In one year’s time, I was going to leave Rouxbouillet.
I would be thirteen by then.
Some might think it too young to be out on your own, making your way in the world, but I was no stranger to hard work or independence. I spent most of my days alone. Once chores were done, I’d roam the forest, hunting for mushrooms and flowers.
There was an old woman I’d come across a year before, who lived even deeper in the Gravia then we did. She was said to be a miracle worker, always knowing the exact remedies needed to cure anything from a bad cold to infertility. She could even mend things that weren’t of a physiological nature, like old feuds and broken hearts.
Papa called her a witch and forbade any of us to venture pastthe rushing stream that divided our land from hers. But I’d stumbled across her one day while out foraging in the brambles for late-summer berries. She had slipped on a moss-covered rock while trying to pick her way across a creek, and had twisted her ankle too badly to return home on her own. I’d helped her up and, using every bit of my strength, all but carried her back to her cottage, her long, wispy white braid batting me in the face as I acted as her crutch.
She’d chatted away the whole trip home, pointing out various plants, sharing what secret medicinal powers they possessed and how best to harvest them. Her name was Celeste Alarie, and she’d lived in the Gravia her entire life. Her grandmother had been born in that cottage, as had her mother, as had she, and she assured me she intended to die there as well.
Once Celeste had plunked into her rocking chair, despairing over the state of her ankle, she’d let it slip that she had been gathering supplies for a love spell, commissioned by the mayor’s wife for their oldest daughter. Celeste had fretted over how she would harvest the flowers needed, and when I’d offered to do it for her, she’d brightened and promised to pay me three copper coins if I did a good job.
From then on, I visited her every fortnight, performing more of her errands throughout the forest. She praised my ability to scramble up rocks and trees no longer accessible to her and said what a fine miracle woman I’d one day make myself. I had the uncanny ability to spot even the most camouflaged of treasures hidden on the forest floor.
I’d been saving up every coin she gave me and by next year would have enough to buy myself passage out of Rouxbouillet, out of the Gravia, out of even Martissienes itself.
I couldn’t remain at home, forever waiting for a godfather who would not come.
I was done waiting.
I needed action.
I needed purpose.
I just needed a few more coppers….
“There you are,” Mama said, spotting me in the last stall. She was slurring and looked as though she might tip over. “What…what are you even doing back here?”
“Milking Rosie,” I said, gesturing to the bucket at my feet.
Mama squinted. I’d filled the pail nearly to the top, and her lips twisted as though she was disappointed to have nothing to chastise me for.
“It’s your birthday,” she said, surprising me. Without Bertie’s to celebrate, I hadn’t been sure she bothered to keep track of mine.
I nodded, unsure of the right way to respond.
“I remember that day like it was only hours ago,” she murmured, and her eyes drifted, gazing at something above me with a dreamy unfocused distraction. “You were so little. You’re still so little,” she fretted, rubbing her thumb over the lip of the liquor bottle she held. “And he…he was so very big. But when he held you…” She trailed off for a moment, lost in the daydream. She didn’t have to say my godfather’s name aloud. Papa had never held me, not even once. “You looked as though you belonged together. With him.”
She took a long swig. The liquor smelled astringent, burning my nostrils, and I didn’t see how she could bear to drink it.
“I never could understand why he left you behind.”
“I…I’m sorry,” I said. It was the first time I’d ever dared to imagine how the situation must have looked from her side, the firsttime I ever felt the injustice she had lived with every day since my arrival. She’d been promised I’d be taken care of. She’d been promised she’d never have to deal with me.
But here I was, twelve years later.
“Oh, my head,” she muttered, wincing suddenly.
I pressed my lips together, feeling an odd sense of tenderness toward my mother, toward this woman who had been dealt an unfair hand so many times throughout her life. “I saw some feverfew edging the garden. Their leaves can help with aches, however strong. I could make you a tea,” I offered, then bit the inside of my cheek, worried she’d ask how I knew this information.
But she only blinked, swaying unsteadily. “That would be very kind, Hazel.”
I knew this softness would not last. It was the drink talking, not her. But maybe if I tried, maybe if I tried so hard, it could linger for a little while longer.
“I ought…” She paused, rubbing the back of her hand over her forehead. “I ought to make you a cake this year. I don’t think I…” She wavered, and her eyes seemed to cross for a moment. She blinked heavily, trying to focus on me, but her pupils couldn’t find the right spot. She kept looking just off to my left, as though she was seeing double. “I don’t think I’ve ever made you a cake before. Not one of your own,” she corrected herself.
“It’s okay, Mama,” I said, forgiving her in an instant as she cupped my cheek, showering me with more affection in this single beat than in every other moment of my life combined.
