stoneflowersunthread

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Violet leaned against the door frame of the yew tree, waving out into the clear winter night as Rose left their home a final time. The cart wobbled under the weight of her sizeable trousseau, and each time it did, Rose and her new husband laughed. Violet sighed, closing the door once they were out of sight.

She was alone again.

Not entirely alone. Thirn sat near the roaring fire, flames dancing in his eyes as he stared unblinking into the blaze. He looked troubled or perhaps just tired from the day of festivities. Or maybe he missed Rose as much as she did.

‘Thirn,’ Violet ventured a touch to his shoulder, ‘it’s late, you should retire.’

‘Aye,’ he agreed softly, stretching to full height as he stood. Violet thought he would make his way to the big back bedroom- after all, with Rose gone it would be his again. When he got to the hallway he turned to her, and before speaking dragged a hand through his golden beard. ‘Will you be movin on now? With no more Rose to look after?’

‘Oh,’ she faltered for a moment, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ When Rose announced her engagement to the cloth weaver’s son, Violet had put herself to work on the trousseau all women were expected to take to their marital home. She hadn’t made any plans beyond cleaning the back bedroom for Thirn to take up residency in once again. Of course he would want her to move on, she was healed and Rose was gone; they didn’t need him anymore.

Her heart stuttered. Of course she still needed him.

‘I can make arrangements,’ she finally answered, twisting up her hands in the clean apron she wore. ‘Perhaps I can live above the tavern, with the other barmaid.’ Her eyes stung hotly, and before she could make a move to wipe them, Thirn lifted her chin.

‘You don’t have to go nowhere, Violet,’ his voice was soft, but caught on something she couldn’t place. She covered his hand with hers and squeezed it.

‘Thank you Mr Thirn,’ she answered, her voice barely a whisper. She feared if she spoke any louder the secrets of her heart would spill forth and he would turn her out this very night. ‘It’s not right for me to live with you any longer. People might think-‘

‘Think what?’

‘When I came here I was a strange unknown. I had no occupation or skill. I know what some of the women said about me. Maybe because Rose is a great beauty with a sweet disposition she escaped the worst of it. I was granted neither beauty nor an open heart; I know what they think I did before we came here- before you saved us. For your reputation, I should probably leave. Soon.’

‘I care nought for what they say,’ his hand dropped, still joined with hers. ‘I won’t turn you out. I’ve a mind to keep you here for all.’

‘For all?’ His face dropped and their hands released each other.

‘I’ve said too much,’ he shook his head. ‘Good night, my Violet.’

She stood for a moment in the darkness, chill creeping up from the floor now that he had gone.

When Thirn had come back from his adventuring, bringing the smoky smell of autumn and a name for her, he had called her beautiful- cold, but beautiful. She thought back to their early days after he found them, his gentle touch and soothing words. The way he taught Rose to read and never asked anything of her in return.

Violet had always been sure it was a brotherly love he had for them. The way he cared for Rose reflected into the way he cared for herself. Patient and soft, his clear light eyes always fixed lovingly on them.

Was it on them? Or was that gaze meant for her?

Violet tossed all night, watching the sky outside her bedroom window go from impossibly dark blue to a lightening of pinks and indigo. Every now and then she thought she heard steps hesitate at her door, but they often just faded into the main room until their return trip saw them again at her room.

The rooster crowed, and with that Violet decided it was as good a time as any to get up for the day and make them some breakfast. She would tamp down her foolish heart and make inquiries about the room at the tavern- the perhaps she would send word to where Rose now lived. She may find a new life once again. She was tying her old ratty apron, the one for housework, as she entered the main room to lay and stir the fire. When she looked up from her knot Thirn was sat at the table already.

‘I’ll get some breakfast ready,’ she told him, feigning a cheerful smile. ‘I have some of those purple mushrooms you like so much and just enough butter to make them taste nice.’

‘Sit,’ he motioned to the chair across from him. Rose’s customary chair remained empty making her heart squeeze. ‘We need to talk.’

‘If you give me a sevenday,’ Violet took a deep breath as she started, ‘maybe a nineday I can be moved out and in a new situation. I know you have done everything and more for us for the past four years. I will find some way to repay you for the clothing, room, and food. I promise, Thirn, I will make us even. I was so preoccupied with the wedding and her Trousseau. We had to go from nothing to a whole chest in such a short period of time.’

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‘I wanted to hear your voice, cariad,’ Linnet tried not to sound needy and failed. Her voice came out as a high pitched strangled thing, catching on the Welsh endearment. ‘I just miss you so.’

‘Hey, I’ll be back for the holidays,’ Jean tried to soothe her, using the tone he took with frightened horses and small children. His camera flickered on and he was met with her lovely sad visage, blue lit by the screen and surrounded by pillows. She was in bed, judging by the angle. ‘Nice to see your face, darling one.’

