“Of course she bled. I remember it. She bleeds whenever mother strikes her with the switch.”
The room fell silent again. Splat. One raindrop. Splat, splat, splat against the roof. The storm was rolling in. Soon she wouldn’t be able to hear her sisters. She was glad. She tucked her wrists away and pulled her knees closer to her chest. Her chemise smelled like sweat and tree bark. Tears dripped down her face.
“She feels pain, I’m sure of it,” Sybil finally said. “She can suffer just like anyone else.”
“I’m surprised by her thoughts,” Edryn said so quietly Issina almost didn’t hear her. “I thought they would be stronger because of how much she bears physically, but they’re so soft and thin... like tissue paper, like they could fall to pieces if we pushed her too hard.”
More silence.
Splat, splat, splat, splat....
Their voices grew quieter. She strained to hear the words between the raindrops. Her pillow turned damp beneath her cheek. Her wrists burned. The girls continued to speak.
“Do you think she killed him?”
“Of course she did. Haven’t you seen the darkness in her mind? I couldn’t penetrate it in the forest. That’s why I left her there. I couldn’t stand to be next to her one moment longer.”
“I see the darkness in her mind when I sing to her.”
“I think that’s what Father saw. I think he tried to heal her and her mind fought him.”
“Does it work that way?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot we don’t understand even about our own magic... or others’. I remember when I first read Father’s corra and I didn’t know what was happening. It was so new to me. It was frightening. I saw a memory of his where he healed someone.”
“You did? Sybil, you never told me.”
“I saw him kneel next to an injured man who had an arrow in his chest from a hunting accident. There was so much blood. His eyes were like glass, and Father stretched himself on the ground next to him. Father stayed there for a long time, breathing, waiting. He had the strangest look on his face, so calm. From his corra, I sensed his calm—and joy. The man survived. Father sat up, pulled the arrow from his healing wound, and helped him stand.” Sybil’s voice turned icy and Issina stiffened. “I miss Father. Our land doesn’t have a healer, and people die who don’t have to die. It’s all because of her.”
The rain pounded harder until she couldn’t make out any more words. She clenched her jaw and tried not to think about the sour ache in her stomach. She thought of the forest outside, of the wide, glowing circles and the roots in her cellar. She thought of the blood on her wrist, of the pain she wished was stronger. Strangely, the ache in her stomach was worse. Hunger. Only one thing could make it go away, and as quietly and slowly as she could, she slid her hand underneath a corner of the blanket where she had stashed a handful of roots from the cellar. When she put one in her mouth, she winced at the dirty bitterness, chewed, and then shoved in another. She would eat them all.
The next morning, she woke before sunrise and wandered out to the chicken yard. Sweat covered her body despite the frigid air. She wore only her chemise and hadn’t bothered to put on any shoes. The dirt was still wet from the rain and it squished between her toes. Her stomach felt strange. She stopped in the middle of the yard and looked up at the dim sky where the stars twinkled. She rarely saw stars. They were tiny balls of light she wanted to gather into her hands and rub across her skin. She wanted to fade into them, away from the house and her sisters and the pain inside her heart.
Cassia bleated from the stables and she crossed the chicken yard to open the door for her friend.
“You’re up early too?” She patted her head and leaned down to look her in the eyes. “You don’t hate me, do you, old girl?”
“Maaaa.” Of course not.
“Good, because I think the rest of the world does. I dreamed about men carrying me away in a basket as a baby. They tried to choke me, but I kept breathing. They tried to push a dagger through my chest, but I was hard as stone. I bled, though. It came out of my chest like a river, but I didn’t die. It scared them. They ran away, and Odele came and wrapped me in a blanket and took me home. She cried and left me in a corner. I kept bleeding until the blanket soaked through. I kept crying until Sybil picked me up and sang to me.”
She hung her head and gasped. The mud between her toes was grainy and coarse. She imagined a thousand stars surrounding her.
