Those Fatal Flowers

Chapter 12 #2

We spend long hours sitting before the same fire where Will and I sought comfort in each other. That night felt like a dream the moment it was over, but the first few times I find myself in the same room as the act, I’m terrified that Cora can read what transpired between her brother and me on my face. But she never broaches Yuletide at all—not my time spent with Will, and not the conversation we shared. At first, I worry that she’s intentionally ignoring it, that my confession tainted whatever blossoms between us with rot. But she treats me no differently, and there are even times I’m certain that I catch her staring when she thinks I’m not looking; though as quickly as our eyes meet, she turns away, and the flush that creeps along her graceful neck always has causes more plausible than longing. Still, it’s easy for my imagination to rewrite Christmastide’s history—how I might have ended up here with her instead, had she not retreated. What would our hair look like tangled together, the red and the black?

I come close to finding out one evening after Margery retires. Thomas is off with the other Council members, and Agnes has locked herself in her chambers, leaving me free to revel in the warmth of the hearth fire unbothered. But a knock on the back door shatters the calm. I open it to find Cora before me, body trembling with cold.

“Cora.” Her name is so sweet on my tongue, and I move to let her inside. “Come, let me make you some tea. It’s freezing out there.”

I find the small cast-iron kettle and hang it on its hook over the fire. Cora closes the door behind her, then moves to rub her hands up and down her arms to generate heat.

“What are you doing here? It’s late.”

“Is Will here? He didn’t come home for supper.”

“The Council met earlier this evening,” I reply, unable to hide the disdain in my voice.

“So they’re at the tavern, then.” Cora sighs. It’s no secret that’s where most of the meetings are held, making them more social gathering than civic duty.

“Will usually stops by to wish me good night. It’s not too late yet. Want to wait here with me?”

“Thank you, Thelia. I hate being home alone with my father at night.” Cora unclasps her cape, preparing to slide it off her slender shoulders, and I force my attention back to the kettle. I’ve learned the hard way that if I watch her peel one layer of clothing off, I’ll be plagued the rest of the night by visions of removing the rest. Of her fingers teasing my gown’s laces, of my thumb brushing against her lips. “His coughing fits grow worse once darkness falls—they rattle the whole house. It’s hard to listen to.”

I place a hand on her shoulder sympathetically, careful not to let it linger too long, then pull a mug from the shelf to mix herbs for her, red clover and lavender, the same concoction I prepared for Pisinoe more times than there are words for the numbers.

“Here, this will help soothe your nerves”—I hand her the cup, and she smiles gratefully—“and tomorrow I’ll stop by to make your father a tisane to help with the coughing.”

She steps deeper into the kitchen, putting more distance between us. Despite all the time we spend together, it’s not often that we find ourselves with idle hands. She raps her fingers along the edge of the mug, and her attention flits across the room. A charged energy radiates between us. It makes my stomach flutter.

“Let’s wait in my room. It’s more comfortable there,” I say, not adding that it’s also more private. She nods.

We wander out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Her shoes click against the wooden floor, while my steps are padded by my stockings. The closer we get to my quarters, the faster my heart beats. When I finally close us in together, my hands are trembling.

“Do you think they’ll be much later?” she asks, her skirts sweeping toward the small fireplace as she moves to add another log. The flames accept it hungrily, and she watches with her back to me.

“You know how they are.” My voice is breathy, and I cough to clear it. “It depends on how much ale they’ve already had.”

“How should we pass the time?”

My pulse throbs in my ears, an unbearable thump-thump thump-thump that counts the length of my silence. There are no words to describe how I’d like to pass the time, only images that flash in rapid succession before me. Cora’s delicate eyelashes fluttering against my skin, her salty taste on my lips, the ties of her dress unfurling beneath my fingertips. I’m frozen by these thoughts, made silent by my own desires.

I let myself laze over her features: the graceful arch of her neck, the curves of her hips. The wisps of raven curls that fall free from the knot she’s pinned them in, begging me to release the rest. How badly my fingers itch to run through them, gently at first, and then harder. I want to use this moment to devour her, to sink my teeth into her skin. Would Cora, even with her strength, become a crushable flower between my hands? I don’t remember the tenderness of love, its softness.

I only remember its bite.

