Chapter 17
Magdala dreamt that she was standing on a stone in the middle of a raging river. The water ran swift and cold, alive with the darting green bodies of nixies and the muddy fins of undines. Their webbed fingers slithered along the rock, brushing her toes.
Voices carried on the wind, and she dragged her eyes away from the monsters to the shore where her father stood on one bank, beckoning her to swim to him.
Her mother stood on the other bank, shouting for her.
Her panic rose as they waved, urgent, insistent, their voices rising shrill above the torrent.
Had they forgotten that she couldn’t swim?
Didn’t they know that, if she listened to them, she would drown?
And then a third voice called to her, and she looked down. Asherton was treading water below. He reached up and cried, “Jump in and perhaps I will catch you!”
“Perhaps?” she asked.
He smiled his most beautiful, enigmatic smile and said, “Perhaps.”
“And what if you don’t?”
The nixie’s hands wrapped around her ankles, her calves, her thighs. They were dragging her into the water. Her parents’ screams rose, but why couldn’t they come to her? Why did she have to go to them? She could not swim!
Asherton laughed as cold, muddy water closed over her head. Fingers groped along her legs. Seaweed brushed her cheeks.
Magdala awoke with a start. The sun streamed in the window above her cot, warming her. Something was tickling her cheek. Drowsy, she opened her eyes and looked directly into Anton the plant’s bared teeth.
With a shriek, Magdala tried to scramble out of bed, but Anton’s roots tangled her legs, his leaves encircling her waist. He’d grown as big as a toddler in three days, his jaws wide enough to clamp around her throat.
“GET IT OFF!” she screamed, thrashing, expecting teeth to sink in her flesh.
Anton whined like a persecuted puppy and tightened his grip.
Asherton sat up in bed, his hair tousled in his eyes. He blinked at her, then threw the covers aside and jumped on Anton. He tugged, the muscles in his arms tight, but the plant wrapped its leaves around Magdala and squeezed until she thought she might pop like a crushed ball.
“Come to Daddy,” Asherton said through a grimace, pulling with all his might.
Frantic, Magdala reached under her pillow, grasped her knife, and would have slashed the leaf wound around her waist, but Asherton yelped, “NO!”, dove across Anton, and gripped Magdala’s wrist.
“YOU’RE WRETCHED PET IS TRYING TO EAT ME!” Magdala screeched, fighting him. Wrestling both Magdala and Anton, Asherton shouted, “I’m working on it, you violent witch!”
Crushing her arm against the wall, he slid his knee between Anton’s stalk and Magdala’s chest. She gasped, and he looked a little chagrined. “Sorry,” he panted, “but you said you wanted him off …”
“If you don’t want me to prune your plants, keep them in their pots!” she snapped.
Asherton finally wrenched Anton loose. They both tumbled to the floor where Anton moaned, burying his head in Asherton’s shoulder and weeping like a child.
“You hurt him!” Asherton cried, sitting up and pivoting Anton away from Magdala.
“He attacked me!”
“He did not! He just snuggled up to you in the night.”
“Because he meant to eat me!”
“Does he look like he wants to eat you? I swear, you are the most mean-spirited woman …”
“I am not mean-spirited!” Magdala stood, her blankets sliding onto the floor. “I am just the only person in this house with an instinct for self-preservation!”
Anton turned his eyeless head toward Magdala, and she could have sworn he was gloating.
“He paralyzed you,” she muttered.
“He didn’t mean it,” Asherton said. He sat on the bed with Anton clinging to him. “He’s just a baby.”
The door flew open and Zephyr stumbled in, wrapped in a fuzzy red bathrobe, his hair damp. “What happened?” he panted. “Where…” He looked around, wild-eyed, searching for an assassin.
“Magdala stole Anton from me,” Asherton grumbled.
“I didn’t steal him!” Magdala protested. “He chose me.”
“He doesn’t even like you!”
Afraid she might snap and wring Asherton’s neck, Magdala let out a growl of frustration, spun on her heel, and marched into the washroom, proclaiming over her shoulder, “This is a madhouse!”
