Page 8 of Whisper of Nightmares

This is her purpose.

The best way she knows to aid her family.

“Oh, you’re too kind.” Cybele smiles from one buyer to the next. She gestures to Euphemia with something like pride in her eyes. “It was our father’s recipe, but my sister brews most of the ale now.”

The swell of warmth Euphemia felt begins to sting. These accolades belong to her father. Not her. He should be here right now, seeing the joy his ale brings. The color leeches from her face. Not that Cybele notices. She’s too focused on the sale.

Conspiratorially, Cybele leans across the cart, lowering her voice to a whisper that somehow can still be heard from down the street. “Some say her brews are even tastier than his. As you said, the finest ale in all of England, right here, at our very own Saint’s Hearth Tavern...”

Euphemia’s last resolve crumbles.

The ground tilts beneath her feet. Euphemia staggers forward, moving toward a safety she does not know exists. All she knows is it is not here. Not in the presence of this admiration. In the besmirching of her father’s hard work.

She lurches around the cart, bumping into everything in her path.

“Euphemia!” Cybele cries out, steadying a stack of wobbling crates.

Euphemia grips the cart to steady herself as she glances down the road, searching for some place quiet. Some place far away where she can be alone. But bobbing heads and clouds of dirt muddy her view. There is not an unoccupied stretch of land for as far as she can see.

“What’s gotten into you?” Cybele snaps in that whiny tone their mother uses as well.

Turns out, Euphemia doesn’t care if she finds some place unoccupied. She just needs to get away from her. From the reminder of everything she’s cost her family.

“I’m fine.” Euphemia’s words slur as she stumbles forward, as if grief can leave one inebriated. Perhaps it can, for her thoughts slosh around in her skull like poisoned wine.

The market whips around her.

“Oi!” Cybele calls after her. “And where are you off to?”

Euphemia feels the small coin pouch still gripped between her fingers. It’s just tangible enough to bring her out of her head and back into her body. A problem in need of a solution, and one she already has the answer to.

Before she gets too deep into the stream of marketgoers, Euphemia pauses in the dirt road, rifles through the pouch for a few coins, and tosses the satchel back to Cybele.

“Euphemia! What is the meaning of this⁠—”

“Mother said she needed candles,” she answers, not bothering to look back at first. But then, realizing coin might not be enough to get her the supplies she needs, she ducks back to the cart and snatches the last honey cake.

Exasperated, Cybele throws up her arms.

“I’ll return soon,” Euphemia calls before disappearing into the crowd.

With a task at hand, one that could ingratiate her to her mother, the tightness in Euphemia’s chest eases. Clarity returns. Euphemia meanders the bustling crowd, stalls filled with various meats, vegetables, handmade wares, textiles, and smithed weapons lining either side of the road. She purchases a bundle of tallow candles as farmers rant nearby about their dying crops and their less than bountiful harvests. While she looks for the other merchants she’s searching for, Euphemia passes a gaggle of women speculating a treacherous winter ahead, their hushed whispers of dark omens making her crane her neck. But she does not stop to eavesdrop. She cannot let her mother down.

By the time she finds the salter, she’s already wearied and has little aptitude left for haggling.

“Eight pence for a stone of salt?” Euphemia exclaims. Her smile wavers but she clutches to it with a dying grip, saying through exposed teeth, “That seems rather high.”

The salter’s heavy-lidded gaze is unblinking. “Take it or leave it.”

Euphemia looks down at the last remaining coins in her hand. Usually, she can find the same amount of salt for nearly half the price, and so she’d only grabbed a few pence. But they can’t go without salt. Her family uses it in everything—their baking, stewing. Not to mention, if they plan on preserving any meat for the winter, they’ll need more than what they usually keep at hand in the kitchen.

With a dejected sigh, Euphemia offers him the honey cake as well as her last remaining pence. “Will this suffice?”

Even though he accepts the bargain, she doesn’t walk away feeling particularly triumphant. She had been hoping to save the cake for the wool. Euphemia can only hope Cybele is having greater success selling their wares, and that perhaps they’ll have enough after the day to find the wool they needed to repair Ismene’s cloak.

Morning has faded into day, the sun approaching high noon.

Euphemia starts to head back to where she left Cybele, aware that they’ll need to return home soon to help their mother with the evening rush.