She looks back at me when I don’t answer. The flames crackle as they consume the fresh piece of oak, their reflection dancing in her eyes. The moon in Proserpina’s and a conflagration in Cora’s—I’m cursed to love women made of light. It’s strange to remember believing that Cora was her exact mirror; our months together have given their differences time to make themselves known: Cora’s calloused hands, her gaunter frame, realities of a mortal life. The kind of beauty that can be found only in a life so fleeting.

“I don’t know,” I lie, my voice catching in my throat, painfully aware that one wrong move could send her running to the tavern alone, propriety be damned. “Will you read me something?”

Her face pinches into a strange expression. “You want to hear a Bible story now?”

I exaggerate a groan, using the levity to draw in closer. “Oh, please, no! Surely there must be one other book in this house. Do you think the Bailies are fans of poetry?”

“Poetry?” Her voice is incredulous, but a smile appears on those pretty lips.

“Yes, or do the English not believe in such things?”

This makes her laugh. “Of course we do, but we don’t exactly have the latest sonnets available here.”

“All right, fine. You can’t read me a poem, but surely you must know one.”

A blush creeps along her cheeks, and her eyes fall back to the fire. I’m close enough now to see the reds and oranges of the flames reflected in them, layering atop the green, all sprinkled with the spark of embers—an entire universe inside her stare.

“Ah, so you do.” I grin. “And it looks like it’s a good one.”

She nudges me gently with her shoulder, and it takes all my strength not to seize her by the forearms and press her in close. “I barely remember it. You tell me one instead.”

“Oh, all right, coward,” I say, keenly aware of the sweat on my palms. “Ready?”

Cora nods, so I begin:

For just gazing at you for a second, it is impossible

for me even to talk…

The verses spill from my mouth instinctively, as if one of the Muses has caught hold of my tongue. But I barely hear the words—my world is reduced to her eyes, and the fact that they’re locked on my lips. I only realize I’ve finished speaking when she raises her stare to meet mine.

A look passes between us before she finally speaks. “That’s beautiful.”

“Yes,” I whisper, trying to memorize her every angle—the way the firelight catches in her hair and dances across her eyelashes. She thinks I’m talking about the poem, and while I agree the verse is lovely, I want so badly to admit that I’m speaking of her. But I don’t. Instead, I take a few steps back, clasping my hands behind my back so she can’t see how they tremble. This metered, careful interaction needs to be enough, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to watch as her expression melts into one of confusion.

“You need not retreat…” Her voice is so soft that I worry I’ve imagined the incredible coincidence of her speaking aloud exactly what I longed to hear.

“Is that the beginning of another poem?” The words sound crueler falling off my tongue than I anticipated, and there’s only one way I can think to take them back. When I speak again, I offer my heart. “Don’t I, Cora?”

It’s she who closes the gap between us this time, reaching to take one of my hands in hers. I suck in a breath at the shock of her touch, and she turns my palm to trace its lines with her index finger. How is it that a caress so light nearly brings me to my knees?

But then her grip on me loosens, and her gaze drops to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, desperate to fix the source of whatever hesitation now plagues her.

“What about Will?”

I feel my face twist in confusion. “What about him?”

“You’ve been spending so much time together. I…I don’t want to hurt him.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Cora, it’s not me he loves—it’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t compete for my hand because he wanted it. He competed so that—” My voice catches in my throat. Thomas is the last specter that I want to invite into this liminal, fleeting space we’ve found—it’s just for me, her, and the firelight. “So that your future would be secure.”

Embers pop as she considers my answer, and when she lifts her chin once more, her eyes are clear and determined. “Do you remember that first day on the beach?”

I nod.

“I reached out to check you for a fever, and you pulled away from me.”

“Cora, I…”

“I couldn’t figure out why it bothered me so much. Well, that’s not exactly true…But it seemed impossible that even then, I…”

My throat tightens as instinct draws my body closer to hers. This time, she’s the one who inhales sharply as we press together, as she laces her fingers into mine to draw my arms around her.

“That you what?” I almost groan the words into her ear, savoring the scent of her hair—the warmth of a bonfire, and, of course, the pale kiss of roses.

“That I…”

“What?”

When she turns her head to me, our eyes meet one last time—there’s a hunger inside hers that mirrors my own. The only question is who will be the one to close the distance between our lips.

“Thelia…” she begins, and my eyes flutter closed in anticipation. Every part of me quivers with need, unable to believe she’s finally, blessedly, close enough to taste.

But the gods are cruel; our question goes unanswered. The loud thuds of Thomas’s footsteps on the stairs shatter our fragile sanctuary, and the next thing I know, we’re cleaved apart.

