AN: 

I'm not sure how you guys will feel about this chapter, but I hope that you like it! Happy Labor Day to all of my American friends! I am nearly finished writing this book! You have just crossed the half way part!

I'm getting nervous for the Watty's! Either way, I am happy I had the chance to tell this story!  

Marjorie wrapped her fingers around Sicily's whittling knife until the tightness of her grasp forced the antler grip to dig uncomfortably in her palm. She didn't care. Her Grandmother's words settled in the air as if the storm had pushed into the confines of the bedroom, filling up every inch the four walls offered with angry energy.

"What do you mean?" Marjorie asked, a tightness in her voice.

There was little her Grandmother cared to tell her about her birth—and the details of the day were clouded in even more mystery. Sicily had never willingly spoke of it, especially not in the company of a stranger.

No, that wasn't the right word.

Fenris was not a stranger. If anything, he was an old friend to her Grandmother.

"Put that blade down," Sicily said, a laugh at the end of her words. Something was off about the way she spoke, as if she cared little for Marjorie's reaction.

"No, not until you—" she thrusted in the direction of Fenris, who rose his hands up in total surrender, "—tell me what in Mother's Hell she means."

"Marjorie, please put down the blade," Fenris said.

At his words, she jabbed the knife forward, aiming at Fenris's arm. He slid easily out of its path and allowed her to find nothing but empty air. She fell forward in a muddled rush of fabric and hair, only to be caught by the wrist.

His hand settled underneath her thumb, placing enough pressure against her skin to make her body turn abruptly stiff.

"I fear you have already made up your mind," he confessed. Fenris wrapped his free hand over the thin blade and delicately pulled it out of her grasp. It crashed against the blanket with no noise. "No matter what I tell you, you won't understand. Is this what you want? To spill my blood above your Grandmother's body?"

Marjorie shifted her gaze to Sicily, where she lay swaddled in heavy fabrics, tired eyes half-lidded and a small, weak smile playing on chapped lips. She didn't return the intensity of Marjorie's stare, instead she peered sightlessly at the wall, fixated on nothing.

"We both know it," Fenris whispered. "Even you can tell, Marjorie. She is fading." He slid his hand from Marjorie's wrist to catch her fingers. He laced his own through hers, forcing an unexpected warmth to travel through her palms all the way up to her chest.

"No—" Marjorie shouted, unable to face the truth.

"The Wolf is not lying, dearie," Sicily assented. "Look at me, truly look at me."

Marjorie forced herself to study her Grandmother, this time, taking in what she looked like with no false pretense of glowing health to cast a rose-colored hue over Sicily. Like this, studying the old woman, it was undeniable. Within the few hours she left Sicily, she seemed to shrink in half. New wrinkles appeared on her face, causing her skin to hang off of her high cheekbones like a body on its first steps to decay. Ugly dark bruises climbed up her collarbone like strangling hands, the path of purple continued to the bottom of her chin. Red, angry skin rose around Sicily's eyes, a testament to how tired she must be, forcing herself to stay awake when all her body wanted to do was shut down.

"I have Devilhair for you," Marjorie rushed out. "We can heal—"

"She is going to die, Marjorie," Fenris whispered. "The Devilhair won't do anything but cloud her last moments."

Stinging tears fell down Marjorie's cheeks. Fenris released her hand, allowing the young woman to move it down to warm skin of Sicily's cheek.

"B-But aren't you scared, Grandmother?" Marjorie asked. "Let the Devilhair take away the pain, the fear—"

"I told you," Sicily replied in a thin voice. "I do not fear this death."

"Why not?" Marjorie asked. She pressed her temple against her Grandmother's forehead. Marjorie closed her eyes, imagining what it would be in the woman's place. When her time came, would she be brave like Sicily? Or would fear limit her last moments to a collage of panic and denial. "Where does your courage come from?"

"It is not courage, it is accepting my fate," Sicily admitted, weakly. "Death is the one of the few things we are promised and given."

Marjorie allowed herself to melt in the mattress beside her Grandmother, unbothered by the heat of her body while the home steadily grew warmer from Petyr's fire.

"Can I wait with you here?" Marjorie asked. "U-until you go?"

"Of course, dearie," Sicily whispered. "Come, rest with me. You look tired."

Marjorie pushed herself against her Grandmother's side. Her cheek pressed down on a fur pillow. Like this, framed in tufts of animal hair, Sicily appeared hazy, as if she were already turning into nothing more than a memory.

Fenris's eyes lingered on Marjorie for one long moment. She offered him a sad smile, the only acknowledgment she could give in a moment like this. He nodded once, and left the room, leaving the two women alone to face the Veil together.