“Where do you think you’re going, Miss Devney?” Zephyr barked.
Magdala froze in the doorway, her teeth on edge, and turned slowly toward him. “It’s a washroom, Zephyr. Do you think I’m going in here to read a book and have a spot of tea?”
Zephyr reddened and, feeling smug, Magdala slammed the door. She walked to the chamber pot and sat down. Her stomach was cramping, and when she drew down her pants, she noticed a flash of red on her undergarments. Magdala put her hand to her forehead and groaned.
That’s why the horrid beast had nestled up to her in the night. It could smell blood. Disgusting.
She’d already stashed her sanitary rags in the washroom vanity, so she prepared herself for a difficult day. When she opened the door, she jumped back with a scream.
Anton lay across the threshold, a sprawl of leg-like brown roots and arm-ish leaves.
“Get it away from me.” It came out more as a threat than an order.
Freshly dressed in a loose linen shirt and canvas pants, his night clothes discarded in a heap, Asherton crossed his arms. “He’s yours now. He likes you.”
“He only likes me because I smell like blood.”
Zephyr grimaced, but Asherton wrinkled his brow. “Why do you smell like blood?”
Magdala boiled over. “Because the red lady is visiting me.”
“What in Roz’s nest does that mean?”
“Oh, I have failed,” Zephyr said, casting his eyes heavenward. “It’s her time of the month, Asherton.”
The prince looked both wary and nervous at the same time. “What time of the month?”
Magdala ran her tongue over her teeth. “I don’t want to explain this to you. You’re a grown man.”
Asherton lifted his hands, palms up. “Who lives on a remote island with an eight-hundred-year-old bachelor!”
Zephyr stepped gingerly around Anton, who snapped at his ankles. He patted Magdala’s arm as he passed her. “I’m so sorry, my dear. I swear, I tried with him.”
“Help,” Magdala mouthed.
With an apologetic smile, Zephyr said, “Oh, you don’t need me.” He left the room, clicking the door shut behind him.
Magdala scooped up Anton, who nuzzled against her affectionately, stormed across the room, and crammed him into Asherton’s arms. “Every month, women bleed for a week,” she explained sharply. “Or, if you’re me, a few days more than a week.”
Asherton’s eyes widened. “Oh.” He stared at her uncomfortably. “Does it hurt?”
“YES!” Magdala snapped. “It hurts a great deal.”
“And does it … affect your mood?”
“NO!” Magdala barked. “Not at all!”
“Ah.” He set Anton on the nightstand and scratched the back of his head. “Look at it this way—if Anton really has imprinted on you, then that means he won’t eat you.”
“Horrah,” Magdala said flatly. “Now, I need camfe. I have a raging headache. Come on.”
She turned and started toward the door. Anton jumped down and followed her.
“NO!” she ordered. “Stay!”
Anton ignored her, wobbling along the floor on his roots.
She turned to Asherton. “Stop him!”
“I can’t stop him,” Asherton replied, irritated. “He wants you!”
“I don’t want him.”
“There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“Oh, stars above …” She ran down the stairs, wincing as Anton’s roots clattered along her father’s floors, leaving clumps of dirt on the rugs. When she reached the kitchen, Zephyr already had a cup of camfe ready for her.
“I’m sorry, Miss Devney. This is no place for a woman,” he said.
Magdala opened her mouth to agree, but before she could, Asherton yelped from the floor above as Anton fell down the stairs, bumping his huge head on each step. He landed in a heap on the tile and curled into a pathetic coil, keening.
Asherton thundered down the steps and scooped Anton into his arms, comforting him as if he was an injured child.
“There, there, is Mommy being awful?” he crooned. “She is. She’s the awfulest mommy anyone has ever had.”
He cast a cutting look at Magdala and she rolled her eyes.
“I thought he imprinted on you when he bit your hand,” Magdala said, sipping her drink. It was sharp and bitter and burned all the way down her throat. She relished it.
