Page 17 of Whisper of Nightmares

“But did he listen?” Thurstan’s face contorts with menace, nostrils flaring as he sucks phlegm from his throat and spits it at the ground. “I told him this would happen. Said you can’t trust those Branwen women. Something cursed about them, there is.”

At the word cursed, Euphemia’s hands clench.

Darkness roils within her.

As if in answer.

As if waiting.

She digs her nails into the wood grain beneath her. She will fight this. She will not succumb to such temptations. Cannot give in to those darkest, carnal urges.

Trembling, Euphemia puts the penny into her pocket and slowly stands up. She half expects him to follow after, but Thurstan merely leans back in his chair, a proud and odious glint in his hazy eyes.

“Right, boys?” he says across the table.

Most of them had been caught up in their own conversations again. But Thurstan is the commanding ram to this obedient flock, and when he speaks, they answer. With a whoop and a holler, they start pounding their ales on the table.

“A curse. It has to be,” he continues. Thurstan gestures to Cybele with a meaty hand. “Why else would that one there still be unwed? She’s of age. Easy on the eyes.”

Around the table, they mutter their agreement.

“And that little one?” He gestures toward Atia, still clutching Cybele’s hip. His lips press together with disgust and he shakes his head. “Not talkin’. Not walkin’. Something’s wrong with her, mark my words.”

The men all nod to each other as if they concur. As if this is a frequented topic of discussion. Euphemia’s family. Her sisters. It makes her sick.

Thurstan looks around the room, searching for something, or someone. When he doesn’t find it, he gestures toward the tapped keg instead. “And Andriana. Andriana. Andriana.” He gets lost in her name for a moment, and Euphemia doesn’t like the dark shift in his tone. “It ain’t right. A widow running a place like this. Letting her four girls run wild and fatherless.”

He shakes his head, and the table not only echoes his disapproval, they amplify it. They tell him he could do it better. Tell him it’s unfair that his family lost it all while the Branwen women keep everything.

Euphemia feels the air in the room shift.

She glances around—for her sister, her mother, for help.

But the tavern is liveliest this time of night. And ever since Thurstan’s outburst earlier, the bard has started playing his music louder. The patrons talk and laugh amongst themselves as if to drown him out.

“I could run things here,” Thurstan says, as if the thought is only now occurring to him. He nods to himself, to his friends. “A woman like that should remarry anyway. It’s not right to keep all this to herself. For a woman?” Grabbing one of his friend’s tankards, he gazes into the thin puddle of amber ale at the bottom. Sloshes it back. Pounds the empty mug on the table. A wicked grin drowsily inches up one side of his face. “And after our wedding night, Andriana wouldn’t be so glum about losing that lout of a husband anymore either.”

Laughter erupts from the table, and tension clears under the guise of merriment.

But Euphemia cannot hold back the darkness any longer.

Not with her father’s memory haunting the room with her.

“You will not speak ill of my father!” Euphemia shrieks, and she slaps Thurstan’s ruddy face.

The crisp sound silences the jovial taproom.

All eyes turn to them.

“Why, you little⁠—”

Thurstan’s on his feet, arm cocked back.

Euphemia cowers on instinct, but there is no regret in her heart. He deserved that and more. She’s only sorry she can’t do it again.

And just before he strikes her, a shrill voice cries out across the deafened bar⁠—

“Thurstan Wardeby!” Andriana appears from the kitchen, a towel slung over her shoulder and strands of grey hair poking from her kerchief. Even with flour dusted on her apron, in this moment she looks more like a rabid badger than a simple alewife. She marches toward them, finger outstretched. “You lay a single hand on that girl’s head, and I’ll never serve you or your friends in my tavern again.”