A Blossom at Midnight

The unedited Prologue can be found in Journal: Work-in-Progress.

Part One

Chapter One
Jessica

“That’ll be a penny for the berry bread and six farthings for the squash.” Marion held her hand out for the coins from the blacksmith’s wife, Shirri, as Jessica gathered the order. She weighed the sweet squash on the scales and deposited them into the burlap sack Shirri provided. She put a loaf of her mother’s famous berry bread on top, so it wouldn’t get crushed, wrapped in linen permeated with beeswax to keep the moisture out. As she did so, she felt Shirri’s eyes on her, considering, judging. Jessica was used to this by now. One villager or another made an observation about Jessica’s appearance every market day. She waited for the comments she knew were coming.

“How many summers have ye passed now, Miss Jessica?” Shirri took the burlap sack and held her other hand out for the change.

“Sixteen, ma’am.” Jessica’s fingers flew to her hair, tucking and covering, making sure her ears were out of sight. She could feel Beazle—her tiny bat—as a warm lump inside her bun where her skull met the back of her neck.

“But she’s a young sixteen,” Marion added before shuffling over to help another customer.

Jessica endured the sweep of Shirri’s gaze from her forehead to her hips. The rest of her wasn’t visible to Shirri because she was standing behind the market table, but Shirri didn’t need to see her legs to know that they were long. Jessica was getting tall. She hoped she was done growing; she was taller than many of the farm boys in Dagevli. Jessica knew what Shirri was thinking: Jessica looked older than sixteen, not younger.

“If you wore your hair down or in braids like the other girls, instead of like a widow, you might look closer to your age. You’re a pretty thing”—Shirri’s eyes crinkled at the corners—“more than pretty. Not beautiful, but different. Aye, there’s something different about you.”

Jessica had been called different so many times that she had to make a real effort to keep from rolling her eyes. Yes, people knew she was different. Covering her pointed ears was not enough to keep her faeness hidden. She held her breath, half hoping Shirri would ask her if she was half-fae so that her secret would finally be out in the open. But after another moment’s observation, the blacksmith’s wife only bid them good day and moved on through the market.

The shadows cast by the stalls and the shoppers had grown long, and the intense summer sun had lost its bite. Many of the vendors had sold out and were packing up their tables. Jessica and Marion had only a few small squash left and no berry bread except for a bit Marion had saved for a snack for their walk home. The crowd had thinned as the villagers thought about getting home to prepare dinner for their families.

Jessica waited in silent agony for her mother to signal that it was time for them to clean up too. Market days—which had been exciting in Jessica’s youth—were now so mundane that she’d come to dread them. Even the weighty sack of coins dangling from her mother’s belt wasn’t satisfying anymore. Jessica went to fetch their mare from the market paddock.

“Come on, Apple.” She clicked through her teeth in the way Apple recognized and the small gray pony emerged from the herd, the shortest of all the village ponies. Apple walked to Jessica with her head low. She was twenty-six and aging, but she belonged to the Fontanas and Jessica loved her, even if she wasn’t the brightest pony. She was willing, and Jessica found that endearing. She led Apple back to where Marion rested under the awning with her walking stick across her lap. Jessica broke down their stall and loaded the cart with their scales, ledgers and moneybox. Together, they hitched Apple to their cart and left the town center, passing the pavilion and taking the high street home, trundling at a pace both Apple and Marion could manage.

“How did we do?” Jessica asked Marion from across Apple’s mane.

“Well enough, my girl. Well enough.” Marion’s walking stick tap-tapped in the hard-packed dirt of the road; her other hand stayed on Apple’s back for further stability.

They passed the Grein family who were also packing up their market stall. It took the Greins a lot longer since they sold wheat, oats, barley, rye and other grains. They had many barrels and sacks to manage. Their oldest son, Haft, was a well-built lad with nice green eyes. Jessica and Haft had been in school together until Haft’s parents decided they needed him more at home. She smiled and he turned red to the roots of his hair. He made a gesture that might have been a wave. At a sharp word from his mother, he bent back to his work.

