Chapter 4

The Twelfth Birthday

"Another year, another year," my mother sang off-key as she picked her way through the barn. Her gait was unsteady; I could tell she was already in her cups, even at this early hour. "Another year…and you're still here."

The irony of her words, a cruel mimicry of the usually cheerful birthday song, was not lost on me. My middle ached as I remembered the last time anyone had wished me a happy birthday.

Bertie.

It had been four years— four years to the day, I reminded myself—since we'd seen him.

All novices—especially those conscripted away from their homes most unwillingly—were sent off to their god's monastery for their first few years of service. We'd heard that Bertie had been forced to take a vow of silence for an entire twelve months, to better prepare his mind and spirit for his new life of devotion, but as no contact with the outside world was allowed, we never knew if that was the truth or only rumor.

"Where are you?" Mama mumbled, prowling through the stalls. I could smell her even before she rounded the corner, the stink of rye heavy on her breath and clothes. It even seemed to waft from her pores these days.

I poked my head out from the stall I occupied. I'd been up since before dawn, milking the cows, milking the goats, mucking out their soiled stalls and laying fresh hay from the bales I'd hauled down from the loft myself.

Since Bertie had been taken away—taken away screaming and crying, his face full of tears and snots and stop thinking of that, Hazel —five of my other siblings had left home too: Genevieve, Armand, Emmeline, Josephine, and Didier, gone in quick succession.

Genevieve, the oldest and loveliest of all us girls, had had her pick of marriage proposals. She'd taken up the butcher's son's offer and occasionally sent us a side of pork fat with a note saying she'd visit soon. She never did.

Armand left the day he turned seventeen, lying about his age so he might enlist in the army.

Emmeline and Josephine followed, finding a pair of twin brothers two towns over. They were cobblers and made the most beautiful court heels for my sisters to wear at their double wedding.

And Didier…Didier disappeared one day, without warning or note, and though the surrounding woods were searched, not a trace of him was ever found.

Though in his twenty-fourth year, Remy was still at home, often taking over on days when Papa had made himself too sick on spirits to shoot his bow and arrows. Remy was a dedicated hunter, often going out as the sun rose and not returning until nightfall, but all the earnestness in the world could not make up for his poor eyesight and terrible aim.

Though Papa bemoaned it, Mama still sent my remaining siblings to the schoolhouse in Rouxbouillet. Not because she believed they would do anything with their educations, but because it was free, and how many things in the world could you say that about?

Free or not, school was off-limits for me.

Mama claimed it was because we never knew when my godfather might finally return, but I knew she needed help with all the chores she didn't care to take on and Papa was too drunk to do.

I didn't mind much. The barn was quiet and the animals werekind.

Since that day with Bertie, the relationships I'd once enjoyed with my brothers and sisters had soured, growing strained and sometimes downright hostile. I alone—not Papa, or his debts—was blamed for Bertie's conscription. I was the one regarded with wary suspicion, as if they were fearful of what proximity to me might bring next.

Their turning stung, but it also made what I knew was coming that much easier.

In one year's time, I was going to leave Rouxbouillet.

I would be thirteen by then.

Some might think it too young to be out on your own, making your way in the world, but I was no stranger to hard work or independence. I spent most of my days alone. Once chores were done, I'd roam the forest, hunting for mushrooms and flowers.

There was an old woman I'd come across a year before, who lived even deeper in the Gravia then we did. She was said to be a miracle worker, always knowing the exact remedies needed to cure anything from a bad cold to infertility. She could even mend things that weren't of a physiological nature, like old feuds and broken hearts.

Papa called her a witch and forbade any of us to venture past the rushing stream that divided our land from hers. But I'd stumbled across her one day while out foraging in the brambles for late-summer berries. She had slipped on a moss-covered rock while trying to pick her way across a creek, and had twisted her ankle too badly to return home on her own. I'd helped her up and, using every bit of my strength, all but carried her back to her cottage, her long, wispy white braid batting me in the face as I acted as her crutch.

She'd chatted away the whole trip home, pointing out various plants, sharing what secret medicinal powers they possessed and how best to harvest them. Her name was Celeste Alarie, and she'd lived in the Gravia her entire life. Her grandmother had been born in that cottage, as had her mother, as had she, and she assured me she intended to die there as well.

