Page 109 of Bitterbloom

Bram stirs in the grass, closes the box. “I almost didn’t see this come in with the post. Polly was hurrying them upstairs, and I just happened to catch her.”

I roll my eyes.

Polly, Bram’s youngest sister, was the most excited to see him return, and she hasn’t left his side much in the past few months. Really, the only alone time we get together is either in the fields or in the small cottage, where I now live on the manor grounds.

After Bram and I returned, the village questioned the whereabouts of my father. We told them the truth. Or a version of it. That Vicar Thorn and Lord Ransom Black had been caught with the blood of village girls on their hands in the wood and, in their rage and fear of being discovered, turned on one another, slicing each other’s throats.

Soon, the seat of the church in Lysdin will send another vicar to Rixton, another man to yell from a wooden box every Sunday. But Bram and I will not be there to hear. We find the fields to be more our church than any building could ever be.

Bram’s finger sweeps my brow. “You deserve this, Addie. A soft ending to all the madness.” He leans over, kisses me. A gentle brushing. “I love you.”

He scrambles to his feet when Rascal comes whipping back, a stick between his teeth and pumpkin smeared on his upper lip. Rascal growls and drops the stick before Bram’s feet.

“Meet you back at the manor?” Bram turns down to look at me.

I finish my cake and nod, the wind a gentle kiss at my cheek. He calls Rascal after him.

“Bram?”

He pivots back around, a grin so wide it might swallow the world.

“I love you too.”

He smiles and jogs through the bramble. I watch him go. The key weighs heavy at my neck, a reminder of so many memories and lines my name is still signed to.

But what can dead things do against Death herself?

I stop, the wind whipping my hair into knots.

No.

I amnotDeath.

Death does not define me.

I lift a finger to my throat. Bram throws the stick for Rascal and grins back at me with a look that makes my bones ache. The wind shifts, a scent like apples and rye carried toward me, and I feel the gentle return of my heart. One sweet, beautiful true word.

A-live, a-live, a-live.