Final Debt (Indebted #6)(124)

Tracing fingertips over grainy images, I worshipped the dead and apologised for their loss. I spoke silently, telling them justice had been claimed, karma righted, and it was time for them to move on and find peace.

My fingertips smudged from pencil and parchment, caked in weathered filth. The video recordings ceased the earlier the years went on. Photographs lost pigment and clarity, becoming grainy and sepia.

I hated the Hawks.

I hated the debts.

I even hated the original Weavers for condemning us to this fate.

So many words.

So many tears.

Reading, reading, reading…

Freeing, freeing, freeing…

There wasn’t a single file I didn’t touch.

The eerie sense of not being alone only grew stronger the more I opened. The filing cabinets went from full to empty. The files scattered like time-tarnished snowflakes on the floor.

I lost track of minutes and had no clock to remind me to return to my generation. I remained in limbo, locked with specters, unwilling to leave them alone after so long.

Eventually, my gaze grew blurry. The words no longer made sense. And the repetition of each woman paying the same debts merged into a watercolour, artfully smearing so many pasts into one.

By the time I reached the final box, photographs had become oily portraits. The last image was cracked and barely recognisable, but I knew I held the final piece.

The woman who’d started it all.

The original Weaver who’d sent an innocent girl to death by ducking stool and turned a blind eye to everything else.

She didn’t deserve the same compassion as the rest of my ancestors—she’d condemned us all. But at the same time, enough pain had been shed; it was time to let it go.

They all deserved peace.

The small space teemed with wraiths of my family, all weaving together like a swirling hurricane. The air gnawed on me with ghoulish gales from the other side.

Taking a deep breath, I re-entered the land of the living. I moaned in discomfort as I stood. My knees creaked while my spine realigned from kneeling on the floor like a pew at worship, slowly working my way through a temple of boxes.

I didn’t believe in ghosts walking amongst us but I couldn’t deny the truth.

They were there.

Crying for me. Rejoicing for me. Celebrating the end even though they’d paid the greatest price.

They loved me. They thanked me.

And it layered me with shame and ultimately pride.

Pride for breaking tradition.

Pride for keeping my oath.

They’d died.

I hadn’t.

I lived.



I found Jethro outside.

The sun had long ago set and winter chill howled over the manicured gardens, lamenting around the turrets and edges of Hawksridge Hall.

I’d had the foresight to grab warmer clothes before embarking on finding fresh air and huddled deeper into my jacket, letting the sling take the weight of my cast. Tugging the faux fur of my hood around my ears, I wished I’d brought gloves for my rapidly frost-bitten fingers.

Jethro looked up as my sheepskin-lined boots crunched across the gravel and skirted the boxed hedgerow. Wings and Moth stood in the distance, blotting the horizon, cloaked in blankets.

As I’d made my way through the Hall, I’d seen silhouettes of people outside. I’d recognised Jethro’s form. I wanted to join them—be around real people after dusty apparitions.

And now, I’d not only found Jethro but everyone I loved and cared for.

On the large expanse of lawn stood my new family. Jasmine, Vaughn, Jethro, and Tex. They all stood around a mountainous pile of branches, interspersed with the Ducking Stool and Iron Chair and other items I never wanted to see again.

Ducking my head into the breeze, I patrolled over the grass. My hood whipped back, and I caught the eye of Jasmine.

She gave me a smile, holding out her hand.

I took it.

Her fingers were popsicles, but she squeezed mine as I bent over and kissed her cheek. We didn’t need to talk. We understood. She’d lost her brothers and father. I’d lost my mother. Together, we would stand and not buckle beneath the tears.

In the distance, the south gardens glittered with rapidly forming dew-frost, glittering like nature’s diamonds on leaves and blades of grass.

Jethro skirted the large tinderbox of firewood, pausing beside his sister with a large log in his hands. His eyes glowed in the darkness, his lips hiding white teeth. “I won’t ask what happened. And I won’t pry unless you want to share. But I built this for them. For you. For what lives in that room.”

He dropped his gaze, awkwardly stroking the log. “I don’t know if you’ll want to say goodbye this way, but I just thought—” He shrugged. “I thought I’d make a fire, just in case.”

I didn’t say a word.

I let go of Jasmine, flew around her chair, and slammed into his arms.

He dropped the wood and embraced me tightly. I didn’t care my brother and father watched. All I cared about was thanking this man. This Hawk. Because now he’d let himself be the person I always knew he could be, I couldn’t stop falling more and more in love with him.

His lips warmed my frozen ear, kissing me sweetly. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, nuzzling closer, inhaling the pine sap and earthy tones from collecting firewood. “I’m better.” I gathered my thoughts before whispering, “When you left me in there, I couldn’t move. I truly didn’t like you very much. But you were right. Thank you for giving me that time. For knowing what I needed, even when I didn’t.”