Chapter 2 #2
“Lady Thelia’s having some trouble remembering what happened to her,” Margery says.
“Was there anything else with me?”
The question brings Thomas’s eyes back to mine, and he laughs, delighted by it. “Come, I’ll show you. Perhaps it will jog your memory.”
“Thomas—” Mistress Bailie starts, but her son hasn’t taken last night’s conversation to heart. He’s already lost in the dazzling relief of my smile, and when he extends his hand to me, I accept it, trying to ignore how badly my heart aches.
Leave this place, my heart begs, as the image of that cloaked woman comes to mind. Go find her.
But I can’t. To abandon the Bailies’ home in this moment would be to fail my sisters. Thomas’s grip tightens around my hand.
Mistress Bailie follows on our heels as her son leads me from the cottage’s kitchen into a large main room where a polished wooden table gleams before another brick fireplace. It holds a cataloged fraction of my trove, all glittering with the fire’s reflection.
“We found you last night,” he says. “You washed ashore in a little boat filled with treasure—”
“Filled?” I ask, unable to help myself. The riches before us are impressive, surely, but they wouldn’t fill much of anything.
“The rest is locked away upstairs. For safekeeping.”
I nod, as if this doesn’t essentially amount to theft.
“I’ll admit, I thought you were dead. That this was all part of an elaborate funerary ritual…”
My feet carry me to the table’s edge, and I let my fingers trace over the familiar items—the golden openwork bracelet with its elaborate lattices and shiny pearls, the beaded emerald necklace, the pile of gold coins of all different origins.
“…but little did I realize that this was all—”
“A dowry,” I finish for him, realization dripping from my voice as I pluck a silver ring from the hoard. “My dowry. I remember now.”
The lie spills easily from my lips, though I suppose it should. I had all of early autumn to practice.
“Princess Thelia.” Mistress Bailie finally speaks, lowering the letter to her side. “Who left a place called Scopuli in search of a husband.”
The corner of her mouth twitches into a fanciful grin, and she drops into a deep curtsy. She’s no better than the women who clung to Ceres’s side, fanning her with palm leaves and feeding her grapes in thinly veiled attempts to garner her favor. In fairness, Ceres was generous in those early days, so their efforts were typically rewarded. A correctly timed glass of wine guaranteed a bountiful harvest; a perfectly recited poem, a pregnancy. Back then, she’d even smile when she saw Proserpina take my hand in hers. True smiles, as warm as summer soil. Those golden days seem impossible now. After Proserpina bled, Ceres’s kindness evaporated. Where I was once a treasured confidant, a childhood crush, I became a liability to her plans for Proserpina’s future. But what Ceres never understood was that Proserpina didn’t need me to whisper poison into her ears about her mother’s preferred matches; Proserpina hated them all on her own.
To fall out of favor with Ceres was to fall out of favor with the women who served her—women I’d known for years, friends to my mother and my aunts, who suddenly refused to meet my eyes. As if I were blight on crops that would spread to them on contact. They made me sick then, and Mistress Bailie makes me sick now.
Her bowed head hides her face, though the way her knuckles turn white as she grips her skirts betrays that she’s not as deferential as she’d like me to believe. “Forgive me, my lady, I had no idea.”
“We must celebrate the arrival of such a distinguished guest! Mother, fetch Margery and tell her the news—tonight, we’ll throw a feast in Lady Thelia’s honor!”
The only evidence of Mistress Bailie’s irritation at his order is a smile that’s slightly too wide. “Excellent idea, Thomas. Why don’t you go share the exciting news with the Council?”
“The Council?” I ask.
“The six of us who govern this colony.”
“I’m coming with you. I want to explain—”
Thomas holds up a hand to silence me, then extends it to Mistress Bailie for the letter. “No need, Lady Thelia. Everything we need to know is right here.”
“But—”
“There will be plenty of time for business. Relax today, and ready yourself for a celebration tonight.”
I don’t have time to protest before Thomas is gone.
“A princess!” Mistress Bailie’s voice slices through the air. “I can hardly believe our luck.”
“I understand this must be strange,” I offer, this time my tone a little kinder. I allow a shred of vulnerability to coat my words, trusting that she’ll latch on to it as something she can manipulate. Antagonizing her, while tempting, would be a mistake. If I push her too far, too quickly, she’ll gladly lock me away. “It’s been an extraordinary couple of weeks for me as well.”
“I can only imagine,” she responds measuredly. “Given what you’ve been through, you should return to your room and rest. Tonight will be a big night.”
I look behind me to the kitchen, to the door that offered such a tantalizing promise: the flash of pomegranate lips, the spark of green eyes. “I’d really love to see more of the city—”
“Absolutely not, my lady. After the journey you’ve had, you must gather your strength.” The words alone are friendly enough, but I hear the secret meaning layered beneath them: You won’t cause me any trouble. Do you understand?
