The house burns, its firelight reflected in the hoofprints that surround your father’s body.
The bite of the wind, sudden and cold, brings you back to the moment. Your skin is wet, your skirts muddy. It must have rained. Yes, now you remember. The stars winked out as a curtain of clouds drew over them. It rained, and you did nothing about it as all feeling seemed to bleed out from your heart.
You want to scream. The rage tears away within you, but you must keep pretending, keep up the performance. You are no longer Father’s child. You are Father. Remember. Remember at least that much, you idiot.
You told Parsley you would be back, that It would be all right, whispering into his twitching ear over and over, like a song, as you fed him the last apple from your pack. He knew the tone, if not the words.
Words spill from your throat in Father’s voice, trying to assemble the tale of the last few days, as if your choices could be explained rationally, as if you weren’t only running from the panic in your heart. Every step of the journey invites new, disconnected thoughts - his thoughts - trying to assert themselves, as if clawing his way up from the earth of your mind.
The sun brings a new world with it. Not one of happiness, but at least of possibility. Purpose. Breathe too deep, and you can still feel the cage of grief around your chest. But here, buried in these books, there are answers - if only you can dig them free.
Rosemary checks Parsley’s hooves, his teeth, and mixes crushed meadowsweet with his oats. She gives you some coin to take him into town and be cared for by Lowry, the farrier.
The man is nearly blind, but he knows the horse and treats him kindly. “Where’s your pappa?” He asks, and you almost answer - but he’s not talking to you. Parsley grunts and tosses his head, and the farrier pats him in return. You pay the man and he says nothing as you leave.
Rain falls on the planks above, wending its way through the half-rotted wood, mixing with oil and fishblood and mold and flecks of tar, and finally dripping from the heads of the thousand nails that hold the dock together. The sea beneath the it is so confused by its halls of thick wood that the even the boldest wave is diced to a foamy, tea-colored soup, heaving up and down, endlessly glazing the oyster-armored pilings, each of which are a foot wider than the spindly black posts that once supported the wreck that now extends from Rose’s house.
When I was a child I had a doll; a rags-and-wood knight that I took with me everywhere. It kept me company during the long, silent carriage rides I shared with my mother as we traveled to a string of rich estates and duchies the year I turned twelve.
The game had been going on for an hour, but my mother needed more time, so I picked up my remaining knight and examined it - pinching the horse’s neck between my fingertips. “It’s so lovely,” I sang. And It was. I wanted to steal it. Why not? I had folds enough in this ridiculous dress.