“Sure. Can you grate this?” He passed me an entire ginger root and a grater.
I got to work, grating, chopping, stirring, whatever task he assigned me, without once asking what he was making. I was still learning what it meant to be mated to a sin-eater. Was this normal behavior, eating noxious flavor combinations at all hours of the day and night? I could feel the bond between us, and it seemed stable, but still, I had to ask…
“So…” I began, dipping a toe into the water of a conversation where I was so out of my depth, I was liable to drown. “I’ve noticed you’re hungrier lately. Does that mean you need to find some sins to purge?” I asked. What I meant was,you’re not still planning on retiring, right?
The knife in his hand stilled, mid-chop on a cutting board full of herbs, their sharp fragrance filling the kitchen. He stared off, jaw a little slack. “Oh… I guess so. I haven’t really thought about it.” He set a hand on his stomach, rubbing it absently, before he went back to chopping. “I’m sure I’ll get a call from someone soon, requesting my services. I always do.” Even knowing it was a part of his nature, that it kept him alive and healthy, I felt a bitter jealousy at the intimate nature of what he did, imbibing in something so personal from someone, a stranger.
Uly began humming a tune under his breath, familiar in the distant way of a long-lost memory.
As the pot of ingredients began to simmer on the stove, a strange mixture of sweet and salty, spicy and bitter, the fumes enough to make my stomach roil, lyrics filtered through time to match the tune. “Huna'n dawel, heno, huna; Huna'n fwyn, y tlws ei lun,” I sang along in Welsh, and Uly’s head snapped up, mouth open in surprise.
“You know it?” he said, laughing. “I haven’t thought of that song in probably a hundred years, but I woke up this morning and there it was, dancing circles in my head. It’s that strange?”
“Strange, yes…” I agreed blandly. “It’s a lullaby, isn’t it?” I could feel a flicker of Danu’s amusement at my apparent ignorance.
“Yeah. I think my grandmother used to sing it to me when I was a baby. Before… you know,” he said, gesturing to himself, “the whole sin-eater thing.” He set his knife down for a moment, his eyes taking on a soft, distant look of memory. “She was the first one I purged, you know, my grandmother. She’d died, and as we sat vigil, I felt thispull. I hadn’t even known what I was doing at the time. It’s not like the rolecomes with on-the-job training or anything. I was still a child, but I felt it, this call to free her soul, and I just… answered, I guess.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, as if that wasn’t the beginning of the betrayals cast against him. “My parents were superstitious, and when they saw smoke pouring out of my grandmother’s mouth and into mine, I can’t even blame them for being terrified. They cast me out, believing I was cursed.”
I wished there were a way I could take it all back for him, to protect him from every person who ever hurt him. Instead, I made a vow that he would be safe from fear forever more. Starting now.
He grabbed a spoon from the utensil drawer and turned toward the pot on the stove, going for a taste. I immediately snatched the spoon from his fingers. “Hey!”
He tried to grab it back, but I held it over my head where he couldn’t reach. “I’m sorry, love, but I can’t let you eat that.”
“What? Why not?” He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed.
“Because you might not survive the experience. Best-case scenario, you make yourself sick. Worst case? Death!” I pointed at the noxious fumes coming off it, which I was pretty sure were tinted bile green.
His lip stuck out in an adorable pout I wanted to kiss. “It’s not that bad,” he said in defense, but he turned a more critical eye toward the pot where a few cubes of pickle floated between roughly chopped herbs.
“There is a literal oil slick on top. You can’t even tell me what it is, can you,” I taunted, narrowing my eyes in a dare.
“I mean, it’s… it’s a stew, obviously. A pickle, peach, peanut butter, parsley, and pastrami stew.” He winced. “Why do they all start with P?”
“Don’t forget the ginger. That doesn’t start with P,” I supplied, as if that made it any better.
He groaned in misery and slapped his hands over his face, and I pulled him into my arms where he buried into my chest. “What is wrong with me?!” he wailed, his voice muffled.
“There are two possibilities,” I told him matter-of-factly, and he pulled back to look up at me, waiting to see what the options were. “One, you’re overdue for a purge. This stew of yours has all the main flavors you’re craving: sweet, spicy, sour, bitter, and umami. It’s like having all the sins in one pot.”
He nodded slowly, wiping a finger under his eye where a few tears had collected. “Okay, that makes a certain kind of sense. What’s the other option?” he asked with a sniffle.
“That you’re pregnant.”
Uly’s shock took a moment to settle in as he absorbed the words and deciphered their meaning. “Pregnant? N-No, that’s not… I mean, I guess we’ve been, you know… and haven’t been,you know… but—” He stammered a few times, until his brain hit factory reset. “But it’s only been a few weeks!” I didn’t bother quoting the old cliché “it only takes once.” He bit his lip, and I knew what was coming. “You’re awfully calm about maybe becoming a dad.”
“I promise, as soon as you give me permission, I’ll be screaming the news from the rooftops.”
His laugh was watery. “Yeah? You’re excited?”
“Cautiously excited,” I clarified, though I suspected it was true; Danu’s amusement made a lot more sense now. “Do you want me to go get you a pregnancy test? And maybe an order of stew from that Hungarian restaurant down the block?” I asked, side-eyeing the pot congealing on the stove.
He let out a sigh of defeat. “Maybe…” he muttered.
The problem was, I could tell it wasn’t what he was truly craving. Whether it was his inner sin-eater or potential pregnancy that drovehis craving, I had a feeling there was only one thing that would satisfy my mate, and a strange tingle of excitement zapped through me at the mere thought. “Or…” I began, “you could purge me.”
I let my words hang in the air between us. I thought for a moment he would immediately turn me down. There was something incredibly sacred about what he did for departed souls, after all, and what I was suggesting felt almost perverse. Instead, though, he said, “You would want that?” He sounded almost curious.
“I promised that I would give you anything you needed, and that includes this. The world is changing. Belief systems aren’t as strong as they once were. There are few superstitions that can survive Hollywood films, even fewer religious beliefs in an age of seeing is believing. With fewer people likely to believe in the eternal soul and the world beyond the veil, what if clients looking for a sin-eater become scarce? Maybe it’s time for you to adapt.” I brushed my fingertips across the planes of his face, tracing his features I’d been working so hard to memorize, every freckle, every pore. “It would truly be an honor to provide for you. And then once I’m sin-free, you can help me top up all over again.”
