by R. L. Weeks
I am haunted each night by the memories of the ones I have lost or couldn’t help. In the distance, a church bell dongs. I count each one along with the people lost.
One. My mother.
Two. My Father.
Three. Grandmother.
Four. Nora.
Five. Tom.
Six. Tabitha.
Seven. Elizabeth.
Eight. Alice.
Nine. Aiden.
I stop counting. I don’t care that Uncle’s friend, Aiden, died, but he is someone else that got caught up in all of this.
Perhaps he deserved it. He was a vile man after all. I shudder at the thought of what he would have done to me if Emmett hadn’t intervened.
Tom huffs. “Come on.”
I glance at him sideways. “What?”
“Being stuck in this room isn’t helping you.”
I huff and look back at the ceiling. “I don’t feel like going anywhere.”
“Are you still angry with me?”
The childish statement leaves my lips. “You hurt me.”
He drops his arms to his side. “I had a breakdown. What can I say? I’m dead. You can’t hold it against me.”
That makes me sit up. “Don’t use the ‘Dead Card’ on me.”
He smirks. “Perks of being a ghost?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I thought you cared about me.”
I feel childish saying it, but it’s true.
He comes and sits on the side of the bed. “I do care.” His eyes are wide. “You know I care about you. Perhaps even too much.”
A knock at the door makes us both jump. I get out of bed, trudge to the door, and open it. “Emmett,” I say. He’s wearing a long black coat buttoned up to his neck and holds a black umbrella in his hand.
It’s covered with drops of water from the melted snowflakes. He looks paler than usual. “What’s wrong?” I ask on seeing his worry.
He teeters on the edge of words. He shuffles uncomfortably and looks up. “Are you alone?”
I glance back at Tom. “Does Tom count?”
Tom scowls at me. “Hey, I’m right here, you know.”
I half smile.
“Yes. He does,” Emmet says and stays in the passage.
He’s beginning to freak me out. I eye the dark circles under his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“You need to come downstairs. I need to talk to you alone.”
I look back at Tom. He shrugs. “Go,” he says. “I’ll be fine.” He turns his attention back to pushing the pen on the desk.
“Okay,” I whisper and follow Emmett down to the living room.
The fire is lit. The tree is decorated with blue-and-white baubles. Emmett only gets the best. I sit next to it on the armchair. “Please tell me what’s going on.” I can’t keep the anxiety from my tone.
Emmett sits across from me and exhales slowly. He drops his hands into his lap. “Your uncle’s friends have been caught. They were investigating the disappearances.”
My eyes widen. “Well, that’s good, right? I mean, you did say they’re bad men.”
“They are.” His gaze stays fixated on mine. “But your uncle got away. No one knows where he is.”
I gulp. “Well, I’m sure they’ll find him soon.”
His face goes paler. “I doubt it. He’s smart.” He pauses and rubs his temples. “He’ll come after you, Raven.”
I sit forward. “Why? I did nothing to him. Unless it’s about Aiden?”
He shakes his head. “Aiden’s death was what led to their capture, but that isn’t the only reason.”
I furrow my brows. What on earth is he talking about? “Just get to the point.” I’ve never seen him like this—except for that night when he told me I was Benjamin’s and Alice’s daughter.
Emmett brings his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down, a classic Raven move. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do it. “The word is he says he has been framed for all the murders.”
“They think he was the murderer?”
Emmett nods once. “He sold virgins to wealthy merchants. Sometimes even abroad. He also sold orphans as slaves to rich families. They found some item of clothing he had left behind when they buried Aiden in the woods outside of Cogsworth. Unlike others, he didn’t sell him to the butcher’s shop. Some mark of respect, I imagine.”
I swallow hard. So that confirms it. He was selling bodies to the butcher’s shop. He was also responsible for Tabitha’s death and the other orphans’ disappearances.
My jaw drops. “So Tabitha?”
“I’m afraid so. It seems that she screamed too loud when one of his men went to grab her. He tried shutting her up and ended up killing her,” he explains. He looks so pale.
I feel bad that I suspected Emmett once upon a time.
“I’m glad they’ve been caught,” I say, “But why would Uncle come after me? I had nothing to do with it.”
His gaze trickles to the fire. “Well, that’s the thing, Raven.” He looks back at me. His eyes look dead. “You do have something to do with it.”
My jaw drops. “I did nothing.” I can’t believe I’ve been put in the firing line. I’m innocent.
“Let me explain,” he says and goes to the drinks cabinet. He pours himself a triple shot of whiskey, drinks it, and then pours another. He sits back on the chair. His breathing is heavy.
I look at the fire. The flames are entrancing, albeit dangerous. “So Uncle did kill those people?” I’m so confused by everything. “I swear I didn’t assist him.”
His hands are shaking. The whiskey wobbles in the glass. “Your uncle, although a vile man, was not the main one in all of this. He was helping someone else. He didn’t come to live with you by accident.”
I feel rage shoot through me. “He killed Grandmother?”
“No,” he says simply.
I relax a little. “Then please explain, because you’re scaring me.”
