“It is so very hard to have a meaningful friendship with any of the ladies in town.
Everyone is so austere and intent on social customs and sedate conversation.”
I placed the small cake into the hearth and then sat right next to Sarah, and to her great joy, grabbed her hand. “Yes, Sarah.” Her face lit up like the celestial glow of a full moon.
“Mary, what shall I do with the cake when it is prepared?” Sarah asked, squeezing my hand back.
“These instructions are important and you must not deviate from them,” I warned. “You will take it home, show it to no one, share it with no one and devour it whole immediately. It must be you. If anyone else eats it, or if you tell anyone, then the magic will extinguish.” I leaned in and whispered into her ear, “It will make you more desirable than you ever could have imagined. Your husband will forget all to make you the center of his life.”
“How long will it take?” she asked excitedly.
“It will be instantaneous,” I answered honestly, though the outcome would be quite different. Something about her trespassing into the space I’d shared exclusively with George had driven away any empathy that still existed in my person. She was an unwelcome intruder into my home and my happiness, and her removal was the salve to my pain.
After more insipid conversation I pulled the cake out and set it to cool only the slightest amount of time before carefully depositing it into a cloth for her to travel with. As I tucked it into the pouch she’d dropped on the table, I looked deep into her innocuous eyes and smiled. “When you eat this, think of me.”
“I shall, Mary!” she squealed, rocking forward to kiss me gently on my cheek. “I shall never forget this kindness.”
“And I shan’t forget you,” I smiled back, leaning forward and kissing her other cheek.
I watched her beaming face as she exited, walking down through the copse of trees, unknowingly holding the key to her fate in her hands. A miraculous confection of desire in her eyes, and a means to an end in mine.
I took a deep breath and sank into my chair, cradling my tiny belly, ruminating on the dastardly deed I had just carried out. Sarah had been such a symbol for my hatred, such a boring reminder of the dissatisfaction of my life. From promising beauty born into a prominent family to battered wife and now murderous mistress. I held my hands to my ears and tried to drown out Malvina’s voice in my head.
“I did not use prophecy or the book, Malvina.” I mumbled into the air, convinced that I heard her reply that I’d used her gift of life and knowledge to slay an innocent soul. I longed to not hear her voice anymore, for the shame it caused made me hang my head into a pool of guilt.
There I sat, and when Iris came home I avoided her eyes. I watched her as she slept, and I prayed for a better life for her. One free of abuse and pain, one like Sarah’s, where her greatest problem was not knowing which fine dress she should don from one day to the next. Never had Sarah known the pain of rape or beatings and I was sure both her parents were probably doting and still alive to encourage her jejune walk through life.
I wondered if she had already succumbed to the poison and somewhat recoiled from my cruel meanderings, unable to feel guilt, but disturbed at the utter absence of it. I consoled myself with knowing that Sarah would pass unexpectedly, with no ability to pass on where she had been. George would sweep in and marry me before my belly could swell beyond deceptions and we would live together legitimately in Bishop. Iris would be assured a life of comfort and joy, the kind that I had not known past childhood.
The next day I surreptitiously sent Iris into town, knowing that she would come home with news of Sarah’s passing and then I would wait prettily and patiently for word from George.
I busily swept and tidied to pass the hours that Iris was gone and my head perked up when I heard heavy footfall and panting through the trees. I ran outside to see Iris bolting forth, her face wild in her quest to get within earshot of me.
I dropped my broom and propelled out the door to meet her, sprinting across the waving blades of verdant grass. When I reached her she flew into my arms, pulling me to the ground with her.
“Oh mama, it’s the most terrible thing…” she cried, and I shook my head at her innocence. “It’s George.”
“What?” I spat out, grabbing her shoulders to look into her face where I was dismayed to see her eyes red and puffy from what must have been a flood of tears.
“George has died, mama,” she sobbed, grabbing my hands tightly in her own, clinging to me to both give and receive comfort, “What? No,” I mumble, inching away from her and falling backwards onto the grass, my head filling with that unbearable avalanche of noise, where I can hear or think of nothing but a blind wall of fear and horror. “His wife…”
“His wife found him dead,” Iris cried out. “Just stone cold dead on the pantry floor.”
“That insipid goose put it in the pantry,” I panted, on my hands and knees, desperate for the feeling to pass, knowing it wouldn’t. “I told her to eat it straight away.”
“Mama, what has happened to you?” Iris grabbed my shoulders and forced me up, where she looked deep into my eyes. “George is dead, mama. Please speak to me about your state of mind.”
“He loves apple cake…” I sobbed, breaking free of her to wretch into the grass. “What have I done?”
“Are you going mad, mama?” Iris keened, her grief morphing into fear as
