Page 13 of The Verdant Cage
It hurts when they avoid eye contact, but then I remember I did the same to those who lost family to the Harvest before me. My own suffering is momentarily replaced by shame, hot in my belly. Moving forward, I’ll be better. For now, all I can do is keep my head down and hurry to the Apothecary cottage.
…Where I stand, still as an oak, outside what used to be my door.Do I walk in, or knock like a villager would?I would’ve stood there until I really did sprout roots if I hadn’t caught the sound of an argument inside. I recognize Gran’s voice, stronger than it’s been in a while, but the angry male one is unfamiliar.
I rip open the door, prepared to defend my gran.
Only to find Augustus, head of the Plumber House, standing above her. His face is the same blank mask he wore over my mother’s body, and fear makes the ground tilt beneath me. Is he killing us off, one by one?
“Leave her alone!” I yell, lunging at him.
He sidesteps me easily. His beard is shot through with silver, his face weathered, but his arms and chest are corded with muscle from the carrying, pounding, and wrenching of his trade. “Watch yourself, girl,” he says in a voice as rough as rock.
“Watchyourself!” I respond, making fists of my hands. I have no idea how to fight, nor the consequences I’ll face if I do, but I’m prepared to find out before I’ll let someone hurt my gran.
Augustus snorts.
It’s Gran who answers. “It’s a misunderstanding, Rosie,” she says in her reedy voice. She sits in her favorite rocking chair before the crackling fire. Her gray hair is braided over her shoulder, and she has ash-colored yarn and timeworn knitting needles in her lap. “I’m fine.”
She seems to be speaking truth, but I can’t get my blood pressure down. My eyes flick back to Augustus, who’s still studying me.
“Are you in need of care?” I ask. Why else would he be here?
He snorts again. “Not any more than the next person.” He nods to Gran. “We’ll talk later,” he says, and makes to leave, stopping alongside me. In a voice audible only to me, he whispers, “Do you take the path of your mother?”
Frost crawls through my veins. I wish I knew how to defend myself, now that we have a murderer loose in the Valley. When I don’t respond, he expels a puff of air and leaves the cottage.
“Don’t mind him, Rosie,” Gran says, pulling my attention back to her. “He’s just upset.”
I’m trying to get my bearings. What just happened?“About what?”
“A bad deal that he made,” Gran says. “We will forget he was here.”
I want to protest, but I won’t argue with her. Even if she weren’t my elder, her fragile health means any stress could be dangerous. Gran’s illness isn’t treatable. It twists her bones and gnaws at her from the inside until she cannot keep down anything but broth.
“You’ve got some spirit in you today,” I say instead.
I try to hold a smile, but it’s too much. Instead, my eyes drink in everything I’ve always taken for granted. Gran’s savory sage tea bubbling on the stove, the stick family Jonas painted when he was four still pinned to the wall because Uncle Richard loves it so much, medicine bottles so plentiful that our kitchen shelves bow beneath their weight. It’s everything good, and none of it belongs to me anymore. Not even my gran, not according to Valley law.
“And you look like you slept standing up,” Gran quips.
But a cough racks her, and I know from experience that she’s putting on a brave face. How long had Augustus been here, and what did it cost her to talk with him? I rush to pour her a mug of tea, reaching for our—no, their—stash of honey to soothe her throat. But when I peek inside the pot, it’s empty. There’s been a shortage since the Vex evacuation forced the Beekeepers to close half their hives. I pour hot water into the container to dissolve the last of the crystallized sweetness, swish it around, and tip the honeyed water into Gran’s cup.
I offer her the drink. “Are Aunt Florence and Uncle Richard making their rounds?”
“They are,” Gran says. “Decided it’s better to keep moving. It helps with the sorrow.”
She’s flirting with sacrilege. Joy and celebration are the only acceptable responses to a Harvest. She must be referring only to Mom’s murder. I stare at the fire, feeling none of its warmth. I know her gaze is on me, but I can’t think of what to say. Everything seems so settled. So final.
“Look at me, Rosie,” she says softly.
I turn. She holds out her arms, and I sink into them as gently as possible, accepting my first loving touch since Jonas was stolen from me. But he was stolen from her, too, wasn’t he? She’d lost her grandson and her daughter. Yet her grip on me is strong, and she smells like home. I’m suddenly overcome by sobs.
“I’m not originally from the Apothecary House, you know,” she says minutes later, after my weeping has worked its way out.
I sniffle. I didnotknow. It’s considered rude to ask. I’m pretty sure Gran’s the one who taught me that to begin with. But if she’s opened the door… “Which one did you leave?”
She’d been stroking my hair, but her hand goes still, resting on the back of my head. “Plumbing, if you can believe it. I’ve known Gus decades longer than you’ve been alive.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “I can still fix a leaky pipe in the blink of an eye. Locate water in the sand. It’d be foolish to let a good talent go to waste, don’t you think?”
A sharp jolt zips down my spine. If someone overheard her, she’d be whipped no matter how sick she is. I feel guilty for allowing the conversation to proceed—surely Gran’s not in her right mind—but I’m unwilling to shut her down. Besides, I’ve followed nearly every rule all my life, and it still didn’t protect my family.
