The Fates' Design
Chapter 1
People no longer believe in the ancient myths and legends. They disregard the gods of old as coping mechanisms, as creative outlets, as explanations for a pre-scientific era; myths are to entertain and to teach, not reflect reality. But the gods are still present, though unable to interact with us as tangibly as before due to the lack of faith. They still ordain the universe and its minutest details in accordance with the Fates, always hoping to return to the earth to delight in their creation and live amongst their beloved mortals, for however brief a time.
One girl dared to believe in the sun. This is their story.
Her favorite place had always been the woods, the shadows lingering off the sun-tipped branches, hovering over a mumbling stream. She ran into them and through them in the early morning, ready to spend the day studying the lush flora, comparing each specimen to the drawings in her book. The first entries came from her great-grandmother, and then the next were her grandmother's, and so it had passed down the line of first-born daughters. Each wrote in a different ink, revising previous notes and adding new information when possible. The women detailed which herbs were safe to eat, which flowers fatally tricked its recipient, all that they could discover about the plants around them.
Brigitte's nimble fingers thumbed through the pages until she found the drawing of the rampion, its delicate petals pressed in alongside her grandmother's matching violet scrawl: Rampion, a bellflower variant. Edible root. Blooms from May through September, prefers dry meadows and forests. Also known as "rapanculus" due to its root looking like a "little turnip" (Lat.).
Beside it was her mother's strawberry jotting. This is one of my favorite flowers. Not too showy, and delicious, too. Brigitte pulled out her quill and her jar of elderberry ink, a deep maroon.Mine, too, Mama. They thrive in our secret place. An unsummoned tear barely missed the wet ink, falling upon the dried petals. The young girl left her note to dry as she ambled through the oak thicket, fingers stroking the flowers and stems along her path.
She walked on and began to hum her father's wordless tune, one her mother had sung to her as a baby. He couldn't remember the words, nor could he have read them if there were any; yet still he heard his wife's lilting melody drifting through the candlelight and up to the heavens.
Now it was their secret song, to keep them company in her mother's absence. He sang it to her as he shook the dirt from her bouncing black curls; she sang it to him when his hazel eyes refused to see a world without his wife; and they sang it to each other, in the meadow of her burial, as they laid down fresh rampion tributes every year.
Brigitte had come upon a swollen stream, and she knelt in the muddy ground to cool her face. She thought to take a sip, but she could never be too careful. Instead she sprawled upon the softened earth and ate a few blueberries from within her satchel. They popped against her teeth and gently stained them, washing away with a swipe of her tongue. As her feet dangled behind her, her stomach pressed against the ground, she saw it, the poisonous traitor, growing on the stream's banks.
Her mother had believed it to be parsnip, an easy mistake due to the shared white tuberous roots and of course the odor. But hadn't her mother noticed the sickly amber liquid dripping? Parsnips burnt uncovered skin but they never had yellow dripping. Her mother hadn't known as she stopped alongside the stream and ate the deceptive root, the sun flitting in and out of the breezy shadows in a frenzy. Not an hour later, the error seized her mother's body, the life trembling through her fingertips as she struggled to make it back to the stream to wash out the toxins. Her legs failed to support her as she resorted to crawling, pursuing the insistent sunlight as it led her along, yet weakening in its strength. Her senses were overcome and she lay on her back in the moist earth, staring up from her meadow and beyond the forest into the clouds. Needles pricked her forearms and her shins, and her dry mouth yearned for rain, for anything. Clasping the roots of her favored rampion, she shuddered and slowly felt the earth swell and then –
Brigitte stamped out the murderous plant, lashing out useless insults. She flattened it with her feet, she tore it out of the ground and stripped the plant of its leaves and skin before finally shredding it. The remains dropping from her hands, Brigitte stumbled over to a nearby tree, pausing to recollect herself in the sheltered sunlight. Sobs and sighs shook themselves from her lips and her nails dug into the bark of the tree. It had only been three years, and already her mother seemed more like a figment than a once-tangible creature, someone she could touch and hold and cling. She was losing her more and more every day. Eventually she'd forget her glinting green eyes, the crinkles in her dimples as she laughed, her graceful waltz while she cooked dinner. All that would remain would be Brigitte herself and the book.
The book! She'd almost forgotten it in her sadness. Wiping the last few tears from her mottled cheeks, Brigitte found her way back to the book, finding her inscription dry beside her mother's. She felt the stiff leaves of the rampion before slowly shutting the book. The sun seemed to grow brighter, eliciting the slightest upturn of her mouth. It was as if it was trying to cheer her up by increasing its heat and magnificence. It almost worked. Almost.
Glancing at the sky, she decided it was time to head home and make supper for her and her father.