Page 26 of Those Fatal Flowers

“Can I ask you something?” Her voice is barely a whisper.

I want to say,Anything,but I know how that word will sound leaving my lips—like a plea. I settle for a nod.

“You looked…upset while I was reading. Like you’d never heard Genesis before, and every part of it offended you.”

I can feel crimson rising to my cheeks. I was so certain that I’d hid it well; was she the only one who noticed, or did the others catch sight of my deceit, too?

My pause lasts too long, and Cora sighs, finding her answer in the void between us. “So, what—you’re a heathen, then?”

“A heathen?”

“You don’t believe in God.”

I think of the laws pinned to the meetinghouse’s door. “Of course I do.”

She looks unsure, but she doesn’t pull away from me. “Try harder to look like you know what’s happening at church tomorrow.”

I smile grimly, suddenly uncomfortable beneath her scrutiny. Less than a day with me, and Cora’s already discovered one of my secrets. What else will she find if she looks close enough?

“Cora!” Will’s voice shatters us apart as his face appears in a back window, an axe through flowers. “Oh—you’re still here, Lady Thelia.”

“She was just leaving,” Cora calls out to him before turning back to me. Did I imagine it, or was her voice a little rushed? “It’s nearly dinner…”

“I understand.” And I do, though it doesn’t make leaving any easier.

Later that evening, after Margery helps me undress, I slide a chair in front of my bedroom door before crawling into bed. If I’ve learned anything today, it’s that this city, this house, isn’t safe.

7

Before

Raidne and Pisinoe stand in stunned silence. They can’t accept the ship is real until another lightning flash confirms it, but I saw the lily, its ethereal glow—I need no more convincing. The third time light streaks across the darkness, instinct takes control. My wings twitch, my talons sink into the dirt floor, anticipating muscle between them. We strip ourselves bare. Anything extra will weigh us down, a dangerous proposition in the fury of the squall. Pisinoe has the hardest time of it, bedecked in all those jewels. She tears them from her body with a ferocity that appears only in these moments, when our humanity recedes and the raptor emerges.

Men to hear our song. To follow its promises into the waves.

Tonight, we survive.

Raidne is first out the door, then Pisinoe, then me. We run in a line toward the cliffs. When Raidne reaches the edge, she jumps from the precipice without hesitation. Pisinoe and I follow with equal confidence. With our black wings folded against our backs, we dive down toward the rocky shorebelow until, suddenly, our feathered limbs snap open to catch a plume of air. Into the heavens we ascend. Here, among the clouds, we’re weightless.

Thunder crashes and rain pelts our forms, but any discomfort is obscured by our excitement, by our hunger. I lick the ocean’s salt from my lips. When we’re close enough that those aboard can hear us, I begin our song. Thelxiope, for pleasing voice.

The notes are high and drawn out, head tones that fall from my mouth and travel to the sailors’ ears. Raidne and Pisinoe join. The melody is seductive, but it’s also haunting. We pour our souls into it, and we carry so much sorrow.

The sadness of losing Proserpina. The shame of being banished. The power of our new bodies. The isolation. The beauty of our voices. The obscenity of our forms. The thrill of bringing men to heel. The hope for a different life. These sentiments rush toward the ship, but they’re not what the men aboard hear.

As it slips between thunderclaps and the howling winds, our chorus spins magic.

“Come, stop your ship so you may hear us.”

The men scatter across the deck as we approach. This ship, with only two masts, isn’t the largest that we’ve seen, but it has plenty of ears to meet our needs.

“We know all that happens on this bountiful earth…”

A few sailors who have yet to hear our notes on the wind are trying desperately to keep the vessel afloat. They work the ropes and sails to steer it through the squall as best they can, but large waves send seawater crashing over the deck and make simply standing a struggle. But once our song, and its promise, reaches them, their frantic efforts cease. Ropes fall from slackened hands; open-mouthed faces peek out from the portholes. All are rendered still. Lightning teases ourforms, but the cover of night obscures our haggard, aging bodies, the danger of our talons. To them, we’re winged women dancing among the thunderheads—a sight to marvel at, not to inspire dread. Surely nothing dangerous could sing so beautifully.

I land on the deck first, followed by Pisinoe. Raidne remains in the air, uninterested in taunting them. Now they’re close enough to see our ghastly bodies, but the sailors aren’t frightened—our song has given them glimpses of the futures they crave most, and a glimpse is never enough. The man closest to me clutches his chest, devotion pooling in his dark eyes, as if he’s gazing upon Venus herself. When I take a step closer, he falls to his knees, his clasped hands raised to me in desperation. He’s not dead yet, but already, I feel myself standing taller.

Tell me,his expression begs. I reach to stroke his bearded cheek. As soon as my fingers connect with his skin, his hands rush to his chest. Then he crashes to the ground. This wouldn’t be the first time a sailor’s died overwhelmed by his own anticipation. But this man twists his body closer to me even as his heart begins to fail. I take a step back, and then another, and all the while, he claws desperately to close the gap I create between us. My wings spread wide, and I take to the air, hovering just over the ship’s edge. The wooden deck tears at his fingers as he pulls himself along, leaving scarlet stains in his wake. Good. What bloody trails of mine would he create if given the chance?

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