Eternal Love

Inheritance Of Ashes

Sabine scrambled to gather the shattered vase, her blood smearing the blue porcelain. If her wealthy employers discovered her clumsiness, it would mean destitution. As she desperately puzzled the pieces together, a strange symbol on one caught her eye. But before she could examine it, the Wells family returned in a flurry of snowflakes and holiday packages.

"What has happened here? That was a priceless antique!" Mrs. Wells yelled.

Sabine stammers, "I-I'm so sorry, Ma'am...it slipped right through my fingers. Not sure how it happened."

"Foolish but it's fine! You couldn't afford any of this anyway." She scoffed.

That night, Sabine dreamed she was pursued down fog-shrouded alleys by an unseen evil, only to emerge from the sea onto a beach where an imposing woman waited.

"It is time, little Lebmaè," she proclaimed.

"Awaken to your duty." 

Sabine awoke gasping with the symbol etched onto her wrist: "Madame Lebmaè Lives." Over the next days, disturbing visions plagued her waking life too: beasts stalking a bayou, sacrificial rituals, storms battering a rocky coastline.

Through mirrors and puddles, the face of Lebmaè stared back intensely instead of Sabine's frightened eyes.

While scrubbing dishes one afternoon, a huge owl at the window caught Sabine's attention, clutching a small bundle in its talons. Inexplicably compelled despite her fear, Sabine stepped out into the snowy garden. The owl dropped a leather pouch into her trembling hands before taking silent flight over the shadowed wall.

Inside the parcel lay a silver medallion and a note in spidery French:

The way opens, Sabine—come home.

The back door creaked then as Mrs. Wells emerged, smiling politely but a guarded gleam now in her eyes. Awkwardly hiding the medallion behind her apron, Sabine claimed an old friend left her bread. But she knew greater forces were awakening all around her.

That midnight, Sabine moved wraith-like through moonlit woods to a mist-veiled lake. At the shore materialized the woman from her visions, Madame Lebmaè in the ghostly flesh. 

Her obsidian eyes flashed. "The spirits are stirring, child...powers beyond this earthly realm seek to break through. If not held back, all shall fall."

Lebmaè's chants raised flames over the dark lake. As Sabine surrendered to the wisdom dwelling within her mortal bones, blistering fire burst forth at the loa deity's command. Together they wove primordial spells, battling winged shadows and shrieking wraiths back towards oblivion's starved jaws. 

Yet as Sabine's hands grew raw and bleeding from the strain, an unearthly scream pierced her heart—Lebmaè was overwhelmed! Then to Sabine's horror, the ancient conjure woman began fading to starry ash upon the shore even as the titans they sought to contain continued spewing forth.

Chest heaving, Sabine stood alone against the slavering dark horde. Their skeletal claws grasped, ripping her apron and dress to tatters. The maid shut her eyes, raising trembling hands as gnawing voices roared deafening victory. She could not defeat them, merely stall their chaos from spilling past this point into the wider innocent world a while longer.

So Sabine opened her soul to the ravenous spirits.

"Come then!" she screamed into the void above the shining lake.

"If you hunger so desperately for a mortal vessel to wear, take me!"

Laughing bitterly, she sliced her forearm with a shard of shattered vase.

The shadow titans shrieked ecstatically, disembodied limbs shoving forward. Sabine felt her lifeforce draining as they funneled into her body—too many cramming those frail human channels built only to contain one spiritual essence. Skin splitting from the pressure, Sabine screamed as she became a writhing portal bulging with rabid consciousness starved too long in lightless limbo.

Finally a thunderous blast resounded across the lake as Sabine exploded into a thousand shredded ribbons. The murder of crows swirling above the bloody carnage cawed in astonished delight. 

Yet one tattered strip of apron drifted slowly over gory snow. Snagged upon a thorny branch, it held two faded blue shards comfortingly aligned.

And there small but intact on their curve; the glowing symbol linking a kitchen maid through generations to the great Madame...

Patiently awaiting the next mortal vessel worthy of awakening her soul.