Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
23
BELLADONNA
The days slip by, one after the other, there and gone in a pleasant bliss that feels as though a spell is wrapped around me. It’s not. I’ve learned the sensation of Rusalka’s magic and how it differs from the others in their Insomnior Court. I’ve chosen not to ask to attend any of the parties since the first, but I sometimes hear the festivities late in the night when I’m sprawled next to Rusalka, letting their breathing soothe something in me that I didn’t know was broken.
I spend my days in the garden. Bogdan is only a little grumpy; I don’t know what Azazel was going on about. He’s practically an angel as far as I’m concerned, with endless patience, even on days when children start to filter into the garden, all barely constrained curiosity about me and enthusiasm for digging in the dirt.
When he gets gruff—and he never gets gruff with the kids—he never raises his voice or makes remarks about my value as a human being or tells me that I’m disappointing him. It’s as healing as my nights with Rusalka to have someone correct me without hurting me in the process.
And time with the children . . . They’re their own kind of healing. They are all so different, from Brin, with her love of pretty dresses ansd flowers in her hair, to Mac, who thinks every problem can be solved with his fire powers, to quiet Sari, who is content to kneel at my side and mimic my movements, their orange eyes wide and excited to be allowed to help with “adult things” like weeding.
There’s no fear in them. No shame. They are growing up free and loved by every adult around them, cherished and protected. I didn’t know it could be like this. When my mind wanders while my fingers are in the dirt, I catch myself wondering what my child might be like raised in a community this willing to hold them with love and care.
The thought of having children to feed into the church, to raise its numbers, to prepare for a holy war that might never come . . . it filled me with a dread I don’t know how to quantify.
But having a child here? That’s a completely different feeling. That’s a future that fills my chest with such hope, it could make me weep. There is cruelty, even in this realm, but at least any child of mine would be protected until they were old enough to face that cruelty without being broken by it.
Until they were old enough to step into a leadership position to further protect the children that will come after them.
Even with those thoughts—those possibilities—circling closer every day, I put off having the conversation with Rusalka about a baby, and then I put it off again. It’s not that I’m not becoming more and more enamored with the idea of having a child here, or that I don’t want to help the people who have welcomed me into their community without hesitation. I want both. It’s just . . . this life is nice.
I’m not quite ready for it to end, to change.
That thought continues to take up residence in my mind in the couple of weeks after our awkward dinner with Azazel. I try to root it out as I weed the section of the gardens Bogdan has assigned me for the day, but it’s not as eager to submit as the little shoots of purple grass in moist soil are. The children are off on a chaperoned hike today—a lovely way to burn off some of their endless energy—and their absence is giving me too much time to think.
More thoughts circle and circle, taking bites out of me with each pass. I try to ignore them, but it’s not like ignoring the horrible things my parents and Pastor John used to say to me under the guise of looking out for my immortal soul. Those voices still plague me, but they’re getting fainter every day. But these words? They’re mine. An admission of selfishness that I can’t quite escape.
There’s no reason to wait. A baby will secure this territory and its people. Yes, it means my purpose will have been served. But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?
Though maybe Rusalka won’t be as interested in me if she’s not worried about the future of her people. Maybe the townsfolk won’t be as kind once I’ve given them what they want. Maybe they’ll start acting more familiar, wielding cutting words and judgment. Maybe they’ll start keeping their children from the gardens, not wanting them around me.
Or maybe that’s my fear talking.
Maybe . . .
I take a breath and press my hands to the soil. I can’t actually feel the steady beat of the earth the way Bogdan says he can, but he also says my impatience is the reason, not the fact that I’m human and flawed. So I wait, and wait, and wait some more. I don’t know if I feel the earth’s heart beating, but I manage to breathe deeply enough that my spiraling thoughts slow to a crawl.