When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy) (20 page)

He shakes his head. “I-I can’t, Amelia.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too painful. Maybe one day, maybe never, but it’s something I’m trying to forget, day-by-day.”

I sigh. “Olly…why won’t you trust me?”

“I do trust you, Amelia. But I’m certain even you have things so painful that you don’t want to talk about them. Can you at least respect that this is something I want to forget? If I force myself to remember, if I even allow myself, then I fear I won’t be quite who I am right now. There is too much bitterness.”

I nod. Oliver is right. If I refuse to tell him about Theosodore, then I also have to accept that there are some things Oliver will never tell me. A secret for a secret. As long as I have my secrets, then it is hypocritical of me to expect Oliver to reveal everything about himself, especially the parts of him that are like open flesh wounds.

Instead of pondering over Oliver’s unknown past, I let myself relax against him and fall asleep--a restful sleep, for once.

Chapter Nineteen

The train ride to Malva is a quiet affair, Father, Nathaniel, and I all lost in our own worlds. I muse over what Oliver told me yesterday. I feel like I should be numb to the idea that I will die into a Shadowman, but I see my future etched in Oliver’s eyes, full of suffering in uncertainty, and no matter how much I want to accept that unavoidable future, I can’t. All of me rebels against the idea that Deus punishes witches further in the afterlife. If being a Shadowman is supposed to be an apology for suffering in life, then I argue we’re better off dying into nothingness.

Even more, the witch burning is not something that helps these feelings of mine at all. Just knowing what the fate of those witches will be after their bodies have burned to ash is enough to make me hate people. Perhaps if I keep my eyes shut the entire time, and keep Nathaniel’s shut too, we’ll make it through. We’ll be okay. We might even be so far back in the crowd, we won’t see anything but the boughs of Parson Hill’s oak tree.

After we check in with the city’s officials, we gather around the hill, the oak tree greeting us with its strong, graceful boughs and snow-crusted bark. Pity it won’t be strong and beautiful after today when its trunk is marred and its soil littered with ashes. Father tries to lead us to the back, but the priests of Cathedral Reims keep pushing us forward to the point where we’re almost on the outer ring, six men deep. Up at the top of the hill are Bishop Brandon, Pope Gilford’s preferati; Pope Gilford himself; and the cross bearers who are all men with burly arms, red faces, and straining necks.

I wonder where Oliver is, if he is somewhere in the crowd, looking out for me. He left before I woke up--gone, just like that. My heart aches and ached this morning when I woke up without his physical presence beside me.

Nathaniel latches on to me, pressing his face against my ribcage. “The sky shouldn’t be blue,” he says, his voice muffled. One moment Nathaniel is a child wanting to get me an enormous teddy bear and the next he is an entirely different creature speaking in poetry instead of throwing a temper tantrum as any child would.

I ruffle his hair. “Stay like that, Nat. All right?” There should be no beauty. But there is. The world doesn’t want to change its clothes to foreshadow the impending tragedy about to take place in Malva. The snow is not enough. It is too white. Too pure.

My eyes dart back to the hill. The men plant the crosses in the ground, gouging away precious soil. The faces of the witches reveal themselves to us, and what is most horrifying is they don’t scream or cry against the ropes biting into their bodies. Bruises taint their skin, as if they’d been whipped before this, and their eyes are mere husks, drained of whatever life was in them before all this.

They’re not children and yet they’re not old enough to be considered wise. But I’m certain their imprisonment has made them realize that fighting will breed more resentment. People will only remember them as stupid animals anyway. Then they will be forgotten. Witches are thought of but never spoken about. They are quietly tucked away, never heard from again. The only reminders that people should hate them are The Vulgate and propaganda.

