“Shae, you don’t need to be embarrassed.” Fiona laughs. “I completely understand.”
I force a thin, hopefully convincing laugh, though it sounds more like breath getting caught at the back of my throat. “Thank you. I owe you.”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something.” She leans in and hugs me. I’m tempted to pull away, as if even my touch could infect her. Instead, I let her scent of fresh dill and brambles and stream water wash over me, feeling, in this moment, not cursed, but lucky.
Fiona and I have always been an unconventional match as far as friends go. Where I’m short, she’s tall. I’m dark and she’s fair. Where I’m broad and husky, she’s slender and soft. She has suitors, and I have sheep. Well, sheep and Mads. But it’s all just as well. Fiona is loyal, thoughtful, and willing to put up with all of my moods. She’s the kind of person who would happily assist me and expect nothing in return. She deserves better than my secrets.
“He adores you, don’t you think?” Fiona asks, pulling away. The sly smile has become a full-fledged grin. “I never thought you’d be married before me.”
I let out a real laugh. “Let’s not go that far!”
If Fiona has a flaw, it’s her love of gossip. And young men tend to be her favorite topic. If as many of them paid attention to me as they did to her, it might be mine as well. Mads seems to be the singular exception in the entire town of Aster.
He kissed me once, last year after a disappointing harvest festival. The next day, the constable declared that the drought had returned, and Mads and his father left for three weeks on a hunting trip. We never spoke of the kiss. Even now, I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it. Maybe everyone’s first kiss is underwhelming, and they just lie about it to make everyone else feel better.
But Mads is the least of my worries. I only hope that I can sustain this little act of subterfuge long enough to make it to town and back without Fiona or my mother knowing the real reason—and without any prying neighbors finding out. In Aster, anyone could be watching. Everyone usually is.
“You promise you’ll tell me everything when you get back?” Fiona asks, driving the knife farther into my chest.
“I promise.” I don’t meet her gaze. “Here, let me show you what to do with the flock while I’m gone.”
Fiona obediently follows me around the weathered old barn toward the gate. Like the house, the wood siding has grayed with age, along with the shabby, thatched roof. It’s impressive that it’s still standing, if barely, let alone that it manages to keep predators and thieves out.
The flock bleat and shuffle around happily as I unlock and open the door. They waste no time trotting outside to the pasture. Mercifully, they seem to be cooperative today and stick together as they file out into the valley. Only Imogen is a little slow, but I forgive her for it. She’s due to give birth within the week. Giving us another lamb is worth the extra time it takes to wait for her to catch up.
We lead the sheep to the hilltop east of the valley, which can’t be seen from the house, before I turn and take Fiona’s hands.
“What?” she asks with a confused look.
“I almost forgot. I have something for you.” I reach into my pocket and produce my latest project, a handkerchief dyed red with a mix of beetroot and petals, stitched with dark flowers that look like eyes. Another one of my strange dreams, though this one can’t possibly come true.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers.
That’s another thing about Fiona. She loves everything I sew, even the odd and disturbing images. Sometimes, I think maybe she sees the world the same way I do. Other times, I think she loves what I make precisely because she does not.
Because to her, the world appears simple. To her, the sun is merely light, not a scourge. To her, the night is a blanket of stars, not a swath of fear and silence. What I cannot say to her—what I cannot even understand myself—is that sometimes, I fear the dark will swallow me whole.
2
Most travelers have to navigate a treacherous pass to reach town, but from our house, it’s only an hour’s walk north along the shore of what used to be a pond. The walk is easy enough, if a little dreary. Without rain, the dusty countryside is all the same dull, washed-out brown. The pond dried up long ago and is simply a dark crater in the middle of the valley—a scar on the skin of the earth, reminding us of what once was there.
Nausea and dizziness roll in my gut the nearer I draw to the village, my vision spotting as if I am stricken by sun fever. The tall watchtowers loom ever closer, ominous and unmoving in the distance. Stepping toward their shadows only adds to my unease.
Even if I do speak with the Bards, what are the chances they won’t simply execute me for my impertinence? What if they do find a trace of the Indigo Death in me and banish us? Burn our home for a second time? A cold chill rolls over me in waves as I recall tales of the Bards’ past punishments. Fiona’s mother once saw a Bard seal a woman’s mouth shut by whispering in her ear.
To calm my racing heart, I try to remember the sound of Ma’s voice. If I concentrate, I can hear the warm tremor of it: deep and gentle, like the summer wind echoing in a well. Before she went silent, she used to spin bedtime stories for Kiernan and me—stories of a place beyond the cloud-capped mountaintops, where we will all one day rest. Stories of Gondal, a land of magic and beauty, where flowers grow twice the height of man, where birds speak and spiders hum, where trees thick as houses burst toward the sky.
Kieran and I would listen attentively in the matching beds Pa built for us. Mine had a little heart carved into the headboard and Kieran’s had a star. Ma would sit on a stool between us, her face illuminated by a flickering golden candle as she told us about the Bards of Montane. By Telling, the Bards can lure luck into being. Their words can whisper away your heartbeat and show your deepest secrets to the world.
It was a happy time, before the myth of Gondal was deemed profane. Before the Bards began the raids, removing any stories or iconography of Gondal from homes and gathering places, and the very word was banned.
Gondal is nothing more than a fairy tale, albeit a dangerous one. As a child, I might not have understood that fully, but I do now. Such tales are treacherous and have no place amidst reality.
She never should have told us those stories, I think angrily. If she hadn’t, Kieran would be alive.
My fingers itch to take up my sewing to calm myself, but instead, I take a deep breath to dispel the poisonous thoughts from my mind as the village of Aster comes into full view at the other side of the pass.
Of all its citizens, Ma and I live farthest from the village proper. It was deemed necessary by the constable after what happened to Kieran. The day Ma took my hand and we made the trek into the mountain valley where we’ve been ever since is still vivid in my mind. The memory of the constable’s hammer pounding as he nailed a blackened plague marker above our door—the shape of a death mask, its mouth and eyes empty—a constant reminder of what we’d lost. The good people of Aster don’t have to worry about our misfortune infecting them if they stay away. Not that it matters. Ma already hasn’t been the same since Pa’s heart failed him. Since Kieran’s death, she hasn’t strayed from the house, except to tend the land.