Chapter 2

The festival arrived, a grotesque parody of joy.

The town square buzzed with forced excitement, the air thick with woodsmoke and the smell of roasting meat.

Ethan stood on a makeshift stage, looking every bit the leader, his eyes cold when they met mine.

He held up a communal chalice, old and tarnished.

"The Unity Draught!" he announced, his voice booming. "Part of our sacred Founders' Pact!"

He beckoned me forward. My heart hammered against my ribs.

I clutched my stomach, the secret of my baby a desperate shield.

"Ethan... please," I whispered, my voice trembling, "I can' t. I' m pregnant. It' s not safe for the baby."

His face, the face I once adored, twisted into a mask of pure rage.

"Liar!"

The word cracked like a whip.

Then his hand flew, striking me hard across the cheek.

My head snapped back, stars exploding behind my eyes.

"You think you can bring an outsider's bastard into Havenwood?" he spat.

Daisy, standing beside him, looking frail but with triumphant eyes, shrieked.

"She's been sneaking off! Trying to betray Havenwood! That baby isn't yours, Ethan!"

The crowd murmured, their faces turning hostile, suspicious.

Years of my quiet service, my gentle ways with their children, forgotten in an instant.

Before I could react, Ethan' s boot slammed into my stomach.

Excruciating pain ripped through me. I doubled over, a choked cry escaping my lips.

A warm gush, and I knew. My baby. Gone.

Tears streamed down my face, hot and useless.

He grabbed my hair, yanking my head back, and forced the chalice to my lips.

The murky liquid, the "Unity Draught," poured down my throat.

It burned, acrid and bitter. I felt something thick and slimy, like worms or herbs, slide down.

"You ungrateful witch!" Ethan roared, his face contorted. "I took you in, and this is how you repay me? Daisy's right, you're a curse on this town!"

Daisy rushed forward, feigning concern, but her eyes gleamed with victory.

She grabbed my dress, her touch rough.

With a sharp tug, she tore the fabric at my shoulder, revealing the small, clover-shaped birthmark Ethan once traced with his fingers, calling it beautiful.

"Oh, Sarah, you poor thing," Daisy cooed, her voice dripping with false sympathy.

"Look, everyone, she's already marked by her wickedness!"

The crowd gasped, pointing.

My skin where the draught had touched my lips, where it now churned in my stomach, began to burn and itch.

The Sickness. It was starting.

Ethan raised his hands, silencing the crowd.

"Sarah Miller has defiled our sacred traditions! She is cast out as my partner!"

He turned, beaming, and pulled Daisy to his side.

"Daisy Rourke, pure of heart, will stand by me! The festival continues in her honor!"

Cheers erupted.

As darkness claimed me, the last thing I saw was Ethan and Daisy, bathed in the firelight, celebrating, hailed by the town they had bought with my life, my baby' s life.

My mind reeled back, a desperate escape.

Yale. That' s where we met.

Ethan, the brilliant scholarship student, charming, ambitious, a little rough around the edges, which I' d found endearing.

I was Sarah Miller, from a wealthy New England family, swept off my feet.

We got engaged. He was my everything.

Then, the day of our engagement party, he vanished. No note, no call. Just gone.

Weeks later, a scratchy phone call. He was in Havenwood, his family's forgotten hometown.

He needed me, he said. He was trying to rebuild, to make something of himself, of the town.

I left everything – my comfortable life, my worried parents, David and Carol Miller.

I used my trust fund, every penny, to help him, to help Havenwood.

We endured hardship together, or so I thought.

He promised I' d be his "First Lady" of a new, prosperous Havenwood.

Daisy, the former mayor' s sickly daughter, had appeared a year or so after I arrived.

Slowly, subtly, Ethan' s attention began to shift.

I had been too blind, too trusting, too in love to see.