flowers for her

#1 Crux

The table is arranged for one. The parasol casts perfect cover and is adjusted every bell to keep it so. From atop this hill there is a view of the house, and a view of the sea. It is a scene from a painting, one you’ve seen before. It’s been some time.

You set the tray before him, though it is not your job to do so. That which is favored is put within reach: cherry tomatoes, caramelized pears, the yolks of hard boiled eggs. The tomatoes disappear first. He pops the skin with his incisor, sucks it dry, and swallows.

“Does it disgust you?”

The two of you have not discussed it yet. A sneer in his voice is nothing unusual, but this one, you can tell, has purpose.

“No more than it does you.”

Obscurity does not thrill him. Aggression does not suit him. If the tangerines still had skins to peel, he would do so vigorously.

“How mercenary.”

Now he is laughing. You do not share in the humor, but you will grant him his shield. That he told you, and that you still remain - it does not need to be said plainly. For you, there is something greater.

#5 Matter of Fact

“Don’t give the tarts to Mrs. Patsy, she hates sweets and you’ll upset her stomach.”

Lauda frowns at Mrs. Patsy. Mrs. Patsy smiles back, ever joyous.

Lauda moves the plate of tarts to the other side of the table. She holds it between the nails of her thumb and forefinger. Setting it between the teapot and the fruit basket is a precision art. She is careful not to disturb a single piece.

“Pour her some tea, Lauda. Be careful not to splash any on her dress this time, she was awfully down about that, for a whole sennight too.”

It feels a terrible waste to serve fine tea to toys, but that is not Lauda’s concern. The tea is still hot - it must be - and its miniature container is painful against her fingertips. Not a single drop astray. She returns the teapot to rest, and waits.

“Won’t you offer her some cream and sugar?”

“...Mrs. Patsy does not like sweets.”

“Silly Lauda, it’s only polite. She’ll decline and then you can offer her cheese and crackers, which I am sure she will like. But make sure you put those between her and Ms. Glorygold, she always wants some of whatever she’s not having.”

#7 Nonagenarian

He can smell her from the threshold of her room. Amidst the dark he can see her hand, the last branch of a dying tree, gnarled and giving way to rot. Her chest rattles with every breath. The weight of the linens seem enough to snuff her out entirely.

Eamon cannot see her face from where he stands but her fingers twitch, pulling at the sheets with paltry strength. Her rasps grow deeper. Eamon plants his feet but the weight of her call is too much, and she pulls at the roots he grows in vain.

His mouth is dry. As he grows close, rasps turn to mutters. Thoughts spill into broken words, ruined by lips too feeble to drink. She looks him in the eye and speaks in slurs. He hides the tremble in his hands behind him, and hangs on to every word in the hope the next releases him.

#9 Lush

A clear memory: you find her in the gardens, and she tells you she is with child. The hibiscus are in full bloom. Recent rain has weighed down the grandest of them and you watch moisture seep into the hem of her long skirt, her long sleeves. Marian pulls a flower close, jostling droplets from its leaves. It seems a comfort to her as she watches you sideways, an unsure smile on her lips.

She is blooming, brighter than any seed might grow, you are certain of it. With a smile you congratulate her and relief raises her shoulders. Why should she worry? It pulls at your chest but you dare not speak it.

You watch the sleeve fall from her wrist. You ask: “did you tell him?” 

“Yes, I did. In the morning, when I was certain.”

You push her further. “And?” It stresses you to press, but you cannot place her unease.

A blush rises to her cheeks. The memory brings her joy. The sight of it puts a twist in your stomach, painful and pleasing both.

“He was happy, very much so. And relieved. It seemed all sorts of things, really.” 

Marian smiles up at you and her eyes do not match it, yet there is no break in her expression otherwise. What she fears she will not speak, and you will yourself to be content with it.

“Good,” you say. She reaches out to touch your forearm, her palm smoothing down to your wrist. Her skin is cold. She squeezes to reassure herself, yourself, and you watch the falter of her smile, the pale line of her neck. You daydream your fingers at the base of her ear, the soft skin at her jugular, the ridge of her collarbone. Is she not cold? Would she shiver, if you touched her?

She jostles your wrist. “Oliver? Is something wrong?” She leans to the side and her smile grows wide, playful. “What are you thinking?”

Red hair spills over pale shoulders. An urge to chase them bubbles within. The memory grows unclear.

#11 Ultracrepidarian

It’s a Mhachi relic, he says, no two ways about it. A silk cloth covers his grubby little mitts as he turns the piece over, as if it might be dangerous. Etchings on each face of the fist-sized cube catch the light as it rotates. The auctioneer becomes overzealous in his motions, and pretends to let slip the silk as he catches himself with a nervous chuckle, and his eyebrows waggle in a suggestion of near-danger. Swyngeim snorts. It is a convincing display, if nothing else.

