The harsh winter wind felt like needles against Merope’s skin. She had put a good amount of distance between her and the Leaky Cauldron. The adrenaline rush from her escape had gotten her far away from the danger, but now she was running out of steam and out of time. She could barely feel her feet hit the ground as she walked. She was so very tired.
Merope could feel her body shivering as she made her way through the streets. It was getting late in the afternoon, but the sky made it look far later than that. The city seemed deserted. The sidewalks and alleyways were empty, with no one on the road. It was as if she was the last person walking on earth. The weather was getting so nasty that she almost regretted leaving the warmth of her room. But under the circumstances, she’d been left with no other choice. Someone out there wanted to take her baby. And for the first time in her life she felt the instinctual need to protect herself.
Merope decided to duck into a narrow path between some buildings to shield herself from the ice storm. Her hands were so numb that she fumbled with her wand when she tried to start a little fire. She did a few flickering motions at the trash barrel to get the flames going, but nothing happened. She felt so cold and so exhausted that she found it hard to concentrate on performing the spell. She was unable to create the warmth she needed in this harsh winter environment.
Fatigue weighed so heavily on Merope that she couldn’t start to panic. She knew that if she didn’t find a decent shelter soon, she and her child would perish. Yet she wanted so desperately to sleep. Her mind felt as though it was bargaining with death itself.
“It wouldn’t hurt if I just nodded off for just a moment.” She took some old newspapers from the garbage and curled up beside the barrel. “Just for a moment …”
As soon as her eyes closed she felt herself falling into an abyss of darkness. Once the sensation stopped, she saw that she was in a smoke-filled room filled with strange-looking candles that emitted neither warmth nor real light. There was this strange ominous glow from within the room. She saw an odd man with a very long beard wearing some ornate robes sitting on the floor of the room. There was another sitting across from him, wearing a black cloak with his hood up. The strange man was speaking to the other in a language that she was not familiar with. But the other man seemed to understand him quite well.
The odd man motioned to the corner where a small boy stood. The little boy looked scared but was very obedient to the man’s call as he kneeled before him. The man pointed out the child’s appearance to the other, as if to make reference to the boy’s innocence and purity.
Then in one swift and savage motion, the man slashed the boy’s throat with his sharp fingers.
The other man did not flinch as he saw the boy’s blood splatter to the floor. He didn’t even cry out in protest as the child screamed his last breath. He just looked to the other patiently as he waited for him to make his next move.
The strange man pulled out a plain, small object and placed it on the floor between them. Then he demonstrated some more eccentric behavior as he went into a bizarre chant. Merope still couldn’t understand anything the man was saying. But the other listened to him very closely and soaked up every word. Finally the man stopped as his body went rigid. He took the object and held it out in front of him. With his gaze looking upwards and his mouth wide open, a tiny speck of light slowly passed from the man’s lips.
As small as the light was, it illuminated the entire room, filling the place in its radiance. That’s when Merope was able to recognize the other person; she saw her son. His handsome features had diminished greatly but he still had his father’s beautiful eyes. Merope could feel her heart sinking at the sight of him.
“Love, what are you doing?” she thought to herself.
The speck of light hovered in the air for a moment then planted itself on the object that the man was holding. The object glowed a few seconds, then dimmed. The man placed the item back on the floor between himself and Tom. He looked to Tom and gave him a nod of understanding. Tom looked at the man, then looked back to the object and nodded in agreement.
“I see,” Tom said.
There was a strange crackling laughter that filled the air as the image of her son and the stranger disappeared. Merope opened her eyes to see that she was back in the small alleyway next to the trash barrel. She felt so heartbroken that she just sat there, freezing in the cold. She felt she had no more courage left. So Merope closed her eyes once more and resigned herself to die.
“Get up.”
Merope shrugged off the voice she was hearing.
“Get up, Merope,” the voice pleaded.
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do it!”
“You mean you won’t,” said the voice. Merope sat there quietly, not wanting to respond. “Are you giving up so soon?”
“This child was conceived with lies, lies that I made! It’s all my fault! Let me do this. Let us die here so that no one else will be harmed by my foolish error.” Merope could feel a tear freeze up as it ran down her face.
“There is more to this than meets the eye, Merope. More than what you know.”
Merope looked up to see a little boy dressed in a long white robe, with beautiful green eyes and untidy hair. He had no coat or shoes on his feet as he stood in front of her in the freezing cold. Yet there was an aura of serenity about him that lifted Merope’s spirit.
“Please get up, Merope,” he said again with his hand held out to her. Merope was still reluctant, but she took it anyway. As soon has her fingers touched his, she felt a sudden rush of heat that thawed out the iciness in her body.
“Who are you? Are you ... an angel?” she asked.
