crying for me. Rejoicing for me. Celebrating the end even though they’d paid the greatest price.
They loved me. They thanked me.
And it layered me with shame and ultimately pride.
Pride for breaking tradition.
Pride for keeping my oath.
They’d died.
I hadn’t.
I lived.
* * * * *
I found Jethro outside.
The sun had long ago set and winter chill howled over the manicured gardens, lamenting around the turrets and edges of Hawksridge Hall.
I’d had the foresight to grab warmer clothes before embarking on finding fresh air and huddled deeper into my jacket, letting the sling take the weight of my cast. Tugging the faux fur of my hood around my ears, I wished I’d brought gloves for my rapidly frost-bitten fingers.
Jethro looked up as my sheepskin-lined boots crunched across the gravel and skirted the boxed hedgerow. Wings and Moth stood in the distance, blotting the horizon, cloaked in blankets.
As I’d made my way through the Hall, I’d seen silhouettes of people outside. I’d recognised Jethro’s form. I wanted to join them—be around real people after dusty apparitions.
And now, I’d not only found Jethro but everyone I loved and cared for.
On the large expanse of lawn stood my new family. Jasmine, Vaughn, Jethro, and Tex. They all stood around a mountainous pile of branches, interspersed with the Ducking Stool and Iron Chair and other items I never wanted to see again.
Ducking my head into the breeze, I patrolled over the grass. My hood whipped back, and I caught the eye of Jasmine.
She gave me a smile, holding out her hand.
I took it.
Her fingers were popsicles, but she squeezed mine as I bent over and kissed her cheek. We didn’t need to talk. We understood. She’d lost her brothers and father. I’d lost my mother. Together, we would stand and not buckle beneath the tears.
In the distance, the south gardens glittered with rapidly forming dew-frost, glittering like nature’s diamonds on leaves and blades of grass.
Jethro skirted the large tinderbox of firewood, pausing beside his sister with a large log in his hands. His eyes glowed in the darkness, his lips hiding white teeth. “I won’t ask what happened. And I won’t pry unless you want to share. But I built this for them. For you. For what lives in that room.”
He dropped his gaze, awkwardly stroking the log. “I don’t know if you’ll want to say goodbye this way, but I just thought—” He shrugged. “I thought I’d make a fire, just in case.”
I didn’t say a word.
I let go of Jasmine, flew around her chair, and slammed into his arms.
He dropped the wood and embraced me tightly. I didn’t care my brother and father watched. All I cared about was thanking this man. This Hawk. Because now he’d let himself be the person I always knew he could be, I couldn’t stop falling more and more in love with him.
His lips warmed my frozen ear, kissing me sweetly. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, nuzzling closer, inhaling the pine sap and earthy tones from collecting firewood. “I’m better.” I gathered my thoughts before whispering, “When you left me in there, I couldn’t move. I truly didn’t like you very much. But you were right. Thank you for giving me that time. For knowing what I needed, even when I didn’t.”
He hugged me harder. “Anything for you, you know that.”
I shivered as another howl swept over the treetops. The night would be bitterly cold, but soon there would be something to warm us.
Pulling away, I smiled at my twin standing with his arms crossed and a bitter look on his face. Eventually, I would have to talk to him and tell him Jethro would be his brother-in-law. He would have to accept him. Tex, too.
I asked far more than they could offer—to love the son of the man who’d stolen Tex’s wife and our mother—but that was life.
The heart had the incredible capacity to heal wrongs. And I wouldn’t apologise for betraying my family name with Jethro. I’d chosen him. And if they couldn’t accept that...well, I didn’t want to think about it. Not tonight.
Jethro tucked flying hair behind my ears and pulled up my hood. “Are you ready?”
I rested my face in his palm, reaching on tiptoes to kiss his wind-bitten lips. “I’m ready.”
Taking my hand, he kissed my knuckles. “In that case, let’s put the past behind us.”
* * * * *
It took us an hour and a half to lug the boxes from upstairs to the bonfire outside.
We formed an assembly line, a never-ending factory of willing hands to transport.
Jethro joined me in the room, respectfully gathering files and packing them into boxes. I’d left the space in a mess, but together, we created neat piles so Vaughn and Tex could carry them downstairs.
Jasmine stayed on the lawn, willingly accepting the items on her lap and wheeling them across the grass to the unlit bonfire.
The last box to go down was full of my mother’s time at the Hall. I blinked back tears as I handed it awkwardly to my father.
He knew with one look what the paperwork entailed. His face echoed with heartbreak as he cradled the heavy package and took it downstairs himself. He didn’t transfer it to Vaughn. He didn’t let go. Hugging his wife’s spirit one last time.
Once he’d gone, and the room stood empty, Jethro popped into the corridor and spoke to V.
“Can you give us a minute?”
Vaughn looked past him, his black eyes meeting mine. “You okay, Threads?”
I came forward, my heart beating faster. “I’m okay. I’ll see you down there.” I gave him a half-smile. “Don’t start without us.”
