by Avell Kro
two ripe boils. We wanted to practice knife work in the cavalry, a pair of shaved sticks worked a
treat. Good balance. Safe. As I've told ye often enough.” He dangled one of the edged blades between
his thumb and his trigger finger like a soiled rag.
I said nothing and shrugged. Then I reached to swipe the knife, but he jerked it away.
“By the five gods lass, why would ye do such an awful thing?” Eby asked quietly. “Chef's already
turned out one scullery maid accused of theft. After he flogged her.”
My cheeks flamed. “I didn't know, Eby. All that talk about how juggling was only fit for minstrels
and beggars . . .”
“And thieves,” Eby muttered darkly. “I raised ye better.”
I smacked the wall. “It had to feel real, Eby. Nobody takes you seriously when you toss a few acorns
in the air. But knives, swords, fire sticks . . . these get respect.”
“Ye won't get respect stealing yer Ma's butter knives, lass.” He held up one hand to strangle the
harrumph building in my throat. “But give me a few days to scrounge through my packs. I will find
ye some good, balanced knives.”
I looked up. “Yes!”
“Throwing knives,” he snorted. “Proper cavalry blades, not this scullery trash.”
I quivered. “Yes! Yes!”
He held up his other hand and shook his head. “After ye apologize to your Ma' and the Chef and the poor scullery maid. We shall make up a story so ridiculous, so embarassin' nobody will ever think
of ye juggling.”
My shoulders tensed. Punishments from Eby tended to be epic. “Oh?” I asked quietly.
“Huntsman ever take ye into the woods?”
“Mother would carve him up with his own knives first,” I snorted.
“But ye been curious, badgered the man?” Eby pressed.
“I . . . suppose so,” I said, trying to work where he was going and failing. Eby was even twistier than
me.
“Well, let's say ye got so burning curious you decided to skin and butcher one of his boars . . . with
ye Ma's good butter knives.” Eby shook his head mournfully. “Battered, bloodied, and broke a
handful of the lovely things before ye found a proper skinning knife. Guess ye will have to
apologize to Huntsman as well, eh?”
I bit my lip. “Mother will tan my hide.”
“Aye and it's no more than ye deserve. Consider it penance for that poor maid. Ye didn't think
words would suffice, lass?” He sighed and shrugged. “Besides, the maid is long gone. Come to the
scullery tonight.” He doffed his coat and rol ed up my contraband. “Bring the butter knives. I shall
bring the pig.”
“Yes, Eby.”
“A great, hairy pig with large tusks and mousy, little eyes. Oh, and lass?” He gave me an evil little
smile. “Wear one of ye fancy green dresses and put some ribbons in your hair. Nothing like an
emerald green evening gown to slaughter black boars, eh?”
Mother did not punish me for ruining my good green dress. I'm not an idiot. I wore an old, brown
cotton smock to slaughter the pig, which was sprawled across the length of the counter. Eby
directed me to hack the beast's testicles off first with a blunt butter knife. They looked like two
gigantic, white onions and sizzled when Eby lobbed them in the hearth. The little brown dress
allowed me to flex my knees and elbows, which is a great help when skinning, gutting, and cutting
up a wild boar. A green evening gown and ribbons. Where did old Eby get such crazy notions?
The night of the great boar slaughter came and went. The huntsman even thanked me for my
'assistance.' The cook did not. My parents bade Eby to cut a stout switch and wield it with a firm
hand. Mother was more angry at her daughter's lack of grace and couth than a few broken silver
knives. Father missed the knives: their lack would curtail the guest list for his next party. They
expressed their displeasure through Eby's swift, precise strokes in the hopes that I never do
something so reckless again.
My sister did not gloat and ministered to my sore backside after, but some part of me resented
her. I pushed her away though every inch of skin from my shoulders to the back of my knees
burned.
May held her finger poised mid air, a dollop of ointment dripping off the end. “What's wrong? I'm
being as gentle as I can.”
I struggled pulling the nightgown over my shoulders. She rushed to assist and I waved her away
again. I couldn't accept her help after I had failed her.
May sighed and sat on the bed, tossing the tin of ointment from one hand to the other. And there it was. My eyes watched the single tin sail back and forth, my mind adding more tins, little tricks, and
patterns I could never, ever teach her. The juggling lessons she bothered to attend were not going
wel . May refused to admit she just didn't have a knack for it, that there was something I could do,
which she could not.
Your failure is my failure, I thought.
She looked down at the tin and laughed. “Oh, you're not a failure. I'm just a poor student. Juggling is
hard. We'll get it some day. Please, come to bed.”
But determination did not make her a better student nor me a better teacher. I began to hate her
for it.
Eby apparently noticed this growing rift and after the pork and butter knife debacle had died a
quiet dead in my parent's memories, he suggested a proper chaperoned sisterly camping trip was
just the thing to rekindle our spirits. Our parents agreed. They said a few days of sleeping on the
hard ground and cold tinned breakfasts were just the thing to settle two rambunctious little girls
and off we went.