‘Always a joy to see yours,’ she smiled softly. ‘You’ve grown your hair.’

‘No barber will come out to the dig, I’m afraid. I’ll get it cut when I come see you in Bath.’

‘I like it. It paints you quite the adventurer,’ she let out a little laugh. ‘Rugged, handsome, daring.’

‘Handsome?’

‘Very,’ she assured him seriously. ‘Very handsome. I can’t stop thinking about you. Your lips just here,’ she dragged her fingers over the spot where her should met her neck and down between her small breasts. ‘Your hands-‘

‘Show me,’ he said biting his bottom lip. At his command she tugged her thin shirt down enough that one of her breasts were exposed and rolled her petal pink nipple between her fingers. With a sigh she made eye contact with the camera again.

‘Will you still have me when you come back,’ her voice still tight and pleading.

‘Always,’ he promised a bit more solemnly than he meant it to sound. He had to blink tears away quickly as to not distract her. What was happening was thrilling and he couldn’t let his feelings get involved.

‘Smile, cariad,’ she demanded. ‘Just once,’ her hand disappeared off camera and she shifted.

Linnet didn’t know what came over her as she tapped her phone a few times to call Jean. She missed him, which was natural after three months apart. But there was a longing too- the need to see his face and hear his voice that transcended the friendship they claimed to have.

‘Just once,’ her hand found the elastic waist of her pyjama shorts. If he smiled or not she didn’t know. As her hand sought it’s place her eyes closed and she leaned her head back against the pillows. A moment later Jean’s familiar panting joined hers.

‘My darling girl,’ he murmured adoringly. His voice was strained and soft. She knew that tone well and opened an eye to glance down at the screen. All that was visible was his bobbing throat, dark stubble covering his chin.

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‘This is too much,’ Linnet ran her hand over the cloth covers of the sumptuous gift laid in her lap. ‘Jean, you really shouldn’t have.’

‘I feel bad I missed your birthday,’ Jean admitted, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away. Sometimes her eyes shine too brightly and sometimes he could swear she looked at him with love in them. He couldn’t allow that hope to creep in.

‘You didn’t miss it,’ she carefully slid the ribbon that bound the books together off of them and folded it, like it was something precious. ‘I don’t usually tell anyone when it is. Michiko only knows because she’s my emergency contact.’

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Ewa Domanska, Liliana Komorowska, Izabela Wieczorek

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Carl Moll

Dusk. 1900

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‘Is your room ok,’ Jean asked, carefully perching himself in the window. ‘We can put you in another, we have so many empty-‘

‘It’s perfectly lovely,’ Linnet folded a peach camisole that made Jean look longingly after it as it was stuffed in a drawer. He knew that texture beneath his lips, the way it caught as he slid it over her head. ‘I really have nothing to complain about.’

‘But,’ he offered, hearing the hesitation in her voice. She was too kind, too grateful for any show of genuine concern that she would never dare to ask for more than was given. It was a leftover from her childhood and it made his heart clench at the thought of her as an unloved orphan.

‘I just thought,’ she moved a long curly lock of hair behind her ear and swallowed thickly, ‘I thought I would be- that is to say I assumed…’ she didn’t finish her sentence, realising how needy it sounded.

Jean crossed the room to where she stood, her face turned down at the floorboards. She was doing her best to buff away some imagined stain with the toe of her sock. Sometimes she couldn’t look at him, it hurt too much to see his eyes- dark, sad things despite her best efforts. She was failing at the one thing he had asked her for. She would be replaced soon, Linnet was certain of that. She gave a start when his finger came up under her chin and urged her face closer to his.

‘Say it,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘Ask for it. Demand it. Anything you want is yours.’ His voice was strained, breath hot against her skin. Linnet let out a shiver and as if by instinct he pulled her close to him.

‘I want to stay with you,’ her request came out as barely a whisper. Had he not been looking intently at her lips, Jean would have thought no words had been spoken at all.

‘So we’re not friends for the fortnight,’ he asked, hopeful against the strange code they came up with to compartmentalise what was going on between them.

‘I don’t want to be friends,’ she agreed, not daring to say what remained unspoken. Linnet no longer wanted to be friends with Jean. Not ever again, by their terms. She wanted to live inside their tangled sheets and slow love making. She wanted to curl against him when her cramps got bad, she wanted him to want her around even when she wasn’t pretty or helpful or kind.

In a motion Jean swept her into his arms, using the toe of his shoe to open the door. For the first time since the university sent all their students ‘home’ Linnet let out a joyful laugh. Jean swore he could bottle it, live off small sips of it for the rest of his life. Let her glee roll around his tongue like a rich red wine.

