Page 21 of Those Fatal Flowers

“It’s fine.” My words come out too quickly, and if my cheeks were flushed before, they’re burning now. “I’m all right, Cora, really—and I was the one who asked you to take me here.”

Her hand still hangs there in the air, my first error, but it’s the way her lips part just so that gives away my second—I’ve called her by her first name. It came out so quickly, so naturally, that I never would have realized. “I mean Mistress Wat—”

“You can call me Cora.” Her words are kind, but she snaps her hand back to her side. And is it a trick of the light, or are her cheeks turning scarlet as well? Gods, why did I recoil from her?

Because she’s not what you’re here for.

Is that Proserpina’s voice or my own? Guilt pools in my stomach, thick as oil. Of course she’s not, I know that, so whyam I wondering what it would feel like to have those fingers cup my face?

“Cora,” I repeat, my tongue exploring the shape of her name against my will. It would feel so good there if I could just relish it, if I wasn’t me. But Cora doesn’t let me wallow. She retreats from the water back toward the tree line without another word. All I can do is collect the soaking bottoms of my skirts and rush after her. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“We’ve been gone too long. I’m going to be late.”

“Late? For what?”

“Bible study with the other women. You should join us.”

My heart swells at the invitation. When I reach the trees myself, I sneak a glance toward the ocean one last time, trying to commit its sights, scents, and sounds to memory—the swirling blue waves capped with white foam, the sharpness of salt on the wind, the mewing of gulls. These are all friends, my threads to home.

Go,they urge as the forest swallows Cora ahead. And although it pains me, my best choice is to listen.

Emme Merrimoth’s home, this week’s Bible study location, is in the outermost ring in the southeast corner of the city. At a single story—and, from the looks of it, a single room—it’s markedly smaller than the Bailies’.

“I live next door,” Margery says, pointing to an equally humble dwelling beside Emme’s. I force a smile, my thoughts on Cora and her change of mood.

Before I can offer Margery a half-hearted reply, an infant comes toddling out of Emme’s doorway into the street. Cora steps aside to let him pass, and his face is swallowed by a smile as Margery drops to his level and extends her arms to catch him. A third woman watches from the doorway,laughing as she struggles to retain her grip on another squirming child in her own arms.

“Sorry, Margery! He was too excited to see you!”

Margery scoops the boy up and spins him around before placing a wet kiss on his forehead. Not much more than a year old, he’s too young for the act to embarrass him; instead, the sloppy sound makes him giggle, and he buries his face in her chest. I tense at the sight of him. Jeremie’s sweet now, ofcourse, but what will he grow into? Cubs always mature into bears, lions, wolves—never sheep; their anatomy doesn’t allow it.

Dis was a child once. Look what he became.

Margery turns to me, coaxing the boy to look in my direction. “Lady Thelia, this is Jeremie.”

There’s no one else he could be. He looks identical to his mother, down to their sickly constitutions.

“Hello, sweet one.” I force the words out as convincingly as I can, though the singsong inflection my voice takes on sounds like talons scraping across rock. Thankfully, the child is as foolish as the adult men around him. Jeremie beams at me. Behind the smiling moon of his face, Cora slips inside the house, abandoning me with the mothers.

“And this is Elizabeth and her son, Ambrose,” Margery says, nodding her head to the woman in the doorway. Shit, another boy.

“Nice to meet you,” Elizabeth says with a smile.

A new round face appears from behind Elizabeth’s shoulder. Even as she stands in Elizabeth’s shadow, warmth radiates from her slender frame. Although she doesn’t look as thin as Margery, here’s another woman with hardly any meat on her bones. Her skin is sun-kissed, dappled with freckles, and her frizzy red hair is stuffed unceremoniously beneath a coif. Wild crimson tendrils break free, giving her theappearance of someone touched with a hint of madness. But she must be, if this is Emme—from what Margery shared on the walk here, she was one of seven single women who decided to make this colony her home. She gasps when she sees me, a sun-speckled hand rising to cover her mouth. “Oh—my lady!”

“Please forgive my intrusion,” I offer, unsure of what exactly to say.

“It’s my pleasure!” Her voice rises an octave, hinting that it’s not.

“If it’s not too much trouble. Cora invited me, but I don’t have to—”

“Don’t be silly!” Margery interjects. “You’re more than welcome here!”

Emme shoots a dark look back into the room, no doubt cursing Cora for bringing me along without asking, but when she looks back to us, the warm smile has returned. “Come on, then. Get inside before you both catch a chill.”

The doorway swallows Emme and Elizabeth, and Margery follows their lead. I stand there for a moment, listening to the soft tinkling of laughter spill into the street. It’s easy to pretend that I’m back home, standing outside my own humble dwelling. Inside, Raidne prepares dinner while Pisinoe reads poetry aloud. I can almost hear her perfect meter:As for me, the sacred wall with its votive tablet declares that I have hung up my dripping garments to the god who rules over the sea.

The laughter quiets when I step inside. As I suspected, Emme’s house is a single room, not unlike mine on Scopuli, save for one noticeable difference—believing their stay on Roanoke would be short, the cottage’s builders apparently deemed a chimney an unnecessary luxury for the likes of a poor single woman. The entire space is thick with smoke from the fireplace that dominates the back wall. But even thehaze isn’t enough to hide me from seven new pairs of curious eyes.

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