A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 1)

Dash was the youngest, a boy of eleven who moved more than he listened…except when he was listening to me mutter to myself, it seemed. I hadn’t realized he’d overheard me.

“I’m good with plants and gardening, but I’m not a stem witch, Hannon. It’s a hobby, not magic. It might not get ball-chillingly cold here, but it’s cold enough to stunt plant growth. I just need a little sun. I keep asking the goddess, but she clearly does not give a crap about us. Divine, my arse. Maybe we should go back to the old ways of our ancestors. They worshipped a bunch of gods sitting on a mountain or whatever. Maybe one of them would listen.”

“You read too much.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“You daydream too much, then.”

I shrugged. “That is probably true.”

My medicinal station waited in the corner, herbs and a mortar and pestle set on a wooden tray. The two measly leaves in the ceramic bowl had already been dried in the dying light of the evening sun.

Very poetic, this particular healing recipe. Bone-chillingly poetic. It had taken a lot of reading and trial and error to figure out what worked best, and I wasn’t finished. I was sure the demon king was laughing at me somewhere. At all of us. He was the bastard who’d taken the king’s gold and worked up the bullshit curse that currently plagued our land, after all. His minions had been stationed in the kingdom to watch us struggle. Too bad they weren’t rotting beneath the ground with the late king. They deserved to be, dickfaced rat fuckers.

“What was that?” Hannon asked, his temperament far sweeter than mine, though that wasn’t much of an accomplishment. I’d set the bar pretty low.

“Nothing,” I murmured. It wasn’t ladylike to swear, or so the people of our antiquated village always reminded me. It was equally unladylike to flip them off after they scowled at me. Very uptight, this village, and without two coppers to rub together, the lot of us.

My father convulsed, spasming with each wet cough.

Hands shaking, fighting to remain calm, I crushed the leaves with the pestle. A pungent aroma, like ripe cheese mixed with garlic, blasted my senses. They might be small leaves, but they were full of healing magic.

My father lunged toward the side of the bed.

Hannon was there in a moment, sitting beside him and bringing up the bucket from the floor. He helped Father lean over the lip and retch. There’d be blood in that throw-up, I well knew.

“Focus,” I told myself softly, shaking two drops of rainwater off my fingertip and onto the crushed leaves. I’d collected those in the dead of night. That seemed to work best.

That done, I sprinkled in the other herbs, which were much easier to come by—a sprig of rosemary, one leaf of dill, a splash of cinnamon. And, finally, the ingredient that was almost as important as the everlass—the full, healthy petal of one red rose.

It had to be red, too. The others didn’t work nearly so well. I had no idea what red roses had to do with this curse or the demons, but the effects of that ingredient increased the potency of the elixir tenfold. It made me think there were one or two more ingredients out there that I hadn’t tried yet that would act as a cure. A long-term cure where we didn’t need more and more draught just to see the same effects. Something that would null the sickness altogether. If it was out there, I’d find it. Hopefully in time to save Father.

Father’s groan spurred me on. A rattled breath struggled through his tightened throat. At least he had a strong heart. A heart attack had taken Mother a year ago. Her body had been under too much pressure, and her heart gave up the fight. I hadn’t been as good at the nulling elixir then. Father had more time.

He has to have more time.

“Honestly, Dash is right. We need more supplies,” I said, working the pestle. “Our plants aren’t enough.”

“I thought you said yesterday that no one else had any left either?”

“Not that they are willing to spare, no.”

Everyone had ailing parents and maybe one or two ailing grandparents, if they were lucky. Our resources were tapped.

“Well then, where are you…” He let the words drift away. “No.”

“I don’t have much choice, Hannon. Besides, I’ve been in and out of that field a bunch of times over the last few years with no problems. At night, even. The beast probably doesn’t patrol the Forbidden Wood anymore.”

My hands started to shake, and I stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. Lying to Hannon was one thing—he was a trusting soul and wanted to believe me—but I wasn’t foolish enough to believe my own lies. Just because I hadn’t seen the beast in any visits since the first, that did not mean he’d given up hunting trespassers. Our village was at the edge of the kingdom, and I was sneaky. I took great pains to ensure I wasn’t seen. I heard the roars, though. He was out there, waiting. Watching. The ultimate predator.