‘Darling girl,’ he nuzzled into her neck, kissing the thin soft skin there, ‘you can have whatever you want.’

‘What about my luggage,’ she asked, twisting into his touch.

‘I’ll have someone bring it to my rooms,’ he held her tighter to him, ‘I’m not letting you go.’

She thought to his father, Claude, and the way the small bespectacled man smiled warmly at her; or to his beautiful cold mother, Lady Spenser with a pedigree that could be traced all the way back to George II. Jean knew who he was, and had a family that if didn’t love him in a traditional way, they at least supported him. She had never had a support system: just endless faceless social workers and foster parents- some kind, mostly not. Linnet was given a common welsh surname and put into a system that many don’t make it through. She wanted a place somewhere safe and permanent. Preferably with Jean at her side.

While Jean slept, in the blue early morning light, Linnet let herself imagine a life with him. A home, somewhere modest with a fireplace and a small library. Michiko and Pieter around for dinner, Claude visiting for the weekend. The endless hours they could spend in contented silence. Sometimes she imagined babies- sweet faced little girls with his dark hair and her light eyes, strapping red-haired boys with their father’s serious countenance. It only made the tears come on faster.

Some mornings Jean woke to Linnet’s soft crying, some unknown sorrow pushing it’s way through her chest. He never knew what to say, so he would just hold her close and stroke her brilliantly copper hair, in awe of it in the scant morning light.

‘It’s alright,’ he whispered and pressed a kiss to her damp temple. ‘I’ve got you.’ He always felt useless when his words made her cry harder.

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Bi-weekly, Claudia Keep

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‘I know more of loss than you think,’ Parsia, for some reason, couldn’t meet his eyes. She had seen desperation, that soul deep wound that never heals- but there was something creeping it’s way across Faileas’ face that she couldn’t stomach. ‘I will know much more by the time we reach the Citadel. The further from the sea, the more I lose the only part of myself I have ever been sure of.’

‘When you swam,’ Faileas started, ‘in the river outside of Yartar. I saw that piece of you that you are trying to conceal. Sister, if anyone found out they would kill you.’

‘Being yourself- your true self- is always an act of defiance, a feat of bravery, a risk well taken. Besides, my large friend, since when have you been concerned with my safety?’

‘Fine,’ he practically spat, pushing his chair from the table roughly and standing to his full height. ‘Get caught in a net for all I care.’ He slammed two gold pieces on the table and snapped for the barkeep. ‘For our bill,’ he shouted at the halfling across the room from them before storming off.

Parsia calmly sipped her wine and smiled as the door slammed violently behind him.

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‘Do they need healing,’ Parsia asked motioning to his bare back in the firelight.

‘No, they’re old. They don’t hurt anymore,’ Faileas replied gruffly, pulling his shirt on and looking back to glare at her. He was met with her unnervingly clam stare. She always seemed to be studying them. He wondered if her hands were warm, or if they were cold like the stories he had heard from their songcatcher. Sirens were cold blooded and would eat your heart out besides. The Sister didn’t seem to have a taste for human flesh but then again he hadn’t known her very long. She seemed serious and a little sad, but not dangerous.

‘Let me have a look,’ she offered, her voice even and measured. Before he could resist his shirt was back over his head and her hands at work on the knotted flesh of his torso. ‘I will not hurt you, you have my word.’

‘They’re warm,’ he sighed closing his eyes. He felt tired in a way that sleep would never cure, weary that rest could not touch. He could blame the journey, the falling ice and its familiar lullaby, the fight with Ty, the loss of so many. He was suspicious but so very tired.

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‘She used to bring people to the house,’ Violet explained quietly into the orange dim darkness of Thirn’s cabin. ‘When I touched their hands I could see how they were to die. People gave her money for this knowledge.’

Thirn thought better of taking her hands in comfort, and she read the hesitation in his eyes.

‘I already know,’ she said softly. ‘One day I will ask you not to go into the wood. Will you heed my warning?’

‘Can you change fate like that,’ he asked with more tremor to his voice than he liked.

‘I’m not certain, but I can try. I want to change yours.’

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‘I can’t remember much of my life before the convent,’ Parsia admitted softly, the firelight playing shadows across her pale face. For a moment they could see that other side of her- the side that wasn’t quite human. ‘Flashes here and there: the sound of the sail in the wind, the stubble on my father’s throat, the way my mother’s scales caught the light. When I came to after the storm, I felt reborn. She had spared me of all her children, and delivered me to the shore.’ The hag stones tied in Parsia’s hair gave a rattle as she removed her grey veil, shaking her long white hair free. ‘She is merciful, and sometimes death is a mercy. That’s why those inland don’t understand our veneration of her, they want promises of eternal life and endless bounty. They want a kind of mercy that dwells in the light ; they cower in fear of the other side of that coin.’

