Page 48 of Those Fatal Flowers

I won’t love again, Ican’tlove again, not without her explicit blessing.

“What happens next?” I blurt out, and he looks puzzled. But of course he is—it’s not really a question for him. “What’s your plan? You can’t stay here.”

He watches me measuredly, taken aback by my outburst.

“I suppose I’ll need to build a boat,” he posits. “But that’s no small task. It’ll take a few weeks.”

My body vibrates with the suggestion. Three weeks. It’s been three weeks with no word from her, so I will force her hand. Either she can tell me what he’s for or he can return to the sea. I’ll no longer sit idly by and wait for the gods to dole out their favors, and for one single time in the entirety of our pitiful existence here, I won’t grovel in blood for her mother’s mercy.

“I understand,” I say, and I do. “Is there a way I can help?”

“I could find a lot of what I’ll need if you let me search Scopuli’s beach—”

“No.” I’m surprised by the power behind my voice, the finality. “It’s not possible, and I forbid you to ask me again.”

“But you said—”

“Draw me the pieces you need, and I’ll find them for you, but you can’t go anywhere near Scopuli.”

“I’m growing restless here,” he admits.

“This will give you something to do, and then you’ll be off,” I say, marveling at how quickly relief unspools the tension in my muscles. This isn’t a perfect plan, but it’s something. For the first time since stumbling across his broken body, I feel a semblance of control.

“Well, then. It sounds like I’m building a boat.”

Cursed spirits and drowned maidens visit me in dreams. I’m soaring over Scopuli headfirst into an approaching storm. The clouds are rolling in too quickly, too fast for any natural squall. Lightning forks across the sky in a thousand different directions, its force sending me spiraling downward. All around me, thunder tears open the heavens.

I fall to the beach where the dead women from the wreck stand vigil. They face Rotunda, pointing decaying fingers at the island across the strait. Their eyes have rotted away, but they watch me still with wide, empty sockets. Bloated tongues fill their open mouths, which try to wail, but the only sound that escapes is the gurgle of the water that choked them as it spills out of their throats. Their sorrow, their rage, it’s so heavy, and it’s directed not only at Jaquob, but at me—I want to beg for forgiveness for my part in their fates, want to ask them how I can fix it, but before I can, their swaying bodies fade, replaced by a field of lilies.

Proserpina lies in its center, and a gaunt creature crouches over her middle. Its skin is gray and too small for its frame, stretched so tightly across its body that all the bones beneath are visible. It’s a monster of vertebrae and ribs and scapulae, all angles and edges. A set of horns—or are they branches?—adorn its misshapen head and stretch to the sky like a crown. When it raises its hideous face to look at me, my feet fall back in alarm. I know the black eyes that bore into mine. Although he’s little more than a skull, I’d recognize him anywhere.

Dis.

Blood drips from his razored teeth, and his lips curl into a twisted smile. He’s been feeding from her, eating the contents of her gut cavity. A swarm of black flies erupts from the wound and encircles his head in a dark, pulsating halo. Their buzzing fills my ears. I turn to run as Dis unleashes a victorious, hateful laugh.

“Thelia!” Proserpina screams for me, her voice broken by my betrayal. And although there’s nothing I want more than to save her, I don’t look back.

12

Now

Dread’s grip on the settlement is temporarily relieved at the end of the month by Yule. The holiday draws us to the meetinghouse, now adorned with laurel and holly leaves, to celebrate two nights after the solstice. Their green and red flashes are a welcome sight—they’re the only color that winter hasn’t buried beneath an unrelenting cloak of white. Candle flames dance in every window, and the air inside the meetinghouse is heavy with cinnamon, cloves, and wine. Alcohol warms my frost-kissed cheeks, and when I spy the rosy complexions on Margery, Wenefrid, and Rose, I find I’m not alone.

All around, the townspeople swirl in their finest clothes. There’s Agnes, her tinkly, forced laugh emanating from across the room as she speaks with Master Sampson. Rose stands by his side, doing her best impression of a captivated wife, but the way her fingers strum along the side of her mug reveals her boredom. When her friend Jane rushes past, dodging the obvious advances from Master James Lacie, Rose politely excuses herself from her husband’s side and insertsherself between the two, allowing Jane time to escape. The simple act of kindness makes me smile.

Thomas bursts through the large wooden doors with a piece of a tree trunk in his arms, its roots dangling near his feet. The colonists erupt into applause as he carries the log to the center of the room, where he makes a show of sitting on top of it. Everyone gathers around him, but I hang back, apprehension slowing my limbs as the comfort I felt moments ago dissipates like dew in the late morning sun.

My mind wanders to my sisters. Imagining them before a roaring fire inside our little hut as Scopuli’s fierce winter winds roar outside makes my chest ache with longing.

Thomas clears his throat, returning my focus to the scene at hand. Cora, dressed in emerald as his winter queen, hands him a mug of ale. Watching her with Thomas is worse than it was watching Proserpina with the potential suitors Ceres invited to the palace. Proserpina never reveled in their attention. Cora, on the other hand, radiates affection for Thomas. When he takes the mug from her and rewards her with a kiss on the cheek, Cora beams, sinking my mood deeper into shadow.

“Welcome be thou, Heaven King,” he begins to sing, and a hush settles over the room. Though I despise him, even I must admit that he has a certain charisma. I scan the crowd, and everyone’s eyes save for mine are locked on him. Their stares are carefree and jovial, unbothered by the fact that the hold he has over them is dangerous. It’s slower than a song capable of driving them into the sea, but just as deadly. Would they be fawning so much if they knew he refused to send the scouting party to Scopuli even after that first snow melted away?

“Welcome born in one morning.

“Welcome for whom we shall sing.

“Welcome for whom we shall sing, welcome Yule!”

---