“I’ll pass today.”
Cleric Tuck frowns, but he shouldn’t be surprised. He starts walking again, and I push against his arm, urging his steps a little quicker. He says, “Strellis watches over us, Maire.”
“I know.” He always tells me that Strellis is a god devoted to justice, to turning away bandits, to taking from the rich and giving to the poor. I’ve heard him speak of the god many times, with much repetition, and I don’t care to hear it again. Cleric Tuck’s is the only full shrine in Carmine, though the governor worships Gandant, a god devoted to family and longevity or something of the sort. I have a hard time keeping track of the hundreds of deities that roam our heavens.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to sense this in my voice, for he starts telling me how the rain earlier in the season was a gift from Strellis, though Franc would outright disagree with him. I mute the words and look out over the fields, ignoring the impulse to take a final glance over my shoulder.
“And what does he look like?” I interrupt, picturing the white spirit.
“Well, I think,” he begins, and launches into an abstract description that doesn’t fit the personage I thought I saw. Perhaps Cleric Tuck is right, and I imagined the man in white. I let out a long breath.
When we reach the house, Cleric Tuck drops his elbow, letting his hand slide down my forearm until his fingers clasp mine. He holds them for a brief moment before releasing me, and my hand feels a little colder when he does.
“Thank you for the escort,” I say, wondering if he’ll kiss me, but his eyes glance up at the house behind me, lingering on its well-lit windows, and I know, with some disgruntlement, that he won’t.
“Lock your doors, Maire,” he says, leveling his dark stare at me. His irises are perfectly circular and almost the same color as his clothes. I can barely tell where his pupils mark them.
I let a smirk turn my lip. “Oh? Do I need to worry about certain men breaking in?” But the look he gives me is all serious, and my words lose their fervor, my lip its quirk.
He takes a deep breath. “Only rumors. You know there’s been activity about the Platts.”
“Not in Carmine.”
“Pray to Strellis it stays that way.” He nods his head. “Until tomorrow.”
His navy clothes sweep around him when he turns, and he walks back toward the shrine with long, determined strides.
“Was that Cleric Tuck again?” Arrice asks as I help her clear away dinner dishes. Franc settles into his ramshackle chair by the fireplace, pulls his mandolin from its leather case, and tunes the strings with calloused hands.
I’m surprised she’s asking me now, instead of when I came inside, when Cleric Tuck was still visible on the road. It takes me a moment to realize she waited for Franc’s benefit.
I roll my eyes. “Why yes, Arrice, that was Cleric Tuck. And it was Cleric Tuck yesterday as well.”
“Awfully nice of him to walk you home so often.” Arrice looks at her husband as she says this, not at me, though Franc’s eyes are settled on the mandolin.
“He enjoys the exercise,” I say, retrieving my satchel. I pull out a caramel and offer it to Franc.
Franc winces. “Not another one.”
“What? You haven’t had one today.”
“You’ll make my tongue sore. Put it away.”
I smile and take a bite of the caramel, only just soft enough not to hurt my teeth. By tomorrow it will be too hard, I’m sure. The sweetness makes me grin, and I stifle a laugh with my knuckles. Ah, yes. I was feeling silly when I made these.
I tuck away the other half of the caramel. It will do me no good to be silly for Arrice’s interrogation.
“He’s a fine young man,” Arrice says.
“Yes,” I agree, “and he’s quite upright and undoubtedly fertile.” Curse you, caramel.
“Maire!”
I straighten, lick my lips, and say, “Well, that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
Arrice shakes her head as she pulls her apron off her hips. I’ve never taken to aprons. The stains of egg and imported cocoa on my shirt say as much. “No need to be so blunt. But yes, that’s what I’m thinking. I know you like him.”
“I do like him,” I say, and a silly sort of warmth blooms behind my navel and branches outward, seeking some escape. I do like him. I like the way his arm feels under my hand and the way his mouth moved against my neck when he walked me home especially late last week, though we’ve not taken the opportunity to repeat that intimacy since. I feel my cheeks heat and turn away to hide their color.