* * *

In all their silence, Marjorie fell asleep to the soft ticking of Sicily's heartbeat. Eventually, with the cool thrum of her body and the pattering of the rain outside, she was lulled to sleep. Now, two hands traced the pattern of her face, stirring Marjorie from where she rested beside her Grandmother.

The air smelled like the soot of a fireplace and harsh leather. She opened her eyes, rapidly blinking to face whoever forced her from slumber.

First, she looked to the ceiling above, where her family tree was hand-painted by her Grandmother.

Marjorie's picture was at the end of the highest branch, her red hair long and her face a chalky white. The likeness of the portrait revealed a younger Marjorie, from when she sat still at thirteen beside the fireplace, and Sicily took all her paints and a piece of stretched leather to capture every detail of her face.

Below that, on a branch thicker, showed the portraits of her parents. It was the only piece she had of them, the only way she ever knew what they looked like. Her mother was like her, red-headed, blue-eyed and freckled. There was a beauty she possessed that Marjorie had either not inherited or not grown into. Her features were more mysterious, like she wore the face of a fox.

Her father was dark-haired, dark-eyed and freckled, too. She spent much of her childhood sitting on Sicily's bed and staring up into his blank gaze, wishing he would come to life and climb down the family tree to join her for dinner or chase away bad dreams. Unlike her mother, there was no family alive to link her back to him. He was a handsome stranger hanging from her Grandmother's ceiling.

Above her parents was a young version of Sicily, blond-haired and blue-eyed, like Marjorie. Her face held no expression except for a slight upturn at the top of her lip. She was strangely beautiful, like she belonged to the morning frost and the first snow fall.

Beside her, Cedar was stone-faced, with a head of ginger hair and a beard nearly the same color as a ripe lemon. Two, thick brows covered nearly all of his hooded, green eyes. His broad shoulders hardly fit the confines of the portrait, proving Sicily's stories of her husband's size. Despite his steely expression, there was a kindness in the warm tones of the paint.

"Wake up," a deep voice reminded her.

She pulled her gaze away from the family tree, ready to shoo away whoever dared to disturb the two women in their sleep.

"Dearie, wake up," the words came from someone unfamiliar. "I fear I don't have much time."

Two emerald-colored eyes, framed in bushy, red eyebrows stared down into hers. His body blocked most of the light in the room. He placed a hand underneath her chin, delicately pulling her face in his direction.

"Grand—" she paused, suddenly jolted awake. "Grandfather?" It sounded strange to call out the title of a man who died three decades ago. "How?"

He smiled at her words. "The Veil is thin," he whispered.

"But I am not—" she paused, understanding what the dark expression in his eyes meant. "I am not dying."

"Child, Sicily is gone. Do you know that?" he asked in a kind voice, which didn't match the overbearing mass of his body.

"No, she's right here—" Marjorie turned around to stir her Grandmother awake, only to find her cool to touch. Sicily lay wrapped in blankets, one hand gently resting underneath her cheek and the other, hidden beneath the covers. Marjorie hovered her fingers over the woman's nose and waited for her breath to warm her palm.

Nothing came.

"No!" Marjorie rushed out, tears welling in her eyes. Before her voice could grow in volume, Cedar brought a finger down to her lip. "Am I—am I going to die soon?"

"I come to you for this reason," Cedar admitted. A seriousness overtook his harsh features, as if his face was carved from stone. "Do you believe you can change your fate?"

Marjorie slowly rose from where she lay nestled in the bed and pushed her body into a sitting position. She blinked up at the man. His wide chest remained still with no need for air. He was a ghost, after all.

She nodded once.

"Good, there is still hope," he admitted. "Today is your eighteenth birthday."

"I nearly forgot," she whispered. She moved her hands to her necklace, remembering Petyr's gift. It was only a night ago that he clasped it around her neck. How far away that seemed now.

"Once the sun rises, you will die," he stated.

"I am afraid I don't understand," she responded. As a new wave of confusion clouded her thoughts, her eyebrows pushed down.

"The night you were born, you were born still." Cedar moved to sit beside her. Although his weight should cause the bed to bend down, it stayed still, as if nothing more than a feather landed where he sat. "Your mother took you to Mirkwood. Once she arrived, she struck a deal with the Wolf."

Marjorie leaned forward. "What kind of deal?"

His attention moved from her, instead focusing on a loose thread that stuck out from the crocheted blanket covering Sicily's body. "A life for a life," he confessed, his voice weighed down with thick, somber emotion. "For each year you live, the Wolf must take another."

She froze on the mattress. An uncomfortable heaviness settled at the base of her stomach, like she swallowed a shard of glass whole and only just realized the danger. Suddenly, a cold burn of acid raced up from her throat to her mouth. The young woman grimaced and rolled her lips in a tight line to keep the bile inside.