He scowled. “You know I wouldn’t.”
I sighed. We had a long way to go to be able to joke with one another again without a filament of mistrust and pain cloaking everything. “I know, V. Stupid joke.” Brushing past Jethro, I gathered my twin in my arms.
He buckled, his spine rolling and strong arms wrapping around me. He shuddered as we stood there and squeezed. The past ten days had been good for us. We’d spent time together, skirting true issues, but I had a feeling after tonight, we’d have nothing keeping us apart and could finally talk through the events and find our closeness once again.
Letting me go, he smiled. He’d let a slight beard creep over his chin, dark and rich, making him seem exotic and untameable. “Love you, Threads.”
“Love you more.” I patted his chest. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Vaughn nodded and disappeared down the staircase. Once he’d gone, I entered the room and waited while Jethro silently closed the door.
My heart went from fast paced to flurrying. “What are you doing?”
Jethro grimaced, striding to a filing cabinet and shoving it to the side. “There’s one more box you haven’t seen. One I hid.”
I ghosted forward. “You hid it? Why?”
Dropping to his knees, he ran his fingernails around a wooden panel in the wainscoting. Popping open a hidden compartment, he shuffled back to pull out a dust-smeared box. This one didn’t match the other drab brown ones. This one was white and narrow with the initials E.W. on top.
My heart flew into my throat.
Jethro stood up, supporting the box and swatting at dust motes on his jeans. “I hid it because I was asked to by someone I cared about.”
Moving toward the table, he placed the offering in the centre. “She asked me to give this to you. She knew I’d come for you once she was gone, but she also knew I was different.”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off the carton. “Different?”
“She caught me one day. She caught me before I had the chance to have another lesson. She didn’t fully understand what I was, but she guessed enough that it made her trust me. I wanted to tell her not to be so stupid. I was still my father’s son. But she didn’t give me a choice.
“She told me I would fall in love with you. She told me you would win. She also told me that if I let you help me, everything could be different.”
A tear glassed my vision then spilled over. Talking about my mother, learning new memories I didn’t share was wondrous as well as bittersweet.
I didn’t notice I’d moved forward until my fingers traced her initials. “She told you all of that?”
Jethro chuckled quietly. “She told me a lot of things. She also told Kes. I think she preferred him over me—he was the one everyone fell in love with—but she trusted us with different tasks.”
I finally met his eyes, tearing mine from the box. “What did she make you do?”
Jethro nodded at the table. “She wanted me to keep this safe for you. She said one day, I would find the right time to give this to you. And when I did, she hoped it meant things hadn’t gone the way they had for her. That you’d won.
“At the time, I almost hated her for being so cocky and sure. I hated I’d come across weak enough that she dare predict my future. But at the same time, I loved her for seeing things in me I hadn’t even permitted myself to see. I loved she thought I was worthy of your love. I loved that she wanted me to take you because, ultimately, she knew I’d lose and you’d win and together we’d fight.”
I struggled to breathe as more tears joined the first. I wanted to ask so many questions. I wanted Jethro to regale me of every time he’d conversed with my mother. I wanted to hoard his memories as my own and build a picture of her strength after she’d been taken from us.
But I didn’t want to rush something so precious. Another time. Another night. When people weren’t waiting to say goodbye.
Sucking in a breath, I asked quietly, “And Kes? What was his task?”
Jethro’s face tightened with pain. “You already know. He completed his promise within days of you being with us.” His eyes narrowed, willing me to recall.
What had Kes done apart from taking me into his quarters? He’d given me sketching paper. Become my friend. Laughed with me. Entertained me and granted normalcy while I swam in bewilderment.
“He was to become my friend.”
Jethro nodded. “Your mother knew no one could replace Vaughn. You’d grown up together. You loved each other so much. But she also knew not having that connection would be one of the hardest things you’d have to face. So she asked Kes to be your brother while your true one couldn’t be there.”
My stomach knotted as I wrapped arms around myself. Kes’s friendship had been invaluable, but now, it’d become priceless knowing every touch and joke had come out of respect for my mother.
In a way, it could’ve cheapened Kes’s kindness to me—knowing he’d been asked to do so—but I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as a selfless deed, and I was confident enough in our mutual affection that he hadn’t just done it for Emma. He’d done it for himself, for whatever bond blossomed between us.
Jethro came closer, moving behind me to envelop me in a hug. My back fell into his chest, my head tilting to the side for his kisses to land on my neck. “She also asked him to give you the Weaver Journal. I knew you thought that was a tool for my family to spy on your thoughts. That we were the ones to create such a tradition. But we didn’t.”
His lips trailed lovingly over my collar to my ear. “That was a Weaver secret and at least one Hawk in every generation kept it hidden. Kes was tasked to give it to you. But he wasn’t asked to tell you why he’d given it. It was yours to do what you wanted—write in it or not. Read it or ignore it. The choice was yours.”
How could I learn so much in such a few short sentences? How could I fall in love with the dead even more than when they were alive?
