She holds my gaze for a count longer, then stands.
“Thank you for your time, Sorina. We appreciate it.”
I walk them to the door. The man nods and steps out, but the woman pauses on the threshold and touches my arm.
“Take care of yourself,” she says, and I can’t tell if it’s kindness or a warning.
I close the door, the latch clicks into place, and I press my back against the wood and stand there, listening, until their footsteps fade down the lane and the street is quiet again. The candle on the kitchen table has burned down to a stub, and the wax has pooled across the plate I use to catch it. The house is the sameas it was half an hour ago. Nothing has moved or changed, but the air feels different now, the way a room feels foreign when someone has been through your things and put them all back in the wrong place.
I go to the bedroom and pull the canvas bag from under the bed.
I pack money first, the coins I keep behind the loose stone in the wall, count them twice and put them in the bottom of the bag. I know now that the Peacekeepers will keep coming. I thought they were done with me after I’d been so patient and forthcoming, but this was the first time they asked me about the other deaths that have occurred in Tessana, and whether I knew those men or not is irrelevant. This isn’t a good sign. Not at all. I don’t intend to stick around and see how much worse it can get. I’m completely on my own, a widow, with no friends and estranged from my family, and no one will take my side.
I go into the kitchen and wrap lemon balm and valerian root in cloth, then open a cabinet that’s filled with jars and vials. These are mixtures and tinctures I’ve made after old recipes passed down through generations. Some of them aren’t easy to make, either, so I don’t want to leave them behind. Besides, one never knows when I might need them.
My grandmother taught me the names of every plant in her garden, sitting in the dirt with me when I was small enough to ride on her hip, turning leaves over in her rough fingers and telling me what each one did, what it healed and what it harmed. I miss her. I cut ties with my family during the marriage because Bran wanted me alone, and afterward I stayed away because I didn’t want to bring any of this madness to their door.
I take the sharpest knife I own from the utensil drawer and wrap it in leather. It’s for cutting and peeling roots, but also for protection.
I think about Bran in the early days, when he used to leave wildflowers on my doorstep before I even knew his name, how he pursued me with a focus that felt like devotion, and asked me to marry him after only four months. I said yes because no one had ever wanted me that much. I think about how everything changed after the wedding.
The isolation came first. He didn’t want me visiting my family so often. He didn’t see why I needed friends when I had him. He pared my life down, piece by piece, until the only world I had was the inside of this house and the edges of his temper. Then came the control and the violence. I stop my thoughts from spiraling, because I know where the memories lead if I follow them, and I don’t need to go there tonight.
I go back into the bedroom and pull a change of clothes from the wardrobe that’s still filled with his clothes. He always had more than me. A spare dress should be enough, woolen stockings, something to sleep in, nothing fine. I stuff them in the bag and cinch the top, then cross the house with long strides and leave the bag by the front door. I turn in place and look around, trying to figure out what else I should take with me. There’s a knot in my throat, but I refuse to cry. Even though this is my home, I have no good memories here, so I won’t miss it.
There’s a knock on the door that makes me jump out of my skin. More like a fist banging so hard that it makes the latch rattle. My first instinct is to grab my bag, but I stop. The house has no back door for me to slip through. I know who it is, I don’t want to let him inside, but I know I have to. The sooner I do it, the sooner he can spill his rage and leave, so I can get on with my escape plan.
I open the door, and Bran’s father fills the frame. He is a large man, thick through the shoulders, with the same jaw his son had. His face is red, and the smell of wine rolls off him in waves.
“They were here,” he says.
“They had some questions and I answered them,” I say. “They left.”
He pushes past me into the house and I step back. I do it without thinking, the way I used to step back when Bran came through a door too fast.
“You think you’re clever,” he says, turning on me. “You think they can’t see what you are? My son loved you. He gave you everything. And you killed him.”
“I didn’t…”
“Shut your mouth.” He is close enough now that I can see the veins in his eyes, the wine flush spreading down his neck. “I told them. I told them the day he died, and they didn’t listen, but they’re listening now. They know about the others. They know you knew every one of those men’s wives, and when they put it together, you’re going to hang.”
“Your son died in his sleep. The physician said…”
“The physician is a fool.”
He grabs my arm above the elbow and squeezes. I pull back, and his open hand catches me across the face, the force of it sending me into the edge of the living room table that holds a flower vase. It topples, water spilling onto the tablecloth, the flowers scattering on the surface. Before I can straighten up, he hits me again, with the back of his hand this time, and my head snaps to the side. I taste blood where my lip splits against my teeth.
“Worthless,” he says. “You were nothing when he took you, and you’re nothing now.”
He grabs me by the shoulder and pushes me down, and I hit the floor, bracing myself on my hands and knees. He stands over me, breathing hard through his nose, and I think he is going to kick me, but he turns away, spits on the floor, and walks out. The door slams behind him.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. I cry, but quietly, the way I learned to cry during my marriage, when making noise meant Bran would come back into the room. The tears run sideways into my hair. After a while I stop, because there’s no point and I have things to do. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and press my tongue against the split in my lip. I get up. I ache here and there, but everything is fine. It could’ve been worse.
At the basin, I wash my mouth and hold a wet cloth to my cheek. The skin is swelling fast and turning dark under my eye. My arm is red where his fingers dug in, four oval marks in a row, and I know they will be purple by morning. I look at my reflection in the kitchen window. I’ve worn this face before, and I’m tired of it. Every time it healed, Bran would fix it for me again, and when he was gone, his father took over that job. I’m done. This cannot be my life anymore.
I pull on my boots and my warmest cloak. I can’t stay in Tessana. The Peacekeepers will come back, and when they do, they might come with shackles, not questions. Bran’s father will come back too, drunker and angrier, and one night, he’ll do more than knock me to the floor. There is nothing left for me here except people who think I’m a murderer and people who aren’t sure yet.
I’ve heard of the bride markets. Everyone has. Monsters come to buy human women, and once a woman is purchased and claimed, she falls under monster law. Human Peacekeepers lose jurisdiction. It’s the one solution I can think of that will stop the investigations, the letters and my father-in-law from ruining my life. I don’t know what kind of creature will buy me or what he’ll expect from me, and the thought of trading this cage for another makes my hands shake as I shoulder my bag, but staying is not a choice anymore.