The haze of desire clears from Cora’s eyes as quickly as a curtain lifting. “God have mercy,” she whispers. “What was I thinking?”

I don’t answer her—I can’t. It’s hard to breathe, my one small comfort that she’s still in my arms, until she suddenly isn’t. She quite literally slips through my fingertips. One moment, my palms rest on her hips, and the next, she’s gone, bounding toward the door like a hound called to its master.

“Cora, wait!”

But she doesn’t. The knot of desire in my stomach unfurls into nausea, and I watch, helplessly, as she throws open the door to him.

“There you are, Thomas!” she coos. The taste of bile in my throat brings a hand to my mouth.

I hear Thomas’s voice before I see him. “Cora! What keeps you here to such an hour?”

“I was waiting for Will. I know he often visits Lady Thelia before returning home for the evening.”

She stumbles, just barely, over the word visits, as if she doesn’t want to think about what such rendezvous entail. I marvel at the incredible mess of it all: Thomas openly vying for my hand despite his betrothal to Cora, Will and I finding solace in our friendship as we long for others, and, somehow, Cora lusting for me.

“He isn’t here, sweet one. He took John Chapman home from the tavern about an hour ago.”

Cora sighs with relief and turns back to look at me. The stare that contained a universe moments ago has chilled. She’s waiting to see if I’ll somehow give us away. I don’t know what hurts more: the fact she worries that I’m foolish enough to call her back to me now, or the way her trembling bottom lip begs me not to. From over her shoulder, a smirk crawls across Thomas’s lips. Something about it is wrong, and now dread rises from my depths to keep my hurt company.

“Shall I walk you home?” he asks, and Cora pivots to him again. When she takes his hand, it requires all my self-control to swallow down a gasp. The sight of it makes my cheeks burn as if I’ve been slapped.

“That would be lovely, Thomas. Good night, Thelia.”

My name at the end of her farewell catches me by surprise. The statement is a dismissal, one that I’d hoped she’d give to Thomas. I smile weakly, trying to conceal the bright bloom of pain the action stirs.

“Good night, Cora,” I respond, and then add more coldly, “Thomas.”

The hallway shadows swallow them both. I’m tempted to peer after them to see if Cora looks back for me, but I can’t handle the very real possibility that she doesn’t. Tears blur my vision as I pull the door shut behind them.

There was a time not long ago when I was certain that I’d never allow someone into my heart without Proserpina’s explicit permission. Was this near-kiss a punishment for that transgression? Proserpina was never jealous as a girl, but so many other gods carefully track their worshippers’ affections, and straying to another is a punishable offense. But I didn’t intentionally open the door for Cora—somehow she found her way inside a locked chamber without a key.

“Scold me, then,” I hiss into the flames. “Say something to me, anything at all. Please, Proserpina.”

But if my beautiful queen hears me now, she doesn’t make a sound.

I wake to loud, frantic banging. In the fog between sleep and wakefulness, my mind goes to the city’s palisades. To what they’re meant to protect us from. Could the reckoning the colonists fear be upon us? I pull myself to my feet, fingers massaging my sore muscles. I fell asleep on the floor before the fire, and my body screams at me now for my carelessness. The knocks continue as I collect my hair beneath a coif. Dawn breaks over the horizon, but the house is still dark. There’s barely enough light to guide me from the bedroom, down the twisted steps, through the kitchen, and on to the front room. Behind me, I hear Mistress Bailie stirring.

“One moment!” Margery shouts to the person outside, already at the door. Heavier footsteps falling upstairs indicate that Thomas is awake as well. Both he and his mother descend as Margery undoes the wooden latch.

A blast of cold air greets us. Cora and her father stand on the threshold, tears frozen against their reddened faces as if they’re gilded with frost. Master Waters opens his mouth to speak, but he’s interrupted as a violent coughing fit erupts from deep within his chest. It’s so forceful that I fear each hack will bring up pieces of his lungs. Margery immediately ushers them inside, and when Master Waters stumbles, she rushes forward to catch him, supporting his weight as he works through the fit. The last time I saw him out of his bed was at the Yuletide celebration weeks ago. The realization makes my stomach twist. Something terrible has brought them here.

“Master Waters!” Margery exclaims, eyes wide with alarm. “You should be in bed, look at you—”

“Will,” he gargles, and my heart sinks.

