The Dark Sweetness at the Bottom of the Well

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Summer

Elana’s Umbral Festival gown was too small, and there was nothing any amount of sewing and snipping could do about it.

With a frustrated sigh, she dropped the gown and her sewing supplies into her chair.

She hadn’t been sleeping well, worse than usual, and her exhaustion brought tears stinging to her eyes.

She sniffed, rubbing the moisture away, and stomped to the front door.

“Josephine?” she called into the yard. “Do you want to wear my gown from last year?”

Josephine, sixteen and hopelessly romantic, dropped her bucket of chicken feed with a squeal. “Do you really mean it Elana? The one with the blue satin ribbons?”

“The very same,” Elana nodded with a laugh. She had known the answer before the question had fallen from her lips, but she was delighted at Josephine’s response regardless. Bringing a pleasant surprise to her sister cheered her, and every bit of cheer would be necessary in the coming days.

“Of course I want to wear it,” she scoffed. “Do you have time to take it in a bit for me?”

Elana nodded as Marcus rounded the side of the house, rolling a wheelbarrow full of wood. “Nobody is going to the festival if we don’t finish our chores.” Marcus was eighteen and every inch his stoic, stubborn father.

“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud, Marcus,” sighed Josephine wistfully.

“Just imagine a dark stranger, his black cloak billowing behind him, a silken mask over his eyes. He sees me in Elana’s white gown—the one with the dark blue ribbons, mind—and he cannot resist me.

He comes forward and offers me a gloved hand, which of course I accept.

He presses his lips to my knuckles and they’re warm, sending shivers over my arms. We dance in the firelight, whirling madly, and when the song ends, he presses his body to mine—”

“Stop,” barked Marcus. “You’re too young to have anybody pressing up against you in the firelight.”

“And you’re not the boss of me,” bit back Josephine.

“Maybe not, but if anyone needs a dark stranger pressed up against them it’s your older sister.” Marcus wheeled his load past the front step toward the rickety lean-to that the Allard farm used to protect their firewood from the elements.

Elana flinched. At twenty one years old and the oldest Allard daughter, it was time she wed. Marcus wasn’t wrong.

But he didn’t have to be so loud about it.

A clatter of activity rose behind her and two giggling figures rushed past, out of the house and toward the yard. “You’re not the boss of me, you’re not the boss of me!” chanted the twins, Edward and Michel. At six years old and the youngest Allards, it was Elana’s job to mind them.

It was Elana’s job to do a lot of things, but tonight was the Umbral Festival, and the first order of business was that everyone should be dressed accordingly, herself included.

She had a gown that she’d been working on for months, and it was almost done.

If she could cinch her old gown tight enough that she didn’t need to sew it for Josephine, she’d have just enough time to finish her own stitching.

The boys were easy. They always preferred to dress in black, the better to mimic the shadows of days long past, shadows no longer present in the valley.

The Allards had a closet full of black trousers and shirts, cloaks and masks, and the boys—thirteen year old Luc included—would have no trouble finding something to wear.

The girls, their gowns mimicking the light to the boys’ shadows, were trickier to fit. Thankfully it was just Elana and Josephine. Their mother would wear the same thing she did every year.

Elana’s new gown was pale sunshine yellow, an almost identical match to her hair, but a perfect representation of the morning sun on a clear, cool fall day.

The Umbral Festival was during the height of summer, heat draping over the valley and not a shred of relief until nightfall.

After all, there was no shade to be found, no matter how many awnings the town lifted.

“Well hurry in then, you lovesick puppy,” said Elana, shaking herself from her thoughts. “We’ll never find you a dark stranger to dance with unless you have a gown to wear!”

Josephine dumped the rest of the chicken feed in one big pile, the birds squawking their protest as they flocked over one another, flapping to have access to the feed, and Josephine threw the bucket a few yards away, brushing the dust from her hands as she ran for the house.

“You’re certain?” she breathed, as she caught sight of the pile of pale fabric on the floor. Her eyes glowed as she clasped her hands together at her chest, and glanced, pleading, at Elana.

“I can’t even pull it up past my ribs, Josie,” Elana said with a laugh. “It’s your turn.”

Josephine squealed and clapped, pulling off her working dress right there in the family room, eager to try on Elana’s old gown for sizing.

Much to his chagrin, Luc chose that moment to come into the house.