Once out of site of the mansion, Eby gifted each of us with her own sheathed cavalry blade. “When
we get deeper into the woods, lasses,” he said, “I will teach ye to sink those blades into a tree trunk
at fifteen paces. Good defense against bandits, boars, and bears.”
He winked as we and admired the blades in the dappled light. The woods around our father's estate
were more akin to a park than the gnarled, wild forests from Eby's stories. Thieves lurking in the
bushes were a thing of fairy tales. The understory was kept clear. Dead, listing, or rotten trees were
harvested for firewood lest they fall on some unsuspecting traveler. The huntsman routinely kil ed
any beast larger than a fox. I don't know where he had found my boar, but it wasn't in these woods.
I rubbed the scars on my back and put the knife away.
My sister threw the knife into the tree trunk at a full twenty-five paces and Eby cheered. Of course,
she has such small, dainty feet, I groused, counting out my own paces.
May turned to me and smiled as she wrenched her knife out of the tree. She slipped one foot out of
her soft leather shoe and wriggled her toes at me. Your feet are my feet, too, Minny.
I blushed. Subtlety was not my sister's way. I stopped counting paces and walked to the line my
sister had marked in the dirt with her heel. My scars ached when I bent down to retrieve my own
blade. Eby had made us practice our vertical throws before we graduated to the horizontal. Rather
than plunge straight down, my blade had hit the ground at an awkward angle.
May skipped back towards us and I wanted to smack the knife from her hand. Was I jealous for her
sudden skill with the knives or was it her flaunting that disturbed me? We had started at five paces
and worked
our way backwards. Most of my throws have a lovely spin—too much spin, Eby said—
and the knives bounced off the trees rather than sink into their targets. May's skill was . . .
uncanny, suspicious. Whatever she cast from her hand hit the target. I glared at her. What have you
been doing while I was away practicing with butter knives?
My sister dimpled and said nothing. Practice continued. When we hit thirty paces, she missed for
the first time. I crowed and stole both knives, plucking a few acorns off the ground and making a
pinwheel fly between my fingers. But can you do this? I taunted in our mind.
May reddened. She blew out her cheeks and pushed me to the ground. Knives and acorns flew in all directions. I jumped up and slapped her. The fight escalated and as Mother would say, we ceased to
act like proper little ladies.
Eby roared, pulling us apart and one, maybe both, of us screamed at him, “We're nothing but dol s,
Eby, little matching dolls performing little, matching tricks. And now she knows a trick I don't
know!”
Eby snorted, grabbed each of our heads in his hands to brace us apart and drove us down until we
were all sitting on the ground. We crossed our arms and looked away. “Ye are not two little dol s,
lasses. But ye are sisters. Act like it.” He twisted his wrist until May and I were facing each other.
“Who can ye depend upon in this world if not ye own flesh and blood? Cherish that connection,
lasses. Maven, apologize. Minerva, apologize.”
“Sorry, May,” I said, smiling. You dumb dragon barf.
“Sorry, Minny,” she replied. You stupid minstrel punk.
“There, all better,” Eby laughed, clapping us both on the shoulder. The lilt of his brow suggested he
didn't quite believe us. “Now, let's put the knives away and make camp. We'll dig the latrine first,
then get started on dinner. I don't like the look of those clouds.”
The gathering dark clouds had largely dispersed by nightfall. Packs of clouds drifted across the sky,
blocking the bright moon and shrouding us in passing darkness. “How's that fire coming, lass?”
Eby called to May, who was kneeling over a pile of sticks with flint and striker in hand. Then he
turned to me. “Minerva, get some more kindling for your sister. Make some fluff from those twigs
like I showed ye.”
I dutiful y shaved a pair of sticks. “Yes, Eby.” The moon vanished again. I threw one of the sticks
and stomped on it. “What was that, a bear?”
May shrieked.
“There are no bears in these woods,” Eby growled as the moon reappeared.
I laughed and threw the broken twigs and fluff at May's feet. “Maybe you can burn those twigs by
screaming at them.”
“Shut your gob, Minny,” May said as the moon vanished once more. She screamed in frustration,
and a bright orange light flashed in the darkness. I blinked and when the moon came back, found
my sister fallen backward, staring at a small fire, dumbstruck.
“Don't just sit there on yer bum, lass,” Eby called. “Feed the flames.”
My sister ignored him. She hunched over, staring into the flickering fire light.
“See?” I said, dropping sticks into the flames. “Even you can light a fire.”
“Yes,” she replied, staring at her hands.
“Still can't juggle for crap.” I pulled her away as she reached for the flames. “Sit up before you toast
your fingers and singe your hair.”
We cooked some strange maroon-colored bricks that smelled like lard and berries, which Eby
called red rations. Told us the ingredients were an imperial state secret we were better off not
knowing. Cooking the things merely changed the bricks from cold to warm and water from our
canteens helped to soften them up. We'd eaten worse when the chef was having a bad day in the
scullery.
Bel ies full, we crawled into our little pup tents arranged facing the fire. I fell asleep to the sound of crickets and the crackling flames.