“Once was a maid who lost her shoe,” Franc sang from the hearth, his fingers plucking expertly at the mandolin strings, “and didn’t know quite what to do.”
“Let’s have him over for dinner, then,” Arrice says.
I hesitate to answer. For some reason the idea of Cleric Tuck sitting across the dining table from me, integrating even more into my life, makes my stomach tighten. I rub a knuckle into it and sort my thoughts, but I can’t think of why it would hurt, so I nod and slink into one of the kitchen chairs to listen to Franc’s song. I like to imagine what it would have been like to be a child in their home, growing up with their boys, who could have been my brothers. Arrice and Franc have two sons—three, once—but both have since moved away from home. One took to seafaring and is never in the same place twice. I’ve never met him, only read his letters. The other married and moved to a mining town in the Shadow Peaks, but he usually visits home once a year for Winter Festival. The one who visits looks a lot like Franc and therefore isn’t nearly as kind on the eyes as Cleric Tuck. I assume the seafarer’s appearance is quite the same.
“She had a prince atop the stair,” Franc continues, his voice old but well tuned, just like the mandolin. Arrice and I stop talking so we can enjoy Franc’s quiet singing. “When she ran, he wondered where. Followed a trail of pumpkin seeds and found her kneeling in the reeds. ‘I have no dowry, kindest sir,’ she said with cry and shudder. Only but the second shoe, pinned with silk dyed ocean blue.”
I wonder if I used to sit about a house like this one with my own family, listening to my father sing, or maybe my mother. Perhaps none of us were musical and we read instead, fairy tales or poetry or stories of our making. Then again, maybe it was only me, with one parent or the other, and instead of gathering around a fire we sat out in the night, listening to the song of crickets and owls, accompanied by the percussion of mice feet.
The frosted edges of that empty space push against the back of my eyes, sending waves of gooseflesh down my arms.
“The prince was so overcome, he’d not share her with anyone,” Franc continues to sing. “‘I’ll take your shoe, and then your hand. Together we shall rule the land.’”
Franc plucks a few chords, but the music never stops, only changes keys as he launches into another song. I creep close to the fire, letting its heat eat away at the cold clinging to my skin, and watch it leap and spin atop its quartered logs.
Arrice’s knees are behaving themselves, so she decides to walk with me to the bakeshop in the morning. After I snip mint and basil from the herb garden—I often use mint for mental clarity and basil for confidence—we trek the three roads to Wagon Way.
“I’m seeing Luce about that print today,” she says, reassembling yesterday’s eggs and vegetables in a more visually appealing manner as I stoke the fire in my small oven.
“I’m not wearing it, Arrice,” I call out, coughing a little as old soot flies from yesterday’s embers.
“You’ll look good in a skirt, Maire,” she insists. “I’m making it, and you’ll wear it, and Cleric Tuck will think you look good in it, too.”
I laugh and shut the oven door, brushing my hands off on my slacks before noticing and frowning at the blank fingerprints over my pockets. “Perhaps I should use an apron, after all.”
Arrice clicks her tongue. “Take care. I’ll see you tonight.”
I wave as she leaves and then pull out my ingredients. Th
inking of the slave and his quiet smile, I start a lavender batter to add to yesterday’s batch. I crack eggshells and measure sugar, thinking about round bellies filled with life, the first spark of a fire, my fingers on Cleric Tuck’s arm. I may not know entirely what I hope for from him, but there is hope nonetheless, and I direct the fancies through my arms and into spoon and bowl, sneaking a taste with my knuckle before plopping it into the oven.
Next I fill a bowl with oil, flour, a pinch of salt. I take two iron knives and cut the pastry dough, back and forth, back and forth. My mind flutters from one idea to the next. Maybe I should make my tart of strength, infusing it with vigor by focusing on the pull in my biceps as I cut and cut and cut the dough. Or maybe I should do something lighter, such as cheer, or something new, like nostalgia. Then again, part of me wishes to be daring, to think of passionate things, of warm caresses in the night and newlyweds and Cleric Tuck’s lips on my neck.