"You—you mean" –- she paused, suddenly unable to speak— "every life taken by the Wolf was because of...me?"

Cedar remained silent and allowed his head to tilt forward and back in a slight nod. It was enough to confirm her fears.

"I have killed seventeen people?" Her lips turned numb at the words. She stretched her hands from nerves, the cuts that singed deep into the tendons of her fingers blossomed with pain. She welcomed it. She deserved it.

"If... if one must die each year, then..." Marjorie shifted her gaze to the ceiling above, to where her mother's blue-eyed gaze stared down at her blankly. "Mother," she moaned in grief.

She slapped a hand to her mouth, her own revelation forcing her to involuntarily jerk forward while dry bile escape through her shut lips. Wet tears streamed down her cheeks as she writhed in anguish. She tried to find clarity in her muddied mind, tried to reason out the sadness that swallowed her whole. Tried not to imagine red running over her hands, but still, the image branded itself in her mind.

I killed her. I killed Mother.

Although she stopped breathing, the acrid stench of blood curled up her nose.

"Child, do not weep," Cedar clapped a meaty hand over her shoulder. She wanted to lean away from the touch, she deserved no comfort. But all the strength in her limbs drained. She stayed there, and realized, where his palm lay, no warmth seeped through her dress.

His skin was neither hot nor cold. Instead, a stagnant lukewarm. His touch reminded her of the short summer, when the weather turned and the heat pulled her to the river's edge. At first touch, the water came with a stinging coolness, until eventually, her body grew numb to the icy depths.

"There is no time to cry, Marjorie," Cedar whispered.

Marjorie frowned. "There is never enough time. Why must it matter now?"

Her Grandfather pulled his comforting touch away from her shoulder. He folded his hands on his lap. She wondered what he was thinking, sitting across his only granddaughter with his dead wife on the bed. "You and I both know the Wolf needs a sacrifice," he whispered. "But there is no one left in your village." Cedar patted a hand where Sicily's body hid beneath the blankets. "She meant to offer herself, but she was too tired—too close to the end. And your Wolf... he would never kill someone you loved."

"I loved my mother." Her indifference caused her words to come out like a growl. She shut her eyes, two tears fell down her cheeks like a burning line of fire.

Cedar snapped his hand away from Sicily and grabbed Marjorie by her chin. He pulled her forward, until she matched the glare of the man. "She loved you enough to give her last breath to you. Do not misunderstand, your mother traded her life for yours."

She ripped herself away from his grip and stood. The floorboards moaned underneath her weight. Her gaze climbed from her Grandfather to the warm orange slipping through the drawn curtains. For a moment, she wondered where Petyr and Fenris might be, if they tended to the fire together or stood on the opposite sides of the room, refusing to acknowledge the other.

"What reason is there to be grateful?" Marjorie whispered, hating the self-pity that entered her voice. "My mother killed herself for me. She left me alone so I could be told my breathing is the sole reason for the deaths of seventeen others."

Cedar shook his head. His wild orange mane fell over his face, blocking his narrowed eyes from view. "The balance of the Forest is sacred, that is something your village forgets to teach you. The Wolf would not bring you back as an act of mercy for your mother. Can you not feel it in your bones, dearie?" He gingerly grabbed her by the hand and swiped a broad thumb over the back of her knuckle. "Can you not hear your blood singing?"

"Do you mean my Spark?" Marjorie asked, frustrated. "No, Grandfather. No, I cannot. This Magick that is in me is nothing but a curse. I don't want anything if it brings death. And—and I don't want this fate if it comes at the price of innocent blood."

"You were saved because you were meant to deliver balance to the Mirkwood," he confessed. "You cannot do that if you are dead."

She released a dry chuckle.

"I am meant to be dead."

"Die and you will make your mother's death purposeless," Cedar warned. His freckled face was red with growing rage. Perhaps she not only inherited his red hair, but his quickness to anger too.

"Then what am I meant to do, Grandfather?" It was the first honest question she dared to ask. "You asked me if I was willing to change my fate. What if I say I am. What must I do?" Anything to stop the spilling of more blood.

"When the sun sets Marjorie, you will get your wish," he promised. "You will die. Or you can help return balance to this place, and to the people and creatures who live within it."

Marjorie shut her eyes, trying to make sense of her Grandfather's words before she nodded, not giving herself the chance to overthink her decision.

"How must I do that?" Marjorie replied in a shaking voice. "How can I change my fate?"

Cedar smiled until his crooked grin reached his gleaming, green eyes.

"You tell the Wolf to kill Petyr." 

AN: 

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