House of Ash and Shadow

“Happy birthday!” Sorrel and I screamed in unison as we jumped out from beneath the little kitchen table we’d been hiding under.

My dad had just walked into our small hut after a long day of laboring, and though he looked exhausted and a bit flushed, his face transformed into a grin.

I picked up the slightly lopsided cake I’d made and presented him with it, scuffling along the dirt-packed floor of our hut.

“Almond orange?” he asked excitedly.

I nodded. “Your favorite. With a honey glaze that I got from Mrs. Lancaster’s bees.”

I wasn’t as good a baker as my father, but I could hold my own in a kitchen.

My neighbor and dear friend Sorrel took my father’s work bag full of tools and set it down on the floor so that he could come sit with us at the table.

Dad walked a little sluggishly to join us and I frowned. “Still have that fever?”

He’d gotten a scrape at the river a few days ago and it got infected.

My father nodded and then peered at Sorrel. “I put the neem oil on it that you gave me this morning.”

Sorrel was our local self-taught herbologist. What she lacked in healer magic she made up for in brains.

“So what are you, like, seventy now?” I joked.

He chuckled. “Forty-four going on seventy.” He rolled out his neck. There was dirt under his nails and even on the tips of his pointed ears. Because he was one of our village’s main laborers, I couldn’t remember a time that my father had ever come home looking clean. He was a hard worker, and I was proud of that.

“Were you able to fix the dam?” Sorrel asked as she cut him a slice of cake and served him.

He nodded. “We got it patched; the lake should hold.”

Our small village of Isariah was a three-hour walk from The Gilded City, home of the most powerful fae in the realm. Where they had piped-in water and other amenities aplenty, we had to make do out here with what we could manage on our own. Which meant a manmade dam of the Dead Snake River that pooled into Huckleberry Lake, aptly named for the hundreds of wild huckleberries that grew at its perimeter. Dead Snake River was named as such because without the dam, it was a weak stream that wouldn’t keep more than ten people alive.

Our lake and dam were crucial to our survival—not only did we drink the water from it, but it watered our fields and kept us clean. If we lost that, no one would care if a bunch of banished, magicless fae died of thirst or starvation.

Sorrel served me next, and I debated removing my elbow-length gloves to eat the cake. Best to keep them on and avoid an accident. I didn’t want to ruin my father’s big day by writhing on the floor in pain.

“Fallon, what’s your favorite memory with your dad?” Sorrel asked, pointing at me as she dug into her cake.

I grinned, looking up at the man who had raised me as his own. “Age twelve,” I said. “The day I came home from school in tears because the kids kept touching me to activate my curse.”

My father reached over and placed his hand on my gloved one, careful not to touch my bare skin. “I remember that day well.”

My heart pinched as I thought of how painful that day had been, both physically and emotionally. Born with a curse I had no control over, I unfairly had to carry it my entire life. “You said something back then that stuck with me,” I told him. “You said I couldn’t control how people treated me, but I could control my reaction to their mistreatment. That it would define who I was.”

I felt that was a turning point in my life. I could have gone down a dark road, hating the world and being upset with my lot in life. But because of my father, I chose to focus on what I could control and the blessings in my life.

Sorrel cleared her throat. “If I remember correctly, he also gave you your dagger on that day and told you to protect yourself if need be.” She pointed to where I usually wore the knife at my hip.

We all burst into laughter then, and my father nodded. “Well, the moral of the story is to be kind to others but defend yourself if you must.”

“Mr. Brookshire? your turn. Favorite memory with Fallon,” Sorrel asked my dad. It was tradition in Isariah to share stories on birthdays and holidays when we couldn’t afford gifts.

He leaned back, looking at me with an affectionate gaze. “Easy. The day I met her.”

A lump formed in my throat at his admission, and I thought back to the day I’d been brought to Isariah in the dead of night seventeen years ago. I’d been left at the front gates in a little basket, my umbilical cord still attached and tied into a hasty knot.

Inside the basket, tucked into my little blanket, was a note with just four words on it:

Don’t touch her. Cursed.

You can imagine what this did to the people of my village: they were thrown into uproar. What kind of curse? A killing curse for anyone who picked me up? A land curse that would decimate their crops? A sickness curse that would spread through the village like the wet lung and take out everyone?

No one wanted me.

I stayed in the basket, crying deep into the night, until finally, in the early morning hours, a young man in his mid-twenties stepped out onto the road. He’d lost his wife to the wet lung a year prior, and they’d never had children. They’d wanted them but she was barren. Without hesitation, he’d picked my basket up. When he didn’t die immediately, the people came closer to get a look at me.

“She’s just an innocent child,” the man had said. “I’ll take care of her, and whatever curse she carries will fall on me.”

That was how my father tied himself to me. He’d wanted me when no one else did, when everyone else was too scared to get near me.

He’d quickly learned that “don’t touch her” meant literally don’t touch my skin. What caused everyone else pleasure, caused me unbearable pain. A simple touch of skin-to-skin contact and I felt like I’d been hit by lightning. As you can imagine, changing the dirty loincloth of a baby whose skin you couldn’t touch was near impossible. For the first five years of my life, my father wore gloves to his elbows. As much as he’d wanted to take whatever curse ailed me, it was my burden alone to carry.

“That was my favorite day too,” I said, smiling hugely. “Although I don’t remember it.”

Sorrel and I then launched into a plethora of favorite memories growing up, ones that had us grabbing our bellies in laughter.

Eventually, I looked over at my father to see sweat beaded on his brow and his once flushed face now looked pale. “Dad, you don’t look good. Do you want to bathe and then get some rest?”

