Chapter 6 #2
“You stay,” Aunt Lenna says. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
She goes to the kitchen, and my mother reaches out to grasp my arm. “Tell me why you were upset when you came in.”
“I wasn’t upset,” I lie.
Her eyes flick down, and I curl my fingers in, my fingernails bruised with blue and purple blotches. “Tell me why, and I’ll drink the tea.”
I give her an incredulous look. “You’re in no position to haggle.”
“Then don’t think of it as haggling. Think of it as compromising.” When I hesitate, she eyes my uncovered horns. “You weren’t wearing your veillet.”
I slowly shake my head.
She chews on her bottom lip, worry tingeing her pastel pink eyes. “You had trouble.”
“We ran into a couple of fae. They wanted to take our water. They said . . .”
Her expression sharpens. “What did they say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
I let out a tight breath. I feel like a little girl again, telling her about someone who was mean to me on my walk home from the mill. “They said I don’t deserve the water since I’m just a filthy fiend.”
The words scrape against my tongue, leaving my tone raw.
She makes a noise at the back of her throat, much like I imagine a mama bear would make if someone was cruel to her cub. “You don’t think of them. Those things they say are nothing.”
I hear her. But I can’t unhear them. I can’t unhear all the words I’ve had flung in my face for my entire life.
“You are not filth.”
I nod, trying to let her words solidify, to let them build a wall against the others.
Despite her fragility, her face grows fierce and she latches on to my hand. “It’s not true, and such cruelty will be repaid by the Fates.”
My reply is quiet. “Maybe the Fates don’t care about fiends, M?m.”
Her tired eyes harden into rose-colored quartz. “Don’t you say such things.” Her tone is bold and entirely unbudging. “That is not the truth, and it is not accepted under this roof or under your own skull, do you understand me?”
When I don’t reply, she holds my cheeks between her soft hands.
She’s demanding me to look. Eyes cutting, like she wants to etch her words into my subconscious.
“Oil does not concern itself with the dribbling of water. You don’t soak it up.
You don’t let it touch you at all. It is of no significance to you. ”
I swallow hard and try to turn away, but she holds firm. Taps her finger against the sparkly freckle at the corner of my eye. “Just as the stars don’t let the night smother them out, you don’t let darkness stain your spirit.”
“I try,” I tell her.
And I do. I try so hard.
She presses a kiss to my forehead. “Oil and water. Stars and skies. Remember that, my Card?ya Mel?sh.”
I clear my throat to get rid of the temptation to cry. Change the subject so my throat stops squeezing. “Well, I have to concern myself with dribbling water right now, M?m. In fact, I hope it starts dribbling out of the sky real quick,” I joke, trying to bring the lightness back to her eyes.
Just like Aunt Lenna, she says, “We’ll be alright,” before she settles back on the cushions.
But we aren’t.
Because right as my aunt comes back in with tea, another convulsion hits, this one just as bad as before. Aunt Lenna helps brace her so she doesn’t fall to the floor, and our eyes meet in shared alarm.
“Tea isn’t going to help. She needs her tincture,” I say, before racing to the kitchen. The sleeping draught is incredibly strong, so she doesn’t like to take it. It wipes her out for at least a full day. But it’s the only thing that helps stem the worst fits and lets her rest.
Opening the cupboard, I shove aside some of the other tins to grab the canister I need.
But it’s empty.
My ribs staunch the flow of my breath with a painful press as I stare at its hollow insides. “No . . .”
Panic claws at my throat, leaving raw scores through my chest. It can’t be gone.
My mother needs it. We have to make sure she doesn’t have another convulsion.
I shake the canister, tipping it over with denial, but nothing comes out.
It clatters to the countertop as my hands curl into fists.
I force in a deep breath and press my lips together in a hard line.
In the other room, I can hear Aunt Lenna’s worried voice whispering soothing words to my mother. Two fits within minutes, and nothing to give her for it. Lifting my head, I look over at the clock that sits on the mantelpiece. Sunfall isn’t far off.
But I still have time.
Turning, I hurry to the main room, and I go to my aunt where she sits beside my mother, whose eyes are now closed. She looks utterly exhausted. Strained. Sickly.
I reach down and dig my fingers into the pocket of Aunt Lenna’s dress. She frowns, grabbing the fabric of her skirt. “What are you—”
I clutch the coin in my hand and meet her eye. “The tincture is gone. I’m going to get more,” I murmur.
Her eyes widen. “Esti, no,” she whispers fiercely. “It’s dangerous. And the apothecary is probably long since boarded up!”
“I have to try. She’s never had two fits in a row. She can’t sustain this, and what if she has another one tomorrow? Or the next day? The longer I wait, the less chance there will be anything left.”
I lean down and press a quick kiss to her cheek. Then I move to place a softer one on my mother’s forehead.
“Esti—” But before my aunt can argue more, my mother’s body jolts. Her eyes spring open and she shakes all over again, caught in another horrible fit.
Three in a row.
Alarm blares through me louder than the city’s bells.
“I have to go. Right now.”
My aunt curses, trying to ease my mother’s rigid, shaking body. We share a brief panicked look of wide-eyed fear, but she doesn’t try to stop me this time as I turn and hurry out the front door.
If I don’t get something to stop the convulsions, my mother’s heart might well and truly give out, and I refuse to let that happen.
Because her heart is the only thing that keeps mine from breaking.