Part One
It is the spring of 1831, and Althea Murr celebrates her hundredth birthday alone.
She sits beneath the wisteria tree, her orange cat curled in her lap. The bee-loud glade sings for her, a song worthy of the one hundred years she has lived.
A century of honey, earth, stone, and sky.
Of blood, venom, blooms, and ash.
She thinks of everything that was, and everything that could have been.
The stars peek through the twilit sky, asking her to make a wish, but she has none.
She has no wants, no needs, and no wishes that could be granted in the short time that she has left.
The springtime buds that decorate the earth remind her of childhood when she wanted to grow up to be a flower. She had told her mother, “One day, I will be a rose. And I will plant myself somewhere so beautiful that I will never want to leave.”
Her mother laughed. “And what if someone wants to pluck you?”
“That is what the thorns are for,” she said.
Since then, she has bloomed, she has thorned, and now she is happily withered. So, instead of granting her a wish, the spirits send her a message. From the sky descends a crow, an omen, a warning—she knows that death is near.
And thus, she has much to do.
Chapter One
Saying no—even thirteen times—is not enough to avoid tonight’s ball. On this unfortunately hot spring day, Marigold Claude is trapped between her mother and younger sister, Aster, in a too-tight dress, in a too-small carriage. It’s her sister’s dress from last season, for Marigold refuses to go to the modiste to get fitted for a new one; an afternoon of being measured and pulled and poked is an absolute nightmare. Her blond hair is pulled up tightly so that her brows can barely move and her eyes look wide with surprise. Her father and her younger brother, Frankie, sit across from them, likely feeling quite lucky to have the luxury of wearing trousers instead of endlessly ruffled dresses. A bead of sweat snakes down the back of her neck, prompting her to open her fan. It’s as if the more she moves, the larger the dress becomes. With every flap of her fan, the ruffles expand into a fluffy lavender haze. She is almost sure that she is suffocating, though death by silk might be preferable to the evening ahead.
This ball is the first event since her twenty-first birthday, so now she has a few months to marry before she is deemed an old and insufferable hag. The ride is far too short for her liking, as with any ride to another Bardshire estate. The opulent village was a gift from the prince regent himself; it is the home of favored artists from all over the world, including painters like Marigold’s father. Sir Kentworth, a notable composer, is hosting tonight’s event as an opportunity to share his latest works.Though the occasion is more of a way to hold people hostage for the duration of the music, and force them to pretend to enjoy it.
The carriage door flies open upon arrival, the wind stinging Marigold’s eyes, and she is the last to exit. Under different circumstances, she would have feigned illness so she did not have to attend, but her younger siblings are an integral part of the program this evening, and Frankie requires her support to manage his nerves before his performance. He’s been practicing for weeks, but the melodies of Sir Kentworth’s music are so odd that even Frankie—a gifted violinist who has been playing since his hands were big enough to hold the instrument—can hardly manage the tune. Aster will sing Sir Kentworth’s latest aria, even though the notes scrape the very top of her range. Since their last rehearsal, Aster has been placed on vocal rest and openly hated every minute, her dramatic body language expressing her frustration in lieu of words. That rehearsal was the first time Marigold saw the twins struggle to use their talents, making her feel slightly better about having none of her own. She’s spent her entire life simply waiting for some hidden talent to make itself known. So far, nothing has manifested, meaning she has only the potential to be a wife, and even that is slipping by her with every passing day. Her back is still pressed firmly against the carriage bench. If she remains perfectly still, her family may somehow forget to usher her inside, allowing her to escape the event altogether.
There are countless things she would rather be doing. On a night like this, when the blue moon is full and bursting with light like summer fruit, she wants nothing more than to bathe in the moon water that now floods the riverbanks. She wants to sing poorly with no judgment, wearing nothing but the night sky. And like all nights that are graced by a full moon, she has a secret meeting planned for midnight.
“Marigold, dear, come along,” her mother, Lady Claude, calls.
Dammit, she thinks.Escape attempt number one has failed.
She huffs as she slides out of the carriage, declining theproffered hand of the footman at her side. Her feet hit the ground with an impressive thud.
“Do try to find someone’s company at least mildly enjoyable tonight,” Lady Claude pleads. “You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
She adjusts her corset as much as she can without breaking a rib and says, “I do not want any company other than my own, and I do not intend on staying a moment longer than required.”
Her mother has long tried (and failed) to turn Marigold into a proper Bardshire lady. The woman has introduced her to nearly every person even remotely close to her in age, hoping that someone will convince her that love is a worthy pursuit. So far, they’ve all been bores. Well, all except one—George Tennyson—but Marigold will not speak of him. He will most certainly be here tonight, and like always, they will avoid each other like the plague. Their courtship was a nightmare, but there is great wisdom to be found in heartbreak. Call it intuition, call it hope, or delusion, but Marigold knows she is not meant to live a life like that of her mother.
Rain whispers in the twilight, waiting for the perfect moment to fall. Dark clouds swirl in the distance, reaching for the maroon sun. This oppressive heat and the black-tinged sky remind her of a summer, almost fifteen years ago now. The summer they’d stopped visiting the only place in the world where she felt normal—her grandmother’s cottage.
She’d always loved visiting Innisfree as a child. It was like a postcard, with fields of thick, soft clover to run through, gnarled trees to climb, and wild honeybees to watch tumble lazily over the wildflowers. And best of all, there was her grandmother. Althea was a strange woman, speaking in riddles and rhymes and sharing folktales that made little sense, but it didn’t matter. Marigold didn’t need the right words to understand that she and her grandmother were the same in whatever they were. She closes her eyes tightly, trying to remember the last summer she’d visited, but it’s fuzzy with age.
She had made a friend—a boy her age who was dangerously curious and ferociously bright. He would come in the morning with his mother, and as the ladies sipped their tea, he and Marigold would run among the wildflowers together. She thinks of him often, dreaming of their mud-stained hands intertwined, though she does not remember his name. After what happened that day, she doesn’t know if he survived.
She remembers the cottage window—always open, always sunny. Most of the time it could have been a painting, the world behind the glass as vivid as soft pastels. That day, she and her friend were told to stay inside. They snacked on honeycomb and pressed their sticky cheeks to the window, searching for faces in the clouds until the storm consumed the sky and turned the world gray. Her grandmother had run outside and disappeared into the heart of the storm, and the boy tried to grab her hand before he disappeared from her side. She remembers her mother’s cold fingers pulling on her wrist, but everything else is blurry and dark.
For years, she has been asking her mother what happened. What was the gray that swallowed the sky? And what happened to the boy who tried to hold on to her hand? Her questions have gone unanswered, and they have never returned to her grandmother’s cottage. She still questions if any of these memories are real. But her mother’s hand bears the beginnings of a white scar peeking out from a lace glove. The truth is there, hidden in that old wound.
The other attendees spill out of their carriages in all their regalia. They stand tall and taut like they are being carried along by invisible string. Just before they walk inside, her father pulls her into an embrace and whispers in her ear, “Come home before the sun rises, and do not tell a soul about where you are running off to.”