I turn the bowl and begin cutting the dough anew, but a movement at the corner of my vision brings me to a halt. Turning, I look down to see a rather large cockroach scuttling away from my feet.
“And how did you get in, hm?” I ask, glancing at the closed window in the back room where I bake. I pinch a piece of dough between my fingers and crouch to offer it to the bug, but it’s disinterested and hurries for the crack between the bottom cabinets and the floor.
I press a hand to the floor in front of it. It studies me with its antennae for a moment before veering away, so I cage it between my fingers and hustle to the front door, which I open with my shoulder. A man on horseback rides down the lane, but as soon as he’s passed, I jog across the dirt road toward the canal. I step across the short bridge and into the small wooded area that separates the village center from the farmlands.
I kneel and open my hands. The roach scampers away from the salt of my skin, antennae twitching as it disappears between the long strands of grass.
It’s when I stand that I see him ahead of me, hovering in the grove of trees. Their leaves filter the sunlight into wide beams, but the bands of light pass right through him, as though he were nothing more than a shadow.
That strange sensation returns, quickening my heart, prickling my fingers.
Blinking to ensure I do see him, I step forward, careful to avoid the roach’s path. He has a man’s shape, yes, but strange wings stem from above either elbow. Narrower than a bird’s, they seem to be shaped from sunlit water rather than feathers. He hovers a few feet above the ground, yet the wings don’t flap, nor do they look large enough to support him.
His clothing is of a strange cut and almost entirely white—white lapels, white sleeves, white slacks and shoes. His hair is white, and his skin is quite pale as well. And yet—yes—he is translucent. The light passes through him, and I see a vague outline of the other side of the grove beyond his form. My breath catches. What sort of ethereal creature is this, haunting these sparse woods in the full light of day?
A sudden coolness runs through my limbs and pinches my throat. I take a step back. I didn’t think I made a sound, but he notices me then, and his eyes—I can’t describe his eyes. They are a color I have never before seen. I can only say they are pale like the rest of him.
Those eyes droop for half a breath before growing wide and round. He zooms forward so quickly I lose sight of him. I stumble back from the woods’ edge, my heart in my throat as he appears before me, his face close to mine. His hands jut forward as though to grab my shoulders, but he is as ephemeral as a specter, and they pass right through me.
“Your name!” he shouts, breathless. “Your name, tell me your name!”
I reach out to grasp something—anything that can steady me—but my hands meet only empty air. I trip over myself and drop to one knee.
“Please!” he cries.
I stare into those eyes, those strange eyes, and slowly rise. “I-It’s Maire,” I croak.
The ghost leans away. His eyes roll back as he closes them, and a breath I cannot feel escapes his chest. “You have not forgotten,” he says, his voice smooth and . . . I’m not sure. He doesn’t have an identifiable accent, but his voice is different nonetheless. “Thank the gods. There is still time.”
“Forgotten?” I repeat, and the yawning gap in my mind swallows me, freezing the blood in my skin even though my belly burns hotter than an oven. “You know my name? You know who I am?”
Before he can reply—before I can ask more—a blast of shrieking birds and breaking branches assaults my ears. I hesitate to break away from this man-spirit, from his strange words and the twisting sensation they incite in me, but the cries are sudden and coarse, dangerous. I sprint back toward the bridge and look out over the woodlands. An enormous murder of crows rises into the sky, raining leaves and feathers all about them, cawing and clawing at the blue.
The ethereal creature turns and peers west, but not at the crows. A frown twists his lips, and his hands form hard fists at his sides. He says something that sounds like a curse in tone, but I can’t pick out its phonetics.
“What?” I ask, my now-cold fingers clutching for my chest, though I’m not sure from where my heart is beating.
He looks at me, sorrowful, but with a hardness to his pale lips and eyes. He is more difficult to see now, as though he’s become more of a mirage than a spirit. “I cannot save you from this.”
I shake my head. “What do you mean?”
He says only one word before fading into the ether: “Run.”
CHAPTER 2
The crows fly overhead, turning into dark, fleeing specks. I rush forward to the space the ghost had filled and pass my hand through it. I feel nothing.
