Chapter 49: The Joy of Freedom

Night settles over the Duverger household with a heavy stillness. The shutters are closed, the rear courtyard dark except for the faint glow of moonlight slipping through the breadfruit leaves. Awa sits on her narrow bed, the day’s exhaustion weighing on her shoulders. The shop is quiet now. Chantal and Alain have retired to their rooms upstairs.

Only Awa remains awake. And me. My spirit has no need for food or sleep. Only in my corporeal form do I feel hunger or tiredness, and then only after hours of activity. Returning to the bracelet refreshes me anew.

I appear in ethereal form beside Awa. I sense her mind working furiously.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” I murmur.

Awa exhales. “I’m trying to understand it.”

Her gaze drops to her wrist. The illusionary cuff glints faintly in the moonlight, but beneath it, she and I see the bracelet’s true form, pulsing with quiet magic. She lifts her wrist, turning it slowly, watching the faint shimmer of the hidden engraving beneath the illusion.

I lean closer. “You want to read it again?”

Awa nods. She touches the cuff lightly. The illusion flickers before dissolving and revealing the bracelet’s true surface: polished gold, etched with delicate script, the symbols and letters curling like vines. Awa whispers the words aloud, tracing them with her fingertip without understanding the meaning of the words she speaks.

“Para la que guarda mi espíritu. Para la que me llama. Para la que me libera.”

I close my eyes. “Maristela wrote that. It’s Spanish. ‘For the one who guards my spirit. For the one who calls me. For the one who sets me free’.”

Awa looks up. “You told me that she intended to free you.”

I nod. “Yes. She said that the binding of my spirit to the bracelet could be undone.”

“Then there must be a way,” says Awa.

My expression tightens. “Yes. But Maristela died before she could attempt to reverse the binding. She never told me how it could be achieved.”

Awa feels the bracelet pulse sharply, almost angry. The magic flares against her skin, reacting to the idea of my release with a sudden, instinctive resistance.

I flinch. “The bracelet doesn’t like that.”

Awa lowers her wrist, calming her breath. “It’s afraid.”

My voice trembles. “It doesn’t want to lose me.”

Awa meets my eyes. “Or it doesn’t want me to understand its magic.”

“We are both bound to it in our own way,” I say with a sad understanding. “You can remove the bracelet, but at what cost?”

Awa nods slowly. “A price I’m not prepared to pay. But it is also bound to us.”