I turn to look back at Thomas, breath catching in my throat. He’s standing in the kitchen, little more substance than a shadow. The light from Agnes’s candle doesn’t reach him, but its flame still flickers in his eyes. The effect sends dread skittering across my skin.

“What about him?” Mistress Bailie asks.

“H-he’s missing!” The old man clings to Margery. She’s too thin to support him for long, and he soon sinks to the floor. “Something must have happened!”

“Did you try the Chapmans’?” Thomas steps forward to lift Master Waters back to his feet. “John was a mess last night, and Will walked him home.”

“We went this morning, Thomas,” Cora says. Her eyes are frantic. “John doesn’t remember how he got home, but Alis said she never saw Will. None of their children did, either. We’ve searched everywhere! He’s not in the village!”

“Please, calm yourselves!” Mistress Bailie chides, albeit sincerely. “Especially you, Richard. You’ll only make your condition worse if you don’t relax. I’m sure Will is all right. Why wouldn’t he be?”

Because of me.

My treasure put a target on his back. My stomach lurches at the realization, and my hands move atop it to try to settle it.

I watch Cora’s face as she reaches the same conclusion. Mr. Waters still howls against Thomas, but Cora pays them no mind. Her eyes narrow to slits; her hands harden into fists.

“You,” she growls, pointing an accusing finger toward me. “This happened because of you!”

“Cora, please—” I try to reach for her, but she sidesteps my advance.

“You think it’s a coincidence that the man who won your hand is missing? Some jealous drunk wanted his chance to win the wealth of a thousand lifetimes, and who knows what he did to Will to get it! Because of you, my brother—” She wails, and what I hear in her voice makes me sick: She’s furious. But how can I blame her? Her words are true. Though Will’s disappearance is not by my hand, his death would be if my plan comes to fruition.

But wasn’t he fated to die regardless?

No man shall commit the horrible and detestable sins of Sodomy, upon pain of death.

Does a part of her know that? Does she blame me for encouraging her to commit that very same sin?

“Enough,” Thomas demands, but it only spurs Cora to lunge at me. Thomas steps between us and snaps her to his chest. She struggles against him as if rabid. “Take your father home. He needs to rest.”

“I’m not finished, Thomas!”

“We’ll find him, Cora.” He answers in a tone gentler than I believed him capable of using. Still, something feels off about it, like a wolf trying to soothe a hare between its jaws.

But the words seem to comfort Cora’s father, for his cries wane to whimpers.

“Where could he be, Thomas…?”

“I don’t know, Master Richard, but I promise you we’ll find him.”

The old man nods, and another coughing fit begins. The painful sound is the only thing that draws Cora’s attention from me. She watches her father struggle to regain his composure as she struggles to regain her own. Only once her breathing has slowed to a manageable pace does Thomas loosen his hold on her, and she tears herself from him as soon as she can. Her green eyes are still wild, and she reaches for her father, linking her arm in his.

“Let’s go.” Her voice is soft when she speaks to him. “We must get you away from this witch.”

The word is a knife in my side. She knows its weight as she levels it against me, the consequences it could have. It’s a similar accusation to the one she could make about my nature, but she knows that witch will never circle back around to her.

“Cora…” I start, desperation rising in my chest, but she won’t look at me.

“I’ll alert the rest of the town. Margery, fetch my clothes, we must hurry,” Thomas says, his eyes directly on Richard, who nods clumsily. The poor old fool actually believes Thomas has his family’s best interest at heart. “You should be at home, resting in your bed. Will would never forgive himself if you got hurt.”

Richard relents, but Cora hesitates. Her eyes dart between Thomas and me once more, but then she follows her father into the stark morning air. Thomas shuts the door behind them and leaves to prepare himself, Margery trailing behind him.

“Make sure Thomas’s breakfast is ready before he finishes dressing,” Mistress Bailie orders me calmly as she floats across the room to follow them. When I don’t answer, she looks overher shoulder at me. “You’d better get used to your wifely duties.”

The obviousness of what’s happened hits me squarely in the chest, melting away the initial fear, leaving only a brilliant, fiery rage. My feet carry me to the kitchen, but instead of obeying orders, I fly to the table beneath the window where Margery keeps the knives. They did something to Will. The words repeat over and over, until they become an incantation guiding me to exact vengeance. My fingers wrap around the smooth handle of the largest blade. I find my reflection staring back at me in its polished metal, though my alarmed expression seems at odds with the sneer I feel myself wearing.

Stop, Thelia.

