spite || levi x reader

0 - 13

You wake up slowly, your headache ringing loudly in your ears. You groan, trying to remember what happened. You try to bring your hands to your head, but you can't; something's biting into your wrists.

You blink your good eye open, then realize you can open your other eye. Your eye patch is gone. You shut your good eye and blink open your bad one: nope, still a messy sludge of blurred colors and lines. You switch eyes, trying to make out where you are and what happened to you.

It's the barn. The bales of hay and barrels have been shoved to the sides, opening up the space in the middle, and there are several large silver plates with small candles on top of them. That's stupid, the whole barn could burn down, you think until you realize that's the point of the plates. An accidental knock and the candle won't even make it near the hay. The candles are lighting up the whole barn.

"What the..." you mumble, tugging your wrists. You're in a standing position, and your wrists are tied above your head. The end of the rope has been thrown over one of the beams in the roof and tied off somewhere way out of your reach, almost like they want to hoist you up to the ceiling. Your feet are perched on top of a box placed in the center of the barn.

It looks like a weird meeting where you're the centerpiece. You tug again- they're tied tight. "Dammit," you curse.

"Oh, you're awake." You whip your head around, nearly sending your feet off the box, and you see Ethel coming in from the back, carrying a small crate in her arms. "I'm sorry, dear, I think I hit you too hard."

"What's going on?" you try to demand, but your words sort of slur together. You're still drowsy.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, avoiding your eyes. She's wandering by each silver plate, placing things from her crate onto each tray. Small dolls, flowers, weird objects that seem all too random. "I- I held him off, insisted we needed proof... and then that necklace. Well, he'd searched your room countless times before, but it was in your jacket, of course..."

"Ethel," you rasp, pulling your wrists against the ropes. It's painful. "What's happening?"

She won't look at you. Whether it's guilt or shame or something else, you don't care- you just want answers. "His bloodline is cursed," she whispers, staring at one of the candles. "Cursed to lose their minds, and he believes he needs a sacrifice to end it."

"He's insane," you say desperately. "You know that, right? There's no such thing as... as curses, or anything like that-"

"I can't stop him," Ethel whispers. She turns to you and you see her eyes watering. "I can't. I've tried. His... His grandmother- something like that- ate a fruit from that tree out back." You remember the tree Willem pointed out to you on your first day, telling you it was a gift. "The tree's been here ever since their family settled here, ages ago. They've been here as long as they can remember." She chuckles wryly. "Not that they can remember much."

You exhale slowly, trying to keep yourself calm. She may as well be speaking a different language.

She sighs, tugging the cord out from her shirt. The candlelight reflects off of the pendant. "They were warned not to settle, not to stay, but the land was perfect. Why would they not?"

"Warned by who?" you demand.

"The people nearby," Ethel says, and it's the first clear answer you've gotten since you woke up so you purse your lips and let her talk. "They say the tree is cursed. That no one who lives around it ever stays long. But they didn't listen. And then his grandmother ate one of the fruits," she murmurs. "And the curse took hold."

"Curse?" you say incredulously, tugging against the ropes. "How does that make sense? Get cursed from eating fruit?"

"We could not eat it," Ethel repeats, ignoring your question. She's fidgeting with her necklace. "It is a curse. She ate the fruit and lost her memory. Ever since, every person in the Castello line has lost their memories at least once- sometimes twice."