“That was the worst part—when Sybil sang to me. I loved her, then. I’ve always loved her. I love Edryn. I love Mother, and I hate that I love them. It makes me want to hurt them.”
Standing, she made her way to the garden and let herself inside. She didn’t care that she wasn’t allowed inside. She let Cassia follow her, a double sin because Cassia was known to eat plants she shouldn’t. They walked down a winding path, past lilies and honeysuckles and daisies, lavender and sunflowers only barely beginning to open for the summer. The usually strong scent of flowers and earth was dulled by the cold air.
She reached out to touch the leaves and petals surrounding her. After a few more steps, she wrapped her fingers around the stem of a mignonette cluster and yanked as hard as she could. The stem broke. She pressed the fragrant, yellowish-white blooms to her nose.
For an hour she wandered through the garden picking flowers, smiling as she listened to Cassia munching softly on the plants Sybil and Edryn had worked so hard to grow. A pleasant sensation filled her chest. Satisfaction. She would pick more flowers. She would hurt her sisters the only way she knew how.
It wasn’t until the sun rose and spilled through the garden that she stopped to look around her and a gasp escaped her throat as each plant she had touched wilted before her eyes, their leaves curling like old parchment, their stems drooping with the weight of their blooms, heavy heads bending in prayer to the earth. Petals fluttered to the ground. Many plants remained alive, but only the ones she had not touched. How could she possibly have the power to kill plants just by touching them? It seemed impossible. Finally, her body frozen with fear, she looked down at the flowers in her hands as they shriveled into tight, coiled knots. She flung them to the ground and ran out of the garden.
The forest was dripping with icicles. As the sun filtered through the foliage, they sparkled. She hardly took note of them as she ran off the path into the underbrush. Pinecones pierced the bottoms of her feet until they bled, leaving smeared spots of red on leaves and needles and grass. She kept her arms straight at her sides, terrified to touch anything living. The sensation of the wilting flowers in her hands reminded her of snakes writhing against her skin, coiling and then dying, their beautiful skin dissolving to dust. She gripped her chemise and held it up out of the way of low branches and ferns. When the birds began to sing, she stopped and sat down on a rock, burying her face in her hands so she could weep into something warm. But her hands weren’t warm. They were as lifeless as the dripping icicles, her tears hot against her skin.
Haven’t you seen the darkness in her mind? I couldn’t penetrate it in the forest. That’s why I left her there. I couldn’t stand to be next to her one moment longer.
Was there darkness in her mind?
Six years earlier, Odele had sent her to town to buy some meat. She walked through the market with her attention glued to the ground. She had never been to town alone before. Her dress was shabby and her left shoe was ripped open on the heel. Everything she owned was passed down to her from Sybil or Edryn, and they were not gentle on clothes. By the time she received them, they were gray with dirt and thin from repeated washings.
She stopped at the meat stand and purchased two pig’s feet, a piece of cow’s liver, and a package of pork chops wrapped in cloth. They felt deliciously thick in her hands as she placed them into her basket.
“That all for you, Miss?” the butcher asked. He wore a cream-colored apron spattered and smeared with blood. A pig’s head swung on a rope behind him.
“Yes, sir.” S
he reached out her hand to give him the coins she owed. When he took them he stuck his tongue between his lips and lifted the coins close to his face, counting.
“This is too much, lil’ Miss,” he said with a glance. He seemed to study her dress for a moment and she wondered if he might see the scabs on her hands. Quickly, she swung her basket behind her back to hide them.
“That’s how much my Mother said to give you,” she stammered.
“No, it’s too much.” He lifted one shiny coin and held it out to her. It glinted in the sun. “Take this, keep it for yerself, and go buy somethin’ nice over there at Miss Lily’s jewelry cart.”
She looked over her shoulder. Down the road, past throngs of market shoppers, was a cart. It stood out from everything else, and as bodies passed in front of it she caught a glimpse of its treasures and almost gasped. She had never seen anything so dazzling.
“Is her cart new?” she asked quietly.
“What’s that ye say?”
