Chapter 2

My mother didn't give me time to hesitate.

The day after she laid her cards on the table, she started pushing me to convince Caleb to volunteer for the ritual. She used the exact same tone she'd use to dictate the kitchen's grocery list. I sat in the chair across from her, picking at the chipped paint on the armrest, and said nothing.

"He trusts you," my mother repeated. "Don't let that go to waste."

I was heavily pregnant by then, having to support my lower back just to walk. The midwife said I had two weeks left, tops. The baby could come any day now. And here my mother was, rushing me to send my child's father to the altar.

No. A purification ceremony. That's what she called it.

I went to the woodshop.

Caleb was sitting at his workbench, the surface scattered with sawdust, chisels, and a shapeless block of wood. He looked up and gave me a smile, his hands never stopping their work.

"This isn't the best piece of timber," he said, flipping the block over. "But it should be enough to make something small. I was thinking of carving a little wooden bird for the baby."

He was making a toy for the baby. The baby wasn't even born yet, and he was already making toys.

I sat down across from him. The shop smelled strongly of pine and wood shavings. It was the only room in the entire manor without a speck of dust, because Caleb swept it every single day. He wiped down all his tools and lined them up by size on the bench. The man couldn't read a word, but he knew how to treat wood with respect.

"Caleb," I said.

"Yeah?"

"There's a ceremony at the manor on the full moon."

He stopped chiseling and turned to look at me.

"The butler will show you what to do," I said, every word feeling like it was bottlenecked in my throat, shoving its way out. "It's a purification ceremony. For the baby."

He was quiet for a moment. There was no suspicion in that silence, no probing questions, just earnestness. He was genuinely trying to process what I was telling him. Then, he nodded.

"Okay."

Just that one word.

I stood up and headed for the door. Just as I reached the threshold, he called out to me. "Lena," he said, "what should I wear for the ceremony?"

I didn't look back. "Whatever you want."

"Okay."

I heard the soft thwack of the chisel hitting wood behind me. He was back to work.

The butler began walking him through the ritual. Where to stand, how to pace his steps, when to stay perfectly still, and when to kneel. My mother called it "ceremonial etiquette," having the butler teach it under the guise of a "family blessing." The butler also handed him a white linen robe with what were supposedly "runes of protection" embroidered on the cuffs. Caleb folded the robe neatly and left it on his nightstand. He asked me what the runes meant. I told him they were a blessing for our family. He believed it. How could he not? The robe looked so clean, so holy.

I swallowed that word back down. Sacrifice. My mother had used that word in her study. She said it was family tradition, and she promised Caleb would be fine. She said "he'll be fine" a hundred times, so I chose to believe "he'll be fine." It wasn't that I was stupid. It was that I needed to believe it. I needed to believe this ceremony was just a formality, that Caleb would be perfectly safe, that everything I was doing really was just for the baby.

White robes, white candles, Latin incantations, scattering sea salt—all these steps seemed so pure, so much like a blessing. Who scatters sea salt at a murder? That was what I told myself, shoving down the tiny voice in the back of my mind. The voice was quiet, but it was always there. It whispered: Do you really not know what the word 'sacrifice' means?

I pretended not to hear it.

Caleb took his lessons seriously. He couldn't read and couldn't memorize the complex incantations, but he memorized the steps, the marks, everything the butler told him to remember. One night, he told me, "I think I've got it down." He even demonstrated it for me, standing perfectly straight with his arms resting at his sides. His eyes were bright, like a kid who just passed a test. I smiled and nodded. Then I turned around to dust the table. There was no dust on the table. Caleb wiped it down every day. I just couldn't bear to look him in the eye.

The night before the full moon, I lay in bed, listening to the steady rhythm of Caleb's breathing beside me. I gently rested my hand on his warm chest. His heartbeat was steady, thumping in time like his chisel in the woodshop. Moonlight spilled through the gap in the curtains—cold, white, and quiet.

My mind drifted back to that crumpled piece of paper in his toolbag. There was an extra line of letters on it compared to last time. One line had been scribbled over and corrected over and over, but you could still make out a name. Rose.

He was practicing his handwriting. An illiterate man, secretly teaching himself how to write. He wanted to teach our baby how to write once she was born. He didn't say, "We'll get a teacher." He said, "I'll teach her."

Tomorrow, he would step into the stone circle. After tomorrow, everything would be fine. That's what my mother said. I chose to believe it. Not because she was trustworthy, but because I needed to believe it. I needed to believe he wouldn't be hurt. I needed to believe that "sacrifice" just sounded scary, but was really nothing more than tossing some salt, lighting a few candles, and chanting some mumbo jumbo. I needed to believe I wasn't going to lose him.

I closed my eyes. That voice in my head spoke up again. It said: If he's really going to be fine, why are you so afraid to tell him the truth? I rolled over and pressed my ear hard against the pillow. The rustling of the goose feathers drowned the voice out.

On the evening of the full moon, Caleb pulled the white robe from the closet and carefully put it on. The runes on the cuffs shimmered with a silvery-gray light in the candlelight. He stood in front of our cracked mirror and smoothed down his hair.

"How do I look?" he asked, turning to face me.

He looked good. He wasn't the kind of handsome that turned heads, but he was the kind of man who made you feel grounded just by looking at him. Broad shoulders, big hands, knuckles thick with calluses from his carpentry. His eyes were a grayish-green, the exact same shade our daughter would eventually have.

"You look good," I said.

Then he followed the butler out. I trailed behind him, keeping three paces back. The moon had already risen, hanging directly over the stone circle—massive, round, and so white it was almost blue. My belly was so big I could barely see my own feet, the baby pressing heavily against my pelvis, making every step a struggle. But I didn't stop. I had to watch him finish the purification. Then everything would be okay. It would be. I convinced myself of it.

The stone circle was on the hillside behind the manor. Twelve stone pillars formed a ring, the four corners already dusted with sea salt, white candles jammed into iron sconces between the pillars. Caleb stood in the center of the circle, his white robe glowing softly in the moonlight. My mother stood opposite him, gripping a black wooden staff. Her face was completely unreadable in the candlelight.

Caleb looked at me. His lips moved, like he was trying to say something.

We were too far apart for me to hear him. But I could read his lips.

It was my name.