PART ONE
When Wishes Bleed
1
The tips of my fingers, even my nails in their beds, were glacier blue despite the hot, dry autumn air. They ached and throbbed as I pumped water into a kettle and prickled as I carried it back inside and hung it over the fire. Nothing but death would bring them back to life at this point.
I wrapped my icy fingers around my middle and waited patiently for her to arrive. She was almost here, thankfully. I had important business to see to today, but the two readings Fate demanded would take precedence.
I took out the tea leaves and piled a heap on the counter, then sat three saucers behind them. To the witches I read for, they probably looked nearly identical, but each had its own markings and secrets only it could reveal.
Today was my birthday, and my power and I were now considered mature. Fate, I knew all too well, was real. He wasn’t an obscure concept of destiny, or a dream of what the future might hold. And he certainly wasn’t luck or a wishing well. He was sentient and very much alive. I was Fate’s daughter, and he lived inside me.
As a child, he was gentle with his demands, but today there was no gentleness left in him. His easy whispers turned to shouts, and lately, his nudges of guidance had become harsh shoves.
Fate shoved me now, evidenced by my icy, dying fingers and the stiffness settling into my joints, but I had learned to push back. He almost always listened when I promised to do as he wanted in time, but today, he was impatient. He wanted a man to swing from the gallows, and for me to hang him there.
I wanted to hang him there, to be honest. I wanted the needle-sharp pain to go away, to be able to extend my bones, and for the feeling to fully return to the parts that felt numb. The only thing holding me back was the fact that no crime had been committed yet. I always checked first to be sure. Fate warned me that an offense would happen, and that if I waited, whatever occurred would upset every witch in The Gallows, but I refused to hang someone when there existed the tiniest chance the offender might choose a different path. And I was a firm believer that until a line was crossed, there was hope.
Fate… felt differently.
Today was not a day I could hang someone unless I wanted to be exiled. It was the Equinox. Marring such a reverent and sacred day, even for Fate, was unwise. He would have to forbear his anger for a short time, and I would have to learn to better tolerate pain.
I blew warm breath into the middles of my stiff fists.
The girl stepped onto the porch, the worn planks creaking under her weight. She pushed the door open, lingering just inside as she surveyed my small, cluttered cabin. From head to toe, she wore red. Her robes, cloak, and even shoes represented the fiery color of her House. On her arm was a small basket, where the scent of fresh garlic wafted toward me: her payment.
“Set the basket on the bench beside you.”
She jumped and glanced at the basket as if she’d forgotten it hung from her arm. She gingerly sat it on the old wooden relic, careful that its unevenness didn’t allow the bottom to turn and spill the fragrant bulbs. Then she stood up straight and smoothed her skirt anxiously. She fussed with her cloak until she was satisfied with its position, the sides thrown back over her shoulders.
“Tea, wax, or bones?” I asked, waiting for the answer I already knew she’d give.
The girl chewed on her bottom lip while considering the three options. The smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks made her appear younger than she was, but her indecision was what truly showed her immaturity. Every witch in The Gallows knew what I preferred to read. The girl was no exception.
The auburn shade of her hair was the same hue of the heap of loose tea leaves lying on the counter. Across the room, the kettle leaked steam. Loose, languid tendrils curled and entwined with one another. I could get lost in their silken dance if I stared long enough, so I snapped my eyes back to her to refocus.
The water wasn’t heating for her; it warmed for the boy in the woods. He stood behind my cabin, clinging to the rough bark of a tree, desperately trying to talk himself into knocking on my door and asking me to read his fate, and berating himself for considering leaving before gathering it.
Eventually, he would garner enough gumption to approach and ask me for the favor he coveted, but not before witnessing the girl’s hasty exit. He would emerge from the woods as she left through the back door, probably to keep from sullying his reputation should anyone see him here. And he would choose a tea leaf reading because he feared the color of candle that might choose him, and that the bones might tell him something he wasn’t prepared to hear; guide him where he was yet afraid to step.
He was a boy who wrestled with intense self-doubt. A boy who would rather cling to a tree than let go. I pushed him out of my mind and watched as the girl inched farther into the room as if she was easing into a lake of cold water. There wasn’t much to see in the small, open space. A couch to her left, and a simple square table and chairs in the far corner. The kitchen lay to her right. Inside were only a few cabinets, and the stained, somewhat warped countertops were littered with precious stones and potted herbs. Her eyes caught on the hearth with its flickering fire, and the thicker slivers of steam pouring from the kettle.
She turned away from the hearth and the tea.
Her pale amber eyes caught on the casting cloth stretched over the table’s top. She noticed the wishbones piled high in a silver bowl, desperately wishing she weren’t so weak. I couldn’t hear her words in my head, but followed the way her delicate features revealed a swell of emotions that built and crashed over her countenance.
“Fate doesn’t favor the weak,” I warned the girl as she shifted her weight back and forth, worrying her fingers. Her eyes met mine. In their depths swam both guilt and confusion. I elaborated for her. “You shouldn’t fear the bones. They can reveal things the wax and tea leaves cannot.”
She was a girl who wouldn’t take advice even when it was in her best interest, a girl who gave fear dominion over her decisions. Her eyes flicked to a nearby shelf and the colorless candles it held. She refused to look away from the pale tapers, afraid the bones would call out to her again. They always did.
“I choose wax, please,” she said, her voice quivering. The little mouse was terrified, not of the tea or wax, or even the bones… but of me.
I gave her a smile to put her at ease, all too aware that it might do the opposite, and moved to the shelf, gathering the mound of slender tapers and bringing them over to the table. “Would you care to remove the cloth?”
She hesitated, but gently pinched the corners of the dark silken square and pulled it from the wooden surface. I lay the tapers down, steadying them so none rolled off, then took the cloth from her. During the exchange, the tremble in her fingers rippled through the fabric into mine.
Her eyes flicked to the plate of wishbones again, then back to me. I wouldn’t offer them to her again. She had made her choice, and my time was as valuable as my reading. I wouldn’t waste it on indecision or fear.