When Miriam spoke, it was a welcome reprieve from the thoughts clouding my head.
“Mama, I’d like to speak with Valeria,” she said. “Alone.”
Mama’s worried gaze danced between us, her hand going to her bosom as she slowly nodded. “Yes, of course. I need to find Gloria and straighten this up. I’m sure William is just as upset as well.” Mama continued to talk to herself as she exited the small alcove of a room, hatching a futile plot.
Miriam jumped up from the chair toward the window, which served as a mocking timepiece more than a scenic showcase of beauty. “Do you remember the time we climbed the cherry tree and Father was so upset when it was discovered we had done so in our best clothing?”
The memory of that afternoon was a cherished relic, more of a dream than a memory.
“Yes. Where are you going with this?”
She tapped the windowsill, her brows scrunched in concentration and thin lips twisted into a frown. She appeared older, lost in thought and more serious than I’d ever seen her, becoming what I could not.
“You talked your way out of Father punishing us. Father was so mad at us when we climbed down and nearly broke our necks, but you saved our skin. Sweet talking him with such words I had never seen still tothis day on how such sweet talking can be done. Perhaps you can talk your way out of this arrangement.”
I shook my head. “There is no talking my way out of this.”
She bustled forward, taking my hands in hers. “Sister, you must. You must try and get out of this horrid arrangement and come back to us.”
I balked at the words. They reverberated against my skull as a tireless joke.
In plain truth, the same truth I hid from her, there was nothing left for me. I was a pawn in Mama’s ruse to ensure our futures, and I would’ve been a ruse for William all the same. None of this could erase the fact I wouldn’t last the season.
At least with this choice, I would be swapping one death for another.
I rubbed at her thumb, the softness of hers under the harshness of mine. “He would kill me before he ever gives me the chance to come back even then”—I shuddered—“I’m dying, Miriam. Dying. I will not come back. I can’t come back. If I go with this man or stay, I will die either way, and there is no changing that.”
“We can find a cure, and there are ways we can—”
“No. There is no other way. At least this way, I can not be a burden to Mama and to you for the funeral expenses or medical expenses. You will not have to worry about having a sister and, instead, start afresh, worrying about other trivial matters such as finding a suitor.”
Miriam lowered her face into my lap, crying softly into the stained fabric.
I patted her head just like when we were children.
As her cries quieted, something in her shifted.
She snapped her head up, eyes twinkling with dangerous thoughts. “He is immortal. Perhaps he knows of a way to extend your life. Maybe—maybe you can sweet-talk your way into showing you his secret, and you can come back.” She lunged for a hug, squeezing what little life I had out of my body. “Yes, that’s it! Ask him to show you his secret and then kill him and come back to us!”
Kill him.
Two little words that seem next to impossible floated within the space.
Miriam, renewed with hope and inspiration, muttered something indiscernible to herself.
“What possessed you to think it would be possible?” I asked.
“I once read it in a book!”
“Miriam, I don’t—”
“We are going to need a few stakes and holy water.” She stood and paced the floor. “I wonder if we can stake him as he sleeps during the day. Although I am not sure about the whole daylight myth, since he was still walking in the light before the sun was even down.”
“Miriam—”
Miriam rambled on further, oblivious. Her movements became more exaggerated, the wheels turning in her mind furiously as her pace quickened.
“Miriam. Miriam, listen to me.”
