Final Debt

I’d summoned her from the grave and held her spirit, ready to release her from the shackles of the catalogue room.

I have to free them all.

Shooting out of my chair, I rubbed my sticky cheeks from unnoticed tears and rushed to the other filing cabinets. Each one was dedicated to an ancestor.

I couldn’t catch a proper breath as I yanked open metal drawers and grabbed armfuls of folders. Working one-handed slowed me down. I dropped some; I threw some, scattering them on the table.

Cursing my cast, I lovingly touched every page, skimmed every word, and whispered every sadness.

Time flowed onward, somehow threading history with present.

Jethro was right to leave.

As a Hawk, he wouldn’t be welcome.

The longer I stood in that cell, the more I battled with hate.

Folder after folder.

Document after document.

I made a nest, surrounded by boxes, papers, photographs, and memorabilia from women I’d never met but knew so well.

Kneeling, I sighed heavily as their presence and phantom touches grew stronger the more I read. Their blood flowed in my veins. Their mannerisms shaped mine, their hopes and dreams echoed everything I wanted.

No matter that decades and centuries separated us, we were all Weavers taken and exploited.

My jeans turned grey with dust, my nose itchy from time-dirtied belongings.

Lifting images from the closest file, I stared into the eyes of an ancestor I didn’t recognise. She was the least like me from all the relatives I had. She had large breasts, curvy hips, and round face. Her hair was the signature black all Weaver women had and looked the most Spanish out of all of us.

So much pain existed in her eyes. Trials upon trials where the very air solidified with injustice and the common hatred for the Hawks.

I didn’t want to sit there anymore. I didn’t want to coat myself in feelings from the past and slowly bury my limbs in an avalanche of memories, but I owed it to them. I’d told my ancestors I would set them free, and I would.

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.