of that night
—which is why
Isabella gets there first
crouches down
her servants looking on
curious but not surprised
and reaches a hand
into a cabinet.
Helene, love?
My sister wedged herself
inside a dumbwaiter
while I was playing knight.
I went to send
tea up to the library
and there she was!
A distressed kitchen girl
mangles her apron
between white-knuckled fists.
Where is Emilde? Her lady’s maid?
The tetchy one grunts.
Put her to work. She’s help, ain’t she?
Houseguests mean extra labors.
Their servants don’t sit around.
She withers slightly
under Isabella’s gaze.
Ain’t she help?
Helene shrieks
when Isabella touches her,
tries to shrink farther back.
Let me.
But before I can reach my sister,
Owen is there, wet nose prodding,
reaching something I never will.
Coaxed out by Isabella’s dog,
Helene refuses any touch
except his prodding snout.
Emilde is beside herself
when she returns to find
her lady disturbed.
She only wanted
to feel safe!
Is that so hard?
I very nearly reprimand her
but Isabella’s grip
on my arm reminds me
Emilde has watched over
my sister more keenly
than I ever have.
We’re so sorry.
The duchess speaks to Emilde
as though this lowly servant
were equal to the queen of Naples.
I’m sure we can find
a way for Helene
to feel safe away
from prying eyes?
She feels safest
in a kitchen . . .
Emilde trails off.
She can’t explain it
any more than Helene can,
Helene, who sits, mute,
arms around Owen
as though he were the only one
tethering her to this world.
Isabella sends for the physician
who prescribes herbs and teas
and tinctures to soothe and calm,
the tiniest plug in the dam
holding back an ocean of pain.
After hushed conversation
with the duchess, the physician
inquires if any of my party
require further care.
Pennyroyal tea
and pomegranates
juniper and rue
catnip, sage, cypress, tansy
hellebore, hyssop, dittany, and opium
so many options
it’s almost as though
he’s seen this before.
That blur of terror
in my bedchamber
was not creation
destruction
except
it is not always
one or else the other.
The two go
sword in scabbard
sometimes.
To carry a child is a risk
when done for love or obligation
but to carry a seed that’s taken root
after invaders pillaged a land
for their
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Papi’s knock scatters the words.
“I don’t want any lasagna,” I call.
“My hands are full, can you open the door?”
I sigh from the middle of my bed, where I’m surrounded by Marguerite and various research books open to specific pages around me. Sometimes the history falls together in absurdly perfect puzzle pieces—René’s brother-in-law being the newly crowned king of France, for example. Maybe he can get word to the generals Marguerite will need—
“Canchita?”
I climb off my bed, trying to cause minimal disturbance. Not wanting lasagna doesn’t mean I want room service that will only make me feel guilty for not sitting in the kitchen with him while my mom’s out at her monthly girls’ night.
Instead, I find Papi holding a stack of shoeboxes. I hold the door open and he brings them in, Chester nosing in after him, leaping up onto my bed, and knocking multiple books off.
“Chester, no!”
“Nor told me you guys are working on a project para tu mamá,” Papi says. “I dug these out. Thought they might help.”
I haven’t thought about the scrapbook since I went searching for photos in the basement and instead found my mom’s dissertation on female vengeance films, which was obviously more interesting. Now Papi’s done the work of digging out photos for me and I repay him with annoyance.
His eyes fall on the Moleskine. “It’s good to see that again,” he says as I try to save my books from Chester galumphing around on my bed for the perfect spot. “You said you lost it.”
“It turned up.”
He sits on the end of my bed. “The school told me, ¿sabías? The middle school? When that little cerote stole your notebook and spread your private words around.”
I sit on the other end of the bed, closing my hand over the edge of the rondel dagger and pushing it farther under my pillow. “You never said anything.”
“I figured your privacy had been invaded enough. You’d tell me if you wanted to.”
“It was embarrassing.”
“That boy was an embarrassment. Hijuela . . . Expressing your feelings isn’t wrong.”
“I know.”
