Ending of Reparation Payments:GRANTED
—
A noisesomewhere between a muffled sob and a shout of triumph escapes on a hiss of air.GRANTED. One word has never meant so much to me.
I’m free. My person, my purse, my very soul isfinallyfree of him…
“Victoria?” Emily shifts closer to me, no doubt worried about my expressions swinging like a pendulum. She still clutches the envelope I ripped the letter from to her chest. We’re hunched around a booth against the back wall of the Tilted Table. Our usual spot in our family’s tavern.
But I don’t respond, I keep reading. There’s still more. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Charles is a small, petty man who won’t remove his claws from anything he deems as his. He’s been terrorizing me at every turn. From his demands of reparation payments to supplement his “hardship” at the lighthouse without me, to allegations of me being involved with the sirens, to doing everything he can to smear my name to anyone who will listen. There is no act that’s beneath him when it comes to something that would hurt me.
The letter continues:
—
With the followingterms applicable in consideration with Vakstone’s suffering and Tenvrath’s investment in Datch as a lighthouse keeper, as well as changing circumstances for Datch, Elizabeth Victoria Datch will owe:
10,000 cronsto the Council of Tenvrath
5,000 crons repayment for each year the council funded Datch’s room and board as a lighthouse attendant, inclusive of initial establishment costs.
10,000 cronsto Charles Vakstone
200 crons annual reparation payment for desertion of marriage calculated across 50 years.
Payment will bedue in exactly one year following delivery of this notice.
Shouldthese payments fail to be made, the council will award Vakstone with an adequate replacement of lighthouse assistant from Datch’s next of kin. Should there be no one willing or able, all those bearing the Datch name from the immediate family will be sent to a debtors’ prison to pay back any remaining debts at a rate of one year per thousand crons.
—
There’s moreat the bottom but it’s all the official seals and signatures of the Council of Tenvrath, followed by a long list of files and documents that Charles and I have submitted over the years. There’s his initial notice of abandonment at the top, followed by his movement for reparations. My first request for the severing of marriage all the way to the third request—that Charles still refused—which led to the council being forced to finally step in and render a judgment that we clearly were never going to reach on our own.
It’s easier to cut your own arm off than sever a contract in Tenvrath.
I make sure nothing is missed. No opportunity I lost to fight my way out of this corner I’ve been backed into. But every document I submitted is listed. Every appearance before the council. Every formal attack Charles has ever made against me filed in triplicate. The grim undercurrent of my adult life is cataloged with legal document and statement after statement.
They gave me one year to pay them more than what I make in several. It’s a cruel sentence cast down by a council of old men who were always far more sympathetic to Charles than to me. The cruelty is made worse by what they don’t know: I only have six months. My five years are almost up. And if I disappear before I pay this debt then my family will bear the cost.
Guilt turns my stomach sour. How could I inflict this upon them? I must find a way to fix this mess I’ve made once and for all.
“Well?” Emily whispers eagerly, interrupting my thoughts. “What did the council say this time? John wouldn’t tell meanything. He didn’t even want to let me bring the ruling to you tonight. I had to insist; even then, he only agreed because I told him how quickly you usually set sail.”
There’s a whole page of words in front of me and yet I can’t find any to say. I’ve been staring at the letter for ten long minutes. Reading it again and again.
It’s over…it’s finally, at long last, over… Despite Charles and all his attempts to cling to me—to fault me for his every misfortune—I am finally free of him. Our marriage contract has been severed.
But my struggles are only just beginning. This moment should have been my triumph and, yet again, Charles manages to be the thief of my joy.
“Victoria, you’re starting to worry me.” Emily bites on her nails.
“No need for that.” I rest my fingertips lightly on my younger sister’s knuckles. “It’s all right, Em.” Or, it will be, once I come up with the money.
“Then…” She slowly lowers her hand, eyes widening. “Vic…you’re finally free?”
I smile and nod. My sister practically vaults across the table and throws her arms around my shoulders. I barely have a chance to get the paper out from between us, shoving it into my pocket before she can see the terms. She squeezes the air from me. Every time I hug her I wonder where the little girl that was always on my heels went. She was thirteen and then, in a blink, a woman.
Though, it didn’t help that I didn’t see her for almost four years. There were the two I was on the lighthouse island, and then almost two after that when I was in hiding. Trying to find my feet and make a life for myself—on my own—before Charles reared his ugly head from that gray rock of his. Before I found out via getting back in touch with Em that he had declared me as abandoning my duty as soon as he was able—not dead, since my body could not be found—and went after my family for money as a result.