“Some girls are married by the age of eighteen,” Jessica observed as they left the Grein family behind.

Marion slid her a sideways look. “And?”

“Some are even married by seventeen.”

“So?”

“So, how am I supposed to meet men my age if you keep me occupied all the time?”

“Jessica, there is much wrong with what you just said.” Marion ran her fingers through Apple’s mane, untangling the knots. “First, there are no ‘men your age.’ Sixteen-year-old males are not yet men. Second, who do you imagine I am preventing you from meeting? Is there someone you think might be a good match for you?”

Jessica didn’t even need to run her mind over all the boys she knew to answer that question. “No.”

“And I can’t keep you home long enough to learn how to bake berry bread properly, so I don’t know what you mean when you suggest that I never give you your own time.”

This wasn’t entirely true. The Fontanas’ market business took a lot of work, work that Jessica had to do since Marion didn’t have the strength for it—preparing the earth after the last frost, planting, tending, weeding and harvesting. Jessica also foraged and made some coins that way, which meant she spent time in the woods and glades around Dagevli looking for wild edibles. The time Jessica spent foraging was her favorite, but it wasn’t exactly free time. When she did have free time, she used it to climb the cliffs behind Dagevli for the thrill and for the view, but she wasn’t liberal with her mother regarding her whereabouts. Marion liked Jessica to err on the side of caution.

“Anyway, why do you complain? You have everything you need.” Marion produced a bit of wrapped beeswax cloth from her apron pocket and unfolded it. She offered her daughter a piece of berry bread but Jessica declined. She was sick to death of berry bread. In fact, she was sick to death of market days, sick to death of walking the stretch of high street between their cottage and the town center, sick to death of squash, sick to death of farm boys who were afraid to talk to her and sick to death of nothing exciting ever happening.

Yes, she had everything she needed, if all that mattered was a roof over one’s head, clothing and food. But people had other needs, needs that were more difficult to define. Jessica chewed her lip, her fingers hooked in Apple’s bridle, the pony’s hooves clopping in a slow rhythm. While Marion waved to neighbors and greeted passing traffic, Jess became lost in her own thoughts. It wasn’t that she wanted a husband, although one day it might be nice to marry. She only complained about it because that was the next thing on life’s agenda for someone like Jessica, the next big event in the steady and relentless march of growing up.

But when Jessica scaled the cliffs, the ones Clair would never climb with her, she felt free. The desire to get as high as possible, to see as far as possible, drove her up and up and up, bare of foot and with her hair in a high bun on top of her head, her ears exposed to the world, though only the birds saw them. She climbed to get away from the cramps of her dying childhood. She yearned toward maturity as she yearned toward the sky, and adulthood. Independence. The horizon stretched out before her, seeming to go on forever, a hazy blur of color blending rolling field into forest. On clear days she could even see the clouds over Rahamlar, just a low smudge against the sky. In solitude, she could no longer pretend that a future in Dagevli with a batch of children and a husband—loving though he might be—was enough for her. Need swelled in her bosom, an undefined desire for something more.

But for what?

She didn’t know. She only knew that she wouldn’t find it here, so close to home. She’d been to the borders of Dagevli, she knew every field, every tree, every rock. She’d even been to the neighboring village. What was beyond it? What was beyond Solana’s border? What of the other kingdoms on the continent of Ivryndi? What were they like? What did the Ivryndian Sea look like, or the Valdivian Sea on the other side of the continent? She couldn’t imagine looking out upon endless water, at a horizon that stretched out eternally. She would like to see that. She would like to climb higher mountains than the cliffs behind Dagevli. She could see the foothills of the Vargilath and had heard stories that it was a range of stunning blue mountains, very high and treacherous. She’d heard stories of herds of the giant horses of the Vargilath, with hooves like platters, whom no one could tame. She’d heard the older villagers talk of Solana City and its beautiful spires, marble streets, marvelous lights and university libraries. They said every Dagevlian should visit it once in their lifetime, but her mother had no plans to do any such thing. Marion was happy here, where every day was the same and the longest journey they ever made was to the neighboring town. Jessica had heard about bustling port cities along the coasts of Boskaya, full of curiosities. She’d heard of the faraway northern fae lands of Stavarjak and Silverfall, and the southern kingdoms of Tyrske and Archelia, which no one she knew had ever seen other than marked on a map. She couldn’t see it all, but surely to see something foreign would do her good. Surely it would meet the need rising in her bosom that seemed only to grow day by day. She craved not just to know but to experience, and it would be nice to meet someone else like her, someone else with fae ears and creatures for friends.

