Oliver came back shortly to find her bent over on the couch, the tips of her fingers pressing into her temples.

“I have your water,” He said gently.

Reaching for the glass, she just barely heard his words over the sound of pounding hooves in her head. Estella drank slowly, savoring the relief the cool water offered her throat. She breathed deeply. It was time. She had prepared for this change of plans. Swallowing her tears, she stood. Why was she always running out of time?

Oliver reached out to balance her though she did not sway on her feet. Still, she leaned into his hands, encouraging them to linger while knowing that soon his hands may be the last physical touch she ever had on this earth.

Perhaps she could prolong it a little longer. “Walk with me?” She asked, hooking her hand around his elbow.

He stared at her hard, probably alarmed by her change in attitude, and yet he put his hand over her own to lead her out of the room. She bit her lip at the intimacy evoked by the gentle touch of his hand, fighting off a deep chasm threatening to open in her chest.

Through the fabric of his blue button down, she squeezed his arm. Estella frowned as she considered the wrinkles in his shirt and its rolled up sleeves, signs that his focus has been elsewhere for the past few days.

She looked up at him and it was like seeing him for the first time. There were deep bags under his weary eyes and faint lines around his mouth. A suddenly striking realization left her feeling cold: he didn’t trust her. Not with her life, at least. And he shouldn’t.

That’s fair, she thought. She had side-stepped all of his concerns over the past month.

She led him towards the servant staircase that her family used to go down to the kitchen, breathing in the air there like she could hold the very passage and rooms in her lungs. But of course, she had to let it go seconds later. On their journey they passed the cabinets and countertops that she and her family banged open and shut every day in the natural choreography of their lives.

In the hallway she trailed her fingertips over the walls, pausing at the photographs and paintings of her family and their favorite landscapes. There was Jacques, his arm slung around her. There was Matthieu and Theodora, playing chess. There was her again, bent over some magical experiment, Matthieu’s shoe poking into the frame.

“It’s her again,” said Oliver, nodding to a smaller portrait of Estelle. Beside it was a miniature Theodora made of her late spouse. “She’s the same woman from upstairs. Who is she? You didn’t give me an answer upstairs.”

Who is she? “Depends on what you’re asking, I think.”

He clicked his tongue. “I’m asking who she is because you look so resigned every time you stare at her. And maybe a little angry.”

Oh. Oh. Some piece of her not acknowledged slid into place. “Yes, well, I suppose I am. I am resigned. And—and I am angry.”

Her entire life had led to the upcoming moment. No matter what, the riders would always come because of the deal Estelle made to save her youngest daughter. Her family never understood this vital fact: that she was always going to be taken.

It’s what comes next that she has to fight for.

So yes, she was resigned and had been so for as long as she could remember. Resigned to be taken. Resigned to be the payment for a debt she had no part in. Resigned to likely die for it.

But she was also angry, like a pressure valve that’s been building up in her chest that’s about to bust. A long ignored part of her brimmed with rage at Estelle. She never voiced it though, never stared her own rage in the face, too afraid of harming the relationship she had built with Matthieu over the dead wife who haunts him.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Oliver was quiet after her answer. His jaw was taut and Estella suspected he was working to keep his reaction under control.

He was always so careful to give her space after their first confrontation in the kitchen but their cautious truce started to crumble when she let him pull her into his arms upstairs.

She led him away from her great-grandmother’s face by a tug on his arm. “What are you resigned to?” He asked lowly.

Out in the main hall, Estella changed her hold on his elbow for one on his hand. In great strides she led him to the front door. But only a few feet away he pulled her back from the door, “Hey.” His voice was quiet and gentle, and maybe a little pleading. Like he can see the ending of a book with a plot not quite finished.

She kept a smile on her face, finding the strength to do so in the warmth of their joined hands. This was right. It was time. Her chest felt like it was pounding in time to the fall of hooves in her head.

Estella grasped Oliver’s other hand in hers. It felt so good to touch him after a month of careful distance.

“Oliver,” she began, “I am sorry that we had to meet under such circumstances. I wish that so much of it was different. For me. For you. For your family. As it is though, I am glad to have met you and your family.”

Behind her, the door began to open. She knew who it was, Estella didn’t have to look even as Oliver peered over her head. She secured his hands to draw him into her, “But I have taken you as far as I can.”

People were filing in now. Estella tried to step away from Oliver, to let the English Council officials separate them but he held on tighter, pulling her closer, filling the space between them with their bodies. “What’s going on? Who are these people?”

Estella smelled a subtle shift in the air, the lightness of the air in the room changing. Too subtle for someone like Oliver to notice. A clipped, professional woman’s voice followed the changing air, “Oliver Morris, I presume.”

Marianne’s mother put her hand over Oliver’s wrist. For only a moment he bared his teeth before the calming magic overtook him and his grip on Estella loosened. Up above them, she could hear the confused and surprised voices of the rest of the Becker family.

She squeezed his hands once more before stepping away from him. They trailed after her languidly, seeking to pull her back into a protective embrace but all the force had been taken out of him. The pain and betrayal in his eyes was like a knife in her heart. Before regret could overcome her, Estella turned and walked out the front door, gasping in the fresh air.

She marched herself away from the house, towards the center of the lawn, away from anything that could be damaged. Through a cacophony of hooves, she watched as the Beckers were packed and tucked into secure transport vans with a magical speed that impressed her.

They all looked at her, confusion marring their features. Hannah stepped towards her but Annette interfered, pulling her away from their strange host. The vampires had sensed the tragic air around her, she was sure, with their concerned glances and wary looks. They just didn’t know that it would end this way. But she had warned them, warned them that she might not be able to see this through.

Oliver was the hardest to watch. He broke through the pacification spell at the sight of her so far away, so out of reach. He kicked and screamed her name. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand why the sight of him so enraged stabbed at her heart. They had bonded but surely not that much. It was only a month. No matter what, his family couldn’t calm him down. Estella watched as security tackled him and placed cuffs on his wrists and a sensory deprivation bag over his head.

And yet, he kept calling for her, even when the doors shut on him, even as the car disappeared down the driveway. The last thing she heard was the desperate call of her own name.

___

As the caravan crossed the border of Saint-Tourre the wraiths crossed into it. The sky didn’t darken, thunder didn’t clap, the beating of the hooves still only sounded in Estella’s own head.

The air too remained warm, but she felt it change, tasted it even on her tongue. It was as if all the sweetness came out of the air, the crispness of Summer set to rot. It was empty, bereft, still. Even Autumn and Winter had the promise of Spring.

There was nothing apocalyptic about the scene. No hell fire accompanied their arrival. Estella wondered as the horses emerged from the woods, if she hadn’t sent him away, what would Oliver see right now? Or Jacques? Would they now feel the presence of the monsters as she has her whole life? Hear the heavy breathing of the horses on their necks? The clanging of metal in their ears? The oppressive scent of overworked beasts in their nostrils?

Or would they only see her? Standing in the middle of the lawn, turning to welcome some unseen horror? To be snatched about the waist? Would they see the final look of fear on her face as their ghostly arms roughly grabbed her and within that moment would they see no more? Only an empty lawn?

It would be years before Estella would have answers to these questions. For now, all she left behind was an empty lawn.