“Josie!” he cried, clapping his hands over his eyes. “Put your damned clothes on!”

“Mind your manners, son,” came the calm voice of Papa Allard.

“You’ll come to learn that your mother’s daughters are more than a little bit wild, and that’s what we love about them.

In fact, son, when you’re dancing tonight, I’d advise you to watch for the girls who dance like Josie, with their whole bodies.

Your mother used to dance like that. Those are the ones you want for a wife, believe me.

” He waggled his eyebrows at his son suggestively.

“Disgusting,” said Luc with a snort, pushing into the kitchen to gnaw on a heel of bread, alternating with bites of cheese.

“Save some of that cheese for dinner,” scolded Elana. “Everyone will want something to eat before the festival.”

“Oh, not me,” said Josephine, her eyes wide and serious. “I’ll be saving my stomach for maple sugar floss, just like I’ve saved my coins all year.” Luc brushed crumbs from his shirt and followed their father back outside to finish their daily chores.

“You’re going to spend all your coins on maple sugar floss?” asked Elana, bewildered. “You’ll make yourself sick!”

Josie shook her head. “Not all my coins. I’m also going to spend some on honey mead.”

“Ah, sick and drunk then, sounds like fun.” Elana held the gown while Josie stepped into it. She cinched the ties tight, resulting in an affronted squeak from Josie. “Good news; this already fits like a glove. You’ve grown so much.”

Josephine glowed, twirling once to full the skirt.

When she faced Elana again, her face had grown somber.

“Marcus is right you know,” she whispered, her words coming out in a soft, hurried tumble.

“You really should marry. You don’t want to be the auntie looking after everyone else’s children at every gathering, aging at your loom, weaving your life away. Don’t you want a companion?”

Elana screwed her mouth to the side, biting at the inside of her cheek.

She knew she didn’t want to be alone. She was fond of the idea of growing old with someone, of sharing the kind of love and life her parents did with someone special.

She had just never met anyone she’d felt that spark with, no matter how many Umbral Festival gowns she’d sewn and worn, how many cups of mead or spools of maple sugar floss she’d shared with boys of the valley.

And she had tried. She had kissed Gabriel du Mond in the back seats of the amphitheater last festival.

She had let his hands cup her breasts, had run her fingers through his hair and let their tongues dance against one another.

She had tried unleashing a low sound in the back of her throat, wondering if perhaps she voiced enjoyment, her body would get the message.

It hadn’t. The kissing had been… fine, she supposed. It had felt… wet.

It wasn’t bad. There was nothing wrong with Gabriel du Mond. He was objectively handsome. Kind enough, smart enough, wealthy enough. She had willed her body to respond, forced her brain to try and feel the spark the bards sang about.

But nothing in her felt like that when she kissed Gabriel do Mond.

Nothing in her had felt like that… ever.

She offered Josie a watery smile. “I don’t want to be alone. I just haven’t met anyone that makes me feel like I want to spend the rest of my life with them.”

Forever felt like a long time to kiss someone and feel nothing but wet lips.

Josie’s brow furrowed. “Plus,” she said, licking her lips and leaning in, “I think if you married… if you had someone to share your bed… it might, you know. Solve some of your other issues.”

Elana glanced toward her bedroom door, where the tail end of a ragged rope could just be glimpsed.

She shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, the soft lining of her ankle cuffs rubbing against the fine points of her ankle bones.

“I don’t know if a husband snoring in my bed is more likely to keep me there than these things are,” she said, lifting her skirt and pointing a toe at her sister.

Josephine glanced down at the ankle cuff, but quickly looked away with a mischievous grin.

“Well I, for one, would like to be an auntie someday. I had always assumed I’d get to be an auntie before I was a wife or a mother, so you’d best get to work.

” Her words held a stubborn note of finality.

“Because I’m finding a stranger to dance with tonight, and while I may not end up marrying him, it’s fun to practice for the wedding, isn’t it? ” She shimmied and winked at Elana.

Elana gasped and smacked her sister on the arm. “You be careful, trollop!” But then she grabbed Josie’s arm and pulled her in close. “The dress looks beautiful on you, and I do hope you fall in love. Maybe even tonight. I hope you kiss a boy and it’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

“Elana Allard, do you have a heart after all?” Josie leaned back to look into Elana’s face. “You’re being serious.”