At my sister-in-law’s 21st birthday party, her gift to me was a tainted drink and a set of divorce papers. “A country girl who never even finished high school has no right to carry a Thorne heir.” Luna’s voice was cold, a world away from the girl whose brother had knelt with her at my family’s door ten years ago, begging me to save them. My eyes found Caleb, my husband, but he was too busy, his arm wrapped around another woman as he made his introductions. But I am his wife. His only wife. “The ten years are up,” I murmured, a strange weight lifting from my shoulders as I reached for the papers. “It’s time for me to go.” 1. By the time I realized my wine had been drugged, a sharp, tearing pain had already seized my womb, and I could feel the warm stickiness of blood. “For God’s sake, get back to the room and clean yourself up! Stop making a scene!” Caleb hissed, his arm tightening around the other woman, his brow furrowed in irritation. Blood was starting to pool on the polished marble floor, a dark stain spreading from beneath my dress. The guests recoiled, putting a sudden ten-foot circle of empty space around me, as if I, the girl from the countryside, were carrying some virulent plague. “You’re not going anywhere until you sign this!” Luna blocked my path, shoving the divorce papers at me. “Nelly, you used that baby to blackmail my brother, to keep him from leaving you. You don’t have any excuses left now, do you?” I stopped and fixed my gaze on her. She flinched, her shoulders hunching in a flicker of instinctual fear. She’s always been afraid of me. It started with that terrible blizzard ten years ago, when she was just a child, cowering in my arms, too terrified to even sip the broth I offered her. “Luna, who taught you to drug someone? You can go to your room and…” My words caught in my throat. I’d almost forgotten. By morning, this would no longer be my home to command. “Forget it. Go explain it to your brother,” I sighed, the fight draining out of me. Ten years. I’d raised her for ten years, and all it took were a few poisonous whispers from someone else to undo a decade of care. Back in the room, I showered. The water ran crimson, the bathtub a horrifying tableau of my loss. But as the water swirled down the drain, a profound sense of relief washed over me. It was better this way. Better for the child to be gone than to be born into a family where it would never be wanted. The bedroom was a scene of total violation. My clothes had been slashed into ribbons, my cosmetics dumped and smeared across the floor. On the vanity mirror, a single, furious message was scrawled in lipstick: GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. I sat on the edge of the bed and began to painstakingly gather the scattered pieces of my grandmother’s last letter. She had made me promise to only open it on my tenth wedding anniversary, not a minute sooner. And at midnight tonight, it would be exactly ten years since I married Caleb Thorne. I had little to pack. Most of my clothes and makeup were things Caleb’s assistant had bought for me—gaudy, jewel-encrusted things I never truly liked. When I first came to this city, all I had were Caleb and Luna. Now, as I prepared to leave, all I had was myself. After signing the divorce papers, I focused on piecing the letter together. Luna had torn it into confetti, and the work was slow, my fingers trembling. The moment I managed to form the words My Dearest Granddaughter, my vision blurred with tears. I was more than halfway through when Caleb entered the room, his expression as severe as ever, the scent of whiskey clinging to him. “Ellie,” he murmured, his voice thick. “I’m drunk.” It was only when he was like this, lost in the haze of alcohol, that he allowed himself to be vulnerable with me. He bent down, wrapping his arms around me from behind, his cheek brushing against my ear. “Luna’s still young. She doesn’t know any better. You’ll forgive her, won’t you? Be a good wife and make me some soup.” It was a familiar script, a scene played out on countless drunken nights. He would hold me, whisper sweet nothings, and beg for soup he rarely drank. More often than not, he’d feed it to me from his own lips before pressing me into the mattress, taking what he wanted under the cover of darkness. In the morning, he’d be gone, leaving me with nothing but his back. He could never reconcile the man he was with the "country girl" he slept with. In the dark, he never had to see my tears. “I’m sorry, Mr. Thorne. You’ll have to ask someone else,” I said, my voice flat. I kept my eyes on the letter, feeling his hands on my shoulders stiffen. “Nelly, Luna