Chapter 7 - The Light in the Storm
When the door opened, Emily was standing in the hallway holding a silver tray with a hot cup of tea and a small plate of shortbread biscuits.
She took one look at my face—at my red, wet eyes, my disheveled hair, my unbuttoned collar—and the tray in her hands nearly slipped.
"Arthur..." she whispered, using my first name for the very first time without even realizing it.
She set the tray down on the small console table by the door and stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation. She didn't ask questions. She didn't demand explanations.
She simply stepped close to me, reached up with both hands, and gently took my face in her small, warm palms.
"It's over," she whispered, her thumb brushing away a stray tear from my cheekbone. "Whatever it is... whatever dark thing was in that book... it can't hurt you anymore."
I looked down into her brown eyes—so bright, so entirely honest, so full of an unconditional warmth that I didn't deserve.
"She didn't want to leave us, Emily," I choked out, my hands instinctively reaching up to grab her wrists, holding onto her as if she were the only anchor keeping me from drifting into the abyss. "Clara... she didn't choose to die. Margaret was poisoning her."
Emily’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened in horror as she absorbed the revelation.
"Oh, God..." she breathed, leaning forward until her forehead rested against my chest, right over my hammering heart. "Oh, Arthur... I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
I wrapped my arms around her.
I pulled her tight against me, burying my face in the soft curve of her neck, smelling the lavender and the sweetness of her skin, feeling the steady, rhythmic beat of her heart against mine.
For three years, I had been a ghost living in a museum of dead memories.
But standing in the middle of my dark study, holding the sister of the man who had been blamed for my wife's death, I realized that the nightmare was finally over. The truth was out. The real monster was in chains.
May you like
And the girl holding me wasn't a threat.
She was the miracle that had saved my sons—and was now saving me.
