We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire

by Joy McCullough

  of that night

  —which is why

  Isabella gets there first

  crouches down

  her servants looking on

  curious but not surprised

  and reaches a hand

  into a cabinet.

  Helene, love?

  My sister wedged herself

  inside a dumbwaiter

  while I was playing knight.

  I went to send

  tea up to the library

  and there she was!

  A distressed kitchen girl

  mangles her apron

  between white-knuckled fists.

  Where is Emilde? Her lady’s maid?

  The tetchy one grunts.

  Put her to work. She’s help, ain’t she?

  Houseguests mean extra labors.

  Their servants don’t sit around.

  She withers slightly

  under Isabella’s gaze.

  Ain’t she help?

  Helene shrieks

  when Isabella touches her,

  tries to shrink farther back.

  Let me.

  But before I can reach my sister,

  Owen is there, wet nose prodding,

  reaching something I never will.

  Coaxed out by Isabella’s dog,

  Helene refuses any touch

  except his prodding snout.

  Emilde is beside herself

  when she returns to find

  her lady disturbed.

  She only wanted

  to feel safe!

  Is that so hard?

  I very nearly reprimand her

  but Isabella’s grip

  on my arm reminds me

  Emilde has watched over

  my sister more keenly

  than I ever have.

  We’re so sorry.

  The duchess speaks to Emilde

  as though this lowly servant

  were equal to the queen of Naples.

  I’m sure we can find

  a way for Helene

  to feel safe away

  from prying eyes?

  She feels safest

  in a kitchen . . .

  Emilde trails off.

  She can’t explain it

  any more than Helene can,

  Helene, who sits, mute,

  arms around Owen

  as though he were the only one

  tethering her to this world.

  Isabella sends for the physician

  who prescribes herbs and teas

  and tinctures to soothe and calm,

  the tiniest plug in the dam

  holding back an ocean of pain.

  After hushed conversation

  with the duchess, the physician

  inquires if any of my party

  require further care.

  Pennyroyal tea

  and pomegranates

  juniper and rue

  catnip, sage, cypress, tansy

  hellebore, hyssop, dittany, and opium

  so many options

  it’s almost as though

  he’s seen this before.

  That blur of terror

  in my bedchamber

  was not creation

  of a life. It was

  destruction

  except

  it is not always

  one or else the other.

  The two go

  sword in scabbard

  sometimes.

  To carry a child is a risk

  when done for love or obligation

  but to carry a seed that’s taken root

  after invaders pillaged a land

  for their

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Papi’s knock scatters the words.

  “I don’t want any lasagna,” I call.

  “My hands are full, can you open the door?”

  I sigh from the middle of my bed, where I’m surrounded by Marguerite and various research books open to specific pages around me. Sometimes the history falls together in absurdly perfect puzzle pieces—René’s brother-in-law being the newly crowned king of France, for example. Maybe he can get word to the generals Marguerite will need—

  “Canchita?”

  I climb off my bed, trying to cause minimal disturbance. Not wanting lasagna doesn’t mean I want room service that will only make me feel guilty for not sitting in the kitchen with him while my mom’s out at her monthly girls’ night.

  Instead, I find Papi holding a stack of shoeboxes. I hold the door open and he brings them in, Chester nosing in after him, leaping up onto my bed, and knocking multiple books off.

  “Chester, no!”

  “Nor told me you guys are working on a project para tu mamá,” Papi says. “I dug these out. Thought they might help.”

  I haven’t thought about the scrapbook since I went searching for photos in the basement and instead found my mom’s dissertation on female vengeance films, which was obviously more interesting. Now Papi’s done the work of digging out photos for me and I repay him with annoyance.

  His eyes fall on the Moleskine. “It’s good to see that again,” he says as I try to save my books from Chester galumphing around on my bed for the perfect spot. “You said you lost it.”

  “It turned up.”

  He sits on the end of my bed. “The school told me, ¿sabías? The middle school? When that little cerote stole your notebook and spread your private words around.”

  I sit on the other end of the bed, closing my hand over the edge of the rondel dagger and pushing it farther under my pillow. “You never said anything.”

  “I figured your privacy had been invaded enough. You’d tell me if you wanted to.”

  “It was embarrassing.”

  “That boy was an embarrassment. Hijuela . . . Expressing your feelings isn’t wrong.”

  “I know.”

