Leonard’s pulse thudded in his ears.
“Are you saying… someone did this?”
June didn’t use dramatic words.
She used precise ones.
“It is a mark of bitterness,” she said. “Someone wished harm, and the wish stayed.”
Leonard wanted to reject it.
To label it nonsense.
To demand proof and credentials.
But Catherine’s pain had ignored proof for weeks.
And the way June spoke didn’t sound like theater.
It sounded like diagnosis from a different kind of world.
Then Catherine gasped sharply.
Her body jerked.
June’s hands closed into a fist in the air.
Not a gentle motion.
Like she had grabbed something slippery and stubborn.
She pulled back with a sharp movement.
Leonard’s breath stalled.
In June’s palm was a small dark object.
Round.
Glossy.
It looked like hardened tar that swallowed the room’s light instead of reflecting it.
Leonard whispered, “What is that?”
June’s face went pale.
“The knot,” she said. “The harm that was put on her.”
Catherine exhaled.
A long breath, like someone who had been underwater too long.
Her shoulders relaxed.
Her eyelids opened.
Clear.
Present.
“Leonard,” she said softly, “the weight is gone.”
Leonard broke.
Tears came fast and ugly.
June wrapped the object in a cloth.
“I will dispose of it,” she said. “Do not ask how. Just know it will not return.”
Leonard reached for his usual solution: payment.
“You saved her,” he said. “Name your price.”
June shook her head.
“I want nothing,” she said. “Only that you protect her.”
Then she added one sentence that didn’t sound like advice.
It sounded like a warning.
“Be careful who stands near her when she sleeps.”
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