“It’s a long walk to her house,” I say. “I should be here helping you prepare our dresses.”
“Mama and I can handle it ourselves,” Anne replies. “Today we’re going to be dyeing the fabric. I know you hate that part. You can help us with the alterations and the trimmings tomorrow.”
My thumb strokes the glazed ceramic surface of my coffee mug. “Grandmother Riquet and I didn’t end things on the best of terms. She’s liable to chase me away with a pitchfork or a poker. Or worse.”
“She won’t,” Anne says soothingly.
“I’ve got the oven heating and the ingredients for apple cinnamon muffins all laid out,” adds Mama. “You can bake abatch to take along. You know how much she loves the way you make them, with the brown sugar crumble topping.”
They want this badly. Which makes sense, I suppose, given the importance of Beresford’s party to our survival.
Grandmother Riquet moved into the cottage at the center of Wormsloe Wood not long after my father left. At my mother’s insistence, I began visiting her each month, trying to learn how to curb my abilities and prevent the summoning of demons. For years I visited Grandmother Riquet, learning meditation practices and calming techniques. Then, last fall, we both grew impatient with each other. I told her that her methods weren’t working. She insisted that I never fully devoted myself to the habits she was trying to teach me.
Perhaps she was right. But I didn’t believe that meditation or mental rituals would ever be able to completely quell my ability. I didn’twantto develop perfect spiritual control. I didn’t want to spend hours each day sitting in lonely silence, focusing very, very hard onnothing. I hated the breathing exercises, the careful selection of my words, the emotional regulation practices, and the habit of conscious movement she encouraged. I didn’t want to be always holding myself back, always crushed inward and bound by countless invisible chains.
That last autumn day, we had a terrible argument. I accidentally summoned a glowing beetle the size of my head. It set the woodpile on fire, and Grandmother Riquet told me never to return.
After it happened, I admitted to my mother and sister that Grandmother and I had argued, but I didn’t tell them how bad our fight was. Since that day, I’ve tried to stay calm and quiet as much as possible. When a summoning happened, if I could hide it from my family, I did. As a result, they got the impression that I have my curse under better control, when in reality, it’s just as unpredictable as ever.
The appearance of the gopher in the parlor must have shaken my family a bit. They’re afraid that I’m going to summon a demon at the party, and while they won’t tell me to stay home that night, theyareasking me to make an effort, to pay another visit to Grandmother Riquet and have another session of meditation practice. They’re asking me to do whatever I can to ensure that things go smoothly at Beresford’s estate.
This could be our last chance to meet eligible husbands and possibly save our house. Mama and Anne wouldn’t request this if it wasn’t important.
I make their lives complicated enough. It’s the least I can do.
Swallowing the last of my coffee, I rise from the table. “I’ll start on the muffins right away.”
Two hours later, I’m entering Wormsloe Wood. The night’s chill still lingers in the air, even though it’s mid-morning. Winter is fast approaching. Another handful of weeks, and the ground will freeze, along with whatever is left in the garden. Though none of us are very good at gardening, we do manage to grow some vegetables over the course of the warmer months. Animals and insects get some of them, but we make do with whatever is left.
When I get home, I must remember to check for anything edible that might still be in the ground or on the vines. Dread curls icy fingers around my heart as I think of another long, cold winter. The last one was terrible. We had to ration food and fuel. All three of us slept and ate in the kitchen to share warmth and light, leaving the rest of the house ice-cold and dark.
We tried to make it fun. We read the few books we hadn’t sold. We played games, sewed, and whittled bits of wood into fanciful figures. Midwinter’s Eve was pleasant, thanks to Mama’s efforts. But eventually, the cold and the darkness sank into our bones and our hearts. Anne got so low that she wouldbarely move to relieve herself or take a little food and water. At one point, she didn’t bathe for two weeks.
The creatures I summoned during that time were oozy, crawling things studded with glowing fungi. When they appeared, they slid into cracks in the floor or meandered off into the house, never to be seen again. Once, during a blizzard, I summoned a spindly, cat-like creature with legs so tall that its body brushed the ceiling. It looked different from the others, mostly composed of thick shadows that offered glimpses of a skeleton and a network of blue veins.
I was alone at the time. The howling wind had driven the front door open, and it was banging wildly. Anne was screaming, too fragile to bear the sudden onslaught of icy wind and snow, and Mama was holding her together. I left them in the kitchen and went to close the door.
I remember shoving against that powerful wind with my whole body. I was weak from hunger, yet still strong enough to shriek my defiance, not only against the blizzard but against that entire winter, against the callous world that had abandoned us to die.
That’s when the demon appeared beside me in the hall. The creature was all darkness, bones, and thready veins. It trembled on its long legs, moaning with shock and confusion, staring at me with pale, wild eyes.
Tears whipped across my cheeks, driven by the cold and the force of the wind. I knew that the creature couldn’t stay in the house. It was too big. I had nothing to offer it, and I couldn’t risk terrorizing Anne any further.
I reached out, my fingers brushing against its dark, translucent body, slipping through the shadows that flowed around it.
“You have to go,” I sobbed to the demon. “I’m sorry to send you away.”
The catlike creature moaned again, softer this time. Then it charged out the open door and galloped into the white blur of the blizzard.
I managed to get the door shut, bolt it, and brace it with a table and chair in case the bolt gave way a second time. I returned to Anne and my mother and huddled up with them again. I didn’t tell them about the summoning.
Long, dark winters can be cozy if one has plenty of heat, light, books, and good food. But a winter of aching hunger and shivering bodies is torture. On the first bright, spring day after that terrible season, I stood in the sun for a full hour, letting its heat soak all the way down into my bones, reveling in the ecstasy of being thoroughly warm.
I never want to endure a winter like that again.
Today is autumn at its best. The brisk breeze, the blue sky, and the gilded beauty of the leaves should cheer my heart. But the anticipation of winter weighs my spirits until I feel as if I’m dragging my forlorn heart along the path behind me, through the crispy brown leaves and the dirt and the fallen acorns.
A shiver passes through my body despite the cloak I’m wearing. The thick wool, dyed a rich crimson, still offers decent warmth, though years of wear have frayed its edges. There’s a hole at the seam where the hood attaches. I keep meaning to mend it.
