Seraphina(86)

I took a deep breath and opened the door. For the merest moment, before my presence was noticed, I drank in the cozy domestic scene: the roaring hearth, the three fine bluestone platters hung above the mantelpiece, little window altars to St. Loola and St. Yane and a new one to St. Abaster, hanging herbs and strings of onions. My stepmother, up to her elbows in the kneading trough, looked up at the sound of the door and paled. At the heavy kitchen table, Tessie and Jeanne, the twins, had been peeling apples; they froze, silent and staring, Tessie with a length of peel dangling from her mouth like a green tongue. My little half brothers, Paul and Ned, looked to their mother uncertainly.

I was a stranger in this family. I always had been.

Anne-Marie wiped her hands on her apron and tried to smile. “Seraphina. Welcome. If you’re looking for your father, he’s already left for the palace.” Her brow crumpled in confusion. “You came from there? You’d have passed him on the way.”


I could not remember anyone meeting us at the door last night, now that I thought of it. Had my father sneaked me into the house and upstairs without telling her? That sounded more like Papa than a conversation about love, lies, and fear.

I tried to smile. It was an unspoken covenant with my stepmother: we both tried. “I—in fact, I’m home to retrieve something. From my, uh, room. That I forgot to take with me, and need.”

Anne-Marie nodded eagerly. Yes, yes, good. The awkward stepdaughter was leaving soon. “Please, go on up. This is still your house.”

I drifted back upstairs, lightly dazed, wishing I had told her the truth, because what was I going to do for breakfast now? Astonishingly, my coin purse had made the whole journey and wasn’t languishing on the floor of Millie’s room. I’d buy myself a bun somewhere, or … my heart leaped. I could see Orma! He had hoped I’d come see him today. That was a plan, at least. I would surprise Orma before he disappeared for good.

I pushed that latter thought aside.

I packed the scarlet gown carefully into a satchel and made up the bed. I could never fluff the tick like Anne-Marie; she was going to figure out that I’d slept here. Ah, well, let her. It was Papa’s to explain.

Anne-Marie required no farewells. She knew what I was, and it seemed to put her at ease when I behaved like a thoughtless saar. I opened the front door ready to head into the snowy city when there came a pattering of slippered feet behind me. I turned to see my half sisters rushing up. “Did you find what you came for?” asked Jeanne, her pale brow wrinkled in concern. “Because Papa said to give you this.”

Tessie brandished a long, slender box in one hand, a folded letter in the other.

“Thanks.” I put both in my satchel, suspecting I should view them in privacy.

They bit their lips in exactly the same way, even though they weren’t identical. Jeanne’s hair was the color of clover honey; Tessie had Papa’s dark locks, like me. I said, “You turn eleven in a few months, do you not? Would you—would you like to come see the palace for your birthday? If it’s all right with your mother, I mean.”

They nodded, shy of me.

“All right then. I’ll arrange it. You could meet the princesses.” They didn’t answer, and I could think of nothing more to say. I’d tried. I waved a feeble farewell and fled through the snowy streets to my uncle’s.





Orma’s apartment was a single room above a mapmaker’s, nearer to my father’s house than St. Ida’s, so I checked there first. Basind answered the door but had no idea where my uncle had gone. “If I knew, I’d be there with him,” he explained, his voice like sand in my stockings. He gazed into space, tugging a hangnail with his teeth, while I left a message. I had no confidence it would be delivered.

Anxiety hastened my feet toward St. Ida’s.

The streets were jammed full of people out for the Golden Plays. I considered walking down by the river, which was less crowded, but I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. The crush in the streets stopped the wind, at least. There were large charcoal braziers set every block or so to keep playgoers from freezing; I took advantage of these when I could wedge myself close enough.

I had not intended to watch the plays, but it was hard not to pause at the sight of a giant, fire-belching head of St. Vitt outside the Guild of Glassblowers’ warehouse. A blazing tongue ten yards long roared forth; everyone shrieked. St. Vitt caught his own eyebrows on fire—unintentionally, but Heavens, was he fierce with his brow aflame!

“St. Vitt, snort and spit!” chanted the crowd.

St. Vitt had not been possessed of such draconian talents in life, of course. It was a metaphor for his fiery temper or for his judgment upon unbelievers. Or, as likely as not, somebody at the Guild of Glassblowers had awakened in the middle of the night with the most fantastic idea ever, never mind that it was theologically questionable.

The Golden Plays stretched the hagiographies all round because the fact was, no one really knew. The Lives of the Saints contained many contradictions; the psalter’s poems made things no clearer, and then there was the statuary. St. Polypous in the Lives had three legs, for example, but country shrines showed as many as twenty. At our cathedral, St. Gobnait had a hive of blessed bees; at South Forkey, she was famously depicted as a bee, big as a cow, with a stinger as long as your forearm. My substitute patroness, St. Capiti, usually carried her severed head on a plate, but in some tales her head had tiny legs of its own and skittered around independently, scolding people.