Spinning in Jethro’s hold, I pressed my face against his chest. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me.”
His embrace tightened. “Thank you for making your mother’s premonitions come true.”
We stood still for so many heartbeats, thanking the dead, reliving the secrets, rejoicing in the rightful end.
Finally, Jethro let me go. “Open it. And then we’ll join the others.”
I looked at the box. The air around it seemed to throb with welcome, begging me to look inside.
Jethro shuffled, moving toward the door.
I held out my hand. “Wait. Don’t go.”
He halted. “You don’t want to be on your own?”
“No.” Shaking my head, I smiled. “I want you beside me. She would want you to be here.”
Biting his lip, he returned to my side.
Wordlessly, I pulled the box closer and slid off the lid.
A puff of lint flurried with the opening pressure, scattering onto the table-top. My heart stopped beating as I reached into the tiny coffin of memories and pulled out the letter sitting on top.
“It’s addressed to me.”
Jethro looped an arm around my waist, trembling with everything I felt.
The confusion.
The hope.
The sadness.
The happiness at hearing from her one last time.
“Open it.”
The glue on the envelope had weathered and unstuck, gaping open as I turned it over and fumbled with my sling to pull forth the note.
Dear my sweetest daughter,
I’ve promised myself I would write this letter so many times, and every time I begin, I stop.
There is so much to say. My mind runs wild with guidelines and tips for all things you are yet to enjoy. First love, first heartbreak, first baby. I’ll never get to see those things. Never see you grow into a woman or enjoy motherhood.
And that upsets me, but I know I’ll be proud of the woman you became because you’re part of me, and through you, I shall remain alive, no matter what happens to my mortal body.
There might also be a chance you won’t achieve what I hope you will. That you’ll fall to the guillotine like me. That we’ll meet far too young in heaven.
But I’m not thinking those thoughts.
If you live at Hawksridge while Cut is still in power, remember two things. That man is violent, unpredictable, and cruel. But beneath it, he can be manipulated. A man who has everything has nothing if he doesn’t have love. And he’s never had love. I pretended to give him that. I hoped my false affection could prevent my end, but I didn’t have it in me to love him true. I love your father. I can never love Cut while I have Arch in my heart.
And that was my downfall.
Anyway...
Before I prattle on about nothing, I have to tell you two things. I’ve hoarded these confessions for far too long.
First, I need to tell you about your grandmother.
I know by now you will have seen the graves on the Hawk’s moor. You’ll have seen her name on a tombstone. But what you won’t know is...that grave is empty.
Like you, I believed she died at the hand of Bonnie’s husband.
But that was before Cut told me the truth.
He viewed his father as weak because that was what Bonnie fed him. However, I see Alfred Hawk as one of the bravest men. He succumbed to tradition and claimed my mother. He completed the first two debts, but his affection for her—the love he could never give Bonnie—meant he couldn’t attach the collar or kill her.
So he did the only thing he could.
He pretended to end the Debt Inheritance. He buried a fake corpse and set her free. He gave her a second chance but with the strictest of conditions: never contact her Weaver family again—for her sake and his.
She kept that promise for many years. I grew up believing she’d died. However, one night, I received a phone call from Italy. She was alive, Nila. She’d watched me from afar, celebrated when I had my children, and lamented when I was claimed. She would’ve fought for me—I know that. But she died before she could.
Now...Nila...this is the hardest part to write. The second secret I’ve kept my entire life, and I honestly don’t know how to tell you. There are no easy words, so I’ll just have to swallow my tears, beg you to understand, and hope you can forgive me.
My children.
I loved you. All of you. So, so much.
I let my fear get the better of me just before they took me. I begged your father to hide you. But we both knew this was our only chance. Arch didn’t want to go ahead with my plan. Don’t hate him, Nila. It was me. All me. I take full blame, and even though I’m dead and you can’t berate me, know I died with regret and hope.
I regret you living in my path, but I’m full of hope you’ll achieve what I couldn’t.
I always thought a letter like this would be long and full of tears, but I know now (after so many failed attempts) that I can’t over think this. I can’t write everything I want to say because everything important you already know.
You know I love you.
You know I’ll always watch over you.
And I know when Jet comes to collect you, you’ll win. You’ll win, darling daughter, because you’re so much more than I ever was. You’re the strongest, bravest, most brilliant daughter I could ever ask for, and that’s why I sacrificed you.
Does that confuse you?
Does that make you hate me?
If it does, then I won’t ask for your forgiveness. But know I believed with all my heart you had the potential to do what I couldn’t. I chose you over her—over Jacqueline.
I made that decision. Right or wrong. I’ll never know.
After watching you grow up, I just know you have the power to end this. And it was a risk I was willing to pay. You were the one I pinned all my hopes on. You were the one to save us all.
I love you, Nila, Threads, my precious, precious daughter.
Forgive me or not, I’ll never stop caring for you, never stop watching.
Please, try to understand.
I gambled both our lives to save so many more.
Thank you for being so brave.
Love,
Your mother.