Back in the safety of my quarters, I pull a chair to the window. If I can only search for her through this small aperture, then so be it; I’ll do it.
The slightest movement above its frame catches my attention. A tiny spider weaves a web in the corner of the ceiling. Her movements are delicate, as if it’s yarn she spins and not a net. She looks like her sisters on Scopuli, and in this strange new place, her familiarity is reassuring. I smile. I’ve always admired the gracile beauty of their spindle legs, the plump roundness of their bodies. I’ve always admired their cunning.
I’ve seen humans recoil from spiders, disturbed by their craft. They’ve tricked themselves into believing there’s no honor in how these arachnids feed themselves, building traps and lying in wait, but they never bother to analyze their own actions through the same lens. After all, they eat animals bred too docile to ever imagine death at their hands. Where’s the honor in that?
I admire the spider’s ingenuity, and perhaps envy it a little. As a predator myself, I feel like its method is divine, as if whatever lands in its web was destined to end there. Then again, we must have seemed divine—no, profane—to those we lured to shore, with the voices of angels and the bodies of monsters.
The divine, the profane. They’re two sides of the same coin.
The marble hall of Ceres’s throne room is barren, save for the boughs of dead poppy stalks that still adorn its walls. Their petals, once red as blood, collect in decaying piles along the hall’s edges. No new blooms have grown these past few weeks to replace them, and Ceres refuses to take them down. The flowers’ shriveled corpses serve as a reminder of what was lost.
What I lost.
I swallow hard, risking a glance to Pisinoe beside me. I’ve never seen the hall like this, so devoid of life, so solemn. This place that has always been a joyous one, where music constantly plays, and ambrosia always pours. But without Proserpina, it’s a tomb.
The Lady of Grain perches on her golden throne, and my sisters and I drop to our knees before her, folding our wings to our backs and pressing our foreheads to the cool marble floor in submission. My face flushes hot with shame.
“Well?” Her voice reverberates through the hall’s columns. It’s laced with anger, yes, but also the smallest dash of hope—that’s what brings the tears to my eyes.
“We couldn’t find her,” Raidne begins.
“We scoured the earth; we spanned the sea…” Pisinoe continues.
It’s up to me to deliver the final blow. “But she’s…she’s gone.”
We moan in turn, telling the entire tale together, one picking up when another fails. Our voices are a song, its tone silvery, tiny bells caressed by a gentle breeze. We pour our heartbreak into it, but, though it may win us some sympathy among Ceres’s court, it does nothing to soften the lady’s anger.
“You three had one task, and that was to protect her. And when you failed, I gave you a chance to redeem yourselves by finding her.” Rage brings her to her feet, and my eyes fall closed as I steel myself for what’s to come. She’s already cursed the land—entire fields of crops lost to blight, both men and livestock murdered in fits of rage. How quickly the giver of life can take it all away.
“And now you grovel before me having failed again.”
“We went to Lake Avernus, my lady, but the door to the Underworld wouldn’t open for us—” Raidne begins, but Ceres cuts her off with a cruel laugh.
“How is it that mortals are constantly wandering into Dis’s realm, but you three can’t find your way in? Not that it matters now. That vile god tricked my sweet child into eating from his garden. Six pomegranate seeds, and now not even Jove can bring her back to me.”
My hands press back into the marble floor to steady me as the world begins to spin.
She ate the food of the dead?
Finding her will be impossible now. A whimper escapes from my lips before I can stop it, and the lady’s focus is on me once more.
“You foolish girl!” Ceres shrieks down at me, and I drop my gaze as terror digs its claws into my heart.
“My lady, I’m sorry…!”
“How many times did I warn Proserpina that your”—she sputters, as if she cannot bear to name our relationship— “your childish infatuation would hurt her? But she wouldn’t listen!”
Infatuation. The gross simplification of what Proserpina and I shared brings fresh tears to my eyes. Was it merely infatuation all those times she whispered poetry into my ears to soothe me when I was afraid? Merely infatuation that let us learn the languages of each other’s thoughts in the curves of the other’s shoulders? The various cadences of the other’s breath? Until that night, we were a single soul split across two bodies. And now, without her, I am only half of the person I once was. I rise to my monstrous feet, talons scraping against the marble floor. “My lady, I love her.”
“And look what that love got her. Imprisonment in a world of death and darkness. How is that fair?” she spits.
“It’s not.”
A flicker of surprise ripples across the ravaged goddess’s features, and for one glorious moment, I believe that maybe, just maybe, Ceres’s fury might soften.
Except, of course, it was Proserpina who could conjure that rare miracle of quelling her mother’s fits. Without her, Ceres’s surprise transforms into a violent rictus grin. “So let’s make it fair, then.”
