by Lindsey Byrd
“We need to take off your blouse,” Aurora told her.
Kera knew that.
She lifted her fingers to the strings. Started tugging at the ties, shaking the whole while. Aurora hummed “Mrs. Mary Little Mouse” under her breath. Kera couldn’t bring herself to sing it back. It felt like broken glass along her lips and tongue.
Perhaps she always knew. Her mind blocked the reality of the situation from her conscious thoughts until she had half a second to spare. Half a moment to absorb the horror and calamity that had befallen them. Aurora helped ease her shirt over her head. Kera’s back screamed at her. Blamed her for her failings.
“Holly’s dead,” Kera said. The words tasted like ash on her tongue.
She’d killed her husband’s horse.
Her tears slid over her eyelashes, down her cheeks, and onto her breasts. She raised a hand to wipe at them, and the skin on her back reminded her that she was hurt. The pain was a flash point. A lightning rod. A beacon. She cried into her fingernails and she told herself, Don’t be stupid. It’s just a horse.
“You and Faith can switch off on Victor when she can manage it.” The gelding had a name! “Aiden can ride with whoever’s with him. Victor can carry Holly’s supplies.” Which left Aurora walking. Walking all the way to the Long Lakes. The tears flowed faster from Kera’s eyes. She turned her hands over and pressed the palms to her cheeks. The heels covered her chin, the tips hid in the roots of her hair. She sobbed.
The motion pulled at her back, but perhaps it was worth it. Perhaps it was punishment for failing. She listened as Aurora clumped up her shirt and dipped it into the river. After a few moments, she pulled it out, wrung it out, then used it to dab at Kera’s back and shoulders.
“How bad?” Kera asked through the shaking and the tears.
“Four long lashes, shoulder to hip.” Aurora was tender around the cuts, but there was no stopping Kera from feeling each compression. From hissing and curling forward. She brought her knees to her chest and curled over so the back of her hands touched her thighs while her head continued to hide against her fingers.
Once, when she was younger, her little sister had pushed her down the stairs of their home in Crystal Point. Gale had been furious that she hadn’t wanted to go outside and play. She’d tried telling Gale that it wasn’t appropriate for them to be running about in their Sunday best, but Gale hadn’t listened. She’d retaliated, and Kera had fallen over, her limbs twisted in all directions, and she’d landed on the ground with a broken arm and a split lip.
Kera remembered looking up the stairs at her sister, watching the shock coat Gale’s face as she turned and started screaming for help. Kera’s arm hurt worse than anything she had ever felt, and until she had given birth, she’d never felt anything as bad. She’d sat at the foot of the stairs, crying until her mother came to see the damage. Stop crying, it is improper behavior.
She tried telling herself that now.
It didn’t seem to be working. She couldn’t get the tears to cease, nor ration her breaths. She couldn’t do anything right. She couldn’t even keep her husband’s horse safe. She couldn’t protect his house or save their children. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing, but Aurora cleaned her back without comment. She didn’t tell her to stop crying or to behave.
Aiden and Faith sat nearby, and Kera knew she should be strong for them. They needed someone to act as a role model. To behave, at all times, as a lady should, in order to establish the proper order. It was her responsibility and obligation to show them how it was proper to act, but she couldn’t do it. She was a failure.
The stroking on her back stopped. Aurora shifted around her, and Kera felt Aurora kneeling in front of her. Aurora’s hands wrapped around Kera’s wrists, dislodged her palms from Kera’s face. “You are not a failure, Lady Montgomery.”
Kera stared at Aurora. Her face was blurred somewhat by the tears. “Holly’s dead,” she reminded. She felt as though she’d already repeated those two words over and over and over again. As if they were the last words remaining in her lexicon. She was exhausted by it. She was exhausted by everything. She had tried so hard. She had done everything she could. And it was never going to be enough. She was never going to be enough.
“What you going on about?” Aurora asked her.
