Heiresses of Russ 2014 by Steve Berman (ed) & Melissa Scott (ed)

Author:Steve Berman (ed) & Melissa Scott (ed) [Berman, Steve & Scott, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A&A, adult, anthology, f/f, fantasy, gay, horror, lesbian, SF
ISBN: 9781590212936
Amazon: 1590212932
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2014-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

The Bride in Furs

Layla Lawlor

In the middle of town there is a house, and in the courtyard behind the house, there is an apple tree. It grows above an old cracked fountain, the dry basin half-clogged with dead leaves from seasons past. In the spring the tree puts forth pink-white flowers, all up its branches to the very top of the tree, where there is a single blood-red blossom. And in the fall, it puts forth rich red fruit up to the top, where there is a single golden apple.

They will tell you this is because a woman is buried there, at the roots of the apple tree. What happened to her, that woman…what you hear depends on who you talk to. Mal the butcher says it was a girl who killed herself of a broken heart, opened up her veins and spilled blood as red as appleskin on the tree’s thirsty roots. Ostra who runs the laundry says it is nothing of the sort, she was killed by a husband who beat her and struck her head on the side of the fountain, and it ran dry in that instant and has never worked since. And Calmarie, who lives and works in the house at the bottom of the street, looks you in the eye, with eyes that make you shiver, and says that this woman was a working girl like Calmarie, nothing to do with the people in the house at all, and she went to the courtyard with the first quickenings of a baby in her belly and drank a tea that the old women told her about. But the tea made her ill, and this girl’s life poured out of her, and now she is buried under the roots of the tree with a thing that is not a baby, no matter what men try to tell you.

In any case all of this happened long ago. Nowadays it’s common sport for children to climb into the courtyard and steal the apples, swarming like squirrels up the gnarled branches. But they all whisper stories to each other, about the house and the old man who owns it and the single gold apple, and no one climbs to the top of the tree. No one eats the golden apple. It hangs until it falls. Its overripe flesh breaks open on the ancient paving stones, and its juice seeps down, down, to the roots of the tree and the secrets that might be hidden there.

•

Into the house with the courtyard and the apple tree, there comes a bride.

She is from the north, dressed all in furs. She brings with her all the things that a bride should have: a bow carved with prayers in the old whisper-language (to hunt meat for the table), a set of small bronze knives (to cut up meat for the table), and a long knife sheathed in dragonskin (for keeping husbands honest). She brings with her two strong-legged hunting dogs, and a white wolf pelt to lay upon the bridal bed, and a red deerskin to wear on special occasions.

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