Chapter 3

They brought me back to the main estate grounds, not out of care, but because Brenda found my cottage "depressing." I was placed in a small, forgotten room overlooking the raw, muddy scar where the Patriarch once stood.

From my window, I saw James and Brenda. They walked hand-in-hand, laughing, planning their spa complex. They' d pause, and he' d kiss her, right there, on the grave of my life tree.

Brenda saw me watching one afternoon. She strolled over, James a pace behind, indulgent.

"Still moping, old woman?" Brenda' s voice was sharp, like shattered glass. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my withered form, my papery skin. "You look a hundred years older than last week."

A cruel smile played on her lips. "James, darling, I had an idea. Since The Patriarch is gone, and she seems so attached to it... perhaps we could use some of its wood to build her a coffin? A sort of... memento."

James chuckled. Actually chuckled. "An excellent idea, my love. Very practical."

He looked at me, his eyes cold. "What do you say, Elara? A custom-made coffin from your precious tree?"

My heart, already a fragile thing, seemed to crack further.

The next day, the sound of saws began again, closer this time. Not the brutal roar of the felling, but the whine of finer blades, shaping wood.

I knew what they were doing.

Brenda insisted the work be done where I could see it, from my window. "Perhaps it will cheer her up," she' d said, her voice dripping with false sweetness that James seemed to adore.

Each cut into the Patriarch' s timber sent a sympathetic shock of agony through my spiritual form. It was as if my own limbs were being sawn, my own essence carved and planed.

I cried out, a thin, reedy sound.

James and Brenda sat on a newly placed garden bench, sipping drinks, watching the carpenters, and watching me. My pain was their afternoon entertainment.

"She' s quite the actress, isn't she?" Brenda remarked to James, loud enough for me to hear.

"Indeed," James replied, his arm around her. "Such a performance." He kissed her temple. "You, my dear Brenda, you saved me. That whole mess with Sterling Corp last year... I was lost. You pulled me through."

A lie. A complete fabrication she had fed him, and he had devoured it. It was my energy, my ancient magic, that had subtly shifted fortunes, protected his interests, a sacrifice she now wore as her own triumph.

I closed my eyes, the scent of sawdust and my own despair filling the air. There was no explaining to him. He was lost in her web.

The coffin took shape. Long, elegant, made from the heartwood of the Patriarch. The wood still pulsed with a faint echo of its life, an echo that screamed in my soul.

When it was finished, polished to a gleam, Brenda clapped her hands. "Oh, it's beautiful, James! Almost a shame to bury it. Perhaps I should have it for my winter gowns?"

James smiled, a smug, possessive look on his face. "Nonsense, my love. The Harrison land has always been blessed. Our fortune is tied to it. And now, you share in that blessing."

I wanted to laugh, a bitter, broken sound. Blessed? This land was now cursed by his actions. His fortune was built on a debt he never acknowledged, a protection he had just shattered. He spoke of his lineage, but he had severed its deepest root.

I remembered him as a boy, small hands touching the Patriarch' s rough bark, his eyes wide with wonder. He' d once promised to marry "the beautiful lady of the woods." Me. A child' s fancy, yes, but it had held a seed of connection, a seed he had now crushed underfoot.