Chapter 2 #2
My heart warms at the sight of her, but that warmth immediately cools with a saturation of worry. She smiles at me, but her pink-hued eyes are dim, her face drawn and pale, and her veillet is untucked. Loose tendrils of light blond hair drop down her shoulder, limp and thinning.
I set her bowl of soup on the bedside table, brows lowering in concern. “Are you alright?”
“She had a convulsion,” Aunt Lenna says, and I turn to see her walking into the room behind me. She sets down a cup of steaming tea. “Drink this too, Marryn.”
My mother casts a frown at her. “It was a minor convulsion.”
Aunt Lenna’s lips press together, telling me it was not.
My stomach twists. “M?m . . .”
Her hand comes up to squeeze mine. “I’m alright. I promise.”
That’s what she always says.
But day in and day out, it seems my mother grows a little bit weaker. A little more strained. This past year, she’s been mostly bedridden. Too fatigued to get up.
It doesn’t matter how many tinctures we’ve tried, how many healing dens we’ve taken her to. Nobody has come up with ways to help her condition. Every spare coin has been spent on trying to find a remedy, and none of it has made any difference.
There was once a time when she would take my hand and lead me outside, where we’d sit on our favorite hill that overlooked the farmlands.
She’d always bring candied fruit for us to eat, and then she’d lie on the grass and press her ear to the ground.
She’d tell me to listen to the earth speaking to us.
Even though I could never hear anything, I’d try anyway, and she would smile and hum, her pretty voice soft and lilting.
But how long has it been since she felt well enough for that? Long before the Flies made it impossible to enjoy the fresh air. Every day, I worry that she’ll never be able to do it again. That it’s already become nothing but a memory.
My mother starts to move the bundle from her lap, but I quickly grab it for her. “What’s all this?” I ask, sifting through it.
“I mended those tunics of yours. You should’ve told me they were so threadbare. Your brown veillet too. I’ve patched up the tears. It doesn’t match perfectly, but I think it’ll be alright.”
I give her a smile and tuck the bundle away on her dressing table before sticking her needle into the pincushion and topping it with the spool.
“How’s your headache?” I ask.
She lifts a hand and gingerly strokes the top of her head. “Much better than this morning. It’s barely noticeable now.”
“Good.”
Aunt Lenna returns with two more bowls, and together, the three of us sit in my mother’s room, perched on her bed as we eat. Something we always do when she isn’t feeling well enough to sit at the table.
Something that’s happening more and more often.
When we’re finished, I collect the dishes and then grab the last sugared biscuits from the tin and bring them in. Our food has been dwindling lately as prices go up and the Flies’ destruction goes on, but tonight, we need the treat.
“Oh no, Esti, I couldn’t eat another bite,” my mother says, but I arch a brow. We all know that soup was barely enough to satisfy.
“You need your strength.”
“You need it far more. Both of you,” she argues, nodding toward Aunt Lenna and me. “Working in that mill every day.”
“M?m. Take the biscuit.”
She tries to give me a stern look, but she never quite accomplishes that. Not with me. “I’m your mother, you know.”
“Which means you know better than anyone how stubborn I can be,” I retort.
She tries to scoff, but I can see past that playfulness to the pain that lies beneath. To the chronic affliction that battles her bones and locks up her nerves, twisting her muscles like coils. She has good days and bad days, but it’s a constant struggle to keep her well.
All I want is to find a cure. Because since the moment the earth cracked, she has suffered.
My mother, who is the kindest, most gentle person in the world, was forced to endure horrible things. She was shunned for keeping me, for loving me, and I have to watch her health fade every single day, while she tries so hard to stay strong.
She finally takes a bite of the biscuit, and only then do I start eating mine too. Specks of sugar fall on her lips, and happiness shines from her smile. “You spoil me, Card?ya Mel?sh.”
Card?ya Mel?sh— sweet of heart in the ancient language.
“I don’t spoil you. Not nearly enough.”
I wish I could, but I can’t.
If I had the choice, I’d leave this city and try to find help elsewhere. But I’m not allowed, even when our gates are open. Being a fiend, I’d have to apply for a permit and gain permission from another burg or city first, and I doubt they’d approve.
Stale anger crusts over my conscience. At how helpless I am.
At how trapped we are. At the Flies eating away our lives.
At Lord Havlon, the Govern who rules our city.
He’s the one who’s supposed to keep us safe.
And yet, he lets this Plague run rampant.
Has done nothing to stem it. I’ve heard of Governs in other territories taking much better care of their people, and I envy that.
But I don’t let any of these dark thoughts show on my face. My mother has suffered enough darkness. I always try to be her light, and she always tries to be mine.
No matter how dim she feels.
“That was delicious,” she says when she finishes, resting back against the headboard with a contented sigh.
“See? You should listen to me more often,” I reply, popping the last bit of biscuit into my mouth.
She gives me another warm smile in return, revealing the divots in each of her pale cheeks, and the sight makes me smile back.
Her dimples are the only thing I inherited from her looks.
She’s a waifish beauty, delicate as a flower, and looks very different from me.
She has light blond hair to my sparkling black, and her eyes are pink to my onyx.
I’m taller than her petite form and curvier too.
Lots of people take one look at us and question if I’m her daughter.
Until we smile.
I like that we’re the most connected through happiness. Because she’s the reason I’ve ever had the chance to smile at all.
Marryn Calyx has been through hell.
And yet, she smiles.
Despite . . . everything.
Later, after Aunt Lenna retires for the night, I say good night too. My mother lifts her hand and taps at various spots over my skin: the corner of my right eye, the bridge of my nose, my collarbone, the back of my left hand, my right arm.
“Starlight freckles,” she murmurs tiredly. “The moment you were born, I knew you were a gift from the Fates.”
She thinks my scattered freckles that glitter like stars and my sparkling horns and hair are signs that I’m her light in the dark. Her blessing in the burden.
Which is why when I lie in bed at night, I still whisper my prayers to the Fates, even if they don’t listen to fiends. I pray that they’ll cure the Plagues that torment our world. That they’ll keep Aunt Lenna safe. That they’ll give me something, anything, to save my mother from her suffering.
I won’t give up. Because my mother never gave up.
The first time I saw stars appear on someone’s face, it was hers. They burst beneath her eye and glistened like teardrops.
My mother’s stars were the first I ever read.
Willing to sacrifice. Can withstand heartbreak. Would do anything for her daughter.
And still, all these years later, her stars have never changed.