1

The Fallen Bride

Another body was dredged from the marsh this morning.

She was a pale thing, her arm entangled in creeping lattice and willow thatch, its emaciated fingers curled toward the sky. The star-shaped leaves were fast-growing and cradled the frozen limb in a lover’s embrace as chilled flesh sought the floating islands above Marsh Hollow.

I had only borne witness to her arrival because the mortician’s parlor was situated between the bakery and the textile shop.

Young noses pressed against the bubbled glass regardless of the early hour. Soot-covered fingers rested on either side of the young ogling faces as the woolen cords binding the sheet around the wallow maiden were drawn back.

Gathering my skirts, I pushed aside the baker’s sons to glance into the parlor.

The twins went to protest, only to scamper away in wide-eyed fear at the sight of me and my basket.

As amusing as my ‘marsh witch’ title was, it was concerning that it was gaining more fear than the body lying on the mortician’s table.

Mr. Gable was a gaunt individual with hollowed cheekbones and fingers that seemed to crack like wind-stirred branches whenever he moved. Those thin fingers wrapped around the wrist unobscured by the unfortunate shepherd who had stumbled upon the body.

It was a dark irony how much paler he was compared to the corpse.

The shack acting as his shop left little of the conversation hidden. “Quite the shame, quite the shame indeed.”

The shepherd knotted his fingers against his cap sorrowfully. “She was a young one. Scarcely childbearin’ age.”

The undertaker tsked softly and moved around the table to pull back the shroud over her brow. Long coils of silken brown hair, curled in fine ringlets but soiled by mud and foliage, lay draped within the woven whites.

She had soft features: a wide-set mouth, lushly filled cheeks, and a petite upturned nose—

The illusion was shattered as my gaze swept to her eyes.

They were wide, staring toward the heavens in frozen terror. The black veining into the whites and devouring the dark browns flipped my stomach.

I recoiled from the glass and ducked as the mortician and the shepherd glanced in my direction.

The shepherd shook his head. “Likely Dole’s brats. They’re probably running off to hide under their mother’s skirts as we speak.”

Mr. Gable sighed and turned from the window to inspect the object of their discussion.

I inched back up to peek into the shop.

The shepherd shivered. “Why are her eyes like that?”

Mr. Gable tutted, “Did you think every death is pardoned by the bliss of a closed lid?” He took a nearby lantern and lifted it over her head. “I’d time her at the reaper’s escort less than twenty-four hours ago.”

Wiry blonde locks gleamed in the lantern light as the unfortunate sheepherder asked, “How can you tell?”

“It’s the black in her eyes. It swells and constricts, though no soul remains.”

“And what of the veins painting her gaze?”

A skeletal white hand softly patted the unfortunate girl’s head. “Those aren’t veins. No, those are vines.” He reached to tap her extended hand. “They’re woven within her flesh, gnawing outward and freezing her frame. If you hadn’t found her today, you would have stumbled upon a tree in the marsh with bleached bones piled at its base by the week’s end.”

The shepherd gritted his teeth. “This is the third in as many months. Shawson found one on his roof, and prior to that, Mrs. Shilling’s poor lad stumbled upon that unfortunate fair-haired lass amongst the orchards. None of them are local either—”

Mr. Gable pulled him forward by his tie. “And none of them will be local if we keep to our simple ways. They fell from their graces, and as long as we ensure our women and daughters aren’t of notable merit, we won’t have to worry about them falling to the same fate.”

He turned toward the nearby shelves to gather a few coins from the wooden offerings box the townsfolk donated to for just such occasions. “Go back to your herd, Elliot.”

“And what of the girl? Her kin would be heartbroken to have never known her fate.”

“I’ll cut a lock of her hair as I’ve done for those before her and send the sealed casket to the markets of Asher. The royal guardsmen visiting their streets will deal with reuniting her body with her kin. Now pardon me, I must go to the smith. These eyes won’t stay shut unless I have nails to hook the lids closed.”

I crawled away and into the cellar that Madam Lorraine used to pilfer my services.

Despite my ill-won reputation, she couldn’t afford to chase me off. The next swatch of fabric was already stretched between an oaken frame for me. It was a delicate black brocade with an almost luminous gold sheen in the candlelight.

I set down my basket and sat in the rickety seat allocated to my trade. I began stitching a lattice of crow feathers and lilac berries amidst knotted golden stems.

My thoughts returned to the girl being fitted for an oak box one shop over.

