'Don't look, Lillian. Never look into the eyes of a Sin-Eater, you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'
Lillian Elmes remembers the warning her mother gave her about the town's Sin-Eater only too well.
How could she n...
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The mirror in the hallway is draped in black veil.
The fabric is expensive. Hand-embroidered with an intricate Point de Flandre border. Mama had been particularly fond of it, and often lamented that it was funeral lace because she felt it too pretty for death.
I lean forward and inhale, hoping that I can smell her fragrance about the delicate fabric, but all I can smell is the laurel wreath on the open door and the pungent scent of cloves drifting through from the parlour room.
The parlour room where Mama now lies.
I have not yet dared to enter. One should not witness such fear on the faces of your most beloved, and I think mayhap I have seen enough fear on Mama's face to haunt me in this world and the next. I do not wish to see that fear again. Marie told me, with much squeezing of my hand and through a flood of tears that yet eludes me, that Mama simply looks at rest, but I am certain if I study her face too long, I will still see some residue of the fear she felt in that moment.
As unconsciousness had swept me into oblivion, I know not what Mama suffered, only that death had not come for her so mercifully quick. Awakened by the heavens beating a downpour against my face, I found the horses had finally come to halt, stamping their hooves in the sodden earth, steam still pluming from their nostrils and rising from their sleek black flanks. Stumbling from the trap, I had run the length of the lane until I reached that fateful bend in the road, desperately searching for any sign of Mama. At first, she appeared nowhere to be seen, until I saw her Gainsborough bonnet in the mud, the lush green ribbon and flower of which Mama had been so fond, now looking as black as the felt.
Stumbling and sliding into the roadside ditch, I had landed at Mama's feet where the water pooled, immersing one almost completely so I could only see the tip of her boot. The other twisted at an unnatural angle. I had called her name over and over. Shook her lifeless body in the hope that I could rouse her from her sleep. Laid my head against her chest, desperate to hear her heart beat once more.
It was only when the moonlight broke through the blackened storm clouds that I saw the claw marks in the wall of the ditch and Mama's stricken face, her eyes wide open, fear dragging on her delicate features.
