Gods of Jade and Shadow(6)

“Mother,” Casiopea said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s a difficult situation for me too, Casiopea.”

“I know it’s hard for you. But Martín is so mean! Sometimes I wish he’d fall down a well and break his back,” Casiopea replied.

“And would that make your life any happier if he did? Would it make your chores shorter and lighter?”

Casiopea shook her head and sat down on the chair where she sat every night. Her mother parted her hair, gently brushing it.

“It’s unfair. Martín has everything and we get nothing,” Casiopea said.

“What does he have?” her mother asked.

“Well…money, and good clothes…and he gets to do anything he wants.”

“You shouldn’t do everything you want just because you can,” her mother said. “That is precisely why Martín is such a terrible man.”

“If I had grown up with his money, I promise I wouldn’t be terrible.”

“But you’d be an entirely different person.”

Casiopea did not argue. She was bone-tired and Mother was constantly serving her a meal of platitudes instead of any significant answers or action. But there was nothing else to do but to accept this, to accept the punishment and carry on day after weary day. Casiopea went to sleep with her head full of quiet resentment, as she must.

When her family left the next morning, Casiopea went to her grandfather’s room and sat on the edge of the bed. He’d piled his shirts on a chair. Casiopea had brought her sewing kit but upon the sight of the stupid shirts she tossed the sewing kit against the mirror atop the vanity. She would not ordinarily have allowed herself such a visible demonstration of her rage, but this time the anger was too overwhelming and she thought she’d catch on fire. She must cool down. Afterward, she would be able to take a deep breath and push the thread through the eye of the needle, stitching new buttons in place.

Something metallic rattled and slid off the vanity. With a sigh she rose and picked it up. It was grandfather’s key, which he normally wore around his neck. Since he’d gone to the waterhole he’d left it behind. Casiopea stared at the key resting on her palm and then at the chest.

She’d never opened it, never dared to attempt such a thing. Whatever lay in there, whether it was gold or money, it must be valuable. And she recalled that the old man was going to leave her nothing. She had not stolen from Grandfather; it would have been idiotic since he would notice it. But the chest…if it was gold coins, would he truly notice the absence of a couple of them? Or better yet, should she take all of them, would he be able to stop her from running off with his treasure?

Casiopea endured, patiently, like her mother asked her to, but the girl was no saint, and every mean remark she swallowed had accumulated like a bloated tumor. If the day had not been so warm, with a heat that scrambles the senses, the kind of heat that makes a tame dog bite the leg of its owner in an act of sudden betrayal, she might have eluded temptation. But she was feverish with her quiet anger.

She slashed at the cycle of her pitiful existence and decided that she’d look inside the chest, and if there was indeed gold inside, damn it all to hell, she’d take off and leave this rotten place behind. If there was nothing—and most likely there was nothing and this was but a quiet act of rebellion, which, like the tossing of the sewing kit, would serve as a tepid balm to her wounds—then she would at least satisfy her curiosity.

Casiopea knelt in front of the chest. It was very simple, with carrying handles on each end. No decorations except for the one image painted in red, the decapitated man. When she ran her hand along its surface, she discovered shapes that had been carved and painted over. She could not tell what they were, but she could feel them. She gave the chest a push.

It was heavy.

Casiopea rested both hands on the chest and for a moment considered leaving well enough alone. But she was angry and, more than that, curious. What if indeed there was money locked away in there? The old man owed her something for her suffering.

Everyone owed her.

Casiopea inserted the key, turned the lock, and flipped the lid open.

She sat there, confused at the sight of what lay inside the chest. Not gold but bones. Very white bones. Might it be a ruse? Could the prize be hidden beneath? Casiopea placed a hand inside the chest, shoving the bones around as she tried to uncover a hidden panel.

Nothing. She felt nothing but the cold smoothness of the bones.

This was her luck, of course. Black.

With a sigh she decided enough was enough.

Pain shot through her left arm. She pulled out her hand from the chest and looked at her thumb only to see a white shard, a tiny piece of bone, had embedded itself in her skin. She tried to pull it out but it sank deeper in. A few drops of blood welled from the place where the bone had splintered her.

“Oh, what foolishness,” she whispered, standing up.

Blacker than black her luck. The daykeepers would have laughed predicting her life, yet as she rose, the chest…it groaned, a low, powerful sound. But surely not. Surely the noise had come from outside.

Casiopea turned her head, ready to look out the window.

With a furious clacking the bones jumped in the air and began assembling themselves into a human skeleton. Casiopea did not move. The pain in her hand and the wave of fear that struck her held the girl tight to her spot.