Chapter Three
On a quiet morning, one week after her body washed up across the sea, we bury Aven’s shawl, which has been hanging across the back of her chair all this time. She chose it because it matched her eyes. Ages and ages ago.
I hold Sélie’s hand all through the service, tightly, just like a child would cling to a mother.
Am I the child or the mother? We are both grown women, but I cannot tell what our roles are now, and I can’t seem to let her go.
When the service is over, someone—a featureless face—offers us a ride home in their carriage.
I say no, thank you. I just keep thinking of that blue shawl in the ground, funeral flowers scattered on top.
As we step away from the cemetery, warm wind against my skin, I recall little else.
Sélie and I trudge through town, my senses shocked to life, the way everything is just so normal, folks crossing into the cobblestone streets to barter with vendors, buy goods, catch up on gossip.
The scents are familiar, rich—spiced meat pies, freshly caught whole raw fish with gaping mouths and unseeing eyes, whose scales gleam even in the dull light.
We pass a ruddy-cheeked girl on one street corner, perhaps a bit younger than Sélie, offering to sing songs that can make one laugh or weep or fall to their knees in shame, depending on the truths inside their soul.
“Two for one special,” she sing-songs as we pass. I face straight ahead, ignoring her.
As we continue moving through town, it’s more difficult to ignore how some people watch us, in that sorry way, or worse—as though we’re entertainment.
“Those are her sisters…” a woman whispers. “The one that drowned herself.”
I meet her eyes, hard, and she looks away, ashamed.
She’s not even cold in the ground, I want to scream, free hand fisted at my side. With a stupid half-realization, I think, She won’t ever be buried here. We can’t even grieve her properly.
Sélie turns to a passerby offering their condolences, and someone tugs on my sleeve.
I stifle an irritated sigh when I see who.
Marieta, a fixture of The Pins, known as much for her premonitions as her eccentric ways.
She pulls me away with insistence, motioning me down to her level with a crook of her gnarled finger.
Like Death, I compare without any humor.
Her ragged cloak is wrapped around her, despite the heat, her green stockings split around one bony knee, sagging before meeting her wooden clogs.
I’ve never seen her wear anything else. Normally she’s seated at the stoop of the butcher shop, so it’s odd to see her here, though I bend down as she bids me.
“I saw your sister last night.” Her voice is all raspy from the clove cigars she smokes daily, yet I discern an eagerness in her tone. “The eldest. You were embracing, and she was laughing.”
“It’s too late,” I say, sharper than I mean to. Can she not see the grief pouring from me? I’ve no patience for her predictions now. “We’ve just held her funeral. She’s dead.” I breathe out the last word; I can hardly stomach saying it aloud.
I expect Marieta to be apologetic, but when her eyes meet mine, they are lit with a challenge. “There’s dead and there’s dead. Which is she?”
“Don’t. Please,” I hiss low, hoping the old woman might lower her own voice. Sélie is mere feet away, and I don’t want Marieta to bother her with hurtful needling.
I move out a few steps, and the old woman follows, her dark-brown eyes still pinned on me. “Come now. Haven’t you been listening to the rumors of who moved into the Colehart place?”
I grimace, pushing aside the memory of the fear I felt when I looked at the mansion all those weeks ago. “What are you talking about? What does he have to do with anything?”
A screech of laughter, spittle flying. “What do you think?”
“The constable spoke with all the homeowners on the edge of town, including him, when she first went—he wasn’t even in town that day. He has nothing to do with her disappearance or her death. Leave the poor old man alone.”
“He’s not a man,” she replies. “He’s a demon.”
“Oh, Marieta.” I sigh, the weight of this day—these last weeks—catching up to me. I’m so depleted I could lie down in the street. I add, “I’m not a child any longer. And I don’t believe in monsters.”
She coughs out another laugh. “Skeptical girl. Take your time, but miracles don’t wait, nor shall your sister. I wasn’t sayin’ he killed her. I meant that he could save her.”
“What are you talking about? She’s gone….”
“Don’t you know? Demons are masters of death. Go to the mansion. You’ll see what I mean.”