“What are its origins?”

“It came into my hands by way of an old associate - one who has dealings with adventurers. Why, he’s grown so bold he camps himself outside their popular jaunts and greets them on their way out, ready with offers!” The thought is humorous enough for both of them, he seems to think, and so he laughs twice as hard. His cheeks split wide open, turning sickly red.

It’s a hard task to look at him. Swyngeim focuses on the Meracydian relic. It is old, very pretty, but sadly useless. She thinks to tell him, to see if that face of his can grow any more red before it bursts.

“My Lord might be interested,” Swyngeim says. She holds a hand to the back of her neck and pops it loose. The plush bed awaiting her at the inn calls to her. “I’ll speak with him tonight, and we’ll see about the price in the morning.”

Nodding his head near off, the auctioneer returns the relic to its box, still careful not to touch it. He chuckles a few ‘oh hoo hoos’ and rubs his sweaty paws together. “Of course, of course my good woman! Do be sure to ah, warn him about the demons inside!”

#14 Part

“Why did you leave her?”

Oliver returns to his body. Trails of incense climb to the ceiling in loops and arcs and he watches, transfixed, as the smoke merges into scented spirits, and dissipates. The woman - he’s forgotten her name - lured him into his tent with dice and fortunes, bone etchings and stones painted with symbols of the twelve. He hears her shake them in her hand, spill them, listens as they rattle and come to rest.

“Leave who?” The woman’s tail brushes against his leg. Her living quarters are small, cramped, better than his. Home now is a damp hammock on a darker ship. It is nothing like it was before. His limbs are tired and sore from a long voyage and it drains his thoughts. Oliver does not think he will move from here for a long time.

“The woman you’re thinking about,” she corrects, “you were thinking about.”

Oliver looks to her backside, all that is in view, obscuring the ministrations of her private ritual. Her form is liquid metal: copper hair running down her back, bronze skin naked beneath her trailing nightgown of silver silk. Candlelight glints off golden bangles, earrings, as she removes each piece carefully, sets them down on a cloth at her side.

Oliver thinks about her now. He will again, into the night. Why did he leave? Where is he going? The clamor of his crewmates beyond her heavy tent dies down. The women outside have all gone with them.

“What are you doing?” Oliver asks.

The woman kneels at a small mythrite altarpiece she keeps at the foot of her bedroll, an icon of Nymeia, and prays in a low hum, in a language he does not recognize. It draws out the tenor of her rich voice, coaxing, promising, and when she stands up and turns to him there is a little more grace in the movement of her hands, the turn of her hips.

“Sorry for the wait,” she says, “I’m ready now.” She tugs apart the silk ties of her gown and perches on top of him. He takes her breasts in his hands and closes his eyes.

#15 Ache

I still feel it around my neck.

It’s long gone, Frida says. The bite in her laughter soothes the memory; she distracts me with curious things, disorderly words, riddles to unravel. There’s no harm in lying about one’s home, she says, it makes no difference in the now. She laughs and laughs and only in the quiet do I see the spectre of her misery: a far-off look half-lit by campfire, calloused fingers smoothing over the strap of her belt. Frida is right to keep it hidden away. I cannot help but wonder. Could I hold it in my palms slick with oil and sear it into my flesh? I would smear the remains on her cheeks and see her laugh, see her tears wash it away and take my hands in hers.

#18 Panglossian

“Do you think there will be any offers? For my hand, that is.”

The blush that blooms across Marian’s cheeks sets my stomach to churn. It’s not that it should happen, but that she should look forward to it. Marriage. How trite. A dead man with little money to impart was all it afforded me, and it would be wrong of me to hope much better for Marian. The twelve saw fit to bless her with sweetness but no sense to accompany, and even less coin to offer up in compensation.

“Oh, enough from you! You’ll set yourself up for disappointment - a girl with your breeding shouldn’t expect one within the week, let alone from a man of sound mind and body, or age, or any kind of means.”

“Oh.” Marian’s shoulders droop. She quickens her pace and comes up alongside me. The dirt trail leading from our home is damp with rain, and her pale blue slippers and hem are already stained with mud. “Well, that’s alright. I won’t burden you for long, Fanny, there’s always honest work to be had in the city. I could try my hand at the botanist’s guild, you know how I love to be in the garden.”

My nose wrinkles. “What nonsense! You’re still young, plenty of time to ensnare some simple-minded man willing to take care of you.” I sneer. “Work.” What a distasteful thought! It’s bad enough to consider their family being so debased by such a thing, more so to imagine Marian being depended upon by anyone. “Do you want to end up an old maid?”

Marian sighs. Her arms swing back and forth as she walks. “No… I suppose not.”

The post box comes into sight. A cover of thick morning fog obscures it - from the neighbors too, by the looks of it. I slow my pace with less reason to worry.

