Why We Play With Fire by Giselle Vriesen

Author:Giselle Vriesen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Row House Publishing
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

WHEN WE REACH the wide tent on the outskirts of camp, I recognize the two giant women sitting at the fire beside it as those we first encountered when we got to the island. One of them appears older than Pen, the other younger. Both have thick, coily hair arranged in elaborate braids and Pen’s wide, thick lips.

“Mother,” Pen says, as she stoops to sit beside the woman with gray hair on the log beside the fire.

The sky overhead is darkening. I will be leaving soon.

“Penthesilea.” The old woman smiles at her daughter.

“This is Thea. She has a marking she’d like to show you,” Pen says to her mother a little louder than she speaks to me. I step forward on cue, ignoring the scowling younger girl beside them, holding out my arm.

“Hello,” the old woman says. “My name is Otrera.”

I should smile at the older woman, but with everything going on, all I can muster is a soft grimace. Otrera looks down at my palm with gentle eyes. When she sees my marking, she only sighs, then motions for me to lower my arm back down.

“You remember when you agreed to be a Keeper?” Otrera asks her daughter. “And I told you it would bring more trouble than glory?”

Pen looks down at the ground, suddenly appearing much younger. “Yes, Mother,” she says.

“I was right.” Otrera tips her nose into the air.

“What does it mean?” I ask, an uncomfortable tickle sitting in my throat.

The younger girl, poking at the embers in the fire, visibly rolls her eyes. I begin coughing.

Otrera patiently waits for me to finish. When I’m done, she hands me a cotton handkerchief large enough for her, but comically big between my hands.

“This is the marking of one of the Unspoken,” she says.

A shiver runs down my spine as my suspicion is confirmed.

“The gods dead for so long their names are no longer known nor spoken. They are from long before our time, which has, admittedly, been longer than most.”

Of course, this marking has to do with my mother.

“Why would an Unspoken mark her?” Finally, the youngest of the three women speaks. Her voice is high-pitched.

I straighten under her scrutiny.

Otrera shrugs her shoulders, then smiles gently when my face falls. “Don’t fret, Thea. I know someone useful who can offer you more information about your marking and the destiny surrounding you and your friends. I have been too long out of the loop of what transpires on earth,” Otrera says. “But to find him, you’ll have to leave this place.”

I frown. “Of course I’m leaving,” I say.

The younger girl scoffs.

My face heats. “It’s not that I don’t like it here,” I stammer. No matter how cozy it seems, as dusk descends and the smell of cooking meat wafts toward me from the bonfire, I will find my friends. I will save the piece of my mother locked in the Malachite’s box.

I awkwardly shift the weight in my hips from left to right on my seat beside Otrera.

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