Pope Gilford, a haggard old man dressed in white with a matching headdress, steps in the middle of the semi-circle of crosses and puts his arms in the air. “Citizens of Malva!” Energy radiates through his old muscles, making him seem younger than he really is. “Today Norbury shall witness its very first witch burning. Other parts of the world have burned witches in centuries past, but they no longer tolerate such practices as Warbele now does. In the coming months, I and Cardinal Bishop Brandon will be attending numerous witch burnings. It is my hope that within the decade we can eliminate all sin.”

Eliminate all sin?

It occurs to me that these witch burnings are actually beneficial to the Shadowmen Alliance. Though they care nothing of cleansing sin, they do care about swelling their ranks, and this is exactly what Pope Gilford is doing by burning today’s witches. There are ten of them, enough to take out an entire city. But I can’t do anything about this. I am a mere girl who has no idea how to even control her fire, if that’s possible. Perhaps this is my paranoia, but I feel like there is a connection to this and the alliance, as though the Shadowmen are somehow using him.

Then again, they can see witches through a mere glance. Doing all of this just to obtain a few seems impractical. There is something more to this, though I do not know what.

Pope Gilford continues. “Witches are born of the Seven Deadly Sins, and The Vulgate says we must treat them as such.” Every tremulous heart in Malva joins together as one, creating one giant heart that sends earthquakes through each of us. “These witches were caught pulling food from open windows and heating that food with their fire. They stole off with the food to feed their greedy bellies. Not only have they sinned with magic, but they have also sinned with thievery. Deus does not forgive.”

He spreads his arms, a signal for the cross bearers to make their way downhill. Only the witches and some of the Professed Order are left. Their faces are white as they grip their baskets of calla lilies. I wonder what must be going through Mother Aurelia’s mind knowing the Professed Order has probably been forced to participate in this act of cruelty. While hatred of witches is accepted, not everyone agrees that they should suffer in this manner.

The cross bearers make their way down the hill, and as one passes us, my heart almost escapes from my rib cage. There is a scar above his lip, and it’s on a smooth face with a sloped jaw.

That can’t be Sash.

He doesn’t look at me, but I can’t look away. That can’t be Sash. That can’t be. He would be with the Shadowmen Alliance--not among people in Malva.

I shake my head. He would be among people now that he and all the others have the appearance of human beings. Sash’s being among the cross bearers somewhat confirms my suspicion that they are using Pope Gilford--and the man probably doesn’t know it. I wonder who had the idea? Asch, no doubt. For what reason, I don’t know. They can easily seek out witches now, so why go through all the trouble of having a ceremony? All it does is take a slice to the throat. Sash snuffed that woman’s life out with ease.

The Professed Order cluster around Bishop Brandon. He takes them beneath the oak tree and instructs them to pray. Pope Gilford comes to the front of the hill and holds up his arms. The white sleeves of his outfit flow down like the feathers of a bird’s wings.

He must think himself an angel.

“Remember these faces, for they are the faces of witches. And if you can recognize the face of a witch, then you can recognize the face of any witch and bring Warbele into a new era, where getting rid of sin means killing all witches.”

Pope Gilford falls silent, implying he wants us to mull over his words. I refuse to digest such ghastly talk. They are human beings, people who happen to be witches through no faults of their own. No one is a witch by fault. If anyone should be burned, it should be the parents who gave birth to them. Parents are the sinners, the ones who disobeyed The Vulgate and Deus. But The Vulgate says we must burn witches, and it says we must hate them.

It just doesn’t tell us why.

While we are silent, several people push to the front of the crowd bearing white candles with lit wicks, little flames tamed by brutal hands. They pass us, and as they do, my heart has that feeling of wanting to escape from my chest. When I saw that vision on the train, I was only able to memorize Sash’s face. But all of these candle bearers look familiar.

My legs become more brittle than burnt wood.

Pope Gilford rises from his silence. “Burn the sinners!”

The candle bearers walk up to the witches, and one of them bears a can of oil--a man, I think. He pulls the cap off and douses each cross in the flammable substance. The victims moan, but don’t fight beyond that.