He hesitates and I think our little heart-to-heart is over, but he goes on. “Tu mamá and I are so thrilled you’re writing. You’ve got such a gift. Pero me preocupa que you’re skipping meals—”
“I’m not hungry, Papi. I’ll eat later, I promise. Thanks for the photos.”
“Claro. It’s nice of you girls to do something. I’d hoped for her birthday we could have a getaway . . . ¿Victoria o algo? But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”
Papi hasn’t been getting as many plumbing disaster calls lately. I’ve overheard hushed conversations with Mom about whether she can manage to take on some extra online classes. (She can’t.) Sometimes she suggests he look for teaching jobs—he has an MFA in poetry, after all. But when his work is steady, he actually makes more as a plumber than he would as an adjunct professor.
Which seems messed up, but the world needs pipes to reliably carry away our shit more than it needs poetry.
It’s cynical of me, but I can’t keep from wondering whether Husky fans spread word to harm Papi’s business. Maybe after my hashtag debacle. Add financial stress to the list of things that are my fault.
As Papi slips out the door, I reach under my pillow and wrap my hand around the dagger.
ENTITLED
Isabella puts me through my paces
morning, noon and in the night
we fill the gaps that Father left:
strategy
geography
patriarchy.
I knew our world
was ruled by men—
I’ve grown up sheltered,
not blindfolded, gagged
and cut off from all discourse.
&
nbsp; But I’ve had the luxury
of ignorance to how men think,
how men are raised to feel
themselves entitled to the world.
I thought it a quirk of my brother’s
like my sister’s love of books
and dark, quiet places.
René is my tutor
on the ways and thoughts of men,
a dedicated teacher
until the point each day
when his beloved
turns an unmistakable
shade of green.
Half a dozen children
she’s carried
René confides
even borne some
into the world
but none have lived
to celebrate a single year.
She pretends the seed
has not been planted,
doesn’t grow, for if she denies
it’s there, perhaps it will never die.
It’s twisted logic but
sometimes
that’s the only kind.
Isabella insists on planning
as though together
we will join de Gaucourt
and the king’s army,
take on Chalon and his men
past the point when it is clear
she carries a child who may yet live,
made of love and long awaited.
The only battle she will see
is childbirth.
René offers to go in her stead
but aside from the terror
on Isabella’s face
at the thought of his certain death
I will have no man
by my side
when I face
Chalon.
Helene emerges
slightly each day,
still silent, but
some spark of life
so long as Owen is near.
She finds a bit of fabric,
thread, and spends the days
secluded in some nook.
On sunny days, the garden,
stabbing cloth repeatedly.
I feign ignorance
that Emilde sleeps
in Helene’s chambers.
She grates on me
but the kitchen girl
would fight at my side
with equal fury except
that she would never
leave my sister.
Zahra, though, insists
she is my handmaiden
to the end, and so
she joins my lessons.
How can I ask Zahra
to join me as we hurtle
toward certain death?
And yet the blaze in her eyes
when she swings a sword
assures me I am not asking.
Next to Helene
on a wrought-iron bench
the metal upon my back
is cool like armor.
I’ll be leaving soon.
She continues stabbing
at her cloth in a hoop.
You’ll be safe here.
Her shoulders tense.
The duke and duchess,
their men, this fortress . . .
I was very nearly attacked
inside these walls.
You’ll have Emilde.
And Owen.
The beast lifts his head,
snorts, then lays it back
on his mistress’s feet.
Helene lets out a breath,
her shoulders relax.
A sudden flash of
Mother at the harp
delicate fingers flying
lost in music, the weight
of noble expectations lifted
for as long as the song would last.
I reach into the pouch at my waist
fingers saying a last goodbye
to my only connection
with the woman who bore me.
I hold out Mother’s brooch.
Helene’s own flying fingers
still.
She lets me fasten it to
the bodice of her dress
and does not flinch
at my touch.
Helene may have the brooch
but I will keep the ring
upon my finger, the one
that proclaims exactly who I am
to anyone who cares to look.
I may not return.
But if I don’t, Helene,
I’ll have taken our revenge—
yours and mine.