“You’re right to be scared,” he says simply. “I don’t really know how to tell you this. I care about you.” I see the sincerity in his eyes. “I have suspected, but I never really thought…or perhaps I was so blinded by my feelings to see the truth, but now it’s come out.”
“What did Uncle say?”
He lowers his gaze to his glass, refusing to look at me. “You killed them, Raven.”
I can’t breathe. I feel sick to my stomach. What he’s telling me can’t possibly be true. “I refuse to believe it.” I shake my head. My chest heaves as I sob. I bring my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and slump back.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner,” he says. “Like I said, the heart can make a king turn into a fool.”
My body shakes, and cold runs through me. It can’t be true. It just can’t. “No! I’m not, Emmett.” I look at him desperately. “I’m not like that. I’d never hurt anyone.” I’m going to be incarcerated for something I didn’t do. “He’s lying,” I say desperately.
“I can prove it to you.” He drinks the rest of his drink and rolls the glass between his hands. “I had suspected, of course. I had seen shreds of evidence but nothing concrete—until he said what he said. No one believed him, of course. They thought he was lying.”
“Because he is,” I say through clenched teeth.
He shakes his head. “After I heard, I dug more to see if I could relate it you, and I could. The murders, Raven, they followed you here. I don’t think you remember doing them. I truly believe that you’re not in your right mind.”
I close my eyes. “I’m not crazy.”
He sighs. “Only a crazy person would say that.”
I want to scream out, beg him not to lose faith in me, to see that I am not crazy. I am not a murderer. I cried when I once killed a bug by accident. I let out another sob. He continues.
“I found enough evidence to link you to all the murders, aside from Tabitha and, of course, Aiden.”
My world crashes around me. “Then I have been framed.”
“No. You haven’t.”
His words are link punches. “Then I want to die,” I say.
He stays quiet.
“Oh my God,” I squeak. “You want me dead too?” The tears are thick and fast. “You think I should die.” I roll my shoulders back and gaze up at the ceiling.
I feel…empty.
“No,” he says finally. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I can’t be the murderer,” I whisper. I focus in on my mind. “How can I prove it?”
He looks at me, his gaze pained. “Use your Sight, Raven. Delve into your memories. Reach into the darkest corners of your mind.”
My bottom lip wobbles as tears stream down my cheeks from under my closed lids. I push back into my thoughts, begging to see all my memories from the last month.
They come as thick and fast as my tears did.
A thousand things shoot through my mind at once. It’s too much for me. My head feels like it’s going to explode. I hold the sides of my head and let out a scream. “No! NO!”
Voices fill my mind. Hisses. “STOP IT!” I scream. I kick my legs. My eyes roll back into my head. “Make it stop,” I beg, regretting invading my own mind.
I hear Emmett say, “Don’t fight it.” I relax. My mind goes numb. “Emmett. Tom,” I call out in my haze as everything fades to black. “Emmett.”
Twenty-Six
I wake up in a pool of blood. I look around, panicked. My dress is coated with crimson. I have dried blood under my nails.
I scramble to my feet, but my body does not follow suit. It stays there. Shock convulses through me as my body sits up of its own accord. My eyes open, but I am not in my body, so how is this happening? I feel like a ghost watching myself walk around in an unfamiliar memory.
I am in a house I don’t recognize. It looks like the one Tom described to me. I look over at the window. I see a black iron gate outside of the window. It’s the house across from mine, next to the butcher’s shop. “You are awake,” my uncle says. “I was worried you would not be…yourself.”
This other Raven’s eyes are darker than mine, almost matte black.
I watch her lick the blood from her finger and smile sadistically. “Thanks, Uncle.” Her voice is my own.
This is not normal. I don’t remember this happening.
“Is it done?” she asks.
He nods curtly. “Tom is dead.”
I gasp and reach out, but no one can feel me.
She walks over to the mirror and stares at her—well, my—reflection. “Is Tom’s body disposed of?”
“His body was given to the butcher,” Uncle says. He watches the other Raven walk to the fireplace. She glides her hand along the mantlepiece.
My hand flies to my mouth, covering it. I was right. He was butchered. I could vomit.
I watch as Uncle puts his hand on her shoulder. “I will miss this version of you when you wake up.” He pauses. “I am setting Raven up with a friend. Aiden. He will keep her in check. I have already explained everything to him.”
She eyes him suspiciously. He puts his hands up. “We can trust him,” he says in a business-like way. “He has earned it.”
“Good.” She turns and rubs her hands down the navy-blue dress. “We have much work to do.”
He sighs. “I want to thank you for giving me the house. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have inherited it or their fortune. You have been…amazing.” He looks mesmerized, which only worsens this sickening feeling.
She looks at him with cold eyes. “No time for sentiments, Uncle. You serve a purpose, that is all.”
“We won’t get caught?” He looks fearful.
She snaps her head to the side. “No. I have told you this many times. I will not let you get caught. Stop questioning me.”
He nods quickly. “Of course.” He hesitates. “The other Raven is so…meek.” He spits out the last word with venom. “I wish she were more like you. She is mourning your grandmother still.”
