Of Honey and Wildfires by Sarah Chorn

Author:Sarah Chorn [Chorn, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

Cassandra is pacing.

I have never seen her in such a state. She is nothing but motion. She is focused on a distant point I cannot see, red-rimmed from weeping, though I have not witnessed her at it. She paces across our room and I watch, helpless. Her skirts swish around her feet. Her hands are folded together, fingers tangled. She is pale, and when she stops moving, her lips are pulled tight.

She is a leaf caught in a storm.

I try to watch her, but I am wheezing, and the pain of it makes my eyes water and my vision swim.

She has kept me carefully ignorant of whatever it is that is bothering her. I know she does this to protect me, but I am ill, not daft. I know she leaves at night and comes back wracked with sorrow. I heard her scream yesterday when I was sitting outside.

I cough. It starts small, and turns into an earthquake, ravaging the shell of my body, dimming my vision. I press my kerchief to my lips and try not to see how much blood is staining it now. My lungs bubble. I gasp like a fish caught on land. Cassandra pounds her fist against my back and a bubble of bright blood dislodges and spills down my gown.

I try not to see the tears on Cassandra’s cheeks. I try not to taste my own fear. My mouth is full of the coppery tang of blood.

I cannot even lift my hands from my lap anymore. Cassandra takes a rag out of the nearest basin, rings it out, and presses it against my brow. Somehow, I manage to put a few drops of shine on my tongue. Instantly, the shine makes me feel better, gives me enough of a high to dull the pain.

Cassandra watches me carefully, and then begins her pacing again, biting on her thumbnail while she does it. Outside, the town is in an uproar, people shouting, carts moving about, hammers pounding away as something is being built. It is the sound of life, edged with fear. Occasionally Cassandra looks out the window, onto the street below. She whispers words I cannot hear and I wonder if she is praying, begging Fate for a boon.

I cough again, and the world goes dark. I wake to Cassandra holding me against her chest, swearing up a storm while she presses her bee-stung lips against my cheeks. If I could, I would carry the feel of her with me into forever.

“I’m okay,” I try to say, but all that comes out is blood, blood, and more blood. I did not know I was so full of life. It is pouring out of me with every gasp.

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