The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1412: Storybook Time

The first item Jocelynn drew from the chest was a book.

It was a small volume, barely larger than her hand, bound in cracked brown leather that had been worn soft by years of handling. The spine was broken in three places from being bent open and held flat, and the pages had the yellowed, wavy look of paper that had been turned by small fingers too many times to count. The gilt lettering on the cover had long since faded to a faint impression, but Jocelynn didn’t need to read the title. She could have recited the whole thing from memory.

"The Voyages of Captain Ewan and the Lighthouse Lady," she said, holding the book up so the room could see it. "This was Ashlynn’s favorite book when she was little. It was my favorite too, because she used to read it to me every night before bed."

Jocelynn ran her thumb along the cracked spine, feeling the familiar ridges where the binding had given way. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear Ashlynn’s voice reciting the words from the first page. ’Far across the seas, among the Thousand Isles of Rhychdir, sailed a captain and his crew...’

"I couldn’t have been more than four years old when she started reading this to me," Jocelynn said. "It’s one of my earliest memories. She was seven or eight, I think, and she’d just gotten the book as a gift from our mother. And the first thing she wanted to do was to share it with me," she said, biting her lip until she could force back the tears enough to continue speaking.

"It’s a collection of adventure stories about a sea captain who sails to the islands at the edge of the world," she continued when she’d managed to gather the strength to keep speaking. "And there he finds the Lady of a Lighthouse who guides him through impossible storms."

"Together with his crew, they face many dangers until she guides him out of the isles," Jocelynn explained, though from the look on the faces of the knights and the Templars in the front row, as well as a few of the chamber maids, at least a few people sitting in the pews were familiar with the stories.

"In the end, after everything they overcame, Captain Ewan gives up his ship and names his first mate as captain," Jocelynn said. "He marries the Lighthouse Lady and returns to her island home with her, and the ship comes home without him."

The story’s ending was tender and sweet, but also tragic and sad. Captain Ewan found the greatest love of his life, but he couldn’t take her away from her home, so he gave up his ship, his crew, and the world he knew, all to be with the woman he loved.

"Ashlynn used to read it to me with different voices," Jocelynn said. "She’d make her voice deep and gruff for Captain Ewan, or higher and softer for the Lighthouse Lady. She’d whisper when the storms came, so I’d lean in close, and then she’d shout the thunder, and I’d shriek and hide under the blankets."

Soft laughter from the pews, mostly from the women. A few of the older men smiled too, especially among those who had daughters of their own.

"But she didn’t just read to me," Jocelynn continued. "When I got older, she taught me to read with this book. She’d point to each word as she said it, and she’d make me repeat them back to her. She was so patient." Jocelynn’s voice caught on the word. "I was terrible at it. I’d get frustrated and cry, and she’d stroke my hair and tell me how well I’d done. She reminded me of every new word I learned that day, and then she told me we’d do more tomorrow."

"She never lost her temper with me," she added. "Not once."

She held the book a moment longer, pressing it flat against her chest the way she’d held the whole chest tightly all morning, as if she could absorb something from it through the leather and the yellowed pages.

"Even when I could start to read on my own," Jocelynn said quietly. "I used to pretend that I couldn’t, just so she’d keep doing it. I think she knew, but she never said anything about it. She just challenged me to read one more page, and then she would finish the Chapter."

She placed the book carefully on the altar beside Ashlynn’s breakfast.

"She always wanted to be Captain Ewan," Jocelynn said. "Sailing to the edge of the world, finding impossible things. I always wanted to be the Lighthouse Lady, because the Lighthouse Lady got to marry the man she loved, and he loved her more than his ship and the sea," Jocelynn said, pausing as she shook her head. "I always thought that was a beautiful thing," she whispered. "But now, I’m not so sure."

The tale of Captain Ewan and the Lighthouse Lady was one of her most precious childhood memories, and if Jocelynn was honest with herself, she had once looked at Owain Lothian as if he were her own Captain Ewan, come to take his Lighthouse Lady off on a grand adventure.

In truth, she had never been the Lighthouse Lady. She’d always been the Captain, giving up everything she loved and cherished to be with the person she thought loved her. She’d left her home for him, left her friends for him... She lost her cousin because of him. She betrayed her sister for him.

In the story, Captain Ewan’s crew was happy for him. They sailed away toward the rising sun after wishing him well on his ’next voyage’ and promised to visit again one day. But by the time Jocelynn left for Lothian March, her mother had already fled to the convent, and her father wasn’t sure how long it would be before they would see each other again. Neither of them wrote to her the whole time she’d been in Lothian.

She’d betrayed her home, her ship, and her crew, and there was no going back for her. She thought she could accept it, because she’d found the great love of her life, and he was supposed to be worth leaving everything behind for. But even if Owain had been as wonderful as the Lighthouse Lady, he could never take the place of everything she lost.

But the real world wasn’t like her favorite storybook. And Owain was no storybook hero...