That night, I dreamed I was awoken by soft, eerie laughter. I crawled from my tent to see my sister.
She was in the fire, but not on fire. She was spinning and dancing naked in the flames. They
crawled up her body, clothing her in a fiery, translucent dress, but she was unharmed. I gasped and
she startled. The fire extinguished and my sister vanished.
It had to be a dream. I should have grabbed her, reached toward the flames, done something. But in
the morning, my sister was unharmed. She let me examine her feet, he fingers, and her hair. Not
even singed. There was a bit of ashes on the soles of her foot. May giggled when I brushed it off,
spinning a tale of a midnight visit to the latrine and stepping in the ashes of the long dead fire.
She laughed nervously when I described my dream. Me dancing with no clothes? What would
Mother say?
Say? I tittered. The woman would die of shock.
May hugged me. Strange things happen in the night, sis.
I tensed, then wrapped my arms around her. Why were you sitting so close to the fire last night?
I like the flames, she said. They . . . comfort me. And you were being a butt.
An imperial butt, I agreed. This new fascination of hers was strange, but gave me an opening to
mend things between us. What if I worked some fire sticks into my juggling? I would need a partner
who's good with fire. Would you want to help me with that, Mistress of the Flames?
Oh yes! She squeezed and I felt like my ribs might crack.
When I started to juggle fire sticks, Mother suddenly approved of my hobby. I could sense my sister
working behind the scenes, prodding, arranging a demonstration at one of father's soirees. This
wasn't some misguided career aspiration, my sister deftly slotted the thing with hints and
whispers into Mother's mind, it was just another party trick like reading blindfolded. I handled the
sticks while May handled the fire and it became a sisterly activity. I felt like we were growing closer
again.
The word 'assistant' was never used, but my parents didn't dress us in matching green garments
anymore. I wore somber clothes with tassels, as befitted a performer, and May wore a flashy dress,
as befitted the performer's partner. As the crowds grew, Mother was a changed woman. No more
talk of beggars and minstrels.
After one such performance, Mother came behind me and squeezed my shoulder. I startled. “I
never realized,” she said softly. “It's not a gaudy minstrel show at all. When you danced between
those whirling orbs dripping with fire, weaving light and darkness and movement, it was . . . art.
Like a living painting. Who knew my daughter had such talents buried within her?” She hugged me.
I went limp in the woman's rough embrace, stunned. Mother never hugged.
May gave a bitter, little bow, the bells on her costume jingling. “Thank you, Mother. We both do our
best.” Coating my simple, wooden juggling balls with naphtha and transforming them into fiery
orbs while wearing thick, fire-resistant gloves to impress the crowd had been my sister's idea.
“Yes,” Mother said, patting my sister's shoulders. “I have two wonderful daughters with very
different talents. I am certain you will find your talent one day, Maven. Perhaps your sister can
teach you how to juggle?” She gave a little shrug and turned to rejoin the festivities.
“Perhaps,” May said, grinding her teeth as she glared behind Mother's back. I sensed a roiling mix of envy, hatred, and
loathing behind my sister's eyes. She tried to shield it, but her emotions were
too raw. We had shared everything for too long to start hiding.
My fame ascended while my sister continued to fume quietly. Nobody else suspected a thing. She
gave no outward sign in word or deed, but her mind was an open book to me.
I once offered to trade places and be her groveling assistant. She laughed and demurred.
“What would I do?” she asked. “Juggle my way to fame? Our roles are set. You are the wonderful
performer and I your doting lackey. Are you going to be a minstrel?”
“Stop it. You're starting to sound like Mother. You can do something,” I said. “What have you been
sneaking away to practice? Show me. We can put it in the act.”
“I'm not ready for that.” She held up her hands. “I need to practice alone. In private. Like you with
the knives.”
I shrugged. “When you're ready, show me. I want to see it. I would love to see it.”
May gave me a wan smile and disappeared into her own little world again. She stopped performing
in my act, citing illness to our parents, but I knew the truth. The breach between us had not healed
that day in the woods, but widened.
Then one day, she was ready to show me her secret little talent. “Come into the woods with me. It
will be a private performance. Just the two of us. Like we used to do. Please?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Love to see it.”
My sister led me out to our field. I wanted her to wear the suit with tassels, but she said her plain
shawl would do. She tossed me a few acorns.
“You start, sister. It will help me get into the spirit of things.”
I made a few lazy pinwheels. My heart wasn't in it. The dew on the grass was beginning to soak
through my shoes. Despite what I told my sister, I wasn't in the mood for another pathetic juggling
demonstration. I just wanted to go home.
May sighed and clenched her fists. “More. More . . . pizazz.” She tossed me more acorns and
laughed, shaking. “I can still barely juggle at all, you know. So pathetic.”
I winced and dropped an acorn. I had sixteen . . . fifteen in the air now, weaving interlocking
pinwheels. I was showing off again. “Will this do?” I asked.
“Yes, thank you,” May ground between her teeth. “That looks . . . perfect. I'm not like you. This is