502 Use of the vial
Eve woke up from her sleep when she heard one of the logs of wood snap in the fireplace. Pushing herself to sit up, her eyes noticed the fireplace fizzling out as if the coals had burned the most they could. But it wasn’t the crackling woods that had woken her up from her sleep, but the distant sobs that came from outside the room.
The sobs felt nothing less than heartbreak as if in anguish and pain. As the room began to darken, her feet began to move and made its way towards the door before she opened it.
Eve followed the sobs, and when she finally reached the end of the corridor and in the garden, her eyes fell on a woman who sat on the bench. The woman wore a white dress, the same dress she had seen the person wear many weeks ago in her dream. The woman looked like her, and she finally realised why she previously saw someone like her. It was the sister from the past.
She stood there in silence, listening to the woman continue sobbing against the silence surrounding them. Building courage, her lips parted,
“Nerissa?”
The young woman suddenly stopped crying and turned to look at Eve with her golden eyes. The woman said, “You finally found me, sister.”
Eve pursed her lips before replying, “I didn’t know you were waiting for me…” A strong breeze moved in the direction where they were.
One stood, and the other sat at the bench with evident tears that had spilt from her eyes down her cheeks. Nerissa said to Eve, “I have been waiting for you to find me, for so long. For so many years, Marina.”
Eve gulped the ball of anxiousness that bubbled up her throat, “H–how do you know that it is me?”
By what people often described a siren to be, Nerissa barely scratched the surface of the description. Instead, she sat there with unmatched beauty that Eve didn’t know a person could put another into a trance. The sadness seemed to disappear from the siren’s eyes, and she said,
“It is because you are my sister, my other half. I would never not know. I prayed to be with you in this birth. To protect you. You made a mistake by marrying the man who comes from Gauntlet’s bloodline. They are not to be trusted.”
“Vincent is a good man, and even in the past…. He fought for us.”
“Fought for you,” came the siren’s cold words. “We need to end this. Kill the brothers.”
Eve’s eyes widened in alarm, and she said firmly, “I won’t let you hurt him, Nerissa. Vincent isn’t like King Gauntlet or… Erasmus. Do not hurt him.”
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Eve said to the young woman, “What you saw is not the truth. I killed… myself. It wasn’t him. We couldn’t keep two daggers, because that would mean a repeat of the past we have already passed through. We need to end it… But something has gone wrong. Erasmus’s descendant is dead now.”
The siren’s eyes turned into slits and she asked, “He cannot be dead. Not when I am alive.”
This had Eve look at Nerissa with a confused expression, “What do you mean?”
Nerissa looked away from Eve, looking ahead of her and said, “Our fates are tied. The prophecy of the sea says to break the curse, the last male descendants should die by our hands. Two sacrifices are to be made. That’s the only right way to stop this curse. Else people will continue to suffer, ours and theirs. There’s no way the bastard is dead,” she said with gritted teeth. “Whoever killed the person, the person must have stolen every essence that belonged to Erasmus. It is destiny, of whoever apart from us kills the brothers, they will take the soul. Do you know who killed the descendant?”
Eve shook her head, “We don’t know. They say it’s a witch.”
Nerissa looked back into Eve’s eyes and said, “Find the person quickly, because the golden moon is near and whoever it is, is trying to find you too.” When the siren next moved her lips, and Eve at first didn’t understand, “…mother’s vial. Gift it to someone you trust.”
She should have known… The siren was a part of her, which was the siren knew she had the vial.
Suddenly the siren screamed and opened her mouth and screamed in pain, and the scream was shrill enough for her to flinch. Though Nerissa looked angry, she was wailing, and it made Eve wonder if maybe… it was because the siren could feel death…
Wanting to comfort the woman, she placed her hand on Nerissa, but suddenly her hand turned wet as if touching the water.
When Eve looked down at her hand, a gasp escaped her lips as she noticed blood dripping down her body. Suddenly Nerissa was no more crying, but her hands clutched to her bloody stomach.
“Why did you do it, sister?” Nerissa asked her before rage started to consume her, and this time, she screamed louder than before, running right into her.
The next moment, Eve woke up with a gasp, feeling sweat trickling down the back of her body. Her eyes moved around the room, where the fire in the fireplace burned brightly and she heard the door open, before Vincent entered. Her mind was a little hazy from the sleep she had pulled herself out from.
“Where did you go?” Eve asked slightly anxious.
Vincent closed the door, locking it before he walked to where she was. He said, “I went to talk to Clayton. Hard to sleep?”
Eve nodded, “I had a dream… of Nerissa.”
“Doesn’t sound like it was a good one if it woke you up,” Vincent sat next to her, “Do you want to talk about it? Or maybe later, as there’s still time for the autopsy report and you can catch some sleep.”
“Will you sleep with me?” Eve asked him, and Vincent noticed how his wife wanted to stay close to him now. Closer than usual.
They laid down together on the couch with Eve in Vincent’s arms. But he could hear her wakeful heart as if she was thinking something. After a few minutes, she said, “The vial… we could use it to bring back Noah, isn’t it?”
“We could,” Vincent brushed Eve’s hair.
That would be the right thing to do, Eve thought to herself. She then said, “Nerissa said I should give the vial to someone I trust.”
“She doesn’t want you to use it? Probably isn’t a good luck potion,” Vincent said, when Eve raised her head to meet his eyes. “What else did she say?”
Eve’s eyebrows furrowed as she recollected her dream and she said, “We didn’t get to speak much about it, because she was bleeding as if I hurt her…” her voice trailed.
Vincent, who had a calm demeanour until now, his eyes narrowed and he said, “I think I know why she wants you to give it away. Because you will need it in the future.”