“Is her cart new? It wasn’t here last time I came with my sisters. They would have stopped there.”
“Miss Lily only comes certain times o’ the month. Here, lil’ Miss, take the coin.”
Breathing heavily, she snatched the coin from his fingers and backed into the crowd, nodding her thanks. When she reached Lily’s cart, her eyes swirled with delight. Diamonds and rubies and long gold chains cascaded before her. She saw ancient stones, mother-of-pearl, jade, a polished tiger’s eye set in a braided silver oval.
She clutched the coin in one hand, her basket in the other, and stared at the brown stone. It glittered like warm soil and sunshine, lustrous and dark at the same time. She hadn’t known at the time what the stone was called. Lily bent down.
“You like the tiger’s eye?”
“Yes,” she said in a soft breath. She wanted to reach out and touch the stone, but her hands were full. Her mind zipped back to the image of her father. She now had something to call his fierce, beautiful eyes.
Lily smiled. She was like a gypsy, her clothing layered in rich emeralds and purples, all of it ending in points and frays and ribbons, some of them tied together with sparkling beads. She had sleek, straight black hair and large breasts that swayed when she bent down. Her tiny shoes were black with white shells sewn into the fabric.
Issina took all this in with a deep, warm breath.
“Do you want to buy the stone, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” She held out the coin in her hand and Lily frowned.
“I’m afraid that is not enough.”
“Oh.” Her gaze went straight to the dirt. A slender finger hooked under her chin as Lily lifted her face.
“Soldiers in a faraway land once wore tiger’s eye in their armor for protection,” she said with her eyes trained intently on Issina. “It is a stone used to help heal the sick and weak. It focuses the mind. Do you need these things?”
She swallowed and shifted her feet. “I don’t know. My father’s eyes looked like that stone.”
“His eyes?” Her finger tensed on Issina’s chin. “Where is your father now?”
“He’s dead.”
“Your father’s dead?” She lowered her hand. “That is interesting.”
Issina remained silent. The stone’s brilliance tugged at her, a dark presence filling her mind. She rubbed her thumb over the coin and imagined the stone there instead. She would have liked to lie down at night with the stone in her palm, her father’s eyes more fixed in her mind because of it.
She did not stop Lily from taking her face in her hands. The woman looked intently into her eyes, her lips twisting against her teeth.
“There is much darkness in you,” she whispered. “But it is like your father’s, perhaps. Tell me, child, do you dream of trees?”
She dropped her meat basket and stepped away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Lily stood straight and folded her arms. “You may not have his tiger eyes, but I see the same light in them, and I sense the earth inside you. Earth is dark, like this stone, but filled with light. Remember that, child.” She waved an arm at her cart. “Would you like to purchase something else today?”
She turned and ran, tripped and fell in the dirt, and lost her coin. Scrambling to her feet, she raced past the butcher who called out to her as the pig’s head watched her pass, its eyes as black and cold as ice. When she arrived home, Odele beat her until she screamed in pain and blood streamed down her back.
“How dare you leave the meat at the market! It’s long gone by now, stolen no doubt. We’ll go hungry for a week, and you... you’ll eat nothing.”
All she could think about were trees.
The air turned hot and humid, and as she cradled her face in her hands she thought of that day in the market and Lily’s words. Tell me, child, do you dream of trees?
She saw them in her mind, tall and full of light. She rarely dreamed about them, but when she did, they seemed to speak to her in the same way as the man who lived among them—without sound. Everything was singing and movement and light.
When she looked up from her hands, she saw the surrounding forest. It seemed dim and dull compared to the image in her mind, every leaf using light instead of giving it. For the first time since entering the forest, she realized Cassia hadn’t followed her, and a small stab pinched her heart. What if she was still eating the garden? She looked up at the sun peeking through the trees, quickly calculating that several hours had passed since she had sat down. She had cried herself hoarse. Her tears were emptied. How could she have left Cassia in the wake of Sybil and Edryn’s imminent fury?
