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.
