Page 63 of Those Fatal Flowers

Such designs are far too thoughtful to be the work of Thomas alone. No, he’s too brash, too excitable. This level of planning belongs to someone calmer, more collected. Agnes. She set a snare for me, and without Sybil’s intervention, I would have walked straight into it. My fingers curl to fists, and if I had any reservations about her fate, they’re gone in an instant, a drop of water lost to the waves.

The other men will be for my sisters, for Proserpina. Agnes and her son will be mine.

Abandoning Will in the woods is excruciating, but Sybil’s right: I can’t allow myself to fall into Agnes’s trap. So I kiss his cheek gently and force myself to return home. The warmth of my bed provides no comfort, as two thoughts torment me: First, what Thomas must have said to bait Will that deep into the woods so late at night. Did Will mistake the moment as the time for his confession? Is that what made Thomas desecrate him so? And second, how can I possibly carry such a secret? Luckily, I don’t have to for long.

The next morning, Mauris Allen discovers Will’s mutilated corpse outside the southern gate. It’s torn to shreds, left in such a state of carnage that the official conclusion is an animal attack. If Agnes and Thomas are shocked by the news, they manage to keep a straight face when they tell me aboutit. I have to keep one as well—how did Sybil manage to move Will there, and how was she able to disguise the exact nature of his death? Perhaps the stories women whisper about her aren’t entirely fabricated.

What’s left of his body is placed in the charnel house outside the eastern gate: The frozen ground won’t easily accept the dead, but Master Waters can’t wait that long. He demands a funeral, frigid earth be damned. Perhaps he fears he won’t make it to warmer weather to see his son properly buried. Unable to refuse a dying man, the Council acquiesces. And so, three days later, on the morning of my fourth full moon, the town gathers to bury Will.

Sorrow and the strangeness of unknown customs work together to soften the edges of his funeral into no more than a series of discordant sights, sounds, and feelings: There’s the loud, hollow tolling of the bell that guides his procession past the charnel house to the colony’s cemetery. The forest that looms ahead, its trees twisted into a nearly impenetrable gate. The longing that fills me for the safety of their shadows, more home to me than the City of Raleigh could ever be.

The dark, exposed soil that will soon hold Will’s grave, the ground around it scorched an unseemly, malicious black from where they lit a fire to thaw it. The sour taste of bile in my throat at the sight of it, and the smell that lingers in the chilled air—the same hideous scent of burnt earth as when the ground opened to swallow Proserpina. The strange sense of knowing that one day, the forest will reclaim this cemetery, and the wooden crosses that mark its graves will be lost to time. Will, and everyone else this island devours, will simply vanish from history. How this makes me feel so profoundly lonely.

There’s Alis Chapman graciously offering me a handkerchief, and Cora standing before Will’s grave, refusing to meetmy eyes. The jealousy that needles between my ribs when it’s Margery she leans into for support, and the shame that swirls in the pit of my stomach at the fact that even here, I yearn for her.

Me willing her to change her mind:Look at me.Look at me. Look at me.My fingers tapping against my sides as I think the words over and over, always three times in a row, counting on the magic that number holds to sway her: Three sisters banished. The Trinity. The Fates, who apparently didn’t spin this concession into my destiny, for my incantation goes unanswered.

Cora never looks.

The dull thud of the coffin hitting the bottom of the grave, lighter than it should be, given how much of Will was missing. How Cora winces each time dirt hits it as men work to refill the hole that will cradle him until he’s no more than dust.

The fog lifts only once the rest of the villagers have already gone ahead, making their way back inside the safety of the gates. A pang of guilt flicks at my heart, wind on a chime. This isn’t what I wanted. Not at the end, not once I knew him.

“Goodbye, Will,” I whisper down to the earth. I didn’t see much death as a child. The emotions it brings are difficult to navigate. Sorrow at the loss of a friend, relief that his death wasn’t by my hand, confusion as to why it had to happen at all. At least I know who’s responsible for it—many people tonight will go to bed scared of an evil they can’t place. Little do they know that one monster this city holds has already achieved his goal. For now, no more blood will be spilled in his pursuit of it.

Funeral feasts were common among the mortals of my time, and though the custom persists into this age, the meetinghouse holds no feast today. There are plenty of thoseoffensive hard biscuits, and a few crocks of a watery broth, but there’s simply not enough food left to do Will’s life justice. Still, the eyes of the poorer residents of the village, like Margery and Jeremie, light up at the sight of it all. How dangerously close we all are to passing into oblivion.

We might all starve before the men follow me back.

What a terrible waste that would be.

People file into their seats, and a fresh wave of anxiety rolls over me. As Will’s betrothed, I’m expected to sit at the head table, where I find Cora glaring at me: a warning not to get close. I heed it. The last time someone looked at me with such disgust, she banished me to Scopuli. Where would Cora send me if she had Ceres’s powers? Master Sampson’s Sunday warnings of scorching fires that burn eternal come to mind. Though her Hell doesn’t exist, Cora might rest easier if she knew I was marked for the pit of Tartarus. From what I can tell, the two places aren’t that dissimilar.

Emme motions for me to sit at the table with her, Wenefrid, Margaret, and Rose’s friend Jane. The others bristle as I approach, but Emme shoots them a look that keeps their objections quiet. We’re silent for most of the meal. I take a large sip of wine, hoping to either push the anxiety away or bury it with drink.

Cora excuses herself from the table, stumbling a bit from self-medicating when she stands. Without thinking, I hop to my feet to follow her. I catch Emme reaching for me from the corner of my eye, and though she means well, I’ve been waiting for this opportunity since Will disappeared. Nothing can keep me from Cora now.

I find her outside, leaning against the meetinghouse wall, close to where I kissed Will. How have five weeks already passed since then? Her face is buried in her hands as she heaves loud, grotesque sobs. I open my mouth, hoping to findsomething comforting to say, but what words exist for the weight of this moment? Instead, I take a cautious step forward. Snow crunches beneath my boots, and Cora whips her head up at the sound. When she sees me, she laughs. The noise is hateful, and I wither beneath it.

“What do you want?” she sneers, returning her weight to her feet.

“To make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m not,” she growls, her words coated with venom. “Someone murdered my brother, most likely because of you.”

“Cora—”

“It made me start to wonder…What do I actually know about you? Maybe Agnes was right to be suspicious—maybe you are an agent of Spain after all. Or perhaps something worse, sent here by Lucifer to lead us into sin. Whoever you are, you’ve done a great job turning us all against each other.”

“You know who I am. I’m your friend.”

“So you plan to rebuff Thomas when he proposes to you?”

“Cora, please—”

“Listen.” Her voice drops to a register reserved for warnings: a snake’s rattle or a lion’s growl. “If you were my friend, you wouldn’t have stolen my past and my future in the samenight. Unless you mean to tell me that you’ll decline Thomas’s offer?”

“With Will gone, he’s the winner…” The words are weak, for she’s right: My actions are unthinkable. But even though I spend my idle moments imagining the sound of her voice whispered into my hair, the feeling of her sweet breath on my neck, I’m not here for her. She doesn’t know, can’t ever know, what’s truly at stake.

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