After slipping the final egg into her basket and tucking the cloth protectively around her precious wares, Wren closed the latch on the coop and moved swiftly through her front gate, which slammed behind her. She winced despite herself, thinking of her father and his already-unsteady slumber.
A deeper, darker part of her hoped it had woken him up.
Before her feet met the path, soft black fur brushed against her ankle—the scruffy stray cat that often hung around her house. Wren knelt, balancing her baskets as she scratched him behind the ears. She’d always had a way with animals—birds settling on her shoulder as she walked to town, dogs following dutifully at her heels, even horses occasionally coming to nuzzle her neck despite her empty pockets.
“I know, I know.” Wren rummaged in her basket for a crumb but came up with nothing. “You’re hungry. I’m sorry.” The cat’s yellow eyes stared accusingly up at her. “So am I, you know. Not that you care.” The cat let out a soft mewl.
Wren ran her hand across the creature’s matted back, extracting a burr that had stuck near the base of his tail. The cat nipped affectionately at her finger. “That’s all I can do,” Wren murmured apologetically. “Unless I have a very good day at market.” Though of course that wasn’t likely. The cat nuzzled her knee, leaving black fur clinging to the green wool of her trousers. “Okay, greedy. I’ll do my best.” Wren gave the cat a final scratch behind the ears, then hauled herself up, careful not to jostle her eggs.
The cat shot Wren an affronted look.
Wren glanced back up at the purple haze of magic. It pointed down the path to the left, toward the town of Wells. She glanced to the right, toward Ladaugh. It was a similar walk to each town’s main square, but the sky in that direction was a clear, normal blue.
It wasn’t even a choice, really.
Magic made Wren a bit… odd. She was forever shooing it away, constantly smoothing down the hair that stood up on the back of her neck in its presence, always trying to explain why she’d stopped a conversation midsentence, listening to a shriek no one else could hear. Sometimes she gave in to it, closed her eyes and tried to will it in her direction, to parse its dazzling ribbons and unravel its secrets. But there she was less successful. Mostly she just waved her hands about and felt ridiculous.
Still, the purple ribbon felt like a sign. If she followed, it might lead her to a field of wildflowers or to a tiny creek running with the freshest water she had ever tasted. It might take her to a den of baby foxes that would chase their tails and nuzzle her arm with their wet, black noses.…
Wren’s baskets weighed heavily on her arms as she let her daydream die. She needed to head to market to trade for food and herbs for her father. She could not afford the distraction. And so Wren turned right, leaving the magic—and her desperate glimmer of wanting—behind.
Her footsteps crunched on the road to Ladaugh, kicking up dust that danced around her ankles. Her baskets swung jauntily as the path wound its way through Farmer Haddon’s field, where his four sons chased one another with sticks. The wheat was tall, nearly to Wren’s waist. It had been a wet spring, but summer had driven away the clouds, leaving the days crisp and bright and warm. The sun was hot against her cheek. Soon her face would bloom with freckles, and the bridge of her nose would turn a perpetual pink.
Wren walked past towering hay bales and endless fields of corn, stopping once to offer her hand to a field mouse, which settled on her shoulder, its tiny claws tangling in her hair. She waved at Amelia, the butcher’s wife, who was loaded down with three baskets and nearly as many crying children. She crossed a great stone bridge, passing others carrying their market wares in baskets or strapped upon their backs. Despite their friendly greetings, their faces were set.
Something had shifted since she’d crossed the river. It hung sourly in the air, was present in the townspeople’s grim expressions. Even the field mouse had scampered down her back and into the tall summer grass. When she came upon a family—a father, mother, and little boy, doubtfully older than three—pulling a wooden cart loaded with everything they owned, her curiosity got the best of her.
“Hello, friends.” She raised a hand in greeting. “Where are you headed this morning?”
“South, of course.” The woman looked at Wren with wide eyes, her face frantic. “Haven’t you heard? There’s a plague sweeping its way through the queendom.” She shivered, pulling her child close.
“Were you not at the meeting?” the father asked, noting Wren’s confusion. “Queen Mathilde has fled from Farn and headed to the Winter Palace. The capital has been completely ravaged by the sickness. Once the plague makes its way over the mountains, we will be next.”
“What are the symptoms?” Wren tugged sharply on the end of her braid. Her father could not afford another sickness. He was already feverish and bedridden, his illness unresponsive to her remedies. “The usual sorts?”
The woman shook her head sharply. “It isn’t a physical sickness.”
That was a relief. Her father’s symptoms were very much physical. Whatever he had wasn’t this plague.
“They said…” The woman paused, putting her hands over her child’s tiny ears. The boy squirmed beneath her touch, burying his face in her linen trousers. “They said it creeps inside your mind, siphons out your memories and your joys. Leaves the afflicted bodies empty, like”—the woman glanced side to side, her voice dropping to barely a whisper—“walking ghosts.”
Wren’s body went cold. What sort of sickness was strong enough to rob a person of their soul?
The father looked over his shoulder, down the road to Ladaugh, eager to move on. He