“Stop,” I say coldly, straightening up. This is pointless.
The goddamn Pins and all their goddamn people.
I’m sick of it all, the fortune-tellers on street corners, and the myths, and the lies, and Marieta’s visions—which have a coincidental habit of coming true.
But this one won’t. Because it can’t. My sister is dead. And anyway. Magic isn’t real.
Marieta opens her mouth, but I turn away, leaving her standing there alone.
I grab Sélie’s elbow just as she finishes her conversation, tugging her along.
“What did Marieta say?” She glances back as we move on from the other mourners.
“Nothing,” I say, voice thick. “Only rubbish.”
We walk home, silently. Chill against my back. The prediction resounding in my ears.
You were embracing, and she was laughing.
“It’s almost empty.” Sélie holds a poison-green bottle of dream draught, one we procured from a local midwife who’s been making such things on the side for nearly five decades.
We sit on our beds. I take in our shared room as if through new eyes.
The pickled wood walls, the thin, floral curtains, the golden oak wardrobe, the cut glass vase of wilted grasses we never replaced once Darius died.
I could have moved out years ago—I could’ve rented a little apartment above our shop, but I didn’t have any desire to leave my sisters, even after Aven got married and Darius moved in.
My lovers took me in their own beds, and I’d return home to a place full of happy memories.
But the cottage is too lonely now without Aven and Darius teasing each other or kissing in corners when they thought Sélie and I weren’t looking.
The green bottle glints in the light. When I look at her again, I know what she’s thinking—the same thing as me: the cottage is strange, unfamiliar.
Like a place we are merely visiting and no longer belong to.
Not just the cottage, or the apothecary, the whole of The Pins.
The world. I blink my eyes, finding the window.
The sun, which finally deigned to peek through the clouds, shines through the glass, creating a warm glow all over the room.
It’s almost ethereal, the way the rays hit Sélie’s ivory hand as she stares at the bottle.
There’s only a scant amount of dark liquid inside.
I’m surprised it lasted this long. So many tragedies later.
“For tonight then.” I finally stand and slip off my itchy black bombazine dress.
I toss it in the back of the wardrobe, not bearing to even wash it.
I’d rather burn it or throw it away than see it again.
I’ve had enough mourning for a lifetime.
“One last dose. I suppose we could buy more, but we can’t use it forever.
We’ll have to sleep on our own at some point. ”
She nods. A final night of restful sleep before reality sets in. Then tomorrow, back to normal—a new normal. Life goes on. Even after death. We’ve learned that a few times over. This feels insurmountable, though. How can we live without Aven?
I unfasten my ribbon-trimmed corset, and I ask, “Will you be alright? You can stay home another day if you like.”
“No. It’ll be good to get back to work,” she reassures me as she drifts from the room to give me privacy. Or to go and cry in solitude.
I take a deep breath, exhale slowly, then put on my nightgown, though it’s early for sleeping. When I find her near the kitchen, I ask, trying a smile on, “Are you hungry, love? I believe that tin of cookies from Margaux is here somewhere.”
Sélie shrugs. I take that as encouragement and search for something for us both to eat, though I have no appetite, and haven’t had for weeks.
But something will have to sustain us. The thought of savory food is too nauseating, not to mention I’m no cook.
Thankfully, kindhearted people in town left dishes at our door to ease us through the mourning.
I’m grateful because we had hardly anything left: a few wilted carrots, stale bread, a half dozen speckled brown eggs, a fat purple onion that’d gone soft and smelly, a jar of honey, a hunk of hard cheese, jellies and pickles, potatoes that had grown eyes.
I pass over the cream-laden dishes and meat-heavy pies, and move to the sweets instead, which seem more bearable.
I rifle around until I come up with a tin.
I pop open the lid to stare at the cookies, baked with love—and perhaps a little guilt—from Aven’s friend in town.
She lasted the longest during the time Aven was missing, but eventually she stopped showing up to search, quietly accepting our sister’s fate long before Sélie and I would.
I skip over the chocolate kind, and the ones full of thick, sticky jam, instead picking out two delicate almond cookies shaped like flowers. Then I brew some weak coffee.