from section 1 of Thirds
The forest smelled of frost and rain as Issina made her way back to the house. The rain always stopped before sunrise, and it was only in the winter that it turned to snow. In the summer it remained fluid, sometimes freezing into icicles just before morning, the forest a shivering grove of refracted light.
The garden next to the house was no exception to the cold. It often sparkled more brilliantly than the forest, every budding flower and leaf a delicate frozen masterpiece. As Issina approached the garden she caught sight of Edryn and Sybil crossing the chicken yard to enter their green wonderland. The garden was their paradise, and it was off limits to Issina. Still, she stepped up to the heavy foliage and trellises and peered through a break.
Edryn and Sybil, dressed in only their white chemises and fur-lined cloaks twirled happily along the trails. They raised their arms and chanted rich, beautiful phrases. Ice shattered; frozen edges disappeared; stems lengthened at a rapid pace.
Although their work was enchanting, Issina knew it was only a small portion of what the growers did every morning as they visited expansive fields and gardens and sang the frost away. By the end of summer the crops were healthy and abundant—more so than if the sun had been left to do the growing on its own. The only areas untouched by the growers were the forests, and they didn’t look as beautiful or as healthy. Issina knew this from the berries she picked along the path. They were significantly smaller, some of them burned with the cold and not as sweet as those grown in the garden at home.
The growers’ work seemed to require large amounts of energy. After a few minutes, Sybil and Edryn sat on the ground, gasping. There was a reason they had to be chosen by the council and could not become full growers on their own. They needed training to increase their stamina, and only one person could provide them with it.
Gilbert and Gissy honked at Issina’s heels, startling her from the reverie of watching her sisters. The silly geese had followed her out when she’d opened the gate, staying with her the entire trip. Sometimes her goat, Cassia, followed her, but she seemed low lately, sleeping past sunrise in her corner of the chicken yard, her peppery-gray hair more dull than usual.
Issina picked up her water buckets and entered the chicken yeard. Cassia greeted her, bleating at the top of her lungs. Issina smiled at seeing her friend so full of energy. “You must be feeling better, old girl.” She knelt in the soft dirt and scratched between the animals ears.
“Maaaa,” was all the goat said, but Issina liked to believe she said, Yes, thank you…
Issina smiled and squeezed her close, trying to ignore how skinny the animal felt. Her ribs were clearly visible.
“Maaaa to you, too,” she said with a frown, and pecked a kiss on Cassia’s nose. She stood up to finish carrying the water inside.
Odele was in the kitchen dropping biscuit dough onto a baking stone. Her graying her was swept into an intricate knot and this revealed her slender neck which always reminded Issina of a swan gliding through the water.
“It’s about time,” Odele snapped as she glanced at Issina. “Your sisters are starving.”
“I’ll bet they are.”
“What did you say?” Odele spun around as Issina set the water buckets on the floor near the oven. Nobody had stoked the fire yet and that meant breakfast would be even later.
“Nothing,” Issina muttered and grabbed a basket and a knife before heading to the root cellar where they kept vegetables and meat. Sometimes she stole food from the cellar, but Odele could almost always tell when she had eaten something, which was why she tried to be careful with the berries and eat them only at night or in the woods.
She made her way down the stairs. The room stayed very cool, even during the hot summer days, and was situated well beneath the house. The hard-packed dirt walls were webbed with spindly roots and the air smelled sweet, like cold plants.
Issina headed for the cured ham hanging from a rope secured to the ceiling. It was nearly gone, but what was left looked so tempting that Issina licked her fingers after she’d cut a few slices and put them in her basket. She glanced at the mostly empty shelves around her. Winter was coming in a few months. Normally the cellar would have been more stocked by this point, but Odele had been forced to sell food in the market during the past months to pay debts. Issina hated to think of the fewer scraps of food she’d get once the snow began to fall and her mother and sisters hoarded more for themselves. There would be no berries then.
She stared at the roots snaking out of the walls. Last winter she had sliced some and eaten them at night in her room. Bitter. Oddly enough, she had enjoyed the taste as it burned down her throat. The roots had calmed her growling stomach like a balm. Now, looking at them before she turned to head back up the stairs, she wondered if she should cut some more. She touched a knotted mass of them near a shelf. They were cool against her skin and made her think of the music in her dreams, of tall trees and sparkling light.
__________________________
from section 3 of Thirds
The forest was dripping with icicles. As the sun filtered through the foliage, they sparkled. Issina hardly took note of them as she ran off the path into the underbrush. Pinecones pierced the bottom of her feet until they bled and left smeared red spots on leaves and needles and grass. She kept her arms straight at her sides, terrified to touch anything living. The sensation of the wilting flowers in her hands reminded her of snakes writhing against her skin, coiling and then dying, their beautiful skin dissolving to dust. She gripped her chemise and held it up out of the way of low branches and ferns. When the birds began to sing she stopped and sat down on a rock, burying her face in her hands so she could weep into something warm. But her hands weren’t warm. They were as lifeless as the dripping icicles, her tears hot against her skin.