“It seems he imprinted on you both,” Zephyr said. “As I mentioned before, carnivorous plants are sometimes monogamous pairs, so he probably thinks Magdala is his mother and Ash is his father.”
Magdala choked on her camfe.
Zephyr’s eyes sparkled. “You’ll have to work out some sort of custody agreement.”
“I’m not co-parenting a plant with you,” Magdala said. “You can keep him.”
“Hush.” Asherton covered Anton’s earholes. “He’ll hear you!”
Anton wriggled out of his arms again, trotted to Magdala, and wrapped his leaves around her leg.
“This is ridiculous!” Magdala cried. “I can’t worry about him and you at the same time! One helpless creature is enough!”
“It’s not as though I wanted you to steal my plant.” Asherton yanked the kitchen door open and marched into the misty, humid morning.
Magdala shouted after him, “Put on some blasted shoes!”
Asherton called over his shoulder, “If you’re lucky, I’ll catch pneumonia and save you the trouble of doing me in yourself!”
“I’m not trying to…argh!” She slammed her cup on the counter, shook off Anton, and ran after the prince.
Anton skipped behind her, more steady on his root-legs every second. He was almost cute, in a horrifying way. Like a baby dragon. She imagined that if he had eyes, he would be less awful to look at.
Asherton waded into the garden, barefoot, his shirt unbuttoned and a mist of rain slicking his chest.
“Your Highness, put on a jacket. You’ll catch your death,” Magdala said, trying to keep up with him. She was crampy and sore, her head aching.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Would you slow down?”
“I need to get Anton breakfast.”
“Your Highness, please …” She doubled forward, biting her tongue against a sharp pang in her stomach.
She always had horrible visits from the red lady—worse than her other friends.
While they complained of bad moods and faint headaches, she spent three days doubled over in the washroom, vomiting into the sink.
Sometimes, it was difficult to walk or talk through the pain.
But she’d never missed a single day of work, even when the headaches blinded her or her back throbbed.
Asherton whirled on her. “Heavens, Devney, what’s wrong …” His voice trailed off. “This red lady of yours is brutal.”
Magdala glared at him, but her stomach twisted, and she threw up in the weeds.
“Good grief!” Asherton cried. “Is that normal?”
Magdala’s hair, which she hadn’t had time to braid, fell into her face as she heaved a second time. Asherton lifted it and held it behind her back.
“I’m fine,” she panted.
“You look it,” he remarked dryly.
She straightened and he released her hair, then wiped his hands on his shirt as if touching her had left a residue. “This happens every month?”
“Yes.”
“And you get the day off work, of course. Because you shouldn’t have to work like this.”
Magdala let out a bark of laughter. “Typically, no one even knows.”
He cocked his head. “It’s not as though it’s your fault. You said it happens to every woman.”
“Yes. Well, it’s worse for me, I think, than most.”
“Then why don’t you get the day off? For rest.”
“I don’t need rest, I just need you to get this thing off my leg!” She pointed to Anton, who was nuzzling her thigh with his heavy green jaw.
“Let him hug you. You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want a hug. I want to do this awful, awful job in peace.”
Asherton chuffed and turned, making for the greenhouse again. “Go take a nap, Mags.”
“I don’t need a nap!” she shouted after him. “And don’t call me Mags!”
He spun around, walking backward. “I will stay here, where you can see me from your window. Rest in your cot, with a shotfire in your lap. If anyone comes near me, you can shoot them.”
It did sound nice. Sitting still for half an hour, without Asherton’s chafing presence. “You have to keep the plant.”
Asherton shook his head and threw up his hands. “Fine, fine, don’t find comfort in an innocent creature who loves you. I can see how that would be upsetting for you.” He hoisted Anton onto his shoulder. “Come, Anton, Mama needs her beauty rest.”
With that, he walked to the greenhouse like a father with a troublesome toddler, and an image flashed through Magdala’s mind of Asherton holding a little girl with red braids.
She nearly threw up again.