Chapter 5: Learning the shape of death
865 Words
The first rule Ethan gave her was simple.
Don’t touch me.
Ava hated how much it hurt to hear it.
They stood in the rear garden of Wellesley Manor, where the trees grew crooked and the earth felt older than memory. The moon hung low, swollen and pale, casting silver light across the tangled roots. Fog clung to the ground like something alive, curling around Ava’s boots as if testing her.
Ethan remained several paces away, arms crossed, posture rigid. The distance between them felt louder than any argument.
“You’re not teaching me anything from over there,” Ava said, folding her arms. “I can barely control what I’m seeing.”
“That’s the point,” Ethan replied. “Control comes from restraint.”
Ava snorted. “You’re really good at that, aren’t you?”
Something flickered across his face pain, guilt, maybe longing but it vanished as quickly as it came. “We don’t have time for sarcasm.”
“We don’t have time for secrecy either,” she shot back. “I deserve to know what’s happening to me.”
Ethan exhaled slowly, as if steadying himself. “You’re attuned to the veil now. You always were. Ravenswood amplifies it. The more death brushes against you, the clearer your visions will become.”
Ava swallowed. “So I’m… what? A psychic?”
“No,” he said. “You’re a witness.”
That word settled uneasily in her chest.
Ethan gestured toward the twisted oak at the edge of the garden. “Focus on the tree.”
Ava frowned. “It’s just a tree.”
“It wasn’t,” Ethan said softly. “Once.”
She hesitated, then closed her eyes.
At first, there was nothing just darkness and the distant rustle of leaves. Then the pressure behind her eyes built, sharp and sudden.
Images flooded in.
A young man bound to the trunk, wrists bleeding. A crowd shouting. Fire licking upward as screams tore through the night. The smell of smoke, the heat, the agony.
Ava gasped, staggering back. “Oh God”
“Stay with it,” Ethan urged. “Don’t run.”
Her hands trembled as she forced herself to breathe. The vision shifted, dissolving into ash. When she opened her eyes, the tree stood silent and whole, moonlight tracing its bark.
“That really happened,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Her stomach churned. “How do you live with knowing all this?”
Ethan’s gaze turned distant. “You don’t. You endure.”
The next vision came without warning.
A woman in town—Lily from the café—slipping on wet steps, her head striking stone. Blood blooming.
Ava cried out, clutching her head. “It’s happening now.”
Ethan was beside her in an instant, stopping just short of touching her. “Where?”
“The café. The back steps.”
“Then we move.”
They reached the café just as Lily stepped outside, balancing a crate. Ava shouted her name.
Lily startled, losing her footing but Ethan lunged, grabbing the crate and steadying her before she could fall.
“You okay?” he asked calmly.
Lily nodded, confused. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Ava sagged with relief.
Ethan turned to her, eyes burning with something close to awe. “You altered it.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Ava said shakily.
“That’s how it starts.”
By the time they returned to the manor, Ava was exhausted. The visions left her drained, her body heavy with a bone-deep weariness she couldn’t shake.
“You need to rest,” Ethan said.
“And you need to stop pretending you don’t care,” she replied.
He stiffened. “Ava”
She stepped closer before he could stop her. The air between them crackled, charged and dangerous. Her heart pounded, the silver thread between them humming painfully.
“You feel it too,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he admitted. “That’s why I can’t touch you.”
Her hand hovered inches from his chest. “What happens if you do?”
“The curse tightens,” he said. “Your mortality unravels. And I lose control.”
Ava’s voice trembled. “I’m already unraveling.”
Ethan’s restraint shattered for just a second. His hand brushed hers brief, electric.
Pain tore through Ava’s vision.
She saw herself on the manor floor, breath shallow. She saw Ethan screaming her name. She saw Malakai smiling.
Ethan yanked his hand away as if burned. “That was a mistake.”
Ava nodded, tears streaking her cheeks. “But it felt real.”
Silence fell between them, thick and aching.
That night, Ava dreamed of the silver thread.
It wrapped around her wrists, her heart, pulling her through shadows and light. Ethan stood on the other end, bound just as tightly.
When she woke, her camera lay open beside her.
A new photo had developed on its own.
It showed Ethan standing in fire, light bursting from his chest.
On the back, words were burned into the paper:
EVERY GIFT HAS A PRICE.
Ava closed her eyes.
Somewhere beneath Ravenswood, Malakai watched the thread tighten and smiled.
- Writer