wasn’t wrong,” he said, his tone shifting, becoming patronizing. “You can’t even read a balance sheet, you don’t understand the first thing about business. I work myself to the bone out there, and I need a partner who can help me, not just… wait for me at home.” “But I never asked for a divorce, did I?” His voice was like a king granting a pardon, a charity I neither wanted nor needed. Ten years ago, my grandmother had given her life to change his fortune, breaking the laws of nature and dying for it. Now, her final letter echoed the truth I already felt in my bones: The bond is broken. Do not force what is already gone. 2. “Then I’ll be the one to ask,” I said, placing the signed divorce papers into his hand. I clutched the precious, reassembled letter and walked towards the door. “Nelly!” He called after me. “You walk out that door, and you’ll never set foot in this house again. Think about it. What do you have without me?” I didn’t stop. My abdomen clenched with a wave of pain, but I kept walking. Suddenly, he was there, slamming the door shut. He let out a long sigh, his voice softening. “Fine. I’m willing to give you another child.” “But you can’t raise it,” he continued, the words a fresh series of blows. “A child of mine must have the best education in the world.” Every sentence was a calculated jab at my origins, a sneer at my lack of a diploma. Ten years ago, after his parents were murdered and his inheritance was stolen by his uncles, he’d come to my village. He’d heard whispers of my grandmother, a woman with the Sight, a true mystic. He begged her to place a curse on his relatives, to help him reclaim what was his. Such dark magic always came at a cost, extracting a heavy price from the caster. But I had already fallen for him, for the fire in his eyes. To grant me the marriage I so desperately wanted, my grandmother paid with her life. At her funeral, Caleb knelt beside me before her coffin. His voice was raw with emotion as he swore an oath: Nelly would be his only wife, for all his life. If he ever broke his vow, may his skin split and his heart shatter, and may his soul be damned for eternity. One by one, his uncles met with bizarre and untimely ends. Caleb slowly, methodically, reclaimed the entire Thorne empire. But his world whispered that a simple country girl was not worthy of the Thorne name. I saw the shame on his face then, the first time one of his new, wealthy friends looked down on me. That look of contempt had never truly left his eyes. I pushed his hand away and walked downstairs. Luna was waiting at the bottom of the staircase, a smug, triumphant look on her face. “Finally got thrown out by my brother, huh?” she sneered. “Serves you right. How dare you live in our house and still try to tell me what to do.” I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. All I’d done was try to stop her from getting involved with some local punk, and she’d reacted as if I’d declared war on her. “Luna, darling, your sister-in-law probably meant well,” a smooth voice purred. “Coming from the country, she just doesn’t understand our ways.” “She’s not my sister-in-law, Vivian!” Luna cooed, linking her arm with the newcomer. “My brother is embarrassed by her. He always takes you to his events, never her.” So that explained the cloying, unfamiliar perfume that clung to Caleb’s suits on the nights he came home drunk. I knew his life was hard, but he never shared his struggles with me. He just assumed I wouldn’t understand. Over time, the silence between us grew into a chasm. “Then I’ll have to trouble you to take care of Caleb from now on, Miss Vivian,” I said, extending a hand. Unsurprisingly, she left it hanging in the air. A third voice, sharp and condescending, cut in. “My Vivian isn’t like you. She won’t be a wife who acts like a glorified housekeeper,” said Vivian’s mother, stepping into the light. “Vivian is an international scholar. She’s fluent in two languages. She can make Caleb millions in minutes. You? You can wash clothes and cook. A maid can do that.” Vivian basked in her mother’s praise, a cascade of perfect waves falling over her shoulder as she looked down her nose at me. “Nelly,” she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “I know you were with Caleb through the hard times. But let’s be honest, he’s provided you with a very comfortable life these past few years. A live-in maid makes what, fifty thousand a year? That coat you’re wearing is worth more than that. Without Caleb, you’d still be stuck in that backwoods town, you never would have seen the world.” “Vivi,” Luna interrupted with a giggle. “Don’t use big words. She