David slipped out of his house shoes and crawled into the place she directed him, propping himself up against the collection of pillows, which released a thin cloud of dust into the air. The scent of death was stronger on her now, hanging like a drowning captain to his floundering ship.
“I was once told there is an art to dying, but I’m afraid I’ve missed the instruction,” she continued to lightly jest. She rolled herself onto her side so she could look at him, shadows hollowing her face beyond recognition, remnants of dried crimson lingering at the cracks of her mouth. Her dark hair was matted in the back where she had been resting.
David smoothed it back before resting his hand on hers. “Well, lucky for you, not only have I died myself several times, but I have had two women pass in my arms. You could say I’m a professional at this sort of thing.”
She smiled. “Then the heavens must have known what they were doing when they threw us together. You had best hurry along with your story. I refuse to go until the end.”
David frowned. “You couldn’t possibly want to listen to me drone on about myself during your final hours.”
“Quite the contrary,” she said sleepily. “Your voice is soothing. Besides, how could I ever cross over without knowing how it ends? You’ll doom me to haunt this house forever.”
David couldn’t help but smile. “Alright then.”
“Would you mind holding a third dying woman in your arms?” she asked.
David scooped her up without a word, so that her head rested against his chest and both his arms were draped around her.
“Now, where was I?”
“The part where you finally remembered her,” she murmured. “The memory of when she killed you.”
“Ah, yes,” he said softly, resting his cheek on her hair.
Romania, 1462
“You’re awake.”
David’s freshly opened eyes caught the silhouette of Hekate folded at her desk. She looked tired, even in the dim, forgiving candlelight, dark circles gathered around her eyes. “Glad to see it. You took a turn for the worse in the early hours of night, but fortunately, Dragos and I were able to keep you alive. You’ve been healing quite well since.”
David sat up, pleased to learn that his body could now move without excruciating pain. He looked down at his arms and hands, wrapped in bandages similar to the mummy in his vision. “I remember,” he said after he looked back up. “I remember my life with Morrigan. I don’t recall our lives before that, however, no matter how I try.”
“I know,” Hekate sighed wistfully as she rose to her feet, her rotund girth swelling out her skirt.
A pang of guilt struck him, replaying their story in his mind. “Please forgive me for any pain I caused you in our former lives.”
She reached his bedside, sitting down at the edge and patting an unbandaged part of his arm. “The memories from that life come from magical means, and I cannot sufficiently recall the feelings that go along with them. I can only watch it unfold like you can, through Hekate’s eyes.”
“That does not absolve me of the guilt I feel,” David sighed.
“Do not lament over that which you could not control,” Hekate corrected him. “This existence that we are trapped in has its own set of rules. I know that I loved you like a brother and understand that you loved me like a sister. I have long accepted that your passion belongs to her.”
“Our love is what led to Set manipulating and using you,” David insisted.
“Set is responsible for his own actions,” she argued. “He let jealousy embitter him and fuel his decisions. As for me, I was curious to feel the touch of a man, not once, but twice. A part of me knew that mortal was Set in disguise, and I could have spurned his advances, but I was lonely. I chose my path, just as Set chose his. I take full responsibility for my own mistakes and you should let me have it.”
She rose and moved towards the wall to lift a low burning torch, using it to set the others ablaze. The light caught on her assortment of apothecary bottles, revealing several unsavory ingredients amongst her herbs and tinctures, including a capsule of disembodied eyes and a bottle of wormy rodent tails. They looked sinister in the flickering shadows.
“We were young, inexperienced gods,” she said as the dank room attempted to grow warm. “We had no book of rules, no parents to explain to us how things should go.”
“And now here we are.”
“Yes, here we are,” she parroted with a sigh. “And still our world is threatened by the decisions we have made.”
“So, you are now pregnant with Lucius’s child? How is it possible? Has he ever come to collect the women in your bloodline?” He paused. “Forgive me for asking so many questions. I suppose I’m just surprised I never heard of you before tonight.”
“It's quite alright,” she assured him. “Isis successfully hid us away for many years—her daughter, her granddaughter, and so on, over the centuries. We do not know the exact magic behind it, but on the night of our eighteenth birthdays, we become with child, always a daughter. The absurdity of our curse is also what makes it so dangerous, for you can imagine what sort of problems arise for pregnant, husbandless women alone in the world. Some of us tried to make children with other men and failed, others were virgins when they gave birth. Eventually, Isis was forced to hide us away from even the most remote mountain tribes, creating a clan of women which she called the Pădurii. She appeared to anyone who ventured near our home as a frightening old hag. After she died, the eldest woman of each generation took on the same guise until it eventually earned us the name Muma Pădurii, a witch who was vilified and feared by men for centuries. Save for Isis, who died in the ancient times, most of us are semimortal, meaning we live longer than humans but not forever. It has ensured a large enough clan to care for each other as the years pass.”
“And Lucius never found you?”
“Isis’s magic has protected us throughout the centuries. Even now, as his last remaining children live in his own village, he cannot detect our presence.”
“Where is your mother?” David wondered. “And the rest of your clan? How did Isis eventually die?”
Hekate paused as her green eyes shifted. “There are some secrets that must be kept,” she said, quietly. “But I can tell you, my mother died while giving birth to me, moments after bringing my brother into the world.”
“Forgive me, I did not mean to pry.”
“I told you, David, it is quite alright. I have taken it upon myself to deliver your history to you and I shall. There are just things too painful to discuss, particularly when it comes to Hekate’s story. Those emotions I do feel.”
“I understand.”
“To answer the question of how Isis died,” she continued, “we honestly don’t know. Our history has been passed down through oral tradition, and somewhere along the way, the exact way she died became unknown even to the oldest among us.”
“And now she is reincarnated in you.”
Hekate smiled as she resumed her seat at her desk. “Yes. But enough talk of my past. There is a bit more I must tell you, and then I will leave you to rest.”
Since they were underground, David could not see the time of day, but assumed by the damp aroma of the dirt surrounding them that it had reached nightfall. “You need your rest as well,” he pointed out, gesturing towards her stomach.
