Ethan Greywater's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

The door had closed behind Ethan. He stood in the yard again, where he thought he had finally escaped. Sammy still sat by the broken headstone, the photograph in his hands. The raven watched from the sagging eaves of the ruined house. In the swamp behind them, Silas Murkwood rose from the muck, worms twisting in his empty sockets, his grin wide and patient. Ethan knew now why he had killed the woman. But something still held him here. One more thing was missing. "You turned back," Silas said. Water ran off his grey ribs. "The door won't open twice for a fool." "I remember now," Ethan said. "She was going to cast a spell. On me and on Sammy. I killed her to stop it." He turned to the swamp ghost. "You've known the whole story since the start. All of it. Tell me what I'm still missing. Tell me why I can't cross." Silas drifted closer. His grin did not move. "I know every piece," he said. "But I won't hand it to you. A gift truth doesn't free a ghost." He tilted his head. The worms shifted. "So answer me instead, dead man. What have you forgotten?" Cold crawled up Ethan's spine. The question felt like a hook under his ribs. He looked at Sammy, hunched in the dirt. "I confessed. I told him I killed her. That was the truth." "Part of it," Silas said. "You told him you were a murderer. You never told him why." The words landed hard. Ethan saw it then. He had handed Sammy the worst half and buried the rest. Sammy believed his brother had killed for nothing. For cruelty. He didn't know the spell. He didn't know Ethan had died protecting him. "That's what I forgot," Ethan whispered. "I left him with half a truth." He knelt beside his brother. Sammy still could not see him, but Ethan spoke anyway, loud and clear into the cold air. "I killed her to save you, Sammy. She was going to curse us both. I wasn't a monster. I was scared. I was trying to protect you." The raven lifted its head. It let out a single sharp scream. Sammy gasped. His eyes went wide. He pressed his hand flat to the headstone. "You... you were protecting me?" His voice broke open. "All this time I thought—" He stopped. Tears ran down his dirty face. But his shoulders dropped, like a weight had slid off them. Silas watched from the swamp. His grin thinned. "So. The full confession, at last." Ethan felt the yard shift around him. But the door did not reopen. Something else had changed. Sammy was no longer hollow. He understood now. And Ethan understood too late that the crossing was no longer only about him. He had freed his brother. But the door that would free himself stayed shut, and Silas knew why.