I wonder what talent had cut her life so short. Was she a dancer? Perhaps a baker with bread no mortal could resist? Maybe a songstress with a voice of liquid silver—

In the end, it didn’t matter. Her bones were back amongst the land of her forefathers, and whatever talents had lured her to the palace above would be no more than rumor by the time the next unfortunate lady was chosen to entertain his highness.

My bone needle pricked against the fawn-hued flesh of my forefinger, jeweling it in ruby red and staining the shard of carved ivory I was using to paint the material.

My eyes fell to the window, where songbirds had amassed the baubles and finger-polished stones the local rabble had lost the night before.

An oddly shaped crow, thicker at its neck and with a head that flopped back and forth like a toy top, scattered its supposed brethren. Tiny fingers, in a soft peach, darted out from under those deadened wings to scoop up a tiny silver button and then a ring. The bird ran with unnatural speed to the basement window, and I rose from my seat to allow him entry.

I hissed, “If you keep up such antics, the twins will have you roasting over a fire quicker than you can say mellow wood.”

The crow floated down to land in my palm, and the being within sneezed. Feathers flew everywhere to leave behind a thin man, no larger than a quill but around the thickness of a wooden doll. Brown eyes were mischievous as he adjusted the steel ring on his waist. “And miss out on such wondrous treasures? I pity the man, inkling, or sparrowfall, who misses the sun’s sweet kiss or the spoils of the lazy and lax.”

Settling his booted feet on the material I was laboring over, I chastised, “You know why I don’t like you being out in the open, Eugene. They don’t know you’re a fae and will only see an animal. With the harvests plagued by drought and the islands above taxing so exuberantly, a wren or a rabbit will be set for a cauldron on sight!”

The handsome little devil rolled his eyes, and his gorgeous feathered wings fluffed with indignation. “I’d like to see them try!”

Madam Lorraine’s wooden heels clacked down the basement stairwell. “Witchling~”

I snagged Eugene and stuffed him down my apron. Turning on my heel, I frowned. “Neoma,” I corrected.

A thin brow composed of scraggly brown hair flicked up. “Pardon?”

“My name. It’s not Witchling. We’ve discussed this—”

She waved me off, “My apologies, Nimma.” She glanced around the room warily. “Who were you speaking with in such a drab tone?”

I lied, “The threads. They’re mighty fickle this morning.” I raised my injured finger. “And my needle for its treachery.”

There are a few things you must know about Madam Lorraine. She enjoyed the finest luxuries, from men to wine, and indulged in both on a near-weekly basis despite having the facial structure of a sun-dried raisin. The village children called her the Threadweaver, and over the last four years, she had gained recognition from the misty-shored marshes to the distant craggy peaks by that nickname. Her work was considered an art, sought after by brides, tax collectors, clergy, and aristocrats—

Except the Madam wasn’t the one embroidering fields in sunny yellows or weaving elaborate mosaics of the fae god, Niphel, and her seven guardians.

Her lips puckered to smash red rouge from some exotic beetle into an unattractive clam. Long nails tapped at the segment of material I had worked on. “Perhaps you should curse it to meet your deadlines?”

My hands fisted at my sides. “I have met every deadline you’ve set, and this one will be no different.”

“Oh? Then you should know that the man who requested this finery expects it no later than Carpas.”

My eyes swept back to my work wearily. “Why would you agree to such a tight timeframe? Two days would barely see the stitching at the collar or the finishing upon the sleeves completed by any mortal hand.”

The Madam rolled her eyes so the threads she had glued to their balding edges fluttered. “Because he wishes for Niphel’s coinciding blessing.”

I snorted, “And he picks Carpas? The day of generosity? I do hope he offered you good money for such haste, Madam, or he surely will gain that fae guardian’s wrath.”

The Madam snickered and motioned toward the reed-woven basket at my hip and the brass shears pointing from atop it. “Ah, because surely a pauper Witchling knows of the god’s favoritism? What do you truly know? You’re so poor not even the crows would wish to cast their droppings upon you for fear of sullying themselves.”

“If we’re going to insult each other, I suggest that someone as aged and shriveled as yourself should contemplate her own words with a bit more tact. That powder brimming your nose isn’t from a quarry, madam.”

White-painted cheeks reddened obscenely. “You know not of what you speak!”

I pushed past her to tighten the wooden frame supporting my work.

