Prologue
Imust warn you first: This tale is not a romance.
I wish it were so. I could paint myself in your mind as Persephone, pacing the dark underlord’s fine halls with my crimson-stained teeth and a longing I could not place—for him or for the earth above? For I had tasted the fruit of the underworld and been ushered into his sanctum. We would have shared in his power, Death and I. I had often dreamed it this way.
But I am no Persephone. And I’m certainly no saint. I am a witch, a sinner, a whore. Unlike Persephone I do not have a statue or a place beside a god forever. I did many other wild and wondrous things in my lifetime, and it all began with one story: I died.
No, my dear, be warned, if you are looking for a romance or a moral, this is not the tale for you. For this tale is a horror.
I.
The Curse
The curse was in me from the moment of my birth, when my father drowned both me and my mother in the icy Ills. The midwife, Valerie, plucked me out of the water by my heel, snatching me out of Death’s foaming mouth. But she was too late to save my mother.
Valerie and her hut smelled of fir and sharp, medicinal herbs. She adopted me and my older sister, Rochelle. Her hands, though rough, were never rough with us. She was a midwife, a healer.A witch.That’s what the villagers said when they burnt her.
It seemed impossible to me. Valerie was a deeply rooted tree, the kind that might be burnt by fire, charred and black, but still living. It did not seem possible that she could be wiped away like a soft seed blown over the grass. Turned into ashes floating like soft snow in the oily roil of August smoke.
I first became aware of the curse when Death took her. A dark figure arrived in the shimmer of heat, its shape, so long and thin, more like an opening that peered into a void than a true shadow or earthly darkness. It reached into the fire for Valerie’s spirit, folding Valerie’s agonized soul inside itself. With its long fingers firmly gripping her hand, they turned inward into that unreachable void. That was when I understood she was gone. I flung my head into Rochelle’s shoulder and cried.
“Sister,” Rochelle said to me softly. “Sister.”
Afterward, the village elders delivered us over to the convent, thesmell of burnt flesh still clinging to our clothes and hair. A grievously grim nun closed us up in the chapel and scurried away to consult privately as to what was to be done with us. I stared at the altar, where the spirit of a priest hung languorously against the stone cross. He opened his mouth and dragged a shriveled and lecherous tongue against the stone, making my stomach rise in my throat, though I was only ten, too young to understand why.
“Sister,” Rochelle said again. Though she stood beside me, I heard her as if she were calling from far away, across the mountains. I glanced at her. “You must promise me something.”
My gaze drifted back to the priest.
Rochelle turned me with a sudden, forceful jerk as only an older sister can do. “Salomé,” she whispered sharply, lowering her ash-stricken face close to mine. “Promise me you will tell no one about what you can see. What you can do.”
“The priest?” I asked, thinking she meant I might offend the nuns to mention that a man was in their chapel.
She shook her head. “Your silent friends.”
At that moment I realized she could not see them. I’d always assumed my sister shared my sight, same as we shared the story of our sad mother, our wretched father, and the blanket on our bed. She never seemed surprised when I talked about them.
But now she explained, her voice low and urgent as she clutched my thin shoulders. “The nuns will think these are dark gifts, Salomé. You must keep these things inside yourself. Or it will beyouthey …” She trailed off, a sick look of grief and agony crossing her face.
Despite the heat and sweating chapel stones, I went cold. A prickling sense of awareness of myself as fragile flesh crept over me. The girl I’d been—feral and free, tripping after Valerie in the woods as she searched for roots, flowers, and other medicines—also died that day. They’d called Valerie a witch, and she was gone in a roil of afternoon smoke. I understood I must stay silent so they would not burn me too. So that Rochelle and I might stay together.
And so my first name for this curse waswitch.
“I promise,” I said to Rochelle. She gripped me to her side, only two years older than me, but braver and stronger. We faced the door together.
When the nuns returned, they took us and questioned us for days with little food or water, until we were delirious with fear and exhaustion. But I knew Rochelle would not break, so neither could I. Eventually, they determined us children innocent of any unholy treachery, and we were sent to join the other novices.
The nuns were a Cistercian order—determined to separate themselves from the worldliness of the Benedictines by way of their solitude, work, and austerity. Valerie had been the only mother I’d ever known, and she was nothing like these sour-faced old women. Their god was as stern and sour as they were.
Every day with the nuns was the same. We were dragged out of our hard cots for Matins Laud in the darkest part of the night, then again at dawn for a breakfast that was somehow exactly three bites less than satisfying. We worked until the midday meal, which I enjoyed when I was sent into the gardens with Rochelle. Another service, more work, and then finally Vespers, the tortuous service before dinner, and afterward the tolerable Compline, since bed followed.
Rochelle’s natural sweetness shone in such a dour setting, and in the long, undyed tunic and veil, she looked the very picture of an innocent bride of Christ. I tried to be just as sweet as Rochelle, but in the same undyed tunic and veil, I looked sallow and sullen and did not have a natural eagerness to please. Worse, I wasn’t graceful, my voice sounded like a rasping crow heckling from the oak limbs in the fall, and I asked too many questions.
But just when I might truly hate them, the nuns would bestow some grace. They thought Rochelle’s influence might save me, so they allowed us to remain close. When I grew frail and they discovered Rochelle sliding me her share of bread, they gave us both extra food. And rather than raise us as the washerwomen peasants we were, theytaught us both to read and write. These acts of generosity left me feeling drowned in guilt, always at war in my heart between gratitude and resentment.
And so my second name for this curse becamesinner.
We grew alongside each other, under a watchful, strict gaze, pruned carefully and guarded against all manner of unruliness. I kept my secret as I promised my sister, fearful of the wordwitch, even when it was said in passing, even as it grew more difficult with age.