The candle bearers separate, two to each cross. They touch their wicks to the oil, and the crosses ignite, the flames crawling along the crosses like a swarm of wasps.

Now they scream and cry, and I want to collapse from their pain. Nathaniel lets out a choked cry. I bury his head in my ribs, wrapping my arms tight around him.

Bishop Brandon pushes the Professed Order forward, and they each dance around the crosses, looping around one cross and then looping around the next. They throw the lilies at their feet, forced smiles on their faces.

“Deus!” Pope Gilford says, throwing his arms in the air again. “Take these sinful beings and bury them in the Gates of Hell. Do not let them linger any longer on this earth. They were bred through sin and to sin they must return!”

And just like that, the world around me freezes, including the air I expel from my lungs. Pope Gilford’s arms remain frozen in the air, and his mouth freezes in what I can only describe as someone having a seizure. The Professed Order stop on the tips of their toes, their hands flying out behind them with lily petals floating behind. The tips of the flames lick the sky and remain that way.

Only I am able to move--or so it seems.

There is movement among the frozen bodies, and it isn’t just mine. Should I follow? There is no reason not to, I suppose. I have experienced enough bizarre things in the past year to know that coincidences are nonexistent.

I slip out of Nathaniel’s grasp, leaving him a frozen statue with a face twisted and ruined by tears. I squeeze myself through the bodies that remain solid as boulders. Someone else moves behind me, though I am unable to see who it is--I can only hear. I keep my attention on the figure moving ahead. I make out a white sleeve, and I assume it’s one of the cross bearers: Sash. And whoever moves behind me could be one of the candle bearers.

I don’t know what is going on, but this is the same feeling I had on that train. Oliver can’t be doing this. His powers concern themselves with nature. And the Shadowmen Alliance can’t possibly be doing this for me either. Asch made it clear he’d kill me if he discovered my meddling in their affairs.

I come out of the crowd to find that it is indeed one of the cross bearers blazing down the main street. I keep after him, though I find myself weaving around carriages and lampposts to disguise myself. I throw a glance over my shoulder, but don’t see the other figure that was in the crowd. Perhaps I was imagining things.

The cross bearer runs into an alley, and I throw myself behind a stack of crates by the alley and peer around the corner.

There is a group of people, all human, but yet not human. They are all familiar.

The first one to speak is Sash. The rasp to his voice is unmistakable. “Ten more into our ranks.”

“Good, Sash.” That’s Asch all right.

“But this is painful to do,” Sash says. “We should just slit their throats.”

“But their change is far slower than if they’re burned. It can take a year instead of days, weeks, or even a couple of months,” another says, one that sounds female, who is without a doubt Gisbelle.

Than if they’re burned
. I think back to Colette, how I wasn’t the one who murdered her, but a Shadowman. One of these Shadowmen has the power of fire.

“In any case,” Asch says, “Purgatory wanted a ceremony to make people realize what they’re doing to witches. He no longer wants witches to be an afterthought to someone’s day. He wants them to be there, burned in their minds.”

I slam a hand over my mouth to keep myself from gasping. Pope Gilford is their pawn. Does Oliver realize this? I doubt this. He might be a Shadowman, but he is certainly not one of them. I’ll have to tell him when I can, but Father booked a hotel for a week, claiming he’d never been to Malva and wanted to explore the city more. There isn’t much to look at after a day though.

“There are plenty of them in Malva,” Sash says. “This city is a perfect place for us.”

Asch smiles, his grin similar to Theosodore’s jagged one “With so many witches around, this means more Shadowmen for us.”

Oliver was right. This information is dizzying, nauseating. That poor woman, a mere object in their ultimate goal, a simple way for them to obtain human blood so they could look like us, acts like us, and scheme among us without anyone realizing how different they are from us. How many Shadowmen could there be then? Could there even be Shadowmen, besides Oliver, at Cathedral Reims?