He gave me a small smile and patted my gloved hand. “Always thinking of your old man.” Standing up, he winced, grabbing at his side, and Sorrel and I shared a concerned look. My father grasped the edge of the chair and swayed on his feet.

“Dad.” I stood, my heart lurching into my throat.

Sorrel moved quickly, rushing out of her chair and over to where my father stood, ashen and waxy-looking.

Then I watched in horror as he swayed again and went down like a sack of bricks. His body hit the floor with a thud and I screamed, rushing forward to try to catch him. It was no use. He was heavy, and I reached out with my gloved hands to no avail.

“Sorrel!” I cried out in panic as she swam into view, taking his head into her lap while I straightened his feet, so he could lie fully stretched out on his back.

Sorrel began to tend to my father as I paced the dirt-packed floor of our hut.

“It’s still infected. Smells like rotten fish.” Sorrel frowned as she prodded my father’s abdomen.

“That tiny cut?” I leaned over her and peered at a small cut near his belly button. My blood ran cold. Deep, red lines ran out from the cut and clawed their way up his chest, but the cut itself was so small it was laughable. He’d scraped himself the other day on a branch by the river. I was there.

“That little thing?” I frowned, unease slipping over me like a shadow.

Sorrel looked up at me with terror in her eyes. “Fallon, I’ve seen this before. Red lines to the heart mean death in twenty-four hours.” She traced the red lines that went halfway to his heart, and I stopped breathing.

Death?

No.

“It…was a branch. A stupid little branch.” A sob formed in my throat and Sorrel covered my father’s abdomen with a strip of cloth. Then she set his head down gently and stepped over to me.

“I know how important he is to you,” she consoled me.

Oh Light. She was looking at me like I was about to lose my father. On his birthday, no less.

“He’s all I have,” I mumbled. My heart felt like it was going to climb out of my throat as I imagined losing him.

“Should we put more neem oil on it? Or should I go out and fetch some herbs? Give me a list and—”

“Fallon.” Sorrel took my gloved hand in hers. “This is beyond me. You know if I could help him, I would. But…”

“No,” I growled, steeling myself in the moment. I would not go into shock. He needed me. “I do not accept that. What do you need to save him?” I looked at Sorrel firmly.

She scoffed. “A healer fae from The Gilded City or an anti-germ tincture from an apothecary.”

I knew she was being sarcastic, but she didn’t know how far I was willing to go to save the man who’d treated me like a person when no one else would.

“Okay,” I said, dropping her hand and moving across the kitchen into my little room. The sleeping roll on the floor was a mess, I hadn’t made my bed like he’d asked and I regretted that now. I should be a more obedient daughter.

Dropping to the ground, I smoothed the two thick blankets and folded the corners how he liked them and then went to my little storage trunk.

“Uh, Fallon…” Sorrel’s voice came from the doorway as I pulled my small dagger from the trunk and slipped it into my boot. “What are you doing?” she finally asked.

Sorrel was a dear friend; she never made fun of me for my condition and she was very careful not to touch me. When we were little, she threw rocks at the kids who made fun of me by touching their arms and pretending to cry and convulse like I did.

She was a gem. But she was also a rule follower. As an outcast people from The Gilded City who carried no magic, the people of Isariah already had a lot going against us. Sorrel was one of those people who thought she could make up for it by learning to read and trying to become an herbologist. She tried to elevate her status in scholarly ways, and I respected her for it, but she would not agree with what I was about to do. In fact, she might try to stop me, so the less I told her, the better.

I stood, pulling on my heavy grey cloak that was six inches too short and had far too many holes in it. I donned my thick suede elbow-length gloves next, and Sorrel started to pace in the doorway.

“Fallon, I was joking! You can’t go and nab a healer from The Gilded City.”

I nodded. “I’ll go for the tincture first.”

Her eyes grew wide. “The only apothecaries that stock anti-germ tinctures are inside The Gilded City.”

I nodded once, and then stood to face her. “Keep him alive until I get back or I’ll never forgive you.”

Her face fell, and I knew it wasn’t a fair thing to say, to put that pressure on her, but I was desperate.

“You can’t be serious. We are banished. The price of unlawfully breaking into The Gilded City as a magicless is death.”

Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision, and then spilled over onto my cheeks. “If he dies, I’ll be dead inside anyway, so they might as well kill me,” I told her. “Now please move.”

She knew I couldn’t fight her physically. All she had to do was reach out and graze a small piece of exposed flesh and I’d be brought to my knees in agony.

She swallowed hard. “You’re stubborn.” But there was defeat in her voice. She was two years older than me, and I thought of her as somewhat of a big sister. She and her mother lived right next door and we’d grown up together. There was no one I trusted more to keep my father alive.

I nodded. “I know.”

She reached up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek. “And if I could hug you, I would. Dammit.”

“I know that too.” My voice caught. We couldn’t risk it—even hair from a person brushing against me triggered my curse.

She pulled herself out of the doorway with her head hung low. “May the Light protect you.”

May the Light help me break into the apothecary shop and get out unnoticed, I wanted to say.

I strode over to my father and reached out with my suede gloves, stroking his cheek. He stirred a little, his waxy, grey skin beaded with sweat. Now in his early forties, he had some slight greying of the dark hairs at his temple, but was one of the strongest men in our village. I wasn’t letting the Light take him with an infection from a stupid tree branch!

“Hang on, old man. I’m not letting you go that easily,” I told him, and then set out for the forbidden Gilded City.

I’d never been inside, I didn’t know where the apothecary shops were, and I had no coin or status to achieve my goal. The odds of my returning to Isa alive and with help for my father were slim, but I couldn’t sit there and watch the only man who’d ever loved me die.

I wouldn’t.

Consequences be damned.