“Wait!” I cry, but no trace of him remains.
The heavy chimes of shrine bells ring, pulsing through my torso like a second heartbeat. I hold my breath.
Then I hear the screams.
My heart leaps into my throat as I run back over the bridge and to the lane, peering west. The mercantile is that way. Arrice. I sprint down the road, moving between the ruts made by wagon wheels. A few of the men in our small militia run from houses and storefronts half-armed. Beyond them a cloud of red dust grows as a storm, bolstered by the thunder of hundreds of horse hooves. People run before it, flying into buildings, falling to the ground.
My hands and face turn cold. Marauders. Bandits in Carmine.
I heed the ghost and run back for my shop.
The marauders ride horses. They pour into the village like water into sand, penetrating it from all angles. Their mounts are all colors and sizes, but every rider looks the same—dark clothed and bareheaded, black sashes tied over their noses and mouths. One of them gallops faster than the rest until he is nearly beside me. He draws a rusted sword from a sheath strapped to his saddle.
I gasp and trip over my own heels, but the earth rises to meet me as I fall. My palms slam into the packed red soil, which surges up like an ocean wave, rolling until the soil can no longer hold its shape. I fall with the dust and topple to the side of the street, dirt raining over me. Pebbles bite my hot skin, and I cough, desperate for air, and scrabble to my feet. My mind is gone. There is only heat and heartbeat and perspiration burning my eyes, and the thundering of hooves from every direction, echoing off buildings and trees and my chest. The rolling ground has blocked me from the first marauder, but more come, the thunder of their charge ringing in my ears.
I pick myself up and run, run, run until I reach the shop. I throw myself inside and slam the door. Race for a sack of flour and a cistern to barricade it, though I know it’s barely anything in terms of protection. My hands shake as I shove them into place. Fire licks my throat.
I flee to the back of the small space. There is no back door, only my countertop, stove, cabinets, and the window. I see brown-clad marauders through the pane, and their silhouettes sear the backs of my eyelids.
The air is too thick. The oven churns it hot. I can’t breathe.
The glass at the front of the shop shatters. I cry ou
t. My body shudders as I drop to the cupboards beneath the counter and fling them open, pulling out pans and bowls until there is a space large enough for me to fit inside. I crawl into the opening and shut the door as best as I can. Shaking arms pull my knees to my chest, and tears soak my trousers. Another window breaks, and every shard of falling glass echoes on the underside of my skin. Sweat slicks my short hair to my face as someone’s fists pound at the door. I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut. Can’t breathe, yet maybe that’s for the best. I can’t scream if I can’t breathe.
I hear them inside my shop, overturning goods, talking to one another in harsh, clipped words. There are cries outside my windows. The scent of burning cake seeps into the cracks around the cupboard doors. I do not move from my space; I cannot move from my space. Not even when the marauders leave. Not even when they return hours later, ransacking whatever goods they haven’t already destroyed. They pillage my shelves, then open every cupboard until they find mine.
A man twice my size seizes my arm and drags me into the street. I fight him, screaming and raking my nails over his skin. He hits me with something—the hilt of a knife, perhaps—and my vision seesaws. He drags me to the village square, half by my elbow, half by my hair, tearing my trousers over rock and road the whole way. I try to wrestle away, but it rips hair from my scalp, and I see his sword in my face, feel its blade against the side of my nose. Fresh corpses litter porches and alleyways, militia and not. My stomach clenches, and bile burns up to my tongue and back down again. My vision grays and clears, grays and clears.
The marauder releases me in a cluster of other townsfolk just off center of the town square. I count them, desperate to identify familiar faces. None of them is Arrice’s. None of them is Franc’s. We total a baker’s dozen.
Four marauders, black from the bridge of their noses to their feet, surround us. They bear blades of different sizes and makes. One has a short spear fastened to his back, and another has a round weapon I’ve never before beheld on his belt. Somewhere behind me, a man screams a high, wet sound. I shut my eyes and cover my ears with my hands. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.
Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet Page 2