Janni Simner - Bones of Faerie

“You're late, Liza.” Father stared at me through hard gray eyes.

I let out a breath. I'd forgotten he might have ordinary reasons for anger, too.

“Why are you late?” His voice was a growl at the back of his throat. He crossed the room with a few quick strides. I wished I were like Tallow, who could disappear when she didn't wish to be found. “Where were you?” Father demanded.

“Ou-out,” I stammered. “Out getting water …” My words trailed to silence. We both knew getting water ought not to have taken so long.

“There's work to be done.” Father's eyes flashed like iron in Jayce's forge, but his voice remained low. “People who don't work don't eat.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I—”

He slapped me so hard and fast, tears came to my eyes. I blinked them back even as he grabbed my arm. “People who don't work starve. Don't you understand that?”

I said nothing. I feared any wrong word might betray the magic that had delayed me.

“Five lashes, girl.”

I knew better than to run. Running would only make him angrier. Instead I turned my back, lifted my sweater, and bowed my head against the pain I knew would come. Silently Father drew his belt. The first blow hit— I fought not to cry out. The second broke skin and sent stabs of pain down my back. I bit my lip and tasted blood.

With each lash Father spoke quiet angry words about faerie fire and human death, about people starving and ungrateful children who didn't understand. My back throbbed. Three, I counted. Four. With the fifth lash a sob burst from my lips.

“Weak,” Father said as he tied his belt back in place. “You'd have died during the War, Liza. Remember that.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Now pull yourself together and join me in the fields. No more delays.”

I listened as his deliberate steps crossed the house and the outside door shut firmly behind him. I let my knees give way and sank, trembling, to the floor, sweater falling back into place. More sobs came, along with a throbbing pain that grew with every breath. If Mom were here I might have run to her so that she could hold me and whisper some of the pain away. Mom didn't think me weak or slow. She didn't think that at fifteen I was too old to beg for comfort like a child.

How could she have left me without a word?

I staggered to my feet and headed back outside. I'd barely made it down the stairs when the pain slid up a notch and I fell to my knees again. I reached around and touched my back. My hand came away sticky with blood.

It was worse than usual. I tried to pull the wool away to feel the skin beneath, but wool and blood and skin stuck together. Redness shimmered before my eyes.

I felt something like old sandpaper against my cheek. Tallow licked my face. Her rough tongue hurt. I pushed her away. She mewed in protest.

I couldn't work like this. Father didn't believe in numbing pain—he kept none of Jayce's whiskey on hand. I forced myself to my feet and stumbled down the path toward Kate's door, Tallow at my heels. Matthew's grandmother didn't have whiskey, either, but she did have a cupboard full of teas and herbs. She'd have something for the pain. And she'd be home: her knees had grown too weak for her to help with the harvest.

I hesitated, then knocked and nudged the door open just as Kate called at me to enter. She sat on a stool in front of her loom, her hands in her lap as she stared at a half-finished bolt of reddish-brown cloth. Her long gray hair was twisted into a tidy bun. Across the room, a low fire burned in her fireplace.

“Hello, Liza.” She turned, smiling, to face me, but her smile tightened into a hard line as she looked me over. “What did he do this time?”

“It's nothing.” Even shaking my head hurt. Bad enough I'd angered Father; I shouldn't have come here and let Kate see. I never let anyone see, for all that Kate always seemed to know anyway. “I just wanted to borrow some tea.” My voice came out hoarser than I'd expected.

Kate stood, wincing at the weight on her knees. A wave of dizziness made me stagger. Kate laid her hand on my arm, leading me toward the couch. I sighed and sat down. Kate gently pulled the sweater away from my skin and over my head. She drew a sharp breath, ordered me to lie on my stomach, and examined my back with gentle, probing fingers, pausing each time I flinched. I tried to sit up, but she laid a firm hand on my shoulder.

She disappeared into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a teakettle in one hand and a basket full of clay bottles and coarse bandages in the other. She placed the kettle on the fire, then knelt by my side and soaked a bandage with liquid. If her knees ached now, she gave no sign, saying only, “This might sting a little, but we have to clean you up before infection sets in.”

The liquid didn't sting—it burned. I tried not to cry out, but again couldn't help myself. Unlike Father, Kate said nothing, just ran her fingers through my hair, a little like Mom had done when I was small.

After the burning liquid came a thicker salve. Numbing coolness dulled the pain. Kate wrapped bandages over the salve. She warned me to keep the skin covered, then helped me sit up and offered me a clean sweater. I pulled it on as the kettle began to boil.

Kate poured me some tea. I sipped the bitter liquid as she looked me over, her mouth still set in that tight line. “Better?”

I nodded. “Thank you. I can work now.” Even my voice seemed steadier. I tried to stand, but again Kate stopped me.

An unreadable expression crossed the old woman's face. “Wait here,” she said abruptly, and disappeared down the hall. I heard the stairs creak as she climbed. She mostly slept downstairs and let Matthew, who lived with her now, do the climbing.

I finished the tea and stood, with less pain this time. I walked slowly around the room, looking at Kate's colorful wall hangings and at a bookcase filled with yellowed volumes. As I stepped past her loom something bright glinted beside it. One of the hangings had fallen askew. I drew it back and saw a rectangle of glass, taller than I was, set in a frame decorated with gold flowers. No, not glass—a mirror. I'd never seen a mirror intact before. They'd all been broken during the War; no one ever said why. I'd hardly seen glass at all, save for shards clinging to empty window frames and a few old drinking glasses. The mirror cast back an impossible, perfect reflection, clear as if I'd stepped outside of myself. The girl who stared back at me seemed a stranger: dark hair falling around her shoulders, dark eyes large in her sun-browned face, leather pants grown short about her ankles. I turned away, embarrassed by my own shy gaze. Yet after only a moment I glanced back, wanting to check what I'd seen, to remember who I was.

As I looked, the image in the mirror wavered and flowed away in rivulets of light. In the brightness left behind, I saw—

Myself, not in Kate's home but by the river that morning, my hand poised above a bucket filled with light—

My mother, hair tied back from her weary face, slipping out into the night—

A pale-haired young man, clearly touched by magic, walking through a sun-drenched forest. He showed no fear as a hawk flew through the leaves and landed on his outstretched wrist—

My sister, breathing her first cries while the midwife shook her head—

A girl walking through the night, her hair trailing in the wind. A girl who, for just a moment, turned, revealing a face like mine, only her hair was streaked pale as glass—

I tore my gaze from the mirror and threw my hands up to my face. Faerie magic. Cursed magic. Magic showing me the past, showing me things I'd never seen. My hands shook as I pressed them against my eyes. There was no denying now that magic had taken root somewhere inside me, perhaps on the night I'd gone out after Rebecca, perhaps weeks, months, or years before.