Page 31 of Mischief Maker
All of this was because of him.
It’s as if something has opened inside of me, and a black curse in my own locked chest is streaming out. I scream in rage, thinking of how this all could have been prevented, how my mother could still be alive if Kireth weren’t so foolish and troublesome. Blazing hot, I pick up a chair that we repaired together last week and throw it. It strikes the wall, splintering, and falls to the floor in a pile of sticks.
I sink to my knees and realize that I’m drenched between the thighs after our roll in the grass, and I scream again, tearing pieces of cloth out of my dress so I can clean myself up. I pour more wine, and more wine, guzzling all of it until I stumble up the steps to our bed.
This is the place where we’ve slept every night and made love innumerable times in the last few months.
Months. It’s been so long, surely we should have run out of tasks by now. Surely I’ve used all forty of them.
And then I realize: he stopped counting.
The splinter digging into my chest becomes sharper, more acute. Who knows how many tasks Kireth did for me without counting a single one of them? Was his plan to stay here forever?
My pain is a river and I am trapped in it, flailing, trying desperately to grab onto a root or a rock so I can stop being dragged away. I fall into the bed and sob, remembering how Mother would always come and kiss me before bed, even once I was a fully grown woman.
Little girls never grow out of their mother’s kisses, she’d said.
I bring up the quilt to my face. It smells like Kireth: dense woods and undergrowth, fresh rivers, a new sprout coming out of the ground.
He lied because he knew the truth was too much for my love to survive. And perhaps it is.
Kireth
The front door of the house slams closed, and I know I am no longer welcome in Faela’s home.
It is hers, after all. It was never mine. I slept there, and fixed what I could, and ate dinner there because it made her happy. But a mortal’s home is not meant for me. I was always intended to be a temporary presence there.
Fresh hay bales are waiting inside the barn. I lie down on them and curl up because it’s starting to get cooler at night. I think of Faela’s soft bed, the scent of her everywhere, ensconcing me in its comforting glow. I remember drawing her into me, tucking her head under my chin, wrapping my tail around her thigh where it lay between my legs as we fell asleep.
She will never forgive me.
Up at the house, I hear an immense crack!, like something large has broken into pieces. She screams with fury, and I think I underestimated the lion lying dormant inside her.
I am a truly miserable thing, to have brought this upon her.
The noise ceases after some time, and then the candles in the windows are extinguished. I watch the house through the open barn door as Faela goes to bed without me.
How can I possibly undo what I’ve done? When my actions created so much heartache and misery, and stole so much from her?
“Overstayed your welcome, have you?”
Lucia’s voice startles me enough that I tumble off the hay bale. The great goddess chuckles from where she stands stooped under the low barn ceiling. She snaps her fingers, and slowly her body shrinks until she’s a much more manageable seven or eight feet tall.
“You have always landed on your feet before, haven’t you?” she says, stroking her chin thoughtfully. “This time... not so much.”
I dust myself off. “She’ll forgive me,” I say with confidence so that perhaps, I’ll believe it. But I’m not sure she will.
My mother simply shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, unfortunately for you.” She leans down close and smiles wickedly. “You’re done here, Kireth. You have been for some time.”
I balk. “But I wasn’t counting my tasks!”
“Just because you weren’t counting doesn’t mean no one was counting.” She narrows her sharp blue eyes. “Those were the rules when you were created. You have broken them by not returning to your temple when the time was up.”
I chuckle uneasily. “The time can’t be up yet, though.” Have I done forty tasks since I stopped keeping track?
Lucia keeps a level gaze on me as she crosses her arms. “It is. You’re done, Kireth.”
I sprint to the door of the barn and throw it open. I can’t go, not yet. I have to say goodbye to my sweet farm girl. My chosen one.
