Chapter 2 Now
Despite my exhaustion, sleep doesn’t come easily. I toss and turn in the strange bed, surprised to find no relief in its soft linens. I’m untethered without the sound of the waves lapping at Scopuli’s shore, without the ocean sloshing against the edges of my boat. Wherever I am, it’s far enough inland to hide these comforts from me. The house is still and silent.
Streaks of light eventually filter into the room from a window behind my bed. The air that slips between its shutters is cold, and I draw my blanket around my shoulders as I peer through them. A line of thatched-roofed cottages sit in view, and behind them, a timber wall so high that it’s impossible todiscern what the world holds on the other side of it. The architecture is dark and angular compared to the marbled palace of my youth, with exteriors stripped of any embellishments; these homes are purely functional. They look nothing like the warm mud-brick dwellings of mortals past. Are they a mirror of what lives inside their builders’ hearts?
People are already meandering past. Men with curious metal devices slung over their shoulders and conical hats on top of their heads, a woman with a basket of mushrooms resting on her hip. Many wear shades of brown and black, as muted as the dying earth beneath their feet. All slow their gait before this home, eyes lingering on the windows, no doubt trying to glimpse the strange woman who arrived the previous night. I pull back from the aperture before I’m spotted, sinking down into the mattress.
A light knock at my door catches me by surprise, and I lift my head in time to watch an unfamiliar woman slip inside. The sight of her takes my breath away. When was the last time I saw a woman? Alive, that is. My throat closes at the memory, and I shove those waterlogged corpses as far out of mind as possible. It must have been Ceres, perched on her golden throne, the same color as late autumn wheat. She’d been so furious that her anger formed its own entity, a dark shadow that twisted up the wall behind her. After all these years, I can still see it, feel it, as the shade shifted from beast to beast—first a wolf, then a bear, then some unknowable monster of teeth and claws, but always a predator bearing down on us.
At the time, I didn’t understand how rage could be so potent. Now I do.
This woman is nothing like Ceres. Her garb is plain, made of a simple gray linen, and wisps of blond hair escape from beneath a strange little white hat to delicately frame her thin face. Her eyes are a deep brown, and a dusting of freckles adorns her cheeks. She’s young but worn past her years. There are deep purple bags under her eyes, dark as bruises, and her limbs are bordering on too thin. To call her beautiful would be a stretch to most, but not to me—after all these years, she is a miracle. A tray of food is balanced on her left hip, and she kicks the door gently closed behind her. When she finds me sitting upright, she gasps with surprise. Is this the mystery woman who watched over me last night?
An unfamiliar voice dashes my hopes.
“Mistress! I didn’t expect to find you awake!” She shuffles over to set the tray delicately down on a small end table beside the bed and offers me a biscuit. “My name’s Margery Harvie. I’m the Bailies’ maid. Mistress Bailie told me all about you. How they found you on the beach last night with so much treasure…”
I look at the biscuit blankly, too stunned by her presence to move. Is it safe to eat? Attitudes toward wanderers varied among mortals the last time I interacted with them. Some treated travelers with respect, opening their homes and their pantries to those who could be sages, mystics, or even gods. Other groups ravaged and murdered those unfortunate enough to cross their path. What type of people do I find myself with now? The offering of food suggests the former, but humans have never been above poisoning. My stomach, unafraid of injury, gurgles loudly at the sight of food.
The maid’s expression crumples. “I know it’s hardly a worthy meal, but it’s all we have. Provisions are already low, and with winter so close…”
I still can’t bring myself to take it from her. What would become of Raidne and Pisinoe if I died now? And over something so foolish.
Realization washes over her features. She smiles softly, placing a warm hand on top of mine. The feeling of her palm, calloused by work, on my skin makes my heart leap into my throat. “It’s safe, mistress. Here, I’ll show you. They’re more palatable if you soak them in the soup.”
To the audible protest of my stomach, she cracks the biscuit in half, sending crumbs raining down into the steaming broth below. The liquid is a pale yellow and woefully empty, a mockery of Raidne’s soups during times of plenty, colorful creations packed with herbs, mushrooms, and meat. Saliva pools beneath my tongue at the memory.
Only after Margery’s swallowed her piece do I wolf down mine. The broth is tasteless, but at least it’s warm.
“What’s your name, mistress?”