Haven’t you seen the darkness in her mind? I couldn’t penetrate it in the forest. That’s why I left her there. I couldn’t stand to be next to her one moment longer.
Was there darkness in her mind? Six years earlier Odele had sent her into town to buy some meat. She walked through the market with her eyes glued to the ground. She had never been into town alone before. Her dress was shabby and her left shoe was ripped open on the heel. Everything she owned was passed down to her from Sybil or Edryn and they were not gentle on clothes. By the time she received them they were gray with dirt and thin from repeated washings. She stopped at the meat stand and purchased two pig’s feet, a piece of cow’s liver, and a package of pork chops wrapped in cloth. They felt deliciously thick in her hands as she placed them into her basket.
“That all for you, Miss?” the butcher asked. He wore a cream-colored apron spattered and smeared with blood. A pig’s head swung on a rope behind him.
“Yes, sir.” She reached out her hand to give him the coins she owed. When he took them he stuck his tongue between his lips and lifted the coins close to his face, counting.
“This is too much, lil’ Miss,” he said with a glance. He seemed to study her dress for a moment and she wondered if he might see the scabs on her hands. Quickly, she swung her basket behind her back to hide them.
“That’s how much my Mother said to give you,” she stammered.
“No, it’s too much.” He lifted one shiny coin and held it out to her. It glinted in the sun. “Take this, keep it for yerself, and go buy somethin’ nice over there at Miss Rose’s jewelry cart.”
Issina looked over her shoulder. Down the road past throngs of market shoppers was a cart. It stood out from everything else, and as bodies passed in front of it she caught a glimpse of its treasures and almost gasped. She had never seen anything so dazzling.
“Is her cart new?” she asked quietly.
“What’s that ye say?”
“Is her cart new? It wasn’t here last time I came with my sisters. They would have stopped there.”
“Miss Rose only comes certain times o’ the month. Here, lil’ Miss, take the coin.”
Breathing heavily, Issina snatched the coin from his fingers and backed into the crowd, nodding her thanks. When she reached Rose’s cart, her eyes swirled with delight. Diamonds and rubies and long gold chains cascaded before her. She saw ancient stones, mother-of-pearl, jade, a polished tiger’s eye set in a braided silver oval.
She clutched the coin in her hand, her basket in another, and stared at the brown stone. It glittered like warm soil and sunshine, lustrous and dark at the same time. She hadn’t known at the time what the stone was called. Rose bent down.
“You like the tiger’s eye?”
“Yes,” Issina said in a soft breath. She wanted to reach out and touch the stone, but her hands were full. Her mind zipped back to the image of her father. She now had something to call his fierce, beautiful eyes.
Rose smiled softly. She was like a gypsy, her clothing layered in rich emeralds and purples, all of it ending in points and frays and ribbons, some of them tied together with sparkling beads. She had sleek, straight black hair and large breasts that swayed when she bent down. Her tiny shoes were black with white shells sewn into the fabric.
Issina took all this in with a deep, warm breath.
“Do you want to buy the stone, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” She held out the coin in her hand and Rose frowned.
“I’m afraid that is not enough.”
“Oh.” Her eyes went straight to the dirt. A slender finger hooked under her chin as Rose lifted her face.
“Soldiers in a faraway land once wore tiger’s eye in their armor for protection,” she said with her eyes trained intently on Issina. “It is a stone used to help heal the sick and weak. It focuses the mind. Do you need these things?”
Issina swallowed and shifted her feet. “I don’t know. My father’s eyes looked like that stone.”
“His eyes?” Rose’s finger tensed on Issina’s chin. “Where is your father now?”
“He’s dead.”
“Your father’s dead?” Rose dropped her hand. “That is interesting.”
Issina remained silent. The stone’s brilliance tugged at her, a dark presence filling her mind. She rubbed her thumb over the coin and imagined the stone there instead. She would have liked to lie down at night with the stone in her palm, her father’s eyes more fixed in her mind because of it. She didn’t know at the time that she had killed him.
She did not stop Rose from taking her face in her hands. The woman looked intently into her eyes, her lips twisting between her teeth.
“There is much darkness in you,” she whispered. “But it is like your father’s, perhaps. Tell me, child, do you dream of trees?”
Issina dropped her meat basket and stepped away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Rose stood straight and folded her arms. “You may not have his eyes, but I sense the earth in you. Earth is dark, like this stone, but filled with light. Remember that, child.” She waved an arm at her cart. “Would you like to purchase something else today?”
She turned and ran, tripped and fell in the dirt, and lost her coin. Scrambling to her feet, she raced past the butcher who called out to her as the pig’s head watched her pass, its eyes as black and cold as ice. When she arrived home, Odele beat her until she screamed in pain and blood streamed down her back.
“How dare you leave the meat at the market! It’s long gone by now, stolen no doubt. We’ll go hungry for a week, and you…you’ll eat nothing.”
All she could think about were trees.
__________________________
Thirds will be published by Rhemalda Publishing May 1st, 2013, as part of the Bonded collection with Michelle's two other novellas, Cinders and Scales.