Kera stumbled over her next breath. She breathed in and choked on mucus in her throat. She coughed around it, tried to get the feeling to settle. To dissipate. To do something. Anything.
“I don’t understand why this is happening,” Kera sniffled. Snot was starting to pull from her nose, and she jerked a hand back from Aurora so she could rub it beneath her nostrils, crude and awful. Her mother would give her a beating if she caught her doing that. It was unladylike. It was inappropriate. “I don’t understand why any of this is happening.”
“The plague?” Aurora hazarded, but it wasn’t the plague. It wasn’t the sickness that had swept over her son’s body, nor her house that was being circled by vultures. Nor her six other children relocated to Crystal Point while she was here on the ground.
The funny thing about emotions was that they all existed on a knife edge of each other. Once one feeling became empowered, all the rest clamored for attention too. They all struggled for attention on the center of the stage, eager for their chance in the spotlight. Each grievance Kera had acquired over the past few years now charged the queue, howling for a chance to be the next prima donna. She felt them clawing into her brain like wraiths in the night. They dug at the gray matter of her mind until she was forced to breathe life into their ethereal bodies and let them step out into the world.
“Why did Mori have to die?” she asked her husband’s mistress. Aurora’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped, obviously taken aback by the sudden vitriol that was streaming from Kera’s mouth. Kera couldn’t stop it though. She couldn’t help but speak these words. She needed to get them out of her head. She needed them off her tongue, wanted to be rid of them now and forever. “Why did he even go to meet Wild that day? He never wanted to kill the man. And even if he did, what good would it have done? Why was his honor more important than us?”
“I don’t know,” Aurora managed, but it was not the answer Kera wanted.
She doubted she even wanted an answer. She just wanted to shout and to let it out, to thrash against all of the pain and sorrow and demand satisfaction. She deserved it. Had she not been a good wife? Had she not borne eight children, accepted her husband’s faults, and done all she could? “He promised me. He promised me he wouldn’t leave. He promised me forever. He was supposed to be my foundling, and he wasn’t because no foundling would be so stupid as to do what he’d done. He lied. He lied and he went to duel a man who should have been his friend. He lied and he died because he was awful.
“He was shot just where my son was. Did you know that?” Kera asked Aurora. The younger woman stared at Kera, trembling under the onslaught of Kera’s sudden and impassioned fury. The tears had ceased in the face of her anger, and Kera wished she could be grateful, but she wasn’t. She didn’t have it in her to feel one more thing. “He purposefully met with Wild where our son died.”
Neither had died there precisely, of course. No. They’d both lived long enough to be carted back across the river to their home, so she could kneel at their sides and lament the fact they were dying from duels they had no business fighting. But the thought was the same. He’d taken Wild to the spot her son had lost his duel in. The idiocy was astounding. More than that, it was not fair.
“Why would he do this to us?” Mori should have been here. He should have finished his research on the plague, if that was what he’d been researching, and found the cure. He should have been the one to take little Aiden to the Long Lakes. He should have been the one to ride through the night with wraiths at his back. “He left and . . . he was so much better than I am at all of this.”
“So what?” Aurora snapped. Kera’s mouth shut. She blinked at her companion, and Aurora glared down at her
. “He could be the best at everything in the whole gods damned world, but that doesn’t matter one bit because you’re here. You’re doing it. That’s what you told your boy isn’t it? Better to try? Well you’re trying, which is more than I can say for him!”
It felt like she’d been slapped. “He tried—”
“People who try don’t piss off everyone around them so much that they feel compelled to shoot them in the first place.” Kera went to argue, but Aurora talked over her, raising her voice and shaking Kera by the wrists. “Your husband never knew when to shut up! He got into arguments with every man he ever met, he screamed and shouted at people till they lost the will to argue back, he had an affair because he never thought about consequences until after he did something stupid. And what about you?” she asked with a furious glare.
Kera shrugged, not sure what she was meant to say.
