All for a Rose (2 page)

“If you ever decide to come to one of our town’s social events, Maribel, perhaps your sister would let you wear one of her dresses.”

Madame Balestra was in rare form today. Maribel fought not to react as she brushed as much of the dirt from her skirts as she could. The blue material had faded from a brilliant sapphire to a muted robin’s egg, dragged even further from its former glory by the layer of dirt that spoke of the garment’s reassignment as gardening wear. It was hard to believe the gown had once been a beacon of class at society balls, a sign of Maribel’s family’s wealth and status. The condition it was in now, it was more believable that the dress had been sewn together from worn bedskirts and discarded scraps—old scraps, not even fit to be saved for rags. Still, neither Maribel nor her dress missed those days.

The same could not be said for her sister Corrine.

Maribel peered over the tomato plants, casting her gaze down the hill at her family’s small farmhouse. Corrine was trudging up the slope, her slender body so pale that she stood out like a ghost amidst the gleaming colors of the garden. Her silk and velvet gown rustled audibly even from this distance as she fought her way up the slight incline, the reflection of the sun off the fine silk nearly blinding Maribel.

“If I’m perfectly honest,” Madame Balestra mused, “I’ve never quite understood your sister’s dedication to fashion. Even if she doesn’t intend to work the field with you and your father, that sort of attire is hardly appropriate for wearing around the house, or in bed.”

“She doesn’t stay in bed all day.” Maribel offered the protest, but it was half-hearted. Corrine only made things more difficult for herself, stubbornly wearing her precious gowns even while traipsing around the outdoors. It would have been one thing if she were as indifferent about her wardrobe as Maribel was of hers, but Corrine valued every stitch of her clothing as one might treasure a child. It was one more way Corrine clung to the past, fighting tooth and nail against her family’s new and humble circumstances

“It’s a wonder she can breathe coming up the hill in that corset,” Madame Balestra observed.

Corrine arrived at the summit of the gentle hill with a gasp, one hand clutched to her chest. She heaved in breaths as deep as her gown would allow, her brown eyes locked on Maribel with a physical intensity, as if holding her in place until she could regain her breath.

“Maribel,” she gasped finally. “We need to go see Mother Briar.”

Instant irritation ate at Maribel’s nerves like an army of fire ants. “We saw her yesterday.” She gestured around the garden at the weeds that were trying to strangle her tomato plants. “I have to do something about these weeds or I won’t have enough— Are you going to faint?”

The spade fell from Maribel’s hand to land with its sharp side buried in the moist earth as she rushed to her sister’s side. Corrine swayed on her feet, the back of one trembling hand pressed to her forehead and her eyes fluttering. The sent of copper tickled Maribel’s nose and she noticed that Corrine was cradling her other hand against her stomach.

Madame Balestra sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, my.”

Maribel’s stomach rolled as she got a good look at Corrine’s hand. The flesh of her palm was red and raw, blackened ends curling in places to reveal skin wet with blood and other fluids. The mess leeched into Corrine’s gown as she clutched the injured limb to the trunk of her body. The fact that her sister gave no attention to her gown’s state of ruin frightened Maribel nearly as much as the wound itself.

“Corrine, what happened?” Maribel put one hand on Corrine’s shoulder to steady her as she peered at the wound. “Is that a burn?”

Corrine swallowed hard, her face growing even paler. “I had…another episode. I was trying to pick up the rug in front of the fireplace so I could drag it outside for dusting. By the time I came out of it, I was lying on the floor, and my hand was against the hearth.”

“You shouldn’t have come up the hill,” Maribel chastised her gently. “And you’re in no condition to go traipsing through the woods to visit Mother Briar. Come back to the house and I’ll tend your burn.”

Corrine jerked away from Maribel, nearly sending herself tumbling to the ground. She stumbled to get her feet under her, glaring at Maribel all the while. “No! I need to see Mother Briar.”

“Your sister is right, dear,” Madame Balestra spoke up. “You should get that tended to as soon as possible, here and now if you can. The trek to Mother Briar’s will only give it time to get worse.”

Corrine snapped her head to the side as if she hadn’t noticed Madame Balestra until now. “Wasn’t that your son I saw rampaging through my sister’s snow peas next to the house?”