“My lady, please, Thelxiope didn’t mean to offend…” Pisinoe rises to her feet as well, hands clasped in capitulation, but Ceres raises a palm, and Pisinoe’s plea dies in her throat.
“I banish you three to your own prison. Like Proserpina’s, it will be filled with death and unspeakable darkness. And when I decide I’ve lost pleasure in watching you suffer for what you’ve cost me, you’ll shrivel away slowly, across eons, until there’s nothing left of you but dust.”
“M-my lady…!” Suddenly, I feel every piece of this large, lumbering body, awash in the horror that Ceres means to leave us in them. Means for us to die as monsters.
“And if some mortal hero brings me your heads before then, I’ll hang his image in the stars.” Ceres sits back on her throne, her muscles relaxing as her anger dissipates. Our sentence has brought her peace, which means there will be no reversing it. “Now remove them from my sight.”
Hands with the strength of manacles clamp around my wrists and drag me across the floor.
“No, my lady, please!” Pisinoe pleads.
And Raidne, still prostrating on her knees before the goddess, begs, “Please, my lady, forgive us!”
But Ceres only laughs.
The weight of a hand on my shoulder jolts me awake, and I nearly topple from the wooden chair I’d dragged to the window’s edge.
Margery jumps back. “I’m sorry, my lady! I didn’t mean to frighten you!”
I shake my head to banish the dream and turn my attention to the window, where the wooden shutters remain pushed open. Where I waited desperately for another glimpse of her. Where my traitorous body defied me once more and succumbed to its exhaustion.
Margery steps between me and the view and draws the shutters closed. “It’s time to dress…I let you sleep as long as I could, but we don’t want to be late. Everyone will be waiting.”
This time, she ushers me into multiple layers of garments, naming each component, but my tired mind can’t hold on to them. It’s the emerald gown that sits atop the rest that steals my attention—its fabric buttery beneath my fingertips: silk, no doubt. As soon as my arms are inside the sleeves, Margery laces it closed. A clever way to ensure I’ll never escape without her help. She collects my hair in a braid and pins it at the base of my neck, then steps back to admire her handiwork.
Even I can’t deny the final result is breathtaking.
“You look beautiful, Lady Thelia.”
“Are we finished, then?” I ask, hoping desperately that the answer is yes. These clothes are far more complicated than the garments of my youth, and by the time we’re done, the sun has disappeared from the sky, leaving a deep orange stain in its wake. It’s the same hue as the lily I found this summer, and its memory brings a sad smile to my face. If everyone is going to be there tonight, will she? My stomach is suddenly full of wings, and without a task assigned to them, my hands brush out my skirts.
“Almost,” Margery assures me, interrupting my reverie. Inspiration flashes across her eyes, and she arranges my fibulae into my hair. My fingers reach back to brush each dragonfly delicately, thankful for the one piece of familiarity in this entirely foreign, though not wholly uncomfortable, style of dress. Finally, I’m decent.
“Mistress Bailie and Sir Thomas have already left. Let’s join them,” Margery says.
I leave the house for the first time since I was carried into it. The pointed roofs of the surrounding cottages cast sinister shadows that spill onto one another’s walls and into the streets. Can buildings be vicious? These stand at attention, sentinels keen to defend their builders. My stomach twists at the thought. Somewhere in the distance, a blackbird caws, heralding winter’s arrival. I shiver in the gloaming, cheeks flushing with nerves, and look over my shoulder at the Bailie home once more. It’s like all the other cottages here, but the Bailies’ is the only structure that stands two stories tall. Something about the way it towers over all the others is almost perverse, and my gait draws me closer to Margery.
“That’s the meetinghouse.” The maid points to a large building at the end of the street, and I am thankful for the distraction. “It’s where we hold services, but also where we celebrate.”
It’s painted white and has two rows of tiny square windows adorning its facade. Between them sits a large wooden door. Light spills forth onto the street, and a cacophony of voices follows it, like thunder trailing in the wake of lightning. My trembling hands remember that the last time I appeared before a hall of people, it ended in my banishment, but my fluttering heart tells me tonight is different. This crowd is boisterous, composed of booming laughter and the clinking of glasses, and even—my heart swells to hear it—the notes of music. But my mood is quickly dampened by the article pinned to the door:
Laws Divine, Moral, and Martial of the City of Raleigh
No man may speak impiously or maliciously against the holy and blessed Trinity or against the known Articles of Christian faith, upon pain of death.
No man shall use any traitorous words against her Majesty’s Person or royal authority, upon pain of death.
No man shall commit the horrible and detestable sins of Sodomy, upon pain of death…
“Are you ready?”