Standing, she broke into a run, wincing at the pain in the soles of her feet.
I sense the earth in you. Earth is dark, like this stone, but filled with light. Remember that, child.
Lily was magical somehow. She understood that now, the same as she was beginning to understand the earth inside her, the desire to eat roots and attempt her sisters’ magic. Yet she did not understand why nothing happened when she tried. Surely she was capable of something other than the shriveling plants, her father’s death, and the meals in the forest.
She stopped.
Slowly, her body as stiff as a knotted root, she reached out to touch a bush. She waited, waited, waited. Nothing. The leaves didn’t curl. They didn’t turn brown. Nothing.
Had she imagined the plants dying in the garden?
She broke into a run once more, her injured feet kicking up dust along the dry path. The sun blazed in the sky.
When she reached the house, Sybil stood at the front door, her arms crossed.
“It’s about time you came back. How did you do all that damage to our garden? Mother said she saw you running away just before she went outside to find all the dead plants... and your stupid goat eating my lilies to her heart’s content.”
Her voice was calm, but Issina sensed a deep, trembling anger beneath her words.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anything,” she began, but Sybil held up a hand.
“Your punishment is already carried out.” She spun on her heel, her skirts whipping behind her as she stormed inside.
Issina stood still. How could her punishment have been carried out already? Curiosity dragged her inside the house like a rope around her neck. She felt naked walking in only her chemise. She checked the carpet to make sure the wounds on her feet weren’t leaving blood. They left only dusty prints, like Braeden’s boots.
“Out in the chicken yard,” Sybil said smugly. Edryn stood beside her in the hallway, both of them sentinels to her fate, whatever that was. She hated to think what they had done in the chicken yard. Then it occurred to her.
Cassia.
She ran past them through the kitchen and down the back steps. Odele had a cleaver in her hand and looked up from Cassia’s body.
“This will teach you,” she said as she wiped the bloody cleaver on the hem of her apron. “If you can’t obey my orders, you’ll be punished. Obviously the switch isn’t getting that throu
gh your head.”
She looked at the blood dripping from Cassia’s neck. Her body was contorted at odd angles. Dizziness swarmed inside Issina’s head, a cloud of bees. “She didn’t know any better,” she stuttered. “I let her into the garden. You should have hurt me, not her.”
Odele put her hands on her hips, the cleaver handle clutched in her left fist. “Your disobedience will stop here and now or I’ll hurt you with more than the switch.”
She swallowed the cries rising in her throat and looked at Odele’s long, slender neck, a swan gliding across water. She looked at her one eye, her long lashes, her perfect lips and figure. She imagined her as a grower dressed in white. Angelic songs rose from her throat. A young healer fell in love with her. He worshiped the ground she walked on and loved the two daughters she bore for him.
And then Two-Eyes was born...
Her sisters had called her that when she was younger, but had stopped using it when it never produced a reaction. She hadn’t understood its viciousness then, but she understood it now.
“I didn’t kill him,” she said flatly, her eyes lowering to Cassia.
“Kill who?”
She raised her eyes and stepped forward. “Father.”
Odele stumbled back, shaking her head. “You’re wrong—of course you killed him. You stole everything from me.”
She saw the swan gliding across water, hot sun on its back, serene and silent and magnificent. Then the clouds came. They unfurled like a flag, split open, and pitched bitter rain onto the swan. It shrieked. It lifted its wings to fly, but it could not fly.
Odele blinked. “You stole everything from me,” she repeated, and pulled the switch from her pocket. “You will pay.”
She lowered her head. “Yes, Mother.”
“Hold out your hands.”
She complied. The sting of the switch opened the nearly-healed wounds from the last time Odele had hit her. She tried not to cry or watch the blood streak down her palms, but it was impossible.
Odele finished, and Issina turned at the sound of shuffling feet. Sybil and Edryn. She was trapped, and inched her way to Cassia where she dropped to her knees.
Bonded: Three Fairy Tales, One Bond Page 17