Madame Balestra swiveled her head around like an owl who’d lost the mouse that was to be his dinner. “Pierre? Pierre!”

Maribel had to give the woman credit. Most parents would have showed some sign of embarrassment or muttered a bit of self-deprecating slander against themselves if their child had wandered over a hundred yards away without them noticing—to plunder a neighbor’s food-stores no less. Madame Balestra stalked off down the hill as if Maribel’s family had lured her poor child to their home with promises of candy and then forced him to sit in the garden and eat until he ruined his supper.

“I hate that woman.” Corrine kicked the abandoned garden spade, sending it to thunk against one of the tomato plants so the beady red fruit trembled and threatened to fall. “She was talking about me again, wasn’t she?”

A stab of guilt lanced Maribel’s stomach as she remembered her earlier thoughts, how she’d hoped Corrine appeared worse for wear so the nosy neighbor would be shamed.

“Corrine,” Maribel said over the sound of her own thoughts, “your hand is badly burned. It’ll be a miracle if it doesn’t get infected from rubbing against your gown. You need to let me treat it.”

The mention of her gown’s demise should have distracted Corrine, but her sister’s gaze zeroed in on Maribel with the same intensity as earlier.

“Mother Briar will treat it.”

Irritation took the edge off Maribel’s guilt like sandpaper over roughly hewn wood. She fought to keep her gaze on her sister’s face instead of staring around at the garden and all the work waiting to be done. “The sooner we take care of it, the sooner it can start healing.”

“Is it really such a burden to take me to Mother Briar’s? It’s not even a mile away, Maribel, surely that’s worth having someone who actually knows what she’s doing tend to me?”

Maribel’s lips parted, shock momentarily stealing her voice. She opened and closed her mouth as a hundred words fought for space on her tongue.

I work my tail off all day to support you.

I was defending you!

I’m sorry you’re hurt.

Why are you so mad at me when
I
should be the one who’s mad at
you
?

“Corrine…”

 Corrine’s brown eyes sparkled with unshed tears, reminiscent of the puddles that pooled in the garden after a hard rain. She hunched her shoulders over her injured limb. “It must be such an inconvenience for you to have a sick sister. So much time wasted trying to keep me alive in this cursed place.”

“That’s not fair. I have
never
complained about taking care of you!” The words flew from Maribel’s mouth, determined to be free regardless of how desperately she wanted to keep them in. She squared her shoulders, trying not to let her gaze wander to her sister’s wound lest it leech away some of the righteous indignation protecting her from her sister’s venom. She jabbed a finger at the book leaning against the tomato plant. “I have been studying all day—
and
doing my chores—all so I can help you. I want to help you get better, Corrine, and I’m doing my best.”

“If I hadn’t come up here and found you chatting with that horrid woman from across the fields, I might believe you.” Corrine’s face tightened, sparks in her eyes burning away her tears. “Did you agree with her when she went on about how lazy and worthless I am because I can’t do as much work as you do?”

“I never said that!”

“Not to me,” Corrine countered evenly.

The denial faltered on Maribel’s lips, her brain working furiously to comb through her memories of every conversation she’d had where she’d mentioned her sister. Yes, sometimes she thought Corrine could help more than she did, but she’d never said that out loud to anyone. She hadn’t—

Too late, Maribel realized her hesitation had betrayed her. Corrine’s gaze dropped to a tomato plant and she ripped one of its leaves off, crushing it in her fingers until the scent of ruined greenery filled the air between them.

“You could work more if you wanted to.” The words were sour on her tongue and they left an unpleasant taste in Maribel’s mouth, but it was too late to pretend now. As much as she pitied her sister and the illness that had plagued her since childhood, there were times she thought she and her father had coddled Corrine too much. Perhaps a little tough love was in order.

Corrine fell back as though Maribel had struck her. She must have tightened her hand into a fist or something, because she cried out, eyes squeezing shut and her face twisting in pain. What little blood she’d had left in her cheeks drained away and sweat broke out in a fine sheen on her forehead. The fingers of her burned hand curled into claws and she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. Maribel lunged in an instinctive move to support her, but Corrine bared her teeth at her and hunched over her hand like a wounded animal.

