Page 36 of Cracked Doll

‎"What are you talking about?" I demand, my voice cracking. "About my fate? My destiny? What does any of this mean?"‎

‎One of them looks at me, her shark-like teeth glinting. "Your destiny, Ophelia's destiny," one says, "is to be with Rhys Castellan."

‎"You must accept it," they say together, their voices booming. "Whatever form it takes.”

‎"Nothing you try to offer as resistance," another adds.

‎

‎The last woman, the one still holding my palm, squeezes my hand with a grip like iron. "Will change that.”

‎I yank my hand back, staring at them in disbelief. "So that's your great clairvoyance, is it?" I say, sharper than I intend. "That I'm destined to be with my own stalker? Who exactly are you to decide that? Who the fuck are you to tell me that? Some glorified fortune tellers?”

"We are far more than fortune tellers," they respond in unison. "We are a coven of witches who mends destinies to the ones they were always meant to hold."

Then, they begin to unravel my life, one by one.

‎"You were never meant to survive that night," one whispers.

‎"You just so happened to be the triplet who was seen last," another adds.

‎"And for that, you were cursed — to see your sisters' faces instead of your own, every time you dared to look.”

"Such a broken mind," says another, "was a twist woven by fate itself."

"Rhys," a third continues, "has found his way inside your broken mind."

"And in doing so," says a fourth, "he will save you from it. Carry you to the path you were always meant to walk.”

‎"Take you to your new ordained path. Beside him," they chant together.

"No." I pull my hand back sharply. ‎"No!" I scream, standing up so abruptly the chair screeches against the floor. "No! That can't be the only way to repair my mind. To be okay again. To be whole again. There has to be another way! I can try self-therapy, I can find a doctor—”

The witches look at each other, a silent communication passing between them.

‎"Then you know nothing," one says.

‎"People have tried to defy fate before," another warns.

"Their deaths," a third continues, "were the only mercy left to spare them—"

"—from the suffering that followed the moment they tempted fate," the fourth finishes.

I can hardly credit what I'm hearing. ‎I stare at them, trembling with a mixture of rage and terror. "I came here for answers on how to fix myself! And your solution is for me to throw myself at the mercy of a man who puts a knife to my throat and a gun to my head?”

‎"Necessity makes strange bedfellows," one says—the same phrase that has haunted me since this nightmare began.

‎The second time I've heard that particular phrase from them.

‎"And it is our sacred duty," another continues.

‎"To undo what your father has done to you," the final voice whispers, leaving me shivering in the red light, the word father echoing in my mind like a death knell.

‎I stay frozen in the red light, my mind racing, spinning into a void of confusion. My father? What the fuck does that mean? My father was a ghost, a memory of a man who left me with nothing but a shattered psyche and a fear of my own reflection that he made worse every night he yelled at me for haunting him with my face.

‎"What do you mean, what my father did to me?" I demand, my voice trembling. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean—that death is the only way to spare those who defy fate? That's not a prophecy, that's a fucking threat!”

The witches don't flinch. They lean in, their shark-like teeth glinting under the flickering flames. They begin to speak, one by one, their voices weaving a suffocating web around me.