Once Celeste had plunked into her rocking chair, despairing over the state of her ankle, she'd let it slip that she had been gathering supplies for a love spell, commissioned by the mayor's wife for their oldest daughter. Celeste had fretted over how she would harvest the flowers needed, and when I'd offered to do it for her, she'd brightened and promised to pay me three copper coins if I did a good job.

From then on, I visited her every fortnight, performing more of her errands throughout the forest. She praised my ability to scramble up rocks and trees no longer accessible to her and said what a fine miracle woman I'd one day make myself. I had the uncanny ability to spot even the most camouflaged of treasures hidden on the forest floor.

I'd been saving up every coin she gave me and by next year would have enough to buy myself passage out of Rouxbouillet, out of the Gravia, out of even Martissienes itself.

I couldn't remain at home, forever waiting for a godfather who would not come.

I was done waiting.

I needed action.

I needed purpose.

I just needed a few more coppers….

"There you are," Mama said, spotting me in the last stall. She was slurring and looked as though she might tip over. "What…what are you even doing back here?"

"Milking Rosie," I said, gesturing to the bucket at my feet.

Mama squinted. I'd filled the pail nearly to the top, and her lips twisted as though she was disappointed to have nothing to chastise me for.

"It's your birthday," she said, surprising me. Without Bertie's to celebrate, I hadn't been sure she bothered to keep track of mine.

I nodded, unsure of the right way to respond.

"I remember that day like it was only hours ago," she murmured, and her eyes drifted, gazing at something above me with a dreamy unfocused distraction. "You were so little. You're still so little," she fretted, rubbing her thumb over the lip of the liquor bottle she held. "And he…he was so very big. But when he held you…" She trailed off for a moment, lost in the daydream. She didn't have to say my godfather's name aloud. Papa had never held me, not even once. "You looked as though you belonged together. With him."

She took a long swig. The liquor smelled astringent, burning my nostrils, and I didn't see how she could bear to drink it.

"I never could understand why he left you behind."

"I…I'm sorry," I said. It was the first time I'd ever dared to imagine how the situation must have looked from her side, the first time I ever felt the injustice she had lived with every day since my arrival. She'd been promised I'd be taken care of. She'd been promised she'd never have to deal with me.

But here I was, twelve years later.

"Oh, my head," she muttered, wincing suddenly.

I pressed my lips together, feeling an odd sense of tenderness toward my mother, toward this woman who had been dealt an unfair hand so many times throughout her life. "I saw some feverfew edging the garden. Their leaves can help with aches, however strong. I could make you a tea," I offered, then bit the inside of my cheek, worried she'd ask how I knew this information.

But she only blinked, swaying unsteadily. "That would be very kind, Hazel."

I knew this softness would not last. It was the drink talking, not her. But maybe if I tried, maybe if I tried so hard, it could linger for a little while longer.

"I ought…" She paused, rubbing the back of her hand over her forehead. "I ought to make you a cake this year. I don't think I…" She wavered, and her eyes seemed to cross for a moment. She blinked heavily, trying to focus on me, but her pupils couldn't find the right spot. She kept looking just off to my left, as though she was seeing double. "I don't think I've ever made you a cake before. Not one of your own," she corrected herself.

"It's okay, Mama," I said, forgiving her in an instant as she cupped my cheek, showering me with more affection in this single beat than in every other moment of my life combined.

"Another year, another year, another year has come," she sang softly, and a happy warmth radiated through me at this abrupt change in her demeanor. I didn't know what had brought about this shift, didn't understand it, but I couldn't stop to wonder on it now. My mind raced with a dozen dreams for the future. I pictured us walking back to the house together, hand in hand. I'd brew a pot of the feverfew tea as she made a cake, and after dinner, she'd tell me not to go back to the barn. She'd say I should sleep inside the house with the rest of the family, in a bed of my own, and she would tuck me in, drawing my velvet quilt up to my chin before bending down to give me a loving kiss on the cheek, and I would fall asleep basking in the warmth of her love.

People made mistakes. It happened every day.

But Mama had finally come around, finally saw me as her daughter, as a child to be fondly thought of, a child who was all hers, her flesh, her blood.

"You are one year older now," she continued. Her crooning wasn't quite on pitch, her tempo just shy of right.

"So shout ‘Hooray,'?" a voice said from the threshold of the stall, taking over the song. We both startled and turned to stare at the dark, towering figure of my godfather. "You're done."