  He hesitates and I think our little heart-to-heart is over, but he goes on. “Tu mamá and I are so thrilled you’re writing. You’ve got such a gift. Pero me preocupa que you’re skipping meals—”

  “I’m not hungry, Papi. I’ll eat later, I promise. Thanks for the photos.”

  “Claro. It’s nice of you girls to do something. I’d hoped for her birthday we could have a getaway . . . ¿Victoria o algo? But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

  Papi hasn’t been getting as many plumbing disaster calls lately. I’ve overheard hushed conversations with Mom about whether she can manage to take on some extra online classes. (She can’t.) Sometimes she suggests he look for teaching jobs—he has an MFA in poetry, after all. But when his work is steady, he actually makes more as a plumber than he would as an adjunct professor.

  Which seems messed up, but the world needs pipes to reliably carry away our shit more than it needs poetry.

  It’s cynical of me, but I can’t keep from wondering whether Husky fans spread word to harm Papi’s business. Maybe after my hashtag debacle. Add financial stress to the list of things that are my fault.

  As Papi slips out the door, I reach under my pillow and wrap my hand around the dagger.

  ENTITLED

  Isabella puts me through my paces

  morning, noon and in the night

  we fill the gaps that Father left:

  strategy

  geography

  patriarchy.

  I knew our world

  was ruled by men—

  I’ve grown up sheltered,

  not blindfolded, gagged

  and cut off from all discourse.

&
nbsp; But I’ve had the luxury

  of ignorance to how men think,

  how men are raised to feel

  themselves entitled to the world.

  I thought it a quirk of my brother’s

  like my sister’s love of books

  and dark, quiet places.

  René is my tutor

  on the ways and thoughts of men,

  a dedicated teacher

  until the point each day

  when his beloved

  turns an unmistakable

  shade of green.

  Half a dozen children

  she’s carried

  René confides

  even borne some

  into the world

  but none have lived

  to celebrate a single year.

  She pretends the seed

  has not been planted,

  doesn’t grow, for if she denies

  it’s there, perhaps it will never die.

  It’s twisted logic but

  sometimes

  that’s the only kind.

  Isabella insists on planning

  as though together

  we will join de Gaucourt

  and the king’s army,

  take on Chalon and his men

  past the point when it is clear

  she carries a child who may yet live,

  made of love and long awaited.

  The only battle she will see

  is childbirth.

  René offers to go in her stead

  but aside from the terror

  on Isabella’s face

  at the thought of his certain death

  I will have no man

  by my side

  when I face

  Chalon.

  Helene emerges

  slightly each day,

  still silent, but

  some spark of life

  so long as Owen is near.

  She finds a bit of fabric,

  thread, and spends the days

  secluded in some nook.

  On sunny days, the garden,

  stabbing cloth repeatedly.

  I feign ignorance

  that Emilde sleeps

  in Helene’s chambers.

  She grates on me

  but the kitchen girl

  would fight at my side

  with equal fury except

  that she would never

  leave my sister.

  Zahra, though, insists

  she is my handmaiden

  to the end, and so

  she joins my lessons.

  How can I ask Zahra

  to join me as we hurtle

  toward certain death?

  And yet the blaze in her eyes

  when she swings a sword

  assures me I am not asking.

  Next to Helene

  on a wrought-iron bench

  the metal upon my back

  is cool like armor.

  I’ll be leaving soon.

  She continues stabbing

  at her cloth in a hoop.

  You’ll be safe here.

  Her shoulders tense.

  The duke and duchess,

  their men, this fortress . . .

  I was very nearly attacked

  inside these walls.

  You’ll have Emilde.

  And Owen.

  The beast lifts his head,

  snorts, then lays it back

  on his mistress’s feet.

  Helene lets out a breath,

  her shoulders relax.

  A sudden flash of

  Mother at the harp

  delicate fingers flying

  lost in music, the weight

  of noble expectations lifted

  for as long as the song would last.

  I reach into the pouch at my waist

  fingers saying a last goodbye

  to my only connection

  with the woman who bore me.

  I hold out Mother’s brooch.

  Helene’s own flying fingers

  still.

  She lets me fasten it to

  the bodice of her dress

  and does not flinch

  at my touch.

  Helene may have the brooch

  but I will keep the ring

  upon my finger, the one

  that proclaims exactly who I am

  to anyone who cares to look.