won’t understand.” They both burst into laughter, a sound like shattering glass. Luna had forgotten. After her family’s tragedy, she’d missed two years of school. When she finally went back, she was hopelessly behind. I was the one who worked shifts waiting tables during the day so I could come home and tutor her at night. I was strict with her, yes, but only because she was the one who had come to me, clutching a failed test, her eyes fierce with a child’s promise. “I’ll make you and Caleb proud, Nelly,” she’d sworn. “I’ll shut up all those relatives who made him kneel!” Luna hadn’t changed. Caleb hadn’t changed. They had simply returned to the lives they were always meant to live. The only one who had changed was me. I had dared to dream a dream that was never mine. “Enough!” Caleb’s voice boomed from the top of the stairs, silencing everyone. 3. “You and Vivian can stay the night,” he said, his gaze fixed on her mother. “I’ll have the staff prepare a guest room for you.” Then he turned to me. “You too, Nelly. It’s late. Stop bothering me. We’ll talk in the morning.” The moment Vivian’s mother heard Caleb intended for me to stay, her eyes shot daggers at me before she turned a fawning smile back up at him. “Oh, Caleb, darling, just one room is fine! Why would Vivian need her own room? You two lovebirds must have so much to talk about!” So this was the famed upbringing of the upper class. So eager to push her own daughter into a man’s bed. I turned to go back to my room, but Luna grabbed my arm. “You might as well just crash in the basement for one night,” she said, dragging me towards the cellar door. “No point in going back to your old room on the second floor. Besides,” she added with a cruel smirk, “you don’t want to be in the room next door listening to my brother and Vivian, do you?” “There’s no light down there,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “So? It’s not like you’re afraid of the dark.” She shot me an impatient glare, having conveniently forgotten the time she’d gotten lost in the woods as a child. I was the one who went searching for her. A wolf found us. To save her, I drew it away, leading it on a desperate chase until I was cornered in a pitch-black cave. There was no way out. I could hear the wolf’s panting, feel its hot breath just behind me. Later, Caleb asked me a hundred times how I survived that night. I never told him. I survived on the sheer, desperate conviction that I had to see him again. After Luna left, locking the door behind her, I curled into a ball against the cold, damp wall. The darkness was absolute, a suffocating blanket without a single crack of moonlight. My breath came in ragged gasps, my heart hammering against my ribs. I could almost feel the phantom slick of the wolf’s saliva on my leg, the terror as real as it was all those years ago. I couldn’t take it. I scrambled back up the stairs, hammering on the door until my knuckles were raw. When it finally opened, I stumbled into the hallway and saw them. Caleb and Vivian, entwined on the sofa. “Vivian, I’m sorry,” Caleb was saying, his voice low and strained. “I really can’t divorce Nelly.” “Because of your debt to her grandmother?” “Not just that,” he paused. “I swore an oath on her grave. If I leave Nelly, I’m cursed to a horrific death…” “Her grandmother is dead, Caleb. You really think a corpse can curse you?” “Vivian, can’t we just stay like this? You’re my confidante, my partner… isn’t that enough?” He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he leaned in and covered her mouth with his. The cramped sofa became a stage for their passion, and a bitter poison filled my heart. The truth was, my grandmother had wanted to place a real curse on him. I was the one who stopped her. I remember her stroking my face, her voice full of sorrow. “My sweet, simple girl,” she’d sighed. “What will you do when you get hurt? There will be no one left to protect you.” She was right. The one who protected me was gone. And it was time for me to leave, too. I turned and went back to the basement. So what if it was dark? So what if I was terrified? The bite of a lone wolf years ago was nothing compared to the pain of Caleb’s casual admission—that he was bound not by love, but by fear of an old ghost story. The basement door creaked open again. The beam of a flashlight blinded me. I squinted, making out Vivian’s silhouette, the angry red marks visible on her exposed shoulder. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?” she said, her voice laced with venom. “You must be so proud. Caleb won’t divorce you.”
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