My eyes spring open—my face is drenched, and her voice echoes one last time:
“Find me in the garden after winter”
Blooming after hardship.
As the thought runs through my head, I look down at Christian lying in my lap. I place my hand on his head, entangling my fingers in his luscious red locks. He lifts his face. The crimson in his cheeks and the white of his eyes is a stark contrast to Jade. “Why the long face?”
He sniffles, “Sugar, I thought I lost you.”
I scoff. “I am too stubborn to die, remember.”
His face only gets more serious. “Evelyn?”
“Yes, Christian?” I rebut.
“Will you marry me?”
WOW, that was unexpected. What do I say to that?
I say the first thing that comes to mind, “And what would my last name be?” I shake my head. What a stupid question, but it worked.
He laughs, “Downey.”
Oliver
I am still in awe of the words so elegantly spoken by my Dove to her sister. They were moving. Earth shifting. It wasn’t the best thing I heard her say, though. No, the best thing was when she turned to me and said, “Yes.
My heart melted.
I don’t even give her a second to rethink her answer before I grab her around the waist and spin her, kissing her as I tell her, “Hold tight, Dove.” I know that her choice for what is coming isn’t going to be pretty. “This is going to hurt—please know I have you.”
She watches as her mother walks in, and they gather around her. Christian helps Evelyn sit, then they all nod simultaneously. Evelyn’s monitor beeps… the doctor switches off the machine, and everyone waits. Tears flow as it flatlines. “Here it comes—are you ready?”
Emory looks at me with fear in her eyes, “Is it going to hurt?”
The world begins to move just a little too fast around us. “Yes, my Dove.” She buries her face in my chest. I know what she is feeling, because I’ve been there:
It's like your body has become a battleground.Every nerve is a live wire, every breath a razor. It’s not sharp like a knife or dull like a bruise—it’s both, and more at the same time. It pulses, burns, and crushes.
Like molten metal poured into your bones, or a vice tightening around your spine, inch by inch, with no release. It hijacks your mind, causing your thoughts to scatter like leaves in a storm. You can’t focus, nor speak. Crying feels like acid, falling from your eyes, burning your skin on contact. Time distorts—seconds stretch into eternities. You become hyper-aware of every heartbeat, every twitch, and tremor. Even the silence hurts.
Emotionally, it isolates you, makes you feel trapped in your own flesh, screaming inwardly while the world moves on. There’s fear—of it never ending, and of losing control, and being reduced to nothing but suffering. It’s not just pain. Its despair wrapped in fire.
I watch the doctors come and go as she falls limp in my arms. To you, the reader, it may feel like nothing, but her suffering is far from that. To take my mind off the pain I can’t save her from, I allow my mind to wander.
Then the previous events come rushing back of Christian running into the room. Crying as he spouts his undying love for her, as I watch her wake up and place her hand on his head.
They exchange a few words,blah, blah, blah—then I hear it. That cursed nameDowney.
Emory is having her spiritual awakening, as she painfully meets the being of the beyond. When I told her we could protect Evelyn, this is not what I had in mind. When I told her we could be here with her, to watch over and protect her, I wasn’t expecting that would include—him.
I vow to do everything in my power to rid them of theDowneyline and forever save them from this ancient curse. She isn’t safe so long as he has his hooks of false love sunk deep into her, self-righteous heart.
So, for the time being, I will enjoy my gift from the universe. Allowing karma to whisper her poison and enact the punishment fit for his family’s wrongdoings. As for me, I have been saved.
Dark, cold, weightless.... found in a stygian ethereal realm.
Epilogue
