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The match girl.
CHAPTER 18
She burned because of me. I floated her in the river on a raft, encased her in flowers, and set her aflame. My gram was Queen Isabel, blood-born princess of Veilbrook, and queen of Timberness for nearly twenty years. Her body should be in the palace crypts in Timberness next to her beloved husband, King Girard, forever. But it is not, and it is because of me. Because of my existence, my grandmother gave up royalty, her name, her physical appearance, and the only way of life she had ever known. I begged her from the time I could speak to tell me about our lineage, and all the while she had walked away from her bloodline to keep me safe. I think about how torturous it must’ve been, to have me remind her over and over again of what she’d lost—what she’d given up to simply give me a life. And yet, she loved me beyond measure.
She was indeed a queen.
I run a hand along the leather binding of the journal. Thank the gods for Victor’s father, and for his honesty and goodness. I’ve been reading, parts of the writings so painful that I have to stop for composure. I touch the match in my chemise—the cherished match that Gram gave me. I recall the times I’d wished on matches, begging the wind, the air, the sky, for anything at all in this wretched world to show me a sign of who I really am. The universe provided me a rogue knight with a treasured book, a book that completes me. The universe has a sick sense of humor.
The light knocking on the door pulls me from my thoughts. I know it is Sir Victor. I open it quickly and usher him inside.
“Good evening, mistress,” he says, shaking the dampness of the night air from his coat and tugging off his hat and gloves. “Might I set these in front of the fire?”
“Absolutely.”
I secure the latch on the door and lock the top for good measure. Part of me is afraid that the king’s guard will show up to search the house again. I think about Sir Malek and feel the bile back up in my throat. The gods forbid he ever try to make good on his threats to break me.
“May I help myself to some water from the barrel, mistress?” Sir Victor asks.
“Oh, where are my manners? Yes, most certainly.”
I watch his motions as he drinks. He is tired, and it shows. I carry his father’s journal to the kitchen table when he’s had his fill.
Sir Victor notices the apothecary. He steps in front of the shelves, running a finger along a few of the jars. He opens one and sticks it to his nose. He grimaces when the smell hits his nostrils and I hide my smile with my hand.
“She was a remarkable woman in the art of healing,” he observes. “My father used to tell me a story about a time when King Girard was injured on a hunting trip. A wild boar had gored his leg. The queen stopped the bleeding and treated his wound before the castle doctor even made it to the king’s quarters. My father told me that story often. It was one of his favorites.”
His words give me pause. Hearing him speak of my gram in casual conversation and address her as “the queen” and talk of her with a husband, my grandfather… I’m not sure I will ever grow accustomed to it. It is new, and bizarre, and strangely comforting.
And still, an invisible weight pushes against my chest, a longing that keeps me asking questions about everything to do with my kinsmen.
“King Girard, my grandfather, what can you tell me of him?” I ask. “I knew my gram better than anyone in the world, and I know nothing about the man she loved.”
Sir Victor leans against the apothecary table. “Well, let me see. According to my father, he was a good king, and the villagers loved him. And you and your mother, you received your fire-kissed hair from the king. His hair was as red as bloodfruit.”
I swipe the tears away from my cheeks. I can’t count the times when I was a child that townsfolks would ask me where I found my red hair. My gram’s hair was brown before it grayed from age. It meant the world to me when Gram confided that my mother’s hair was red. But knowing that we both received our fiery locks from my grandfather is more details than I ever thought I would be afforded. And it means everything.
“Thank you for that, Sir Victor. Now, will you sit? There is food if you are hungry.”
“The water was sustaining, my lady. Thank you.”
I still have many questions, so I waste no time with further pleasantries. “I’ve been reading your father’s book. Might I ask you some questions?”
He clasps his hands in front of him and leans in like he’s been waiting for this exact moment for a lifetime. “I was counting on it. I’m listening, my lady.”
“You said that you remember my mother? How old were you, then?”
“I was five seasons, mistress. And you were a babe in her belly. I am twenty and five seasons now, which makes you—”
“Twenty.”
“Aye, twenty.” His jaw clenches and his eyes never leave my face. “I hold a vision of your mother in my head, and the first time I saw her. It was the first time I had ever been so close to a queen. She was in front of me, and she bent down and took my hand. She said I was a strapping young fellow and that my father should be proud. Her hair smelled like gardenias, and her hand was soft, her eyes were gentle. I will never forget it.”
Tears glass my eyes. “Because she was so kind, my lord?”
“No,” he replies. “I mean, yes. She was kind, that is true. But it was because she was so beautiful. I had never seen a woman of such refine. Even at a tender age, I knew that her beauty was rare.”
He is still staring and my cheeks pink.