“If only she knew that she’s the one who killed her.”
Raven looks at the window with contempt. “Yes. Grandmother was a problem. I’m glad that old hag is gone. I sent her off to the other side quickly,” she says simply. “I couldn’t have the good half,” she rolls her eyes, “of me finding out the truth.”
“Agreed.” Uncle steps forward and takes her hand and strokes it. “We must keep that half clueless if we are to carry out the plan.”
She nods. Her expression is emotionless. It looks strange on my face. “Her mother, Alice, has been trying to help her get rid of us.”
Bile rises in my throat.
A hiss escapes her lips. “I will crush her spirit. She is so faded now. She won’t last another year unless she moves on.”
Uncle gulps. He seems totally different around her. It is even as if he likes her. The thought makes my skin crawl.
She pulls her hand away from his. He clears his throat. “Why did you want that Tom boy dead anyway?”
She sits down next to the fire. “He questioned me—well, my other half—and I didn’t like him. So…” She drags her hand across her throat. “Plus, you can make some extra money from the meat.”
“We made it look like an accident,” he explains, “like you asked. We left the door open to the orphans, so he saw them. It gave us a motive in case he finds your weaker half.”
She looks back at the body of a woman she killed. “I want them all dead,” she says simply.
“In good time,” he says and checks his pocket watch. “I have an appointment.”
She looks at him coldly. “Another virgin to sell?”
He grins. “Nora sold well to a merchant overseas. We are going to sell another to the same buyer.”
I am pulled out of the memory and awaken into another.
Uncle looks at the other Raven. He looks captivated. He takes her hand and kisses it. “I have missed you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, well, back to business.”
He shuffles uncomfortably. “We are not related,” he says desperately. “Your Grandmother adopted me.” He pushes. She knows what he is getting at, just as I do. “I want you.”
She looks at him through soulless eyes. “Feelings are for the weak.”
He steps back. “Not like this. You are so strong. So beautiful.” He looks her up and down, admiring her figure. “I have thought of nothing but you, this version of you since I saw you.”
She doesn’t squirm or vomit like I would have. Instead, she looks at him curiously. It’s as if I can feel her thoughts like I could Benjamin Shaw’s in his memory as a boy.
We need to keep him on our side. To do our bidding.
As if it were a strategic business venture, she stands up, leans forward, and kisses him.
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
I try to pull her back; I have to remind myself that I’m in a memory.
I wipe my lips as if I can still feel his on me.
My skin crawls as I watch them kiss. She looks empty, void of any emotion or heat. He holds her close as if she is his entire world.
I try to remember back to any talk of my uncle. I did know that he had a hard childhood or that he was beaten by his mother, maybe even abused. He was messed up. Father never really talked about him.
They finally break apart, and I let out a sigh of relief. Another second of them kissing and I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from throwing up.
Can I even throw up in a memory?
The faint thought vanishes as quickly as it came.
“I love you,” he says.
She looks at him blankly. I can feel nothing coming from her. She doesn’t care for him. He’s just a means to an end that she has to keep happy. “I love you too,” she says, her voice hollow.
I wake up, grateful to be out of that memory. I look around to see what memory I am in this time.
I am faced with the other Raven standing in a church. The shadow men creep out from the darkest corners of the room.
Their eyes are hollow, their mouths an inky black. They hiss and turn to her. “Is it done?”
She nods. “More have died. I have left evidence leading back to Uncle.” She spits out the last word. “He will fall for the crimes. We were close to being caught.” She pauses. “We must get rid of this Emmett White. He is becoming a problem. He suspects me.”
I recognise the church as the one by Benjamin’s flat. I look around for any clue of when this memory happened but see nothing. It’s just dark and dank as always.
One of them hisses and runs their bony black finger down her cheek. “When will we kill him?”
She grins, showing off her teeth, but it is in a predatory way, not a cute way. “Christmas Day. We will make it look like an accident. No one is on the streets on Christmas Day. We will have plenty of ways to hide his body.”
They hiss with glee. “Bring his body here. Bury it with the rest of them.” They look at the bones.
She tilts her head, admiring the stack of bones. “My father was a great man.”
She’s referring to Benjamin.
Six shadow men stand before her. She commands them. Even they look captivated with her. She looks at each of them in turn. “Soon we will have enough deaths to harness the energy.”
They hiss with glee again and draw closer to her. “Yessss.”
“So we can bring you back to life.” She tilts her head. “All of you. Then there will no stopping us.”
I step backwards and almost topple over. I grab the furnace behind me for support. Everything clicks together. What Emmett said was true. I did this, and now I know why.
Shadow men are the evillest of people who have died violent deaths. They feed off the dark energy and are trying to get enough to come back to life so they can get their vengeance.
I hold my breath. I have something influencing my subconscious, making me into this void, soulless being. Like an alter ego. That’s why I don’t remember any of these memories.
The shadow men retreat as she drops to the floor. My body rises again and rubs her eyes. She looks around. I recognise this memory. This is the real me. I am in the church. It was after I delved into Benjamin’s memories before I ran back and fell into Emmett’s arms.