“I know exactly what I speak. You went to the soothsayer asking for a cure for your crow’s feet and returned with a bottle of crow skat to rub onto your weathered old face.” My hand motioned to the window. “And it’s why you bribe the baker’s children for crumbs—”

She slapped me sideways onto the damp dirt floor with a haughty glare.

“And that is why you cannot gain ear or work in this village or any other! Such a wicked, deceitful tongue.”

Wiping my busted lip, I glared at my employer. “A pot has little room to call the kettle black.” My free hand knotted against the mildewed earth.

Her lips puckered, and the white smeared on her narrow cheeks cracked beneath her eye sockets. “A pot can take all liberty in accusing the kettle when no one trusts the cup that the kettle brushes its gangly lips against.” She turned on her wooden heels. “You have two days, Ninia.”

“For the last time, it’s Neom—”

The cellar doors closed long before I could correct her.

Eugene grumbled. “Neoma? Aren’t you forgetting something, or rather, someone?” He pinched the fabric separating him from my bosom.

I yanked him up by his booted foot.

He swung upside down, tiny arms crossed and a petulant glare on his rugged face. “When will you tire of working for that bitter crone? You aren’t getting any younger, and you are far too pretty to become fodder for a weed.”

“When I have enough money to leave.” I wandered back to the frame I had been tending before the sixty-seven-year-old hag’s two-day proclamation. I thumbed over the left side worriedly. “How am I going to complete this before Carpas? God, I wish it were set for Elos, or even Amor.”

Eugene somersaulted up and caught the breeze with his tawny wings, landing on the edge of my frame.

“You humans are always so amusing. A day less or a day more—toil finds us all. It’s never done anyone, fae or man, a courtesy to rot on a possibility.”

I pinched a small swath of the pinned fabric. “Do you think this needs more gold? The black is almost consuming the sleeve—”

Eugene leaned over the edge of the frame to inspect my work. “Maybe a touch more on the left side.”

He squinted at the archaic prints I had woven between the stars. “What’s this commission for, anyway? I can’t read mud-monkey.”

I rolled my eyes as I drew my discarded needle up from the floor and back to the material. “It’s an equinox tunic. Nobles and priests find them popular for bestowing luck and vitality at the coming of Niphel and her descendants.”

The fae’s eyes rolled. “Right. I should have known you humans had another ludicrous way of honoring that goddess you toss a quarter of your wages to.”

“People need something to believe in.”

His cunning brown eyes studied me wearily. “You’re such strange creatures, always coveting the words of another and never seeking what lies just beyond your fingertips.”

I paused on the star I was weaving through the dismal black, holding my needle in pensive silence, before replying, “There’s a magic in hope.”

He rocked backward, kicking his tiny feet to and fro to vent his frustrations. “I absolutely detest that.”

I snorted. “And what, perchance, is this loathed that? In all your years of thievery and minor hexes, have you never once chanced to hope?”

“Don’t fall to accusation out of habit, or I’ll mistake you for that shit-faced crone.” He motioned his thin arm around. “I was referring to your use of hope.”

I deftly yanked the needle back through the fabric and snickered. “Hope is hope.”

“My hope is far different from your hope, Threadweaver.”

A smile pulled at my busted lip. “How so?”

“You speak of it as if it were made of glass. A thread, poised just beyond the brink of shattering in your outstretched fingertips.” He reached to adjust his tattered, quilted tunic.

“But what is hope if not a notion just out of reach? A widow can hope for her late husband’s graces. A mother can hope for a safe birth. Even the lowest of beggars can hope for a morsel of bread or a bird’s soothing song. It’s never definitive.”

Eugene rose to fly over to the windowsill. He pulled it upward and glanced back to correct me.

“Hope is anything but fragile. It can survive for centuries. And if I’ve learned anything from your kind, it’s less a delicate thread and more a sturdy rope… or a noose, when it’s used improperly.”

And with that less-than-appealing imagery, the stag-horned imp vanished into the forming rain, leaving me to battle the jet blacks, shimmering golds, and wayward pinpricks of my own blood—without so much as a cricket for companionship.

The cellar door was locked, and I thought nothing of it. The Madam tended to do so whenever she found my mouth more tedious to deal with than the rabble she entertained upstairs.

Something clicked against the hatchway door leading into the cellar, and again near the chipped window frame.

I sighed. “Eugene, I’m not in the mood—”

But it wasn’t Eugene.

The Madam waved before sliding the decorative metal storm shutters over the paned glass. The iron bolt was latched from the outside with a muted thump, and the room fell into suffocating darkness.

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