Faintly in the distance, I hear someone shout.
That would be Nolan.
“Nolan!” I scream out at him, though it takes all the self-control in my body to even command my voice.
I start pacing in the opposite direction from him, knowing he’ll stop once he sees Charlie’s body in the water.
I can no longer tell how much of that is me, wishing for him to rescue my friend, and how much of it is the bargain, wishing to delay him a few seconds longer.
There’s a snag in my spine, pulling me toward the edge of the forest. As soon as I’m concealed under a canopy of pine trees, a shadow appears—a figure whose shape I know too well.
“Darling girl,” says the Middle Sister.
A wind howls through the forest, but it does nothing to sweep at the tendrils of her shadowy hair. She drifts toward me, and I scream at my legs to turn back.
Instead, my knees give out underneath me, hitting the harsh ground with a thud and a slash of pain as the underbrush of the forest digs into my bare skin.
In my arms, my little boy lets out the feeblest of yawns.
“He’s beautiful. Doesn’t look much like you,” says the Sister. “I was hoping that would be the case.”
My entire body trembles.
And though I beg them not to, my arms outstretch, presenting my child as an offering. As soon as he feels the absence of my warmth, the absence of my chest, he wriggles and lets out a wail.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to my baby, my first words to my son, a lie. My last words, too.
But I can’t help myself. “It’s going to be okay, baby.”
The Sister allows me to stay like that for a moment. How easy it would be for her to take him from my arms. Instead, she forces me to hold that posture, arms outstretched, aching, the weight of my child painful, but I don’t want to let go.
“Please,” I say, because that’s all I can do, all I have left to bargain with, such a feeble attempt. “Please. I’ll do anything. Just don’t take him.”
“Where have I heard that before?” says the Sister. “Unfortunately for you, you have no more males left to bargain with. Tell me, little girl, was your husband worth it?”
Tears roll down my cheeks. And though it’s physically painful to crane my neck up and look at her, I do.
“You’ll regret this one day,” I say. “When he finds a way to end you. He’s his father’s son. Your Eldest Sister told me that my husband is one of the few powerful enough of will to rip his own tapestry. Do you think his son will be any different? His hate will be stored up for you and you alone.”
I get the sense that the Sister smiles. “Oh now, do we really think it’s me he’ll hate? Or the mother who sacrificed him for… what was it? Less than a year of happiness?”
I cringe, which only serves as fodder for the Sister to continue her taunt. “Don’t worry, Darling. I’ll tell him all about you. All about the lengths you went to save his father. It’ll be the bedtime story I recite before I close his eyes to sleep at night. We’ll turn it into songs, if we must—the girl who needed to be wanted so badly, she gave up her own child just so she wouldn’t have to feel pain.”
It’s only then that she lifts my son from my arms. When his weight leaves the palms of my hands, I let out the most primal of sobs, as if my heart has been ripped from my chest.
The shadows that mask her face twitch.
I hate her, not only for taking my son away from me, but for taking Nolan’s son away from him, for bending my will to hers, for Charlie, who I can only hope Nolan was able to get to in time.
But even then, I hear footsteps pound behind me, and the Sister chuckles.
Nolan races into the clearing, breathing labored, his eyes a blaze of determination.
“Charlie?” I say, but Nolan only shakes his head, lips pressed together.
I let out a sob into my hand, the confirmation cracking my ribs. I can’t stand to think on it. Not now. Not when, in only a moment, the Sister will step through a warping and take away our son from me forever.
“Take me instead,” says Nolan.