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‘I feel like I was never born,’ Linnet stared out to the sea and didn’t look at him when she spoke. ‘Like Blodeuwedd I may as well have been conjured from flowers. I wish I knew her, my mum. I wish I could have just heard her call my name at least once. I feel as though I’m a nameless ghost, like I’ve fought my whole life to be half a person.’

‘You are real. You’re not flowers, or ghosts, or the family you never had. I’m not mine. Look at me,’ he gently turned Linnet to him and braved her by the shoulders, ‘tell me you don’t want me to go.’

‘Jean,’ she reached for his jaw, sliding her thumb through the stubble there, ‘Cariad.’ She sat there for a while, not speaking. ‘You are my dearest friend and you have been so kind to let me into your life, family, and bed. You will always have me, no matter where in the world you are, no matter who you fall in love with.’

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‘You do not pay for drinks here Mr. Thirn,’ Big Eyes gently pushed his hand off of the bar.

‘I will not argue with that,’ he smiled, placing his pouch back on his knee. ‘Free ale and fine company, a man can not complain.’

‘You are the reason I have this job, these friends, this life. My sister and I are very grateful.’

He drained his drink in a mighty gulp and slammed the mug down on the bar.

‘Have you any thought on what you would like me to call you,’ emboldened by the strong ale he asked.

‘I would never be so selfish to take a whole name for myself,’ she answered, fixing her gaze on an imaginary spot on the floor.

The red haired sister came bounding up to the bar with an empty tray.

‘Hello Mr. Thirn! You have not let him pay-‘

‘No, I have not, dearest,’ the dark one answered, a rare smile uncurling itself slowly across her lips.

‘Mr. Thirn,’ the redhead began, ‘have you thought of a name for me yet?’

They had spoken of it last time he came through town, she desperately wanted a name not only for herself but for her sister as well.

He did not want to admit how large the sisters loomed in his heart. When he travelled, he missed them with their strangely mirrored gestures and disparate personalities. The red haired one was open and cheerful, if a bit child like. The dark haired one was sweet, with a way about her that put him at peace whenever her hand grazed his.

‘When I think of you...both, I have names I call you,’ he admitted hesitantly, turning to the redhead. ‘You are Rose and your sister is Violet,’ she kissed his cheek and skipped off after thanking him, eager to tell others her newly bestowed name.

‘Those are lovely names Mr. Thirn, and I thank you for them,’ the one he called Violet said shyly. ‘May I ask how you came about them?’

‘Your sister started out delicate. Cultivated roses need specific conditions to thrive, but once they do they have many cheerful petals. They are also thought to represent youth and innocence. I think it fitting.’

‘It suits her,’ she paused. ‘And mine? Violet?’

‘Violets have a cold beauty, they grow along the banks of rivers and have a sweet taste. You have a darkness about you, beneath your beauty. But once someone knows you there is an undeniable sweetness.’

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‘What are your names?’

‘I’m not supposed to say. And she never got one,’ the other sister motioned to the red haired one.

‘I see.’

‘She tried to kill us,’ the redhead said from behind her fingers. ‘I was kept in a windowless room for twenty years, we were never given shoes.’

The dark haired sister raised her black eyes to him and nodded sadly in agreement.

‘My name is Thirn,’ he knelt down to where they sat in the loam. He extended his hand but the girls flinched and clung to each other. ‘I have a home, and a village of friends. I can take care of you. I can give you useful occupations, clothes, meat and mead.’

‘You can teach us how to be real people,’ the big eyed sister asked hopefully.

‘Real people with real lives,’ he promised.

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‘My kind are not made for this,’ Thorbrek threw another gold piece on the bar and grumbled. He motioned between them with a heavily gloved hand.

‘Then how do you produce more sons for the mines I wonder,’ Parsia took a rare gulp of ale and raised her eyes over the rim of the stein. Unnerving yet beguiling her pupil-less grey eyes made him ache for the coastal mists of a home he never knew.

Made for it or no, at the end of their drink he found himself being lead up the tilted stairs of the inn, the nun’s delicate hand insistent at his collar.

‘Is this your magic,’ he asked in a breathless whine, as she gently pushed him onto the bed, ‘have you enchanted me?’

‘It may be,’ she confessed as her vestments fell open, ‘I still do not know how it works.’ She crawled on top of him, graceful as a cresting wave and kissed him fully on the lips, ‘blame the ale, blame the moon, blame the goddess herself. Whatever you are feeling I feel as well,’ she whispered against him, chanting it like a prayer.

‘Sing me to drown, then,’ he begged as her fingers made quick work of his clothing. ‘Sing me to death.’