“Lets just say that I’m a friend of a friend. Therefore, I am your friend. I’ve been sent here to help you,” he said and smiled at her. Merope couldn’t help but to smile back at him, until pangs of guilt settled on her.
“I don’t understand … why?” she said.
“You don’t understand why you have been given this lot? Why you are being forced to see these terrible visions of pain and self-destruction and then be made to give birth to this child, when others prefer that you die? You ask yourself, ‘Why me?’ You feel you have done enough damage in your life by bewitching a man to love you. So why give birth to someone who will bring such terror into the world? Why is this task put to you?” Merope was nodding to every word that he said.
“Maybe it’s so hard for you to understand because you were born with magic. You can easily get the answers you seek with the simple wave of a wand or by speaking some incantation. But others who are not so magical rely more on faith in order for them to believe in something that they do not see. Maybe that is why it’s so hard for you to take that same leap and simply believe that things will be alright in the end.”
“But how, after what I’ve done?” she asked.
“You have endured so much tragedy that there can only be good to follow from this, Merope. From the vile acts that your father and brother put you through, to the loss of the great love of your life, you’ve emerged feeling broken. But you are not beaten. Considering the abuse you took for so many years, you should have given up a long time ago. Yet you are still standing. If you had given up then, you wouldn’t have escaped your surroundings to find some happiness for yourself.”
“But my happiness wasn’t real. It was a lie made up by the potion I made,” she retorted.
“Merope, the potion you made gave Tom a very powerful obsession toward you. But you took his obsession and gave him a happy life and carved out a loving home for him. The other women in his life could have cared less for such immaterial things. But you showed him such deep devotion that he will never see the likes of it again in his lifetime. So even though it took a potion to do it, there was happiness there in your times together.”
“Then why did it have to end?” she asked.
“Well, to put it simply, because it had to. You have a different road to follow than he does. So it was time for you two to part. And now, you are growing close to your journey’s end.”
“Then what of this child? Are these visions I’m seeing true?” she asked, sensing she knew the answer already.
The boy stood there silently. His green eyes peered so deeply into Merope’s own that it felt as though he was speaking directly to her soul. “He will do these things you see. Your son will cause a great amount of pain in his life. The things he will do will be unnatural and unspeakable. So yes, it is true.”
Merope was not shocked by his words. She knew from her visions that her son would do some very sinister deeds. And in her heart, she knew no matter how far she ran she could not escape this truth. “Then why do it? Why give birth when I can save the world the trouble and just die here?” she asked.
Again the boy looked deep into her eyes, “Because it is not the way. It is against nature to commit such an act before your time. You would be damning yourself to a hell far worse than what you have experienced at your father’s and brother’s hands. I know you understand this. Why else would you try and fight? You didn’t give up at the Leaky Cauldron. So don’t give up now! You love your son enough to give him life. You must continue to love him enough to give up something much more.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“When the time comes, you will. Now, hold tight!”
The green-eyed child began to glow. He shone so brightly that Merope was afraid he might explode. But she continued to do as he said and held his hand despite her fear. The light coming from him was blinding Merope to her environment. She could no longer see the small alleyway or even feel the cold winter storm that had surrounded her. She was completely enveloped by his radiance.
And then it faded.
She looked around to see that she was standing in the middle of the street in a different part of the city. She was no longer holding the boy’s hand. But she could see him standing at the steps of a nearby building, pointing to its door. As she walked up the steps she saw him vanish, but then a woman appeared at the opening.
“Gracious! What are you doing outside in this weather! Come in child, come in!”
Merope walked into the building’s lovely foyer. The woman pulled off Merope’s coat and went to the side to hang it up. Merope looked around to see that the place was quiet and very warm. It was rather homey. She saw little pictures of children hanging all over the walls.
“Dear girl you would have caught your death if you had stood out there any longer! What are you doing being out at this time of night?” the woman cried.
“I was running for my life,” Merope whispered.
“What, dear?”
“I … I had no place to go. I was trying to find shelter for myself … and my baby,” Merope said loudly so that the woman could hear.
“Well dear, we’re glad to take you in if you need. You’re welcome to stay here, you and the little one,” the woman said.
“That’s very kind of you. Is this a boarding house?” Merope asked.
“Well no, not exactly. We are ‘Our Lady of Sorrows’. This is an orphanage.”
Merope felt a little dismayed at the news. As much as she had tried to change her fate, the course still remained the same. As she looked to one of the pictures of children, could almost see her son smiling back from it. She knew her time would end here … tonight.
As Merope took a deep breath to settle herself, she felt a warm sensation trailing down her legs.
“Mercy child! I believe we’ll be seeing the little one shortly!” said the lady.
“I believe you’re right, Mrs. … Mrs. …” Merope couldn’t remember if the lady had given her name.
“Mrs. Cole, dear. Now, let’s get you settled. It looks like we’ll be in for a long night.”