“Good, I thought so. If you don’t wish to burden me you ought to work on your conversation, it was dreadful to listen to you the other evening, it really was. Oh I thought I’d faint for sure!”

“If you say so. But some of the boys were very poor at it too.”

“It’s not their job to charm you, Marian. Will you not think of your position?”

“I’m sorry, Fanny.”

The moss growing about the post box dampens the sounds of it opening. Once the mail is in my hand I retreat back home, lest the fog clear, and the neighbors see. There’s more than I expect alongside the familiar texture of bills, the yellow ribbon of Seedseer business.

“Here’s a letter for you, Marian.” I squint at the seal, all flowers and fancy lettering. “...From that Eglantine boy. He did arrive after all, didn’t he?” I’m more surprised that I ever agreed to invite him in the first place. What a journey it must have been for him, for a girl so… bereft.

Marian snatches the letter out of my hand and skips ahead. “Ooh I wonder what it says!” She giggles and tears it open. “We danced together you know!”

“How charitable.”

She gasps. “His penmanship is so beautiful!”

Hers might be beautiful as well, if she had the mind to work on it. “Don’t get too excited, it’s a thank-you note for the invitation. It’s what’s popular among those types these days. What a useless sentiment! Copied by one of his sixty servants, no doubt. Oh yes! How generous of you to invite me to some farm girls’ debut! How thrilling it was to mingle among the commonfolk for a few bells, thank-you, thank-you! I tell you--”

“He says he means to marry me!”

“Don’t interrupt! Oh, these fantasies of yours-- stop skipping ahead Marian, I wasn’t finished!”

#19 Where the Heart is

Fire strikes the night sky. A thousand sparks skitter through ink before flickering into the black empty of the sea. Every light reflects in its calm surface: a mirror to the other side. All the city is alive with noise. A river of people pass behind you, the both of you, on a bridge overlooking the bay. Its current sweeps up your company, done with deals for the eve, leaving you at the edge of the way out and on the cusp of a decision - to retire, to remain.

It takes less convincing to get him in the local garb than it did when you first arrived. What was good for business now served utilitarian, starched cloth propping up weak shoulders, hiding sickly-thin limbs. With judging eyes now gone he loosens its grip around his neck and you can see the rounded peaks of his vertebrae. His grip braces white against red railing and you step a little closer.

A cold wind blows from the sea and you, the both of you, watch a parade of lanterns float through the canals and spill into the deep, a slow march at a pace neither of you can match. The fireworks’ finale phases him not, gaze glued to the horizon where hot embers stain the sea. A mirage of wine red hair swimming beneath, white hands adorned with jewels ebbing on the waves, beckoning you home.

#20 Extra Credit

I watch them from a distance. The boy (the rat-faced weasel, the base miscreant) asked to be alone with her and I denied him, as is proper. He was annoyed, that much was certain, but I do not intrude, as is polite, and he really couldn’t ask for much better, could he? He already has enough, and there’s a sharp glint in his eye that I do not like, not at all. Who knows what he might do to poor, sweet Marian, behind closed doors, with no supervision? The girl is so stupid.

Marian sneaks glances at me. I really wish she wouldn’t. The boy distracts her with a present from his pocket, a small box, and opens it for her, showing her what’s inside. It must be very nice because she slaps her hands to her mouth like some common idiot and makes noises that are distinctly not-speech. The words come after, all ‘ooh’s’ and ‘oh my’s’ and ‘thank you,’ there it is, finally. How embarrassing. The boy looks uncomfortable and I’m sure he’s thinking as I do, but I won’t let him walk back his mistake if he's smart enough to see he's made one, and dull enough to say so.

Marian reaches for whatever it is, I have to squint to see it, a necklace by the way she holds it. I can see the pendant but not the chain, which is either very fine or my eyes have gone worse. Perhaps both. The boy offers to put it on for her - does he even know how? - and she turns, all aflutter, hands at her chest, tears in her eyes.

“Please don’t cry,” says the boy, and he sounds like he means it. Marian spares us both.

#29 Paternal

The weight should be crushing him by now. Even twenty ponz more would be a burden on his frail frame. He’s much too weak. Kent could sprint to the mouth of O’ghomoro and back and yet have the strength to snap that bony back over his knee.

He doesn’t want to move. His body does, and his mind knows it’s best, but his eyes-- Pleading with me as I approach. Can I move something without disturbing it? He always asks the impossible.

“I’m in a fine mess.”

I stop in the doorway. “I can see. Anything gone numb?”

“Not yet,” he lies.

Both feet, his left hand, travelling up to his elbow. She’s positioned in an odd way. He must have shifted her while she slept, only to delay the inevitable. A wet spot blooms on his shirt. There’s a wince in his eye as he turns his neck. I commit it to memory.

“Shall I move her?”