  I may not return.

  But if I don’t, Helene,

  I’ll have taken our revenge—

  yours and mine.

  I must do this.

  She pauses only long enough

  to raise her head,

  meet my eye, and nod.

  Then she renews

  her diligent pursuit,

  each stitch

  a suture

  bound to fail

  the wound too great

  but healing will come

  not from needle and thread

  but from the girl who wields them.

  For all I tell Helene

  of safety within these walls

  my nights are awkward dances

  with reluctant partners,

  a step or two of grace

  then stumble, lose the beat,

  constant awareness

  of every limb and breath

  a desperation for dawn

  the end of the song

  the moment I free myself

  from my suitor, the graceless night.

  This night the dance

  is interrupted

  with percussive beats

  that do not match the rhythm.

  Hoofbeats, shouts

  drawbridge lowering.

  I grab the sword beside my bed.

  This is the dance, the suitor I know.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I write and write and write but also sometimes I can’t anymore.

  When I reach that point (and Jess still isn’t responding, which: Maybe they don’t even have cell service in Saipan?), my gaze falls on the shoeboxes still sitting where Papi left them on my desk.

  Nor has sent a few irritated texts wondering when I’m going to get the photos to her, since she’s in charge of scrapbook layout. Sucks when your sister doesn’t respond to your messages, I guess.

  I pull a dusty lid off the first box and settle on the floor, since my bed and desk are full of Marguerite. These pictures go way back—Mom as a toddler, in the house she still lives in. Mom around four years old, in an astonishingly poufy dress and hat, clutching a stuffed bunny, while her brothers wrestle over an Easter basket. Mom on skates, Mom eating birthday cake, Mom winning some sort of academic award.

  I pull out a few photos from each age range. They’re thick and glossy, from the time before photos on phones, or even digital cameras, I think. My grandparents had to care enough to have film developed, then hold on to the tangible objects over the years, surviving the purges of stuff from my grandparents’ house to college to grad school to newlywed apartment and on and on. Stuffed in a shoebox somewhere I couldn’t even find them, but still.

  The second shoebox has more photos, from high school, I think. Girls in overalls and flannel with arms slung around each other. Photos that follow the extended arm of the subject from hand holding the old-school camera backward toward their face—prehistoric selfies. Cheesy school-dance photos, Mom in a shiny coral dress with a pimply boy encircling her waist from behind,
and another in a black strapless mini-dress with a group of girlfriends, all striking Charlie’s Angels poses.

  Mixed in with the high school photos are some report cards and essays with red As scrawled across the top. One essay has a B-, and the teacher’s note says, “Beautifully written, but not the assignment. Follow the rubric next time, Kath.”

  Beneath that, in a loopier version of the handwriting I recognize, my mom has written, “NO ONE MADE AUSTEN WRITE TO A RUBRIC, MISS FOSKET!!!”

  I pull that out for the scrapbook, for sure.

  I’m about to move on to the third shoebox when a folded piece of paper at the bottom catches my eye. I tug it from a corner where it’s caught and when it comes free, I unfold it to find an unfamiliar handwriting at the bottom—it’s signed Marla, which isn’t a name I recognize.

  The handwriting is urgent, and the first words are “PLEASE READ THIS, K.” I’m expecting a glimpse into my mom’s high school drama—dates for a dance, gossip gone awry, accusations of lying or cheating or stealing. But as I read on, my stomach churns.

  I know you just want this to be over, but you HAVE to tell someone. Think about the other girls he’s hurt. The other girls he’ll hurt after we graduate. When I took you to the clinic, you promised you’d tell. Please, K.

  K is Kath. My mom.

  EQUAL

  My brother, Philippe.

  Not Chalon and his men.

  My brother, my blood

  has completed the task

  I thought I’d have to

  and now he’s found us,

  his sisters.

  I race to the stable,

  embrace him.

  Helene is alive?

  Where is she?

  These are his first words.

  Asleep.

  It’s the middle—

  Why didn’t you tell me?

  Why didn’t you send word?

  How was I to know

  where you were?

  He shakes me off, shoves

  past me, heads toward

  the castle, his back

  a familiar sight.

  What happened?

  Did you find Chalon’s men?

  He grunts.

  They’re camped

  near Autun for now.

  And?

  He stops,

  spins on his heel.

  And?

  Did you avenge