It feels as if a piece of the hardtack is stuck in my throat, but the sensation’s caused by nerves. The importance of this moment isn’t lost on me. This is where my test truly begins. Up until now, my journey was passive. I climbed into the boat, and the boat brought me here. I was discovered on the shore and carried to this home. And now, finally, an actual person sits before me, asking me who I am and what I want. I try to gulp down the blockage as my hand finds the golden relic around my neck. The delicate oval pendant fits easily in my palm, though the sapphire in its center bites into my skin as anxiety tightens my grip around it. Will it translate my words for Margery’s ears like it does hers to mine?
Proserpina, please, let this work.
She’s the only god I know is listening.
“Thelxiope,” I say softly. Margery tilts her head to the side, considering the unfamiliar syllables. “But people call me Thelia.”
I don’t know what makes me offer the nickname to her—the same one spoken by Proserpina all those eons ago. Maybe it’s desperation to finally, after centuries, hear it again on the lips of someone new, spoken softly like a prayer. I crumple my brows in my best impression of confusion. “Where am I?”
“Oh, Mistress Thelia, forgive me! I—” The poor maid stumbles over her words, but I don’t mind—she understood me. She said my name. My skin tingles at the sound of it, remembering how it felt to have it whispered into my palms, against my neck, upon my lips.
Thelia.
“—You’re in Virginia Territory. In the City of Raleigh.”
My eyes glance toward the window. The town outside is a far cry from a city. Calling it an outpost would be too generous.
Margery reads the criticism on my face. “We’ve only been here a year and a half. This was previously just a small military colony, but—” Her mouth snaps closed suddenly. “But Mistress Bailie can explain all that later, once you’re feeling better.”
“Mistress Bailie?”
“The lady of the house. Her son, Thomas, brought you here to recover. They found you last night on the beach.”
“The beach?” I lace my voice with confusion; it’s not dissimilar from weaving promises into a song, though the effect is markedly less impressive.
Margery abruptly abandons her place at my side and motions toward the fireplace, where a large basin of water waits. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Come, can you stand?”
I nod and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Despite rising slowly, I stumble after my first few steps. This, unfortunately, isn’t an act. My body is still weak from my time at sea.
Margery rushes to my side and catches me in her arms. “Careful, mistress!”
She supports my weight to bring me to the basin and then, without a word, works to unfasten the dragonfly fibulae that clasp my gown closed at my shoulders. Seeing them makes me think of Pisinoe, the softness of her face as she fixed them in place the morning before I left.
My gown slides easily from my shoulders. The act feels symbolic, like I’m shedding my old self to be reborn once again, but there’s no joy in this.
Now I stand truly naked before her, save for the relic around my neck. The room is chilly, and my anatomy reflects it. Margery makes no indication that she notices and guides me into the tub, where warm water waits to envelop me. I savor its embrace as she wipes away the weeks of sweat and sea salt from my skin.
“Thank you,” I murmur softly, my speech languid. Despite everything, her touch is soothing.
“No need to thank me, Mistress Thelia. It’s my job.”
“Then I thank you for your kindness instead.”
A strange expression flickers in her eyes, and her delicate mouth parts ever so slightly before it falls closed again. I raise an eyebrow expectantly, but she stands quickly, hands brushing out her skirts. “I have new clothes for you. Mistress Bailie asked that you be dressed in something more…decent.”
My eyes wander to the stola still in the middle of the floor. I wouldn’t have called this style immodest before, but I can’t help but feel underdressed compared to Margery. She wears several layers, as if her skin is a thing that must be hidden at all costs.
She holds up a plain blue dress. I’ve never seen a piece of clothing look so depressing, and its true horrors aren’t revealed until I’m out of the bath and Margery slips it over my head and laces up its back.
I inhale sharply, surprised by the sudden constriction. I’ve made a mistake. This woman is trying to suffocate me, to kill me. I whirl around to meet her, my fingers like claws, my teeth bared—
“Mistress Thelia, please stand still,” Margery scolds gently before I’m upon her, and there’s something in her tone that softens me, but it’s too late. I already have her by the shoulders. Even in this form, I’m stronger than she is. I could crush her frail bones in my palms if I wished to, and she knows it. Her eyes become large, frightened disks. The fear is genuine. I’ve seen enough of it to know.
“I’m sorry, I…” I release her, holding up my hands in apology. I what? Thought she intended to strangle me? It sounds absurd now that the gravity of my mistake is looking me in the face. “…I didn’t know it would be so tight.”
The maid’s expression is strained, but she forces a nod. “No, I apologize. I should’ve warned you…” A silent, agonizing moment passes. “May I continue?”
