Farewell to Home Part 3

"Father," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "What exactly did you promise him?"

The question had been building in my chest for days, but I'd been afraid to ask it directly. Now, with the strange forest growing larger ahead of us and the normal world receding behind, I needed to know exactly what I was walking into.

Father's jaw worked for a moment before any words emerged. "Companionship," he said finally. "Your presence in his household for as long as he requires it."

As long as he requires it. Not a specific term of service, then. Not a year or two years or even a decade. As long as he—a man I'd never met, who lived in a castle that apparently existed outside normal reality—decided he wanted me there.

"And if I want to leave?"

"The bargain doesn't... account for that possibility."

Doesn't account for that possibility. Such careful phrasing to describe what amounted to permanent captivity.

"I see." I folded my hands in my lap, surprised to find them steady. "And what happens to the family if I fail to honor this arrangement?"

Father's face went pale. "Don't ask me that, Catherine. Please."

Don't ask. Because the answer would be worse than whatever I was imagining. Because there were threats that transcended mere financial ruin, consequences that made selling one's daughter seem like the merciful option.

We were approaching the forest's edge now, and I could see why Father had been so shaken by his first encounter with this place. The trees rose like cathedral walls, their canopy so thick it seemed to swallow light itself. Mist clung to the ground between the trunks, and somewhere in that gray half-light, I could see movement that might have been wind-blown branches but somehow suggested something more purposeful.

"This is as far as I go," Father said, bringing the carriage to a halt at what appeared to be the mouth of a well-worn path. "From here, you continue alone."

Alone. Into a forest that looked like it belonged in fairy tales—the dark kind, where children got lost and wolves talked and bargains came with prices that couldn't be calculated in mere money.

"How will he know I'm coming?" I asked.

"He'll know." Father's certainty was absolute and somehow terrifying. "Men like him... they have ways of knowing things they shouldn't."

Men like him. What did that mean, exactly? What kind of man inspired such fear while maintaining the appearance of civilization and courtesy?

I climbed down from the carriage with movements that felt disconnected from my body, as if I were watching someone else perform these actions. Father handed down my trunk, his fingers lingering on the handle for a moment longer than necessary.

"Catherine," he said, and his voice carried twenty-two years of love and a lifetime of regret. "I'm sorry. For all of it. For the choices that led us here, for the bargain I was forced to make, for... for not being strong enough to find another way."

I looked at him then—really looked—and saw a broken man who'd tried to save his family the only way he knew how. It didn't forgive what he'd done, but it made it understandable in a way that simple condemnation couldn't.

"I know," I said quietly. "I know you're sorry. And I know you didn't have a choice."

Neither of us has a choice now.

The path into the forest beckoned like an open mouth, dark and inviting and utterly final. Once I stepped onto that trail, there would be no turning back. No changing my mind, no last-minute reprieve, no rescue by some convenient intervention of fate.

Just me, a trunk full of possessions, and whatever waited for me in the depths of a forest that seemed to exist outside the natural world.

"Go," I said to Father, lifting my trunk with both hands. "Go home to Mother and Jamie. Tell them I went bravely."

It was as much a lie as everything else we'd told ourselves about this arrangement, but it was the kind of lie that made unbearable things possible.

Father nodded, his eyes bright with unshed tears. "I will. And Catherine... whatever you find in that castle, whatever he asks of you... remember that you're stronger than you know."

Stronger than I know. Everyone kept saying that, as if repetition might make it true.

I turned toward the forest path before I could lose my nerve. The mist seemed to part as I approached, creating a clear corridor through the trees that led deeper into shadows I couldn't penetrate. Behind me, I heard the carriage wheels begin to turn, carrying Father back to a life I was no longer part of.

And ahead of me, the forest waited with the patience of something that had been expecting me for a very long time.

As I took my first step onto the path, the quality of light around me shifted dramatically. The pale morning sun seemed to dim, as if the very air was absorbing illumination, and the mist that had appeared gossamer-light from a distance now felt substantial enough to touch.

This is it, I thought, hefting my trunk and starting down the winding trail. This is where Catherine Montgomery ends and whatever comes next begins.

The forest closed around me like a living thing, and somewhere in the distance, I could swear I heard the sound of howling carried on wind that smelled of roses and rain and something wild I couldn't name.