“I wish I could be more like you,” she choked out. “Out here digging in the dirt, snacking on the fruits of my labors and dreaming of all the wonderful things I’m going to cook for dinner.” She stepped back, the movement uneven as she fought not to fall over the churned earth. “But I can’t. I don’t know when my limbs will freeze, when my mind will go spinning off into…”

She pressed her lips together until pale white swallowed the pink. A glint of something hard flashed through her eyes and she dropped her gaze to her hand. “I don’t want to cut my flesh open on a gardening tool during a spell, or fall onto the stove because I thought it was a bed. I don’t want to put my hand into a boiling cauldron because in my mind it was a wash basin, or be caught talking to a cat as though it were a human being because I thought it had spoken to me first.” Her voice wavered and she raised her good hand to point at Maribel. The wind tousled her brown hair and for a moment she appeared wild, untamed. “If you think for one second that I wouldn’t trade places with you if I could, then you don’t know me at all.”

Maribel tried to push away the images Corrine’s words raised. Her sister wasn’t wrong, wasn’t lying or exaggerating. Her…episodes, had put her life in danger more than once. She couldn’t be around fire at all—apparently even fetching the rug from near the fireplace was too close. Maribel’s gaze was pulled unwillingly back to Corrine’s burned hand.

“I’m sorry, Corrine.” She ran a hand over her face and then shoved it back through her hair. “I know you would help if you could, really I do. I just get frustrated sometimes, and—”

Corrine stomped a few steps away, leaving deep footprints in the soft soil of Maribel’s garden. “Are you going to walk me to Mother Briar’s or not?”

Maribel’s gaze fell on the tomato plants around her, their ripe red flesh beckoning to her, their leaves reaching for her as if begging her to save them from the weeds trying to choke the life from their fruit. She had so much work to do…her share and Corrine’s.

She returned her gaze to Corrine, ready to offer one more protest. Corrine’s face had faded from the color of warm eggs to the sickly pallor of a discarded caul. The burned mess of her hand was starting to smell, scalded flesh, blood, and pus poisoning the fresh spring air between them. Maribel swallowed her objections.

“All right, let’s go.” A sharp ache in her spine reminded her of how much time she’d spent that morning bent over the plants she was now abandoning. “But I can’t stay long. I need to get back here and finish my chores.”

Corrine’s shoulders sagged. “Good. Good. Thank you.”

Maribel stayed close enough to Corrine that she’d be able to catch her sister if she fell, but not so close as to risk bumping into her injured limb. They trudged slowly down the rolling hill and crossed over the well-tended pasture to the edge of the woods. Trees towered over them like sentinels, filling the air with the sweet smell of new blossoms and the singing of baby birds. Despite her stress and the weight of the chores waiting for her, something inside Maribel loosened, eased as though a fist had been closed around her gut and was only now letting go. Nature was twirling around her with open arms, and despite everything, she couldn’t feel anything but blessed to be in the midst of it all.

“If only I could be more like you.”

Maribel stumbled and almost fell over a coil of wild vines. After a head-spinning moment of wind-milling her arms, she managed to keep her balance. Her sister’s gaze was fixed solidly ahead of her, her footsteps slow, but determined. Maribel’s heart softened and she put a sympathetic hand on Corrine’s shoulder.

“Corrine, you can’t help being sick. I’m sorry I—”

“I’m not talking about being sick.” Corrine halted abruptly, tearing herself free of Maribel’s offered comfort. Putting a little more distance between them, she resumed her pace, staring resolutely ahead.

Maribel gave her sister some space even as she tried to see past the mask Corrine had schooled her features into. She tried to remember the Corrine she’d known when they’d lived in the center of the kingdom, been in the midst of the bustling activity and the thriving social scene. A time when the lines around her sister’s eyes had been laugh lines, her tears few and far between. Corrine had always had episodes, always struggled now and then, but it was nothing like it was now out here on the outskirts where they had to work to survive. They’d been milder, manageable.

Maribel trailed a hand down the bark of a tree as she passed. Loose dirt coated the pads of her fingers and she rubbed them together. “Other than your illness, what difference is there to envy?” She offered a tentative smile. “It’s my recipes, isn’t it? You’re jealous of my buttermints.”