Chapter Seven
Sybil
A knock at Sybil’s bedchamber startled her. She closed the coffer, sealing away the inventory of herbs she would need for
protective charms, and called for the person to enter.
A young maid stepped hesitantly into the room, her clean brown hair pulled back beneath her white cap. “Supper is ready if
you please, mum.”
Supper? Already?
Sybil looked out the window, surprised to see the sky gilded with the reds and golds of a day dissolving into night. The setting
sun never escaped her notice, but then she had been out of sorts the entire day. Ever since the whisked-out candles announced
their warning.
“Forgive me, Anne.” Sybil pushed to her feet. “I have lost track of time.”
Anne’s fingers twisted together. “Mrs. Brantham, I…”
She had been an anxious soul since the day Sybil had hired her ten years earlier—a desperate girl with eyes far older than her scant years and too much family burden on her slim shoulders.
The last time Anne had appeared this overwrought was during the pestilence when her youngest sister came home with a wet cough.
Sybil had allowed the child to remain in the manor, keeping her from Anne’s ailing parents, likely saving all the lives in
their family.
Henry had already been gone by then, no longer at risk.
Sybil went to the young woman. “What ails you, Anne?”
“I…” Anne bit her bottom lip, reddened from her persistent worrying.
Sybil settled a hand on the young woman’s arm. “You can tell me.”
Anne flicked a nervous smile. “It’s my da. He’s hurt his back, trying to make himself useful. You know how the menfolk can
be.”
Sybil relaxed. “I do indeed. In fact, I just found some mullein leaves earlier today. I’ll put together a salve for him.”
The tension melted from Anne’s young face. “Thank you, mum.”
If only all of life’s problems could be so easily solved.
“There’s one more thing…” Anne hesitated, as though debating what to say. “Jacinda has lost another pair of shoes.”
Sybil frowned, not simply at the lack of care for expensive wares, but for what Jacinda’s bare feet meant. The earth’s pulse
was stronger against naked soles, the hum intoxicating.
“Thank you for letting me know.” Sybil made her way downstairs to the Great Hall where Jacinda already sat at the long table.
At the rear of the room, the fireplace glowed with a fire in the cool summer evening, golden light flickering off the Grecian
statues on either side of the hearth. They had been a gift from Henry when they’d wed. Penelope poised mid-step, face tilted
with dignity—the queen of Ithaca from The Odyssey, a resilient and powerful woman. And Sappho with a scroll in her hand—a poet from the isle of Lesbos, a woman of intellectual curiosity.
Both women Sybil had profound respect for after reading Ovid’s Heroides.
Such gifts were constant reminders of Henry. Of what Sybil had lost.
She joined Jacinda and made a point of looking under the table. Jacinda’s toes wriggled against the rushes, dirt creasing
the dimples between her toes.
Sybil sighed as she straightened. “Another pair of shoes?”
Color touched Jacinda’s cheeks. “I don’t like wearing them. I can’t…” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “They are too heavy.”
What she meant, of course, was that she could not sense the power of the earth through the thick leather soles.
In truth, Sybil ought to be teaching Jacinda the ways of their gifts. She ought to have years ago, the way Mother had with
her.
But Sybil recalled all too clearly how such powers had been difficult to control, how easily life’s struggles could be swept
away with the right spell. And her abilities were a mere fraction of what Jacinda possessed.
No, such teachings were far too dangerous.
“I think my shoes are near the stables,” Jacinda hedged.
“Are you wearing your bracelet?” Sybil asked. If Jacinda was vexed about not feeling the earth beneath her feet, she clearly
was not wearing the iron jewelry, which silenced her gifts.
Jacinda slid her hazel eyes to the side, as if the conversation were as easily averted as her gaze.
“Jacinda, you know you must.” Sybil’s words were harsher than intended, infused with a frisson of fear.
“I know only what you tell me,” Jacinda shot back.
The hearth spit out a shower of sparks.
