Page 30 of Those Fatal Flowers

8

Now

A deep red stain appears on my nightgown between my legs, and when I stand, I discover its gory twin on my mattress. I don’t have time to wonder at the horror of it before my insides contract so forcefully that I fall to my knees, fingers grabbing hold of the sheets to keep myself from spilling onto the floor completely. A raw metallic scent confirms what I already know.

This is blood.

With the understanding formed into a coherent thought, it’s harder to breathe. Am I dying? I groan as a terrified hand wanders between my legs to find a slick, warm wetness. My fingers return a deep maroon, the dark hue indicating that the blood is old. I’ve been bleeding, and for a while.

A current of panic surges through my limbs.I need help. I stumble to my feet and reach for the bedroom door, pushing aside the chair that blocks it. When I finally fling it open, Margery already stands at the threshold. She nearly drops the tray of gruel she’s prepared me, her eyes flooding with concern when she reads my expression.

“Lady Thelia! What’s happened? Are you all right?” Shepushes past me into the room to deposit my breakfast and notices the sanguine spot on the mattress’s center. It looks like the bed’s been gutted. I haven’t moved, still frozen in place with my soiled hand in the air, unable to find the right words to express my terror.

She chuckles knowingly, her right hand moving to rest upon her heart. “Oh, my lady! It’s only Eve’s curse! You frightened me!” I watch wordlessly as she opens a chest at the far side of the room to retrieve a new mattress shell. “I’ll fetch you a rag.”

Eve’s curse? I don’t understand the phrase’s meaning, though I remember Eve from yesterday’s Bible study. But Cora never referred to Eve and Adam’s exile as a curse—was there more to the story? Was banishment from Eden not punishment enough? No, of course not. Expulsion is hardly a creative penalty to a god. Better to dress it up with feathers and talons, or in this case, blood.

Margery strips the soiled sheets from my bed, and her calm allows another, less alarming thought to surface: Am I flowering? I hadn’t yet before my transformation, and after, there was no reason for it. Hybrids can’t bear children, and although Pisinoe and Raidne bled before our mutation, they lost their menses when they gained their wings. My jaw drops, and I turn from Margery to try to hide my disbelief. She takes this as a display of modesty and laughs.

“No need to be embarrassed, Lady Thelia. It’s quite natural.”

But not for me,I want to scream. Instead, I stumble to the tray and take a large gulp of cider. The fermented drink slides down my throat, and for the first time since I woke, my heart finally begins to slow.

Does this mean I can conceive?

My chest tightens. When we were young, Proserpina andI often dreamed of being mothers. We would carry dolls lovingly in our arms, swaddling and cradling them, cooing gentle songs into their unhearing ears. A visiting oracle predicted that she would bear two children. When I asked how many I’d have, the old woman only smiled sadly. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but once we were banished to Scopuli, I realized she didn’t want to be the one to tell me what my future held.

After that, I ceased to dream of children.

“Of course,” I stammer through trembling lips, forcing away the thought. “It just caught me by surprise. It’s early.”

Margery nods knowingly as she picks up the sullied linens. “I’ll be right back with a rag, my lady.” Her eyes find the red between my legs. “And perhaps a bath for good measure. Though we’ll have to be quick about it. We don’t want to be late.”

“For what?” I ask, but Margery, consumed by the task at hand, is already gone.

Everyone files into the meeting hall. The jovial atmosphere that filled the space earlier this week is gone, replaced with an air of severity. The tables have been pushed to the walls, and their benches are aligned in several rows before the elevated platform at the back of the hall. People crisscross one another to slide into specific spots as if they’ve been assigned. Thomas and Mistress Bailie head to the first row, where she claims her place at the end of the pew. I follow, leaving an empty space between Thomas and me. He moves to fill the gap, but before he can, Cora slides into it. My skin flushes at the sight of her, but she’s not here for me. Thomas resigns himself to his current spot, but he still folds his arms across his chest in a display of irritation. Mistress Bailie watches thescene play out, but her face is like carved stone—it’s completely unreadable, betraying no emotions. I almost envy her ability to hide her thoughts beneath such a placid exterior; I seem incapable of it.

“That’s Master Sampson,” Cora whispers, nodding toward the older man who arranges himself behind the pulpit. His sharp eyes cut to her, and he clears his throat dramatically. Thehrgn-hrgn-hrgnsnaps Cora’s attention back to the front of the room as a flush crawls up her neck. I look over my shoulder and find everyone else’s attention is locked on him as well.

He leads the villagers through a morning prayer, and then more than one hundred voices speak “Amen” in unison. It’s an unsettling sound that makes me rock forward in my seat, but Cora reaches for my leg to steady me. Her hand is hot on my thigh. Its warmth permeates all the suffocating layers of clothing and sears into my flesh. It makes my breath quicken, my heart pound.

Why does this friendly gesture cause a ball of anticipation to form in my root? The last time someone’s touch made me feel like this was with Proserpina. I can almost see the delicate outline of her jaw that I once kissed, the gentle curve of her shoulder where I rested my head. I bite my lip, my gaze wandering to Cora’s hand. Her fingers are so slender and elegant, with trimmed and clean nails like bows atop a present. My mind wanders to things I suspect Master Sampson considers blasphemous.

What would the tips of those fingers feel like brushing against my lips? What would they taste like?

I have to hold myself tightly to keep from trembling at the thought, and then her hand is gone, back in her own lap. The place where it rested burns cold in its absence, as if it wasnever whole without her touch. I am left wanting in a way I can’t begin to put into words.

The service passes by in a blur of ritual and sacrament that means little to me, except for the part where a giggling child is called to sit in a chair before the entire congregation as a form of punishment.

I know how it feels, to be a girl punished before a crowd. As soon as Master Sampson snaps his Bible shut, she’s the first to dart from the meetinghouse. My heart aches for her, but at least she was allowed to leave on her own two feet. She wasn’t dragged away, strong hands clamping down like shackles on her wrists.

“The Chapmans are always causing trouble,” Mistress Bailie remarks self-righteously. “If it’s not John making a drunken scene, it’s one of their brood interrupting services. Despicable.”

Outside, the little girl has found comfort in Alis’s arms. Alis looks exhausted, but still she rocks her daughter gently, a dejected but loving expression settled across her face. I can’t help but watch them like that, mother and daughter finding comfort in each other. I’m so transfixed that I don’t notice Will appear beside us.

“I miss having you sit with me,” he says to Cora, his breath forming a small cloud in the cold air as he speaks. “Church is certainly less entertaining without you.”

“You know I have to sit with my betrothed now,” Cora says, exasperation filling her voice. Even after our talk last night, I wonder if she truly must sit with Thomas or if she insisted on it because of me.

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