He draws closer. The hem of his robes dust the stones at our feet. His face is a contortion of bitterness, like I am a sour lemon on his tongue. Gone is the father who embraced me, spun me around in circles, pressed his lips to my curls and called me his.
I lost both my parents the day my mother died, and I have stayed this long only to get one back. To remind Father I am still worth loving despite my illness, despite my shadowed blood.
“You’re a curse, Adelaide.” His face twists into something I don’t recognize. “Sometimes, I wish you had died in place of your mother.”
I draw a sharp breath, skin flushing hot-cold. My head rings with his words, as if someone has shoved a needle through my ear. My chest caves, and pain breaks out along my brow. My lips part, but I have nothing to say. Not now, not when—
I flee, tearing down the aisle, out the door, and into the mist clouding the village. My boots slip in the wet grass of the hill, and when I reach the churning water of the River Thine, I open my jaw wider until I am sure I will swallow myself…and scream.
It’s a silent thing. The village cannot hear me, mustn’t know I am out here alone. It will only give them more reason to believe I am the one withblood on my hands. The cords in my neck strain and creak, the delicate skin of my lips splitting, when I press the quiet stronger.
Sometimes, I wish you had died in place of your mother.
Tears stream down my face, and only when I taste the blood on my lips do I close my mouth. I drop to my knees in the mud, eyes hot, blinking at the gray sky while I collect my thoughts. Every soul in Rixton knows what I am.Cursed. I fist my hands in the mud.
I cannot stay here anymore.
I could run.
Run and never look back. Just across the river, past the fields and the curving lane. To cities where cursed girls are nothing more than another face on another street.
There are places beyond Rixton. Lysdin, the Queen’s city. Riddington, Eliexier, and Vrinhowe. I’ve read about them in books my mother used to keep on high shelves, away from Father’s prying eyes. Places where the Scriptures aren’t bent to break women. Places where the monsters cannot follow me.
Instead, I cast my gaze to the water, the sky reflecting from it like a sheen of molten silver. Before I can stop myself, I am up on my feet. I abandon my stockings and boots in the mud, shucking off my rough wool overskirt until I stand in hardly a stitch. The cold bites at my bare skin, and it grounds me.
Alive.
Not dead.
Alive.
I rush toward the water, the waves reaching greedily for the hem of my slip. It runs clear as crystal, frigid as ice exhumed from the bowels of the earth. I close my eyes, tipping my chin toward the gathering clouds. The cold is a respite, a gentling, a reminder that being alive isfeeling. Even when that feeling is pain. I take a step deeper.
Something slices the delicate skin of my right foot.
I plunge into a panic, and my muscles falter, one hand dipping into the chilled water when I lose balance. A hiss sears my lips. Pain ricochets up my skin, like a knife has pierced my flesh.
I scramble out of the water, fighting back a cry. Heat sparks and mybreath hitches. I collapse on the muddy bank, tugging at my petticoats, and uncover the wound. My lungs cave with a gasp. It doesn’t take long for the warmth of sticky blood to inch along my heel.
This is no cut made by a river rock, but something keen-edged. My eyes burn with tears when I peel the cut apart. Something is there. Something embedded in my skin. Baring my teeth, I fish between the layers of tissue and pull a sliver of metal from the cut, its surface smeared with blood and river silt.
Another wave of pain radiates from my heel, and I try desperately to catch my breath. Now that the strange little splinter is free, the blood rushes to mix like paint with the icy mud at my feet. My skirts are soaked through with it. I must look a right state.
The small cut of metal, held up for closer inspection, seems like nothing more than a piece of forgotten rubbish. A nail from a carriage wheel, perhaps, or a chip from a worn horseshoe. My stomach constricts, and all I can think about is the way the rust might already be entering my bloodstream, carrying poison to my lungs, my heart, and my jaw. Freezing the bones in place.
I open my mouth, gasping in the air. What if this is the last of it? Whatever breath is trapped between my two lungs will shrivel to dust. My heart skips, and I clench my fist around the chipped metal.
No, no, no.
One finger on my muddy wrist, I count the beats.A-live, a-live, a—
“I must say, when I decided on my walk this morning, I did not expect to find the vicar’s daughter covered in river dirt and blood—a sight to scare off half the population of Rixton.”
The voice is like buttered bread. Thick and rich.
Nausea rises from my empty stomach. I turn, the metal shard still locked in my fist, and lay eyes upon the last person I would have expected to see on this blustery morning along the River Thine.
Ransom Black.