Aurora plowed onward. “You’ve never had no help with anything. You’ve needed to raise a family in the midst of two wars. Needed to move from place to place following his ambition. Never having no chance to settle down or be anywhere comfortable for long. He went and got himself killed and didn’t think about you or your bairns. He just died, leaving you with a house you can’t afford and seven children to take care of. And despite all that, you’re here. You’re here and you’re doing it. You’re still doing it. What does it matter if he knew how to ride or fight things or not? You’re learning ain’t you? You’re the one trying.”
“But I’m scared! I’m scared—”
“So am I!” Suddenly, her face was being pulled to Aurora’s shoulder. Aurora’s arms were wrapped so tight around her that her injuries wailed in protest. But Kera didn’t care. She hugged Aurora to her as tight as she could. Tears were losing themselves in her hair. Aurora shook against her as she cried and argued on. “I’m scared too! But it doesn’t matter, does it? It doesn’t matter.”
Kera felt like she couldn’t breathe. She choked on each breath, trembling badly as she cried. Each gulping gasp of air left her light-headed to the point of exhaustion. Her head spun dizzily, but Aurora held her still. She didn’t sway or tilt over. She let herself be held. Let her body soak in the comfort Aurora was so readily providing.
Something dislodged in her brain, like the shattering of a glass against the stone. The fight drained from her in the tears that streamed down her cheeks. Her anger whipped out of her in a snap. “Why did I never see his or my first son’s ghosts? Why do I only see other people’s ghosts and not theirs?”
“Why would you want that?” Aurora didn’t even sound judgmental. It came out cool and calm. Kera sobbed harder in response.
“I could . . . I could have asked them. I could have asked them why they did it. I could have asked them so many things. I wanted to know, I deserved to know.” The damper on her wrath was turned off; air blew against the coals and fired it back into a roaring flame. “They were my world and they died, and they left me with this and that’s not fair.”
“They died, Kera.”
Tears came fresh and anew. Not from pain. Not from wrath. This time, from sorrow. Long and dark, deep and old. Sorrow that formed the well of her soul. Her life had become an endless march of sorrow, where her requirements included waking up and moving on.
Her happy ending had been stolen a long time ago.
“They died,” Aurora repeated, pulling back and cupping Kera’s cheeks. “And seeing ’em every day? Seeing ’em over and over? That was never gonna help you. You’d never get out o’ the house. Never interact with the living. You’d be trapped there, looking at a dead man who won’t grow old with you. Who won’t mature with you. Who’ll stay trapped like he was when he died, and never let you think o’ anything else. He wasted his chance to have a good life with you. He doesn’t get a new one. He doesn’t get to haunt your chance for happiness.”
“What happiness? My son is dying, my children . . . I don’t even know where my other children are. And Holly—Holly’s dead!”
“Yes,” Aurora agreed. “But Aiden’s not. Not yet. We’re halfway there, and we can make it.”
“How do you know that?” Kera asked. “How do you know we’ll make it? How do you know that the griffons are even there? That we’ll even be able to find them?”
“Because if we doubt it,” Aurora whispered, “then the doubt will make it true.” She took a deep breath. “That’s life, Kera. Things go wrong. Plans change. Husbands and children die. But you take what you get and you move forward. One step at a time. And if it’s hard to move forward, then I bet you you’re doing it right. ’Cause life ain’t meant to be easy. Nothing is. So you get up and you go, and you keep going because it’s the only thing you can do. You don’t just sit down and let it all swallow you. You’re better than that. And if nothing else, I believe in you.”
Kera tipped her head forward. She rested her brow against Aurora’s collar. She reached her arms around Aurora’s back and embraced a woman she never dreamed of embracing. Aurora was careful about her hands. She hugged Kera, avoiding the wounds that raced across her spine.
“We’re gonna make it through,” Aurora told Kera. She pressed a kiss to the side of Kera’s head. It felt like absolution, wiping the sins away and hiding the doubt. Give me strength.
Kera held her even tighter, and commanded herself to reply. “We’re going to succeed.”
