Chapter Forty-Five
Sybil
Sybil woke with a leaden heart on the morning of Edith’s swimming test. They slept beside one another in the rushes with the
little girl safely tucked between them, their warmth shared as their lifelong friendship neared its end.
Commotion roused within the prison.
“Ye’ll let me through, or I’ll tell them how ye roughly handled a woman with child.”
Kat.
Edith and Sybil looked at one another and clambered stiffly to their feet along with the girl.
“Don’t ye touch me. I’m well enough to walk on my own.”
And then Kat was there, outside the bars of their prison, resplendent in a yellow gown, with her flame-red hair and bright
green eyes. A length of blue silk lay over her forearm, and she hefted it higher so they could see. “I brought something for
ye.”
They were herded into the small square room where Sybil had met with Jacinda.
“Kat, you shouldn’t have come,” Edith whispered. “It’s too dangerous, and those men don’t do well when spoken against.”
“Edith.” Kat swallowed and shook out the garment, revealing the finest gown she had ever sewn. “I had to. I’ve been working
on this for ye since I heard…”
Blue silk embroidered with honeysuckle flowers and woodlarks, each stitched with the finest detail.
“It’s too fine.” Edith gaped. “Kat, it’s far too fine for me.”
Kat’s eyes watered. “It isn’t fine enough for the likes of you.”
Sybil touched a hand to the silk. “Put the gown on, Edith.”
Kat stepped closer to their friend. “Please.”
Edith blinked away a sheen of tears. “I can’t. I’m filthy.”
“It’s meant for ye.” Kat reverently placed the garment in Edith’s bewildered hands. “I want ye to wear it today.” Her voice
caught. “It’s for ye, as I said.”
Still Edith hesitated. “But I won’t be able to give it back. Kat, I—”
“I know.” Kat nodded and swallowed thickly. “Go on now.”
The guard turned to allow Edith the opportunity to strip off her overdress, which hadn’t been cut away as Sybil’s had.
Edith’s strength had waned in those last two days, and both Sybil and Kat aided their friend into the gown.
When she was properly laced, Kat smoothed the bodice and adjusted the skirt, then stood back to admire her handiwork. “What
do ye think?”
Edith looked down for a long time. The silk was the exact summer sky blue as her eyes, making them stand out with startling
clarity. Kat had sewn a white linen cap for her, which hid Edith’s shaved head.
When she finally lifted her gaze, her eyes were brilliant with tears she could no longer hide. “I’ve always wanted to be beautiful.” She pressed her lips together then whispered, “I feel beautiful.”
Sybil took Edith’s hand. “You are beautiful.”
“I feel it in this gown.” Edith swallowed and gave them both a watery smile. “Thank you, Kat. Thank you for this gift.”
Kat caught her in an embrace.
“Enough,” the guard called out. “It’s time.”
Time.
Time for Edith to be marched away, to be dunked in the River Lark, to be murdered today or another day, depending on the result.
Sybil shook her head, unable to even form the words.
“My life never had love in it until I met you both.” Edith clasped their hands.
They embraced, the three of them, the final circle of their sisterhood made whole. “May the earth guide you,” Sybil whispered,
quiet enough that the guard would not hear.
“Now,” the guard said testily, earning him a sharp look from Kat.
Before she was sent away, her hand slipped into Sybil’s, placing a small glass vial against her palm.
Edith straightened her back, head lifted like a queen. A woman who felt beautiful.
That confidence led her from the room as Sybil was forced back to her cell and Kat was sent back home.
Outside, the crowd clamored in a frenzy as Edith was led to the cart that would take her near the abbey ruins where River
Lark flowed.
Hag.
Witch.
Ugly.
Their insults were knife points in Sybil’s heart. She only hoped that Edith kept her head lifted, that she continued to feel beautiful.
For Edith truly was the loveliest soul to ever walk the earth.
When the shouting abated and the footfalls outside went quiet, the waiting began.
The entire prison fell silent, save for the occasional shifting of vermin in the rushes. But even their activity was subdued,
as if they sensed the grave mood.
From the men’s cage, the old vicar prayed for Edith’s soul, for her strength as she endured the test that broke him. In between
his prayers, he wept.
Margery remained by Sybil’s side, as did the little girl.
An hour passed.
Two.
Eventually, light faded to dark, and still, Edith did not return. Sybil took that moment to uncap the vial and sniff, the
earthy odor reminiscent of bad cheese.
Valerian root.
A draught upended in mugs of ale would send the guards into a deep, incoherent slumber. Such a gift might prove helpful indeed.
Sleep eluded Sybil that night, interrupted by a heaviness in her chest. The assumption to Edith’s prolonged absence.
News of the swimming test did not reach her ears until the following afternoon, told by a guard who appreciated the attention
of so many as he recanted the tale he’d heard through another.
It was said that Edith remained upright and proud in the cart, her face lifted to the sky.
Sybil could imagine her friend, elevated by the lovely silk gown, soaring over the insults and the hate. Knowing she was truly
loved.
It was said they bound Edith’s right big toe to her left thumb and her left big toe to her right thumb. In this position, she was shoved into the river.
It was said she bobbed about, coughing and sputtering, enough that an impatient few deemed her a witch. But before she could
be fetched from the icy River Lark, she sank like a stone.
It was said they waited for her to rise once more, spitting and cursing them all. But she did not. The trail of bubbles where
she descended melted into the current and the gleam of her white cap showed beneath the water.
It was said there was a lark song in that moment, the most mournful one to have ever been heard.
It was said the mood turned somber as Edith’s innocence spoke for itself with her death, when all recalled the goodness she’d bestowed upon others. How she tended to the infirm and the aged, how she gave to those who had none. Solemn beneath
the weight of such knowledge, the crowd dissolved as a woodlark swept from the trees, carrying with it that sorrowful tune.
Sybil had asked then if the shackles remained clasped around her friend’s ankles. The guard confirmed those heavy iron cuffs
had been removed.
At this, Sybil’s spirits lifted somewhat.
Edith had died with the hum of the earth in her heart, radiating in her soul, drawing her into an eternal embrace. In these
last moments before Edith’s death, she had been allowed to revel in life.
Even with such knowledge, Edith’s loss was a blow. To the entire prison, but especially to Sybil. She had lost one of her
dearest friends, a light in a world of darkness. Whatever future Sybil faced was mean and bleak and empty.
In the quiet hours of early morning, when the ember of loss burned in Sybil’s chest, something warm slipped into her hand.
She looked down and found the little girl had clasped hands with her and gazed up with large, sorrowful eyes.
That comfort, given by a child who had so little consolation of her own, was nearly Sybil’s undoing.
Sometime in the night, Sybil finally drifted off to sleep, but was awoken by a tingling at her right arm.
Her awareness pricked with recognition, with understanding that, despite the barrier of the iron shackles, her body had been
imbued with the power of the earth.
She pulled up the sleeve of her shift where a beam of moonlight revealed a strange mark on her forearm, just below the crook
of her elbow. A strawberry-colored crescent moon.
In the back of her mind came the clang of a warning bell.
This was no ordinary enchantment. Not when its power transcended the iron dulling the earth from reaching Sybil.
This was something that went against the earth’s gifts.
Something forbidden.
Something only a daughter of the earth could accomplish if she had extraordinary power.
Jacinda.
What had she done?