Chapter Eight #2
What would the father do if he knew what I'd done? Would he strap me down again and press his burning crucifix into the space between my shoulder blades? Would he have the priests hold my head in the font until I cannot breathe enough to scream?
Do I not deserve it?
"I have questioned God and his wishes for me multiple times," I find myself saying instead, squeezing my eyes shut against the memories and silently begging forgiveness for the things I cannot bear to say out loud.
I press my fists to my forehead, reveling in the stinging pain of my palms. "This is all I remember.
Forgive me, Father, for I am sorry for these and all my sins. "
Father Thompson is quiet for long enough that I worry what I might have said to draw his ire this time. Can he tell I have left things out? Is the Lord speaking to him, telling him of my other transgressions? Of my abhorrent acts in the house up on the cliff?
"We are all sinners when the Devil gives us cause," he finally says, and I try not to tense at the sound of his voice. "You far more than others, I'm afraid. You will assist the community in their needs this week during your free time and say ten Hail Mary's each night until the next Mass."
A shaky breath escapes my lips, and my shoulders droop with relief at his judgement.
Acts of atonement are a common enough punishment for me.
Father Thompson is often convinced that if he keeps me busy, it will keep me out of trouble.
I cannot say if it works or not, but at the very least, I am grateful not to have a worse punishment.
"Thank you, Father," I say, crossing myself again as I utter the Act of Contrition.
"My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.
In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things.
I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.
" Can I avoid Azizi, I wonder? Would it be the Devil's will to continue my work for her?
Would it only lead to further temptation down the road the next time I see her lips dripping with blood or her face twisted in pleasure?
"Our savior, Jesus Christ, suffered and died for us. In His name, my God, have mercy."
"God, the Father of Mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins," Father Thompson dutifully says, as he always does—though I wonder how much he truly believes his words when it comes to me.
"Through the ministry of the Church, I absolve you from your sins.
May God grant you pardon and peace, child.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
"Amen."
I cross myself one final time before bolting from the church. I cannot stand to see the Father's face, should he come out to speak with me. Cannot stand to see the priests with their judgmental glares or the sisters with their pity-filled gazes.
At least in the village I have a sort of anonymity.
Not that it means much in a small town such as this, where everyone has known each other for their entire lives.
Still, it is easy enough to pass through the village streets without too much notice, easy enough to play a part the others expect of me.
I have always been an outlier in Sainte-Falaise—the girl who plays with the boys too much, who prefers trousers over skirts and chopped her hair off with fabric scissors at the tender age of six.
“A strange little one,” the villagers called me when I was younger. “A little ill in the mind, I think,” they would whisper as I walked by, offering condolences to my parents for the suffering I must put them through.
When my hunger began to grow in the pit of my stomach, those whispers only grew louder and louder.
The mysterious illness they claimed I had grew more dire, more pitiful, until the whole of the village treated me differently for it.
Some like I was fragile, others like I deserved the rough hand they dealt.
Father Thompson has always been fond of the latter.
But I find it easier to put on a mask around the townsfolk.
Easier to hide the sins carved into my bones from the people who could not see them like the Father can.
Should I have the choice, I would much rather serve my penance to my neighbors than to the Church, as blasphemous as the thought may be.
Most often, when the Father demands atonement, I serve my time helping Mr. Lefevre, the blacksmith, who doesn’t care if I’ve breasts or a cunt so long as I do the work well enough.
On other occasions, I move stock in the general store for Missus Mason or help Old Lyam with his firewood to keep his shed full.
Hard work, busy work, to keep my mind too exhausted to dwell on the guilt and regret it so often wants to spiral into.
But I’d woken up with a terrible pain in my head already, and my joints and chest ache something fierce with every step I take. My stomach, emptied the night before, now claws at my skin from the inside, demanding something to eat.
I'm sure if I tried to work in Mr. Lefevre’s shop, I’d last an hour at most before passing out from the heat. No doubt the cranky old blacksmith would use the excuse as proof that I couldn’t handle the work, regardless of the fact that I’ve been assisting in the shop since I was fourteen.
So instead, I trudge my way toward the market and find Missus Fortue in the bakery kitchen, hunched over a pile of dough nearly the width of her shoulders.
She’s covered in flour head-to-toe, but she smiles at me the moment I step through the door, only pausing her kneading long enough to wipe the sweat from her brow with her apron.
All it does is spread more flour across her forehead, but the look suits her somehow.
“Ah, Petite Miette! Look at you, sweet thing! Haven’t seen you around much lately, dear. Come to steal a nip’a the morning bread before the others have away with it?”
Warmth spreads over my cheeks at the familiar nickname, and I cannot help the small smile that presses at my lips as she waves me in. “Non, madame. I just came to see if you’ve any work you need tending to. Father Thompson sent me.”
“Bah!” the woman exclaims, rolling her eyes with the same amount of drama she always portrays when the Father is brought up. “Wretched ol’ coot, he is. Well, if you need something to do, Louis is in the back readying the deliveries. I’m sure he’d appreciate the help, yes?”
A small part of me is disappointed not to be helping her with the baking, as I could do with her comforting presence after such a dreadful day, but the other part of me is grateful.
Missus Fortue has always been too observant for her own good.