Margery’s voice interrupts me before I can read the rest, though the first three are enough for my palms to grow slick with sweat. But despite the fear that tightens my throat, my dream is still fresh in my mind—my sisters’ faces as we were torn from the only home we had ever known. How no one, not even our parents, spoke in our defense. Even then, I’d already promised myself a thousand times over that if I ever had the chance to right what happened, to see her again, I’d take it without hesitating. I nod.
Margery pushes the door open, and light and music spill forth to greet us. My eyes flutter as they try to accept the sudden brightness. For the faintest moment, when the room’s details remain obscured by white, I almost see the willowy nymphs and muscled demigods of Ceres’s palace in their forms. But then, of course, my vision adjusts, and the ghosts of my past are gone.
In their place, three men pluck at oblong stringed instruments in the center of the room. Another blows on a conical one made of some sort of metal. I don’t recognize these variations of lutes and pipes, but the melody is surprisingly pleasant. The room is so enchanted by its notes that no one notices Margery beckon me forward. I cross inside and scan the scene before me. Nearly one hundred people fill the hall, and to my surprise and relief, most of the faces belong to men. I hadn’t expected the ratio to be so striking, but there are only twenty or so women and perhaps ten children scattered throughout a sea of beards, heavy brows, and thick jaws. My heart races at the sight of them all—there are more than enough here to save my sisters, and for the first time since arriving, I allow myself to find comfort in fate. For once, it finally seems to be on my side, though it’s hard to relax in this form. Longing for my old body floods me, a twist so bitter it sours my stomach. To miss that monstrous frame, that prison of feathers and talons…but it was powerful. It kept me safe. If these men decided to, they could tear me apart.
My eyes scan the crowd for her.
Please, Proserpina. Don’t let them tear me apart.
The door crashes into place behind me, drawing the room’s attention. The man with the metal instrument lowers it from his lips, while the other three remove their fingers from their strings. More than two hundred eyes find me, all wide as they take in the mysterious princess who washed onto their shore.
The attention is petrifying, but Thomas’s voice cuts through the tension.
“Welcome to our guest of honor!” he booms from a large table at the back of the room. It spreads out horizontally with seats for twelve, perhaps for the Council members and their partners. Thomas rests in the center, the place of a king, and stands to raise a glass in my direction. Six smaller, notably less striking tables sit perpendicular between us.
A large, unsettling smile is plastered across Thomas’s face. A wave of nausea hits, but with the help of my binding gown, I manage to keep the contents of my stomach in their rightful place. Mistress Bailie sits to his left, and I’m struck by another similarity they share—the same obvious lust for power. They wear it so brazenly, on their lips and in their gleaming eyes, and with so much conviction. What fools. Haven’t they learned that the gods love nothing more than to knock pompous men from their thrones? If these two haven’t drawn their attention yet, they will soon. A ripple of satisfaction cascades down my spine as understanding dawns—but of course, they already have. Why else would she bring me here?
I look away from the pair, and my attention falls to the woman on Thomas’s right. I didn’t see her until now, a fact that is instantly unimaginable. I’m looking at a ghost. It takes all my courage to meet her stare, to not lower my gaze in deference, or shame, or both. I’ve dreamed of this moment since the day I lost her, and yet here she is, and I’m unable to move. She watches me intently, her eyes so green that I am certain the first spring must have erupted from them centuries ago.
The rest of the room, all its noise and its people, falls away as if we’ve broken free from this realm and slipped into one entirely our own. My breath catches in my throat, and my legs tremble beneath the large circumference of my skirt. The only sound is the pounding of my heart.
A single loose curl, the color of raven wings, the color of shadow, falls free from the rest of the hair pinned behind her neck. It spills over the gentle slope of her shoulder onto a crimson gown. Her lips have been painted the same smoldering shade of carmine, and the contrast against her porcelain skin is breathtaking. I haven’t seen anything so lovely in thousands of years, but is it truly her? Or is this a trick being played on me by the gods?
I make myself a promise: If she’s merely an illusion meant to harm me, I won’t give them the satisfaction. It seems impossible, but only now do I realize how the years watered down my memory of Proserpina’s beauty, waves slowly erasing footprints in the sand until they’re lost to time forever. Except now time has given them back. To see her again like this in full relief, flesh and blood, as a woman, no longer a girl bathed in moonlight—my throat tightens, and tears threaten to spill over my cheeks. I blink them back furiously. No, if this is a trick, I’ll be grateful for the chance to stand in her radiance once more, to remember what it feels like to be a flower in the light of her sun.
I search her face for signs of recognition, but her expression is unreadable. She makes no move to look away, and those blood-red lips part briefly before snapping closed again. There’s a distance between us, but of course there is—we’ve lived a thousand lives since we last saw each other, and though it will hurt, I want to hear about every one of hers. My mouth falls open to speak, to call to her, to beg her forgiveness, and to confess my devotion, still, after all this time—