My hands fall to my sides in defeat as she finishes her handiwork. The fabric is heavy and itchy against my skin, but somehow, the final product isn’t as uncomfortable as I feared it would be. I can still breathe.
“I really am sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she replies, though her voice suggests she isn’t so sure. “Traveling all alone, it…it must have been frightening.”
She reaches to brush a stray lock of hair behind my left ear. The act is so gentle that I bite my lip to keep from tearingup. It’s something Pisinoe would do. Pisinoe, who, in myplace, would never have lunged at an unsuspecting woman.
But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Raidne would have torn her apart.
“You’re quite a beauty.” Her eyes are somewhere far away, like she’s watching a bruised sunset sinking into the sea, and her voice contains the smallest touch of sorrow. Ah, how little has changed—drawing the attention of men is still a dangerous game to play.
A gruff voice barks an order from down below. The floor muffles the exact contents of the call but can’t mask its irritation.
The maid bristles, then moves to collect the empty tray from my bedside. “That’ll be Master Thomas wanting his breakfast. I’ll let Mistress Bailie know you’re ready.”
“Can I come with you?” I ask, but Margery has already retreated into the hallway, and my answer is the thunk of my door falling shut. She’s already gone, drawn by Thomas’s yell with more speed than men are drawn into the waves by our song.
Our song . Without the wings, without the feathers, without the magic, can I still claim it as my own? The gods gave us those forms to find Proserpina, and when we failed, they did not take them back. The dark magic that wove itself into our voices came later with Ceres’s curse. But our song, our beautiful song, has always belonged to us. Raidne, Pisinoe, Thelxiope: the fallen handmaidens to the Goddess of Spring, banished to Scopuli’s shores with the voices of Muses and the bodies of monsters.
Sirenum Scopuli. That’s what the sailors in the early days called our island home: the cliffs of the sirens. Scopuli for the literal cliffs, but also as a metaphor for something to overcome. Few did, save for those who were clever enough to stuff their ears with wax.
The first time I saw that wild piece of land, my hands were bound, and my mouth was gagged. But I left Scopuli free from restraints, blessed by a different goddess than the one who cursed me, and imbued with different magic—a human body in place of the monstrous one. That will last only five more turns of the moon.
Which means I must hurry.
Margery’s final words implied that Mistress Bailie would be my next visitor, but I don’t need anyone’s permission to leave this room. Margery didn’t lock me in. The wooden door creaks in protest, but I ignore it. In the pale light of morning, details emerge that darkness concealed last night: that the sconces that hold the candles are gold, that there’s a plush scarlet rug that pads the floor.
I extend my leg across the threshold to let my toes caress the rug’s fibers. They’re soft and warm beneath my bare foot, enticing me forward. Thomas’s voice floats up through the floorboards. Holding my breath, I take my first step down the stairs to the main floor. The weight of the unfamiliar gown catches me by surprise and I nearly lose my footing, but miraculously, I find my balance. I release my captured breath and continue, emerging into a large kitchen. Margery’s domain.
She’s folded over an iron pot, stirring furiously. Herbs hang from wooden beams that line the ceiling above as they do on Scopuli, although there are admittedly fewer varieties here. In fact, the entire kitchen is surprisingly bare. There are no baskets overflowing with dandelion greens, no salted meat spread across the table in the room’s center, no bins of root vegetables overflowing in its corners. Margery gingerly ladles some broth into a clean bowl, then exits the kitchen through a door on my right, too distracted by her current task to notice my presence on the landing. Directly ahead, on the opposite side of the wooden table that anchors the room, is a door flanked by two windows. My heart trips over a beat—it’s the only thing separating me from the rest of this strange world, and it beckons.
I rush across the kitchen and push open a window’s shutters to peer into the streets from a different angle. Here, the people who pass don’t linger; this entrance is for servants, and they don’t expect to spot me in its windows.
A cloaked woman floats past, glancing in my direction for a split second to reveal a flash of pale skin, lips the color of wine, and curls as black as midnight. My chest constricts, and an overwhelming array of emotions threaten to swallow me: longing, mostly, and deep regret, but also a tantalizing thrill.
Proserpina?
How her eyes would sparkle as I chased her through her mother’s hedge mazes. It was one of her favorite games, running through the labyrinth, her hair a sea of black billowing in her wake, always just out of reach. I’ll never forget how mischief slithered between the green and gold flecks in her irises when I caught her, or how warm her body felt pressed against mine. I was never happier than when I was wrapped in her arms, in the safety of the world we built for ourselves. More than anything, I miss those moments after our passion’s blaze. When she’d hold me to her chest and stroke my hair, when we were equals. To know another person’s heart, and to have them know yours, is a gift not many are given. I never believed I’d be foolish enough to think I’d find that again, but…
Proserpina’s visited me in dreams, and I’ve heard her voice on the cusp of them. Is it possible she’s discovered a way to somehow be here? That this village is only a new maze to pursue her through?
