Scarcely three days after her twelfth birthday she had woken to find a crimson stain upon her sheets—a red, red flower spreading and unfolding—and very briefly she wondered if she might have been dying.
Her mother had not spoken to her of such things—but she had read them in books—scientific books—forbidden dusty musty old books that Granny Tess had stored each upon the other in great forsaken piles, about the power and blood mysteries—and what it meant to become a—
“Woman. You’re a woman now.” Griffin said, as he helped her from her scarlet-spattered nightdress and into a fresh one.
She had remained silent a moment, staring back at him with his own eyes, only darker. “Is that what it means to be a woman, then? To bleed?”
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Of course, Griffin had died that very day.
It was spring, and flowers had thrust themselves up from the ