Chapter 16 Now
16
Now
The City of Raleigh, filled with eyes loyal to the Bailies, doesn’t offer many places to hide from Thomas. But the forest does. Now that I’ve discovered their bloody secret, the trees grant their protection, but the comfort I once felt here is gone. These oaks, with their green winter leaves, remind me that I’m an outsider here, haunting the paths created by others. As I explore them, I find myself wishing for a miracle—the gentle curve of a trail opening to my meadow, erupting with lilies.
Instead, in the hush of the late winter woods, I’m granted a different one.
I’ve been spared from Eve’s curse for over two months now. When I first heard the turn of phrase a few days after my arrival, I didn’t understand it, but Cora’s Bible instruction offered the explanation:
I will greatly increase thy sorrows, and thy conceptions. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be subject to thine husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Incredible that despite the passage of millennia, Cora’s god behaves in the same petulant ways that ours did. They all hate being bested by men, but they absolutely despise being bested by women. Like Jove, her god is laughably self-absorbed. Banishing his children from Eden was the only way to regain control, to ensure unending worship. It was a crafty decision, but it hardly inspires me to look to him for solace.
It seems all gods know that enlightened women are forces to be reckoned with, and that idea trickled down through the centuries. It’s why Cora is the only woman here who can read.
And so they banish us to the domestic realm, but that isn’t enough. Eve’s cursed, after all. Her ability to create life is never regarded as a gift. It’s a punishment, a way to make us ashamed of our achievements, heartbroken over the amazing feats our bodies can achieve.
Women can bear children.
And here, I’m a woman, too. In the safety of the trees, I cradle the swell in my belly, a child too small yet to be noticed by anyone else. The hours pass quickly with fantasies of returning to Scopuli, where there’s no husband to rule my future. Instead, we three will shower her with love and protect her from all the evils in the world. And there are so many evils.
Three weeks after his last visit to my bedroom, Thomas grows tired of waiting. When I wake to the groan of the door creaking open, I know what comes for me.
The chair I’ve propped against it does little to keep him at bay. If anything, the added obstacle only emboldens him as he shoves the weight of his body against the door to push it away. Within the span of a few heartbeats, he’s inside the room, taking in the space through hungry, narrow eyes. When he finds me in my bed, he pauses to see if I’m awake. I keep quiet. Perhaps he’ll leave if he thinks I’m asleep, finding no sport in the act. My silent prayer goes unanswered.
“Ah, there you are.” Though he’s still across the room, the scent of ale hits my nostrils.
“What do you want, Thomas?” I try to keep my voice even, to project strength.
“You know what I want,” he growls, and it’s true. I do. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. I don’t have the strength to beat him back, and I fear for the child’s life if he gets too rough with me. Instead, I lift the covers in hopes that my compliance will make it go faster.
He grins, a terrible thing to behold, then pulls off his shirt and undoes his trousers. Before I know it, he’s on top of me, lifting the hem of my nightdress to my waist so he can force himself into my most sacred space.
My fingers dig into the flesh of his back. The indignity of it all. If I were truly human, my heart wouldn’t be able to bear this. How he spreads my limbs apart like it’s nothing to invade the root of me, like my body was always just his to use. How could the gods be so cruel, placing our souls inside vessels that so easily crack? But Proserpina was a lesson—the gods are the cruelest of us all.
When it’s over, Thomas collapses on top of me. I feel his grin against my ear, and my fingernails dig deeper. He mistakes my grasp for pleasure, and in a way, he’s not wrong. But what he, this man who didn’t ask, assumes is from his body is actually from the image, a vision, that’s appeared in my mind.
My fingers are no longer fingers; they’re claws. The dark blue ocean unfurls beneath me, where Thomas’s head bobs desperately up from beneath the water only for a wave to force him below once more. Letting him drown is tempting, but no, his sins are too grave to simply allow him to sink into the depths. That would be a mercy, one Thomas hasn’t earned. Instinct takes hold, and I dive for him. Talons meet flesh, piercing the skin and digging deep into his muscle. He screams as his body splits apart, and saltwater rushes into his open mouth, as if even the sea is tired of hearing his voice. With a single thrust, I heave him from the waves, and we begin rising, rising, rising, until we’re a silhouette against the sun. See my strength, I think. It was here this whole time.
He pulls out of me, and when he does, his eyes rush over the nakedness of my lower half, his conquest. He smiles. This final act of injustice seals his fate. In my vision, I let go. His body falls like a stone.
My body quakes with pleasure as I watch him shatter upon the cliffs.
The fifth full moon graces the sky, and I pray for spring. There’s nothing else that can be done, no more preparations that can be made until the weather turns. But though each passing day loosens winter’s jaws around our necks, its last weeks don’t leave the city unscathed. The day-to-day tedium is punctuated with a staccato of deaths as Morta’s shears sever thread after thread. Though most of the souls she calls to the Underworld belong to the city’s poorer settlers, the wealthy aren’t immune—Cora’s father is among them.
I agonize over her dramatic reversal of fortune. Without abrother, a father, or a betrothed, she’s all alone here. It’s a dangerous position for a woman to find herself in, and I feel useless in the face of a world that continues to take from those I love. When will their sacrifices finally be enough? Ithink of our years banished. I think of Job from Cora’s Bible.
I have my answer.
Losing Cora severs me from the rest of the women, save for Margery. Even Emme keeps her distance, unable to reconcile what I’ve stolen. Margery is kind when I encounter her preparing meals in the kitchen or hanging laundry on the line outside, but her days are filled with chores, and she doesn’t need me following her around like a fawn on its mother’s heels. She’d never admit as much, but I notice how her muscles tense in my presence. Despite the time we spend together, she still sees me as royalty, and she can’t fully relax when I am around. It hurts, but I remember what it felt like to stand before Ceres. There was such incredible beauty in her power, but that same power also sparked fear: One misstep could lead to an eternal exile, to a monstrous metamorphosis. I was right to be afraid of her, and Margery is right to be afraid of me.
I hoped Thomas’s appetite would be sated for a few weeks, but I’m barely granted one before he forces his way into my bedroom again. This time, I’m keenly aware of the blood coursing through the artery on his neck. Its pulsing is a clock counting the seconds of my violation. My eyes trace its trail to the place on his shoulder right above where his clavicle protrudes. The muscle there is flexed as he holds himself over me, and without thinking, I run a finger along the seam I’d cut if he were one of our sailors. What does he look like underneath his skin? What does he taste like?
I lift my head from the mattress and press my mouth to that quivering muscle. Thomas vibrates with pleasure. My lips part so that my teeth can find his skin, and I revel in the soft moan that escapes him, in the fact he has no idea what’s coming.
I clamp my jaws down as hard as I can.
The moan cracks into a scream, and his keenly attuned self-preservation instinct tries to retreat from my grasp. But I bite harder, my hands snaking around his sides so my fingernails can claw into the flesh on his back. Only once I taste hot, slick copper on my tongue do I release him, and my head hits the pillow with a contented sigh. Thomas stares down at me in shock, unsure of what to make of my bloodstained lips, my gory smile. He can’t know that I’m imagining what he’ll taste like cooked into one of Raidne’s stews, but I am, and the thought makes me laugh. This time, he doesn’t linger in my bed to gloat. For the first time in this body, I feel a surge of power as he scurries from my quarters to lock himself back in his own.
I relive the fantasy of dropping him onto Castle’s spires over and over again, delighting in how his face contorts with horror as he falls through the air, how his body slams into the rocks with a singular sickening crack. But the best part of this daydream is watching the light fade from his eyes as his blood spills down over the stones, a sacrifice for me alone.
The physical toll of growing a child should be another reason to despair. Aurora’s light no longer wakes me in the mornings. That task has fallen to my stomach, which spends the early hours before sunrise trying valiantly to keep down the previous night’s meal. It’s a battle that’s often lost, forcing me into the predawn chill to empty my chamber pot before Margery can discover how frequently it’s filled with vomit. My breasts grow tender to the touch, but despite my body’s increased sensitivity, I revel in this transformation. For millennia, I aged only until a fresh ship brought more sailors. I grew so familiar with the process: how my skin would sag, my hair gray, my feathers thin. But these changes are entirely new, and the fact I never believed they could be mine makes them all the sweeter.
If I’m honest with myself, Cora’s distance is for the best. Ialready struggle to avoid daydreaming of us crossing the channel to the mainland, heading northwest into the wilderness. The tiny part of an impenetrable forest where we would carve out a place for ourselves, where we’d build a tiny cottage beneath the protection of the pines, and where we’d raise this baby together.
These are fantasies I never dared entertain about Proserpina. Didn’t I always know somewhere, deep down, that our love was ephemeral? Something to be enjoyed in our youth before Ceres found her a husband. Isn’t that why my thoughts of her were always immediate? How we’d spend our mornings, our days, our nights. They never wandered to what our futures might hold.
The same barrier doesn’t exist with Cora. She’s all alone, just as I am, and if I could convince her to, what would keep us from escaping together?
That’s the danger of dreaming—it’s the same danger as our song. It tantalizes with a glimpse of the forbidden, assures you it’s possible. And then it offers the details you ache for most: what the first snow looks like in that little cabin, flakes shimmering in the evergreens that envelop us, on Cora’s long, dark lashes, on my sweet child’s little nose. The picture it paints is so clear that I smell the logs burning in the hearth. I hear the combined music of their laughter as Cora bounces the baby on her knee. I feel the warmth of us curled together on a pallet, buried beneath a pile of furs and quilts. I see the first verdant kiss of spring pushing through the frozen forest floor, breaking through the white blanket that seemed so impenetrable only a few months before.
It’s a destiny that doesn’t — that can’t —exist.
The promise of such a future would drive anyone into thesea.
An ache in my lower back wakes me from an afternoon nap. I pull myself from the bed with a groan, arms stretching over my head. A gentle knock on the door signals Margery’s outside, and I hobble across the room to push away the chair and open it for her. She smiles weakly at me as she enters, sidestepping my form to place a tray on my bedside table: a cup of weak tea and some salted meat. My stomach sours at the sight; I know I should be grateful, but the settlers have taken to eating rats.
“Thelia!” she gasps, raising a finger to my nightgown. “You’re bleeding!”
My face crumples in confusion at her words. I can’t be, I almost say aloud, catching myself at the very last moment before the words tumble over my lips. I whirl to face the bed. Sure enough, a dark crimson smear stains the white linens. A hand rushes to my belly instinctively, and the room begins to spin. I take a seat in the chair beside the fireplace to prevent myself from collapsing onto the floor.
I fall silent. Each breath is slow, measured, as if breathing too quickly will shake the babe free. Am I losing her? I have no one to ask. I bury my face in a palm, turning to the fire that still burns from this morning to hide my distress from Margery.
Her duties should distract her from analyzing my demeanor, but she makes no move to strip the soiled bedding.
“Stay here. I’ll get help,” she says, and then disappears from the room in a hurry. As soon as the door falls closed behind her, I drop onto the floor, swinging my legs up onto the seat of the chair to press my hips off the ground, womb to the sky, as if I can keep this child inside of me with the same downward force that makes fruit fall to the earth instead of floating away into the heavens.
Maybe such bleeding is normal, I repeat to myself over and over, trying to calm my racing heart. I think of the men on Scopuli, how the blood poured from their wounds more quickly when they panicked. Does losing a child work the same way? Will my anxiety quicken the process? Despite my best efforts, my breathing grows haggard. The more I try to relax, the more flustered I become.
“Please be all right,” I whisper to my belly. “You’re all I have.”
I stay in that position for what feels like hours, waiting forMargery to return. Who can possibly come to my aid? If she brings Master Sutton, the closest person to a doctor on Roanoke, what will my punishment be? I reach between my legs tenderly only to find my fingertips stained crimson with fresh blood. Whatever bleeding occurred while I slept hasn’t stopped.
“We are almost home, sweet babe. Hold on.” The words are both a promise and a plea.
The sound of frantic footsteps up the stairs makes a cry catch in my throat. I try to push myself back up, but the door bursts open before I can hide that I’m curled up on the ground like a crumpled nightdress. I don’t raise my chin to meet the new arrival just yet—shame and fear bring tears to my eyes. What a damning position to be found in: sprawled across the floor, clutching my belly as red seeps out from between my legs.
I barely have a chance to register it’s her before she’s upon me, green eyes wide with alarm as she rushes to my side to cup my face gently in her hands. When I open my mouth to speak, her beautiful black waves encircle our faces. For a moment, there’s only us. The sight of Cora after all this time is so overwhelming that all I can do is stare up at her, mouth agape. I reach a hand up to touch her cheek, but my muscles seize, and I scream from the shock of it. Margery hovers on the threshold, looking over her shoulder anxiously.
“Shhh…” Cora murmurs, brushing my hair behind my ears and out of my face. The tendrils are slick with sweat. “We need to take you to Sybil. She’ll know what to do.”
“All right,” I say, the words more sobbed than spoken.
“You must go quickly,” Margery interrupts. “If Master Thomas finds out about any of this, he’ll kill the child himself.”