Her eyes too keen, too sharp. My father often jokes that she has special eyes gifted to her by the fair folk, giving her the ability to see things no one else could.
Like my mother’s disease that the doctors denied until she was too ill to stand.
Like her soul withering away inside her body until Missus Fortue told us it wouldn't be long now.
She'd been there the day my mother died, coaxing my father to rest in the chair nearby, brushing a cool rag over my mother's sweat-slick face.
She'd stepped aside when another woman appeared in the center of the room, her blue dress fading at the edges, as if she was barely there to begin with.
I remember watching as Missus Fortue's face fell into despair and resignation at the sight of her, remember rushing to help when she told me to strip my mother's nightgown off so we could wash it.
There was something about the woman in the blue dress that seemed not quite real.
Something in the way my father's eyes drifted right past her, the way Missus Fortue's eyes didn't, that told me I was seeing something I shouldn't be seeing.
Then the song began, that same song I hear every night drifting over the wind and weaving through the mountain trees.
She'd been there the day my mother died, holding my father through his sobs with gentle hands and mournful words.
She'd stood there as the other woman appeared—the angel with the blue dress and golden hair—and was silent as she sang Death's song to ease my mother's final journey.
And when the angel drifted away again, Missus Fortue's eyes met mine
As if she knew. As if she’d seen.
She had been the first to notice there was something not quite right about me when I was a child. The first to offer some of her son’s old clothes to my father, to suggest he include more meat in my diet to keep my teeth from straying too far.
When I chopped my hair up to my ears, uneven and dreadfully ugly, she’d sat me down in her kitchen with a mug of tea and touched it up with her own sheers.
And when I told her I didn’t like my name, that I wanted to be known as Theodore instead, she’d knelt in front of me and said, “Be careful with the name your heart speaks, Petite Miette. It is who you are, all that you are, and there are so many out there who will try to steal it away. Do not let them. Oui?”
I have never been a good liar when it comes to Missus Fortue.
No matter how hard I try, she sees through my words with those magic eyes of hers and wheedles the truth out of me one way or another.
And though I trust her more than anyone else outside of my father, I do not want to risk the judgement and fear I might see on her kind face if I tell her what I’ve done.
“Ah, ah,” she tuts as I try to pass her by, fingers quick as lightning as they snatch my chin up and turn me to face her.
Her eyes narrow—a lovely storm-grey that I swear grows darker when the weather turns—and she looks me up and down, her thumb tracing the sharp curve of my cheekbone.
“The rain seeps into your bones, little one. You have been playing around in the storms, non?”
“Not playing, madame. I have been working for the new mistress on Echo’s Peak and got caught in the storm last night is all.” I offer her a smile, shaky as it is. “I am well.”
She clucks her tongue and gestures to a tray of small pies cooling on the counter.
“You are hungry,” she says matter-of-factly, pursing her lips at me when I wince.
“You will take a meat pie, and you will tell my son that he is to see you home by noon. Your bones will be chilled by then, Petite Miette. No use in making yourself miserable, oui?”
I do not bother arguing with her, as Missus Fortue always gets her way when she puts her mind to it. So when she places a warm pie in my hands, I press a kiss to her cheek in thanks and let her shoo me away.
To her credit, I manage a few bites of the small pie before my stomach begins to writhe in discomfort. It is easier to swallow than most foods—Missus Fortue is an exceptional cook, and one that knows my tastes all too well—but it is, as always, not what the beast within me is yearning for.
Still, I wrap the rest of the pie in my handkerchief and tuck it in my pocket for later as I step into the back room of the bakery.
“Has the mad witch sent you to spy on me?” a voice calls from deeper in. “Pity on her, as you're the one more likely to get us into trouble.”
A snort escapes me, and I roll my eyes, stepping around a few shelves to find Louis at a large prepping table, boxing the morning’s bread.
His coif of blonde curls and the sharp cut of his roguishly handsome jaw are lightly dusted with flour, though not so much as his mother had been, and his smile upon seeing me is entirely too bright for so early in the morning.
“I would remind you that you had no complaints on my skills in espionage when I was sneaking us out of the schoolhouse because you found chasing Mr. Moreau’s sheep more entertaining than maths.”
To my constant relief, Missus Fortue’s son has never shown any sign of seeing things that do not wish to be seen like his mother does.
No, Louis Mathéo Fortue is, and always has been, a beautiful fool with no worry about anything the world may decide to throw in his direction.
It is a breath of fresh air most days, and a tiring annoyance on others, but Louis is the closest thing I can consider to a best friend.
And though he has his moments of handsome stupidity, I cannot help but relax at the sight of him.
“Non, non,” he disagrees, narrowing his eyes as he points a loaf of bread in my direction. “I had plenty of complaints when you had us crawlin’ through the walls to get out. Mama always cursed up a mighty storm when I came home with new tears in my trousers.”
“And papa always fixed them right up for you,” I counter with a grin. “But alas, non, she has not sent me to spy on you. I’ve been tasked with servitude today. It seems you cannot be trusted to handle deliveries alone, so I am at your beck and call for the morning orders.”
Louis chuckles at my dramatics and waves a hand toward the stack of boxes closest to him. “Well, who am I to deny less work, hm? These are the last of the orders, so if you’ll help me load up the cart, we can get started right away.”
“Sir, yes, sir."