I must do this.
She pauses only long enough
to raise her head,
meet my eye, and nod.
Then she renews
her diligent pursuit,
each stitch
a suture
bound to fail
the wound too great
but healing will come
not from needle and thread
but from the girl who wields them.
For all I tell Helene
of safety within these walls
my nights are awkward dances
with reluctant partners,
a step or two of grace
then stumble, lose the beat,
constant awareness
of every limb and breath
a desperation for dawn
the end of the song
the moment I free myself
from my suitor, the graceless night.
This night the dance
is interrupted
with percussive beats
that do not match the rhythm.
Hoofbeats, shouts
drawbridge lowering.
I grab the sword beside my bed.
This is the dance, the suitor I know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I write and write and write but also sometimes I can’t anymore.
When I reach that point (and Jess still isn’t responding, which: Maybe they don’t even have cell service in Saipan?), my gaze falls on the shoeboxes still sitting where Papi left them on my desk.
Nor has sent a few irritated texts wondering when I’m going to get the photos to her, since she’s in charge of scrapbook layout. Sucks when your sister doesn’t respond to your messages, I guess.
I pull a dusty lid off the first box and settle on the floor, since my bed and desk are full of Marguerite. These pictures go way back—Mom as a toddler, in the house she still lives in. Mom around four years old, in an astonishingly poufy dress and hat, clutching a stuffed bunny, while her brothers wrestle over an Easter basket. Mom on skates, Mom eating birthday cake, Mom winning some sort of academic award.
I pull out a few photos from each age range. They’re thick and glossy, from the time before photos on phones, or even digital cameras, I think. My grandparents had to care enough to have film developed, then hold on to the tangible objects over the years, surviving the purges of stuff from my grandparents’ house to college to grad school to newlywed apartment and on and on. Stuffed in a shoebox somewhere I couldn’t even find them, but still.
The second shoebox has more photos, from high school, I think. Girls in overalls and flannel with arms slung around each other. Photos that follow the extended arm of the subject from hand holding the old-school camera backward toward their face—prehistoric selfies. Cheesy school-dance photos, Mom in a shiny coral dress with a pimply boy encircling her waist from behind,
and another in a black strapless mini-dress with a group of girlfriends, all striking Charlie’s Angels poses.
Mixed in with the high school photos are some report cards and essays with red As scrawled across the top. One essay has a B-, and the teacher’s note says, “Beautifully written, but not the assignment. Follow the rubric next time, Kath.”
Beneath that, in a loopier version of the handwriting I recognize, my mom has written, “NO ONE MADE AUSTEN WRITE TO A RUBRIC, MISS FOSKET!!!”
I pull that out for the scrapbook, for sure.
I’m about to move on to the third shoebox when a folded piece of paper at the bottom catches my eye. I tug it from a corner where it’s caught and when it comes free, I unfold it to find an unfamiliar handwriting at the bottom—it’s signed Marla, which isn’t a name I recognize.
The handwriting is urgent, and the first words are “PLEASE READ THIS, K.” I’m expecting a glimpse into my mom’s high school drama—dates for a dance, gossip gone awry, accusations of lying or cheating or stealing. But as I read on, my stomach churns.
I know you just want this to be over, but you HAVE to tell someone. Think about the other girls he’s hurt. The other girls he’ll hurt after we graduate. When I took you to the clinic, you promised you’d tell. Please, K.
K is Kath. My mom.
EQUAL
My brother, Philippe.
Not Chalon and his men.
My brother, my blood
has completed the task
I thought I’d have to
and now he’s found us,
his sisters.
I race to the stable,
embrace him.
Helene is alive?
Where is she?
These are his first words.
Asleep.
It’s the middle—
Why didn’t you tell me?
Why didn’t you send word?
How was I to know
where you were?
He shakes me off, shoves
past me, heads toward
the castle, his back
a familiar sight.
What happened?
Did you find Chalon’s men?
He grunts.
They’re camped
near Autun for now.
And?
He stops,
spins on his heel.
And?
Did you avenge