My hand flies to the door’s latch, but a cold voice addresses me before I can dash into the streets after her.
“Going somewhere?”
Its owner materializes on the stairwell, still cast in shadow, but there’s no denying that it’s the same woman I heard through the floorboards last night. When she descends into the kitchen, the first feature that emerges from the darkness is her pale yellow braid, the color of early spring daffodils. Gray strands entwine themselves with the blond, but despite her age, she carries herself with the air of a queen. Her eyes are an icy blue, and I recognize that cutting stare. It’s one I’ve made countless times over the years: She’s assessing if I’m a threat, if she can handle me. Her lips curl up in a cold smile; so, she believes she can. “It’s good to see you’re awake. My name is—”
“Mistress Bailie,” I respond coolly.
She bristles at my interruption, which wasn’t entirely intentional. I’m so used to finishing Raidne’s and Pisinoe’s thoughts or having them finish mine. But this woman isn’t kin, and she interprets the interjection as insolence. Shit. I don’t need to make an enemy of her. Not yet, anyway. I lower my eyes to the floor and force myself away from the door, but each step into the kitchen, away from her, drives a sword through my heart.
“Forgive me, I’m not myself.” My aching legs sway beneath me, and the truth of my words softens her accusatory stare into irritation. Thankfully, she decides that my rudeness isn’t worth berating me over. Not when she doesn’t know who I am, or why I’m here. My boat filled with centuries of wealth has bought me a little safety, if for no other reason than she’s desperate to know where it came from.
She sweeps into the kitchen. “It’s good to see you looking decent. You arrived dressed like a nymph from some sort of tragedy. That, or a harlot.”
My lips curl into a forced smile at her intended slight, which is a curious choice given the relatively opulent home I find myself in now. Of course, it doesn’t compare to Ceres’s palace from my childhood, but Mistress Bailie stands before me in a maroon silken gown, her slender neck dripping with pearls. This woman is wealthy enough to employ servants, and compared to the townsfolk I saw through the windows this morning, it’s clear that the Bailies are richer than most. Unless women are allowed to make their own wealth in this land, she sold her body in some way for this life. Or it was sold for her, I caution myself. But Mistress Bailie struts around the kitchen with the confidence of a woman who’s only ever dominated; her hypocrisy is stunning.
Before I can reply, Margery bursts back into the kitchen, an empty bowl in hand. “Mistress Bailie, good morning! Thomas is requesting your— Ah! Mistress Thelia, is there something I can do for you?”
“No, no, Margery. I was simply stretching my legs.” Already, I regret burdening her with my presence. Her brows pinch together with alarm. She’s unsure of who she should address first: her employer or the mysterious newcomer.
“That will be Lady Thelia, Margery.”
I recognize this voice from last night, too. Low and penetrating, it makes my skin crawl at the memory of his hands on my body. Thomas.
He darkens the same doorway that Margery just spilled in through, no more than a menacing shadow before Margery’s hearth illuminates him. He has his mother’s severe cheekbones, and her fierce pale blue eyes, though their effect is different. Her gaze studies and catalogs; his devours.
“Lady?” Mistress Bailie repeats, a thin yellow brow cocked. I didn’t register the different title until now, but from the way her face contorts to try to hide her displeasure, I glean that lady falls above mistress. Who’s the slattern now?
Raidne’s letter, the one we spent an entire day composing, is clutched tightly in Thomas’s hands. My sisters sang its contents into the parchment, hoping to imbue some trace of their voices’ magic into the ink, to charm whoever found me into understanding our words. We didn’t know if it would work, but Thomas’s hungry expression reveals that it did. Mistress Bailie snatches it from him the moment he offers it.
I can barely breathe as her eyes dart across our tale, but the letter is only one piece of the deception. Men adore weakthings, after all—either to save or to crush. Which will Thomas choose?
“What’s that?” I allow myself to draw closer to Mistress Bailie, peeking over the paper’s edge, as if I don’t have every single line of its ink memorized. “Was that with me…?”
“You don’t know?” Thomas’s question is loud with surprise.
My teeth find my lower lip and tug it between them in a display of embarrassment. His hungry stare follows them, then lingers on my mouth. How predictable.