The sun continued rising up above them, filling the world with blessed light.
They didn’t have many bandages in their bags. They had some, but not enough. Kera sat still as Aurora used what they did have to make a wrap. She pulled the cloth around Kera’s chest and back, tying it off with a simple knot at the end. It was tight, but not too tight that her ribs couldn’t manage the strain.
Faith and Aiden were far too ill to walk, and Kera told Aurora that with no uncertain terms. She found a stick to lean on, pushed herself to her feet, and together—they walked. Victor, Aurora’s skittish gelding, was happy to no longer carry two grown women. Even with Aiden and the added weight of the extra saddlebags, he had a lighter step than ever before. He seemed pleased with the slower pace they took as well.
Aurora guided him on the ground with the reins, leaving Faith responsible for holding Aiden as they rode. When Faith dozed, Aurora kept an eye on the children to make sure neither fell. It was more than Kera could do.
Each step forward sent waves of agony through Kera’s body. Her ribs squeezed as she walked. Her back twinged on every step. The walking stick was rubbing her hand raw, and it left blisters on her palm. They took breaks and stopped often, managing their time so they never risked sleeping out after dark. It made their journey that much longer.
Generally, during the day, both children appeared to regain strength. Perhaps Rachel was right. Sunshine and fresh air was a cure in its own way. Every time the sun set, the children’s temperament became far more uneasy. With their poor moods, their bodies writhed and spasmed in the dark, shadows grasping at their limbs, even as they lay safely cocooned in the fire line’s warm light. The early dawn was always the hardest, with their eyes still so weary and limbs far too sluggish, as though they’d fought their battles against their demons in the night, beating back the illness with flaming swords of their own, and only able to get their reprieve in the morning. But come midday, they gained their strength and appetite. The timing more than a little unsettling. Mori’s question, When is a plague not a plague? rotated around Kera’s mind, seeming to have only one answer: when it only comes out at night. And that made no sense.
It made none at all.
Faith helped Aurora where she could. She held or supported Aiden. She helped him eat, and once even brought him to the woods to relieve himself. At night, things were different. At night, Kera watched despondently as her son jerked and twitched and writhed. He gasped, clawing at his throat like there was something there. Like a great hand was pressing against his skin, choking the life from his small body with everything it had.
When the weather wa
s bad, the children would fit more than usual. Their spines would go rigid. They’d cough and gag, and out of the corner of her eye, sometimes Kera swore she saw Death waiting to reap their souls. It felt like the end was always coming, but whenever hope dwindled, Aurora took Kera’s hand and whispered: “We just have to try,” into the shell of Kera’s ear. She’d kiss Kera’s cheek, stroke her arms, and whisper assurances to both Kera and herself. “We just have to keep trying. You said it too. Say it now.”
“We just have to keep trying.”
“They’re not dead yet. Our children aren’t dead yet, so don’t give up on them. Not yet.”
It felt like the chorus of a song. Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet.
And so they walked.
Aurora insisted that Kera buy new shoes for herself, and Kera did on the condition that she could buy Aurora some too. If they were both doomed to walk, she couldn’t find it in her to not ease Aurora’s way too. They would make the money work.
Kera hated how weak she found herself. She needed Aurora’s help to clean her back, to dress, and to stand. Aurora’s hand came up to Kera’s brow when she wasn’t paying attention. She checked Kera for fever at the same rate she checked the children, and she muttered dark words whenever she felt the heat emanating off Kera’s brow. “It’s not the plague,” Aurora assured Kera ad nauseum. “Ain’t nobody getting infected by this damn thing this whole time.”
“Are you telling me or yourself that?” Kera asked wearily.
“Both, neither, does it matter? It’s not the plague. Your back’s a mess. That’s all.”
“Nothing we can do anyway.” The more they walked, the more her wounds refused to heal. It stood to reason she would fall ill from that too. At least it’s easy to fall asleep. Each night she collapsed onto whatever vaguely horizontal place she could find and slipped off within moments.