The knife topples from my hand onto the dirt floor. I whirl around, but my only company is the dying hearth fire that Margery’s been pulled away from. Blood rushes through my ears, and for the briefest moment, I consider ignoring the message from the Underworld. How good would it feel to snatch the knife from the floor and storm up the stairs? To sink it into the soft spot of flesh between Thomas’s ribs, and then tear its sharpened edge against Agnes’s powdered throat?

But to do so would mean abandoning Raidne and Pisinoe, and though I want nothing more than to bring a bloody justice down upon the Bailies, now isn’t the time. I must wait for spring.

The understanding does little to quell the fury that still thrashes in my chest. Now might not be the time to kill them, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit idly by. After returning the knife to its proper place, I dash up the stairs.

I skip my bedroom and continue down the hall until I come to Thomas’s. I pause for a moment, considering, but move on to the next. Whatever’s happened, Agnes is the one who will know the entirety of it. My hand wavers before her door, but I need to know for sure, for Cora, and I grab ahold of the knob and push my way inside.

It’s the first time that I’ve been in her bedroom. There’s a large fireplace to my right and a four-poster bed directly across from it to the left. A rug made of an animal’s skin covers most of the floor. Mistress Bailie stands in only her nightshirt in front of a large wardrobe at the back wall. She doesn’t look at me as I walk to the center of the room, my bare feet caressed by the warm fur beneath them. The sensation should be pleasing, but it makes my skin crawl.

I’m walking on another being who was killed for sport. Even at our most violent, my sisters and I never kept trophies.

Agnes turns to me.

“Certainly breakfast isn’t ready yet?” She’s beautiful, almost handsome, with soft blond locks framing her face, her piercing eyes watching me smugly from underneath a thin brow. Her smirk is relentless. I see where Thomas learned his.

“What did you do to Will?”

She seems surprised by my boldness, but instead of admitting any wrongdoing, she closes the gap between us and reaches out to stroke the side of my face, her smirk morphing into a hideous grin. The gesture catches me by surprise, and I pull my head away in disgust. Her fingers twist around a lock of my hair.

“What an awful thing to suggest, Lady Thelia,” she murmurs. “Will was like a son to me. He was Thomas’s closest friend…Although, this does technically mean that Thomas is now the winner of your hand.”

“You vile—” I begin, but she slaps me across the face, hard. The sting sends me stumbling back in shock.

“That sounds like disrespect,” she says as she turns to continue dressing. “Which will no longer be tolerated.”

“How dare you raise your hand to me!”

“Who will punish me?” She laughs. “By your own admission, Scopuli is dying. You need Thomas.” Her words are true, but she’ll never understand why. “Unless that’s all a lie.”

“I need a husband. It doesn’t have to be Thomas.”

“Choose another, then. Winter is dangerous here—hopefully he survives it.”

The threat is clear; it makes my throat tighten. “What about Cora…?”

“It’s a pity, really. She would’ve made a more compliant wife, and certainly a prettier one. But her hand doesn’t come with a fortune, and yours does.”

“You’ll pay for this,” I hiss, far enough away from Agnes that I’m safe from another slap.

“We’ll see.” She pulls on her stockings, completely unbothered by my warning. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a search party to organize.”

“How could you? He loved Thomas.”

“Then perhaps this is God’s punishment,” she says, then ushers me back into the hall. “May the Lord have mercy, or else he’ll burn for it.”

The door slams shut in my face. My entire body trembles as I retreat to my quarters, where I push a chair against the door for good measure. Now that the Bailies believe I’m Thomas’s property, who knows what they might do, even in the light of day.

I pace back and forth between my bed and the fireplace, mind racing. Cora will never forgive me for this, and the thought is so unbearable that it nearly brings me to my knees. My fingers find the mantel’s edge to keep myself from toppling to the ground, and I spot her there—my little spider friend weaving a new web. Her presence doesn’t bring the peace it usually does. I believed us so similar, but now, as my chest feels as hollow as one of the countless carcasses I’ve processed, I understand how different we truly are. This fierce little creature would never be foolish enough to get tangled in such a mess. She was born knowing the painful lesson I’ve refused to stomach these past few weeks: Sometimes, it’s best to hunt alone.

I am, once again, entirely on my own, but gods, it hurts so much worse like this—with Will gone and Cora lost. Though it’s painfully clear that, unlike this spider, I am no predator without my sisters.

The best I can hope for now is to not become prey.