“Ma’am, I’ve done all I can with what I know and what I have been taught. Long ago, I suspected that this was the work of consumption, but it has progressed far beyond that—even my best techniques are no match for it.”
My exhausted limbs and aching body drifted as I fell into the eerie depth of the darkness. I floatedbeyond this realm and the next—existing and then not.
Light refracted off the dark curtains of the bedroom, creating shapes and shadows. One took on the shape of a man, tall and cloaked, wisps licking at his heel. Burning gold peered out from inky black, watching to ensure I didn’t drift completely into Hades’s arms.
For a curious second, I thought of the strange man’s words.
There is more to life than this.
When I closed my eyes, iridescent gold smiled back at me, a warming calm to my fraying mind. I sent up a quick prayer to any old ones still listening for one last request, wanting to see the beautiful stranger one last time before the dark came for me.
My tired body relented to the inky void, which surrounded me hungrily. It had all but consumed me when I heard the doctor’s last words to Mama.
“It’d be mercy to let her die. Instead, you let her suffer.”
I’ve dreamed the same dream for many nights since I became sick.
I’d first hear the boy with dark raven hair crying in my dream—muttering prayers fervently to the moon. The scene would shift to him, covered in blood and standing in a field of tulips. The petals were sometimes white, other times red. Always, they’d transforminto scarlet spider lilies as the scene became washed in blood. Words floated up from the wind muffled against my ears as his sorrow-filled, desperate pleas whisper to me night after night.
Someone help me.
I awoke in a pool of sweat, the vision of the boy fading and the blooming dawn taking his place. Groaning, I threw a pillow over my head to block out the sunlight cresting into windows. Mama, upon hearing I was alive and moving, came in with a steaming cup of herbal tea, the same concoction I’d been drinking for over a year. Not a hint of despair rested on her lined face.
“Drink,” she commanded.
Muscles crying out, I forced myself to stretch and sit upright to take the cup. I cradled it, letting the warmth seep into my chilled palms, resisting the urge to look at the bloodstained sheets.
In the commotion of the night, I would not have been surprised if the maids had missed it or if it was intentionally left by Mama as a reminder.
I sipped from my cup. Its familiar taste coated my throat before I quickly finished it, the bitterness lingering.
I kicked the sheets off, draping my legs over the bed and bartering with my own body to cooperate—to yield to me. Using a nightstand as a support, I took tentative steps toward the bustling maids fluttering about.
Mama directed them from the doorway, stepping aside, as a couple of the women brought in a package adorned with a red bow.
“Mama,” I croaked, “what is this all about?”
“It’s your wedding day!” she beamed. “William sent over a gift and the dress we’d commissioned finally came in.”
I weakly nodded, attempting to voice my confusion.
“Hush now, everything will be splendid again, and Miriam will be able to go on to marry as well. Pretty thing that she is, I haven’t been able to keep suitors away from her,” she mused. She ushered the two maids around the room, swiftly drawing up a bath, smoothing out the wedding dress, and placing it on the hanger.
William gifted me with stacks of books on how to please one’s husband and fine jewels I imagined as shackles rather than beautiful sapphires. My heart sank further as they dressed me in silence, adorning the gown with sapphires and putting on finer details until the placid dark circles were all but gone. Blush dotted my sunken cheeks until I resembled more of a clown than a blushing bride.
In the pink dress, sad emeralds gazed back, miserable and dollish.
With the touch of rouge placed upon my lips, I was ready to walk to my death.
Saint Luke Cathedral stood as the heart of the city, guarding it from its enemies and being a sanctuary for the lost and weary. Large bays of stained glass greeted the fading afternoon light, washing the steps leading up to large oak doors in blues and reds. Gothic spires stood high and proud against the setting sun as the procession brought me closer to the beast.
Once, when I was a girl, I’d come to listen to the sermons of Priest Dedalus and hide among the pews. I remembered the smell of musty, dusty summer mornings as I hid up in the storage spaces reading stories, listening to the singing of the choir and bells, pretending I was someone else.
What I would give to be someone else.
“Smile, dear,” Mama said.
My lungs burned, and underneath the soft, thin smile, exhaustion wavered with each step I took in the public’s eye. Through the door, wedding bells rang ominously as the aisle loomed closer.