One of the servants entered, a middle-aged widow Sybil had hired the previous year when the woman’s husband—one of their best weavers—had passed.
At least Jacinda had the good sense to quiet in the company of others.
The woman brought in a platter of roasted chicken along with potatoes and string beans. A second servant followed with bread
and wine, spiced by Sybil herself with ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon to aid with digestion.
When they left, Sybil regarded Jacinda with a stern expression. “I tell you what you must know to ensure your safety. It is
why I insist you wear the bracelet and why I must now tell you to remain indoors.”
Jacinda’s pretty mouth gaped with outrage and the candles flickered in their sconces. “Indoors? Why? For how long?”
“I’m not certain.”
Jacinda shook her head, splotches of red blossoming on her neck and chest. “Henry always said knowledge was power, and yet,
you see me disarmed.”
The words were a barb and they struck home in a tender place within Sybil’s breast. How could Jacinda throw Henry’s words
at her like a weapon?
“You tell me it is not safe, but you do not tell me why.” A spark snapped in Jacinda’s expression. “You know I am different,
but you do not explain.”
A peal of thunder rumbled outside, and sparks floated up from the glowing red logs in the hearth.
“Jacinda…” Sybil said in a warning tone.
“How do you know about the iron?” Jacinda demanded. “Why do you make me wear it?”
“You aren’t ready.”
“I am ready,” Jacinda cried.
There was a strange shift in the air, a weighty pressure, and flames burst to life in the hearth, sending a wave of heat washing toward them.
Sybil stood abruptly. “Enough.”
Jacinda was right. Henry touted learning and knowledge, and he would have encouraged Sybil to instruct Jacinda. But Sybil
knew the girl too well. Knowledge would only whet her appetite for more. Jacinda would fall upon her gifts with an unrelenting
zeal—pushing, testing, taking—all with a force that challenged anyone to stop her.
Power gathered and vibrated within Jacinda, unlike anything Sybil had ever witnessed. Greater even than what Sybil drew with
Kat and Edith. Jacinda veritably crackled with the energy that swirled around her, a vortex barely tethered and desperate
to be unleashed.
What would such strength do?
As a child, Jacinda had been precocious, eager to absorb everything from Mother that Sybil had so readily ignored. Now as
a teen, the girl brooded with sullen anger, begrudging her sheltered life. Not understanding the dangers.
Not realizing how readily women with strength were silenced. How often they were seen as a threat.
That had been Sybil’s fault.
In fact, so much of Jacinda’s hardships had been Sybil’s doing.
But in a chasm of regret, where was Sybil to begin in setting things right?
Especially now when the earth continued to warn Sybil that they were at risk.
How easily it would be for Jacinda to be discovered. Arrested. To dangle from the end of a rope.
Everything in Sybil flinched back in horror from the mental image.
“Now isn’t the time.” The protest was weak, but all she could offer.
“You are my sister, not my mother.” Jacinda’s eyes glinted with the fire of youth and naive ignorance. “Mother would never
have handled me with such disregard.”
The room was suddenly too stuffy, the aroma of roasted chicken overpowering and unappealing. Sybil was desperate to be outside.
To breathe. To let the wind speak to her, to guide her.
She mumbled an excuse and pushed back from the table, leaving Jacinda glowering after her, eyes boring into her back like
burning embers.
The night embraced Sybil, cool and welcoming. Dampness hung in the air from an incoming storm, one dredged up by the mix of
the roiling emotions between Jacinda and Sybil both.
Sybil closed her eyes and breathed in the rich scents of fertile earth and fragrant blooms and herbs. Eager to drink in the
moon’s strength, she tilted her face upward.
But instead of fortitude, she was imbued with a sense of unease, as though her skin fit too tightly.
Her eyes flew open, staring into the sky. She staggered back, her knees soft with shock.
Staring down at her from between the churning clouds was not the beautiful full face of a silvery white moon, but one cast
in a violent red hue.
A blood moon.
One that bespoke impending misfortune and doom.