She glanced at her mother as they drew close to the cottage, noting the increase of gray in Marion’s hair. If Marion had her way, Jessica wouldn’t even think about marriage until she was twenty, and up until that time she would be expected to continue on with life as it was. Seasons. Squash. Sameness.

They drew to a stop and unloaded the cart, carrying the broken-down tables, the empty baskets, the tools of their trade and the leftover squash to be stored in their proper places. As they worked in tandem to unhook the cart, Jessica’s glasswing butterfly came fluttering around the cottage from the rear garden. She zigzagged, touching on a few blossoms before landing on the top of Jessica’s head.

“Hello, Greta,” she greeted the insect.

Marion’s gaze lingered on the butterfly. Sometimes, her mother got a look in her eyes when she watched Greta floating around their property, a look Jess couldn’t define. She used to think her mother wanted to hold Greta. The butterfly was stunning to look at up close. But when she would offer the butterfly to her mother on the back of her hand—Greta was more than willing to be held and admired as long as no one touched her wings—Marion would smile but decline. Jessica had long ago given up trying to understand Marion’s reluctance to love either Beazle or Greta. She tolerated them because the familiars would never be separated from Jessica. Jess asked her mother once if she’d ever had a creature of her own. She got the idea that perhaps Marion had had an insect or animal friend and it had died, but Marion denied it, reminding Jess that she didn’t get her faeness from her mother.

Jessica caught her mother’s eye. “Before you met my father…”

Marion became still, as though bracing herself. She didn’t like this topic, though she’d never explained why. She’d never even told Jess his name. But Jessica wasn’t going to rehash that old argument; it clearly caused her mother pain.

“… did you ever go anywhere, or do anything… exciting or different?”

Marion took a moment to answer. Her eyes got that faraway look that used to frighten Jessica when she was younger, the look that made her feel forgotten. “My dear, I am in my sixty-fifth summer. When you came along, my miracle baby, I was forty-nine. Practically an old woman, even back then. I’ve seen more than I hope you ever see.”

The pain that momentarily cramped Marion’s face made Jessica suck in a breath, then it was gone. Her mother recovered the strength of her voice.

“The world beyond Dagevli will only disappoint you and put you in harm’s way. Put it out of your mind. You have everything you need. Here, under my roof, you are safe. Stay as long as possible. Read as many books as you want and be satisfied with that. Books can’t cut your throat while you sleep, steal your purse or betray you. Books can occupy you, keep you from making mistakes, and they can’t break your heart.” Marion slapped Apple on the rump. “Now go on, take this one to the paddock.”

Jessica watched Marion’s back until she disappeared in the front door of their cottage, bemused. Throats being cut? Purses being stolen? Her mother was exaggerating. Many Dagevlians had gone abroad to visit family or to do business, to bring back interesting treasures so they could sell them at ridiculous prices. They always returned unharmed and often with enchanting stories.

Apple tossed her head and bumped Jessica with her nose as if to say, Haven’t you forgotten something? Jessica fished a broken carrot from her apron pocket. As the mare munched the carrot and Jessica led her behind their cottage, she marveled at how easy it was to make the pony happy.

As for herself, if all she ever did was stay in Dagevli and read books, brokenhearted was precisely how she would end up.