Page 46 of Those Fatal Flowers

His wound festers for the first few days, the open gash irritated by the midday heat. Thick yellow pus drenches his bandage. Flies begin to linger on his camp’s periphery, hovering in the heavy air like sentinels, their one-toned drone nature’s death knell. I try to prepare myself for the likelihood that he won’t survive, but the thought is painful—if he dies now, my deceit will have been for nothing. Proserpina hasn’t revealed his purpose, and her silence burrows beneath my skin like a tick on a deer; I can’t shake the unease it brings, leaving me no choice but to bear it.

And yet, to my surprise, Jaquob lives. After his first week, the wound stops leaking. It begins to close after the second.The flies end their vigil, and Jaquob’s energy slowly returns. He starts to laugh; he starts to leer.

My bare breasts distract him, so I take to wearing clothes around him. It’s been centuries now since those first sailors’ ropes burned my wrists, but in Jaquob’s presence, the memory is never far. It lingers in the shadows that pool beneath the beach plums and speckled alders, begging me not to let my guard down. But Jaquob never threatens me, and slowly, that kindness softens my edges.

“Was your mother a fae?” he wonders aloud one afternoon. He’s finally stopped asking me what I am, accepting that I’ll never give him a satisfactory answer. Now he offers suggestions of his own. His angels didn’t fit, nor did the Valkyries. The afterlife I guide deserving men toward isn’t a glorious one.

We’re curled up inside his tent made of sticks and pelts, lounging on a pile of furs. Very little space separates our frames, a distance that seems to grow smaller and smaller asthe days pass. To my surprise, I find that I enjoy his company.

Would I have enjoyed other men’s company, too?The question lingers uncomfortably, a more palatable version than the one I’m too scared to ask:Was killing them wrong?

The air is heavy today, and heat collects inside the tent. Summer, Proserpina’s favorite season, is officially over. Still, Scopuli’s meadows are heavy with flowers: purple asters and coneflowers, though no new lilies emerge to join the bloom that brought Jaquob’s ship. It’s been nearly three weeks now, and its elegant stalk now bends beneath the weight of its blossom; its vibrant orange petals curl at the edges. Each day that passes brings it closer to returning to the earth, and still, Proserpina is silent.

“A fae?” I respond slowly, reluctant to leave my reverie.Even the newness of Jaquob isn’t enough to lure me away from the thought of her.

“A fairy. Like Melusine.”

I’ve learned during our short time together that he loves to tell stories; though we both have chimeric bodies and an affinity for water, I have little else in common with his half-serpent woman.

“I don’t know if there are any fae in New France, but there are definitely spirits.”

“Tell me about some.” I lean into his words, desperate for more. Spirits, humans call them, when they’re so often more—lesser gods and their children. Could there be others like us close by, separated by only a thin boundary of magic?

He props himself up on an elbow to face me.

“There’s one that’s said to arrive with the winter. They’re emaciated creatures with pallid skin, as large as giants. They eat human flesh.”

My gaze locks on the crude ceiling above, where I trace the cracked lines in the dried leather, hopeful that my silence doesn’t betray the dread that pulls my muscles taut.

“Each human they consume makes them grow larger, so their stomachs are never full. They roam the northern forests, always hungry, always in pursuit of meat.”

I’ve punished so many men, and it’s never been enough to sate the fury I carry in the pit of my stomach. My mood darkens. “It sounds like they’re cursed.”

Like me.

I turn my head away from him, trying to hide the tears that mist my eyes at the recognition of myself in his tale: a bewitched immortal, doomed to feed on the flesh of men.

“Tell me another story,” I add, knowing the task will keep him from scrutinizing the dark cloud that’s swallowed me. Jaquob has no problem complying.

“Have I told you about this pendant I carry around my neck? Supposedly, it’s a relic of Saint Jerome. His remains were originally interred in Bethlehem, and although the Church won’t admit it, when they transferred his body to Rome, he didn’t make it there in his entirety.”

I don’t understand most of what he says, but my ears do know one word:Rome. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips—so the city Anchises prophesized still stands.

Jaquob is too busy pulling a golden chain from beneath his shirt to catch the flicker of recognition in my eyes. Once it’s free, he lifts its pendant so the sapphire in its center catches the light. My fingers brush against it, as softly as a whisper.

“It opens here.” He turns the pendant onto its side to reveal a small seam between two golden plates, and the clasp that keeps them closed. It’s a locket. “There’s a piece of his robes inside.”

“What’s a saint?” I ask, turning to face him again. Surprise sweeps across his features, widening his eyes, parting his lips. But he doesn’t laugh at my ignorance, nor does he linger on it.

“A saint,” he begins, “is a person who is holy, who has a closer likeness to God than the rest of us.”

“Are they gods, too, or just their children?”

This question elicits another smile, and he reaches to trace his fingers along my cheek as if he’s not sure exactly what he’s dealing with, as if he needs to prove to himself that I’m real. They’re a shock against my skin, and I recoil instinctively. Outside the tent, the memory of being bound vibrates in the shadows, warning against the warmth that rises in my chest.

He smiles sadly, but he doesn’t press me. “Where I’m from, we believe there’s only one God, and he only had one son. Saints are mortal men.”

Now it’s my turn to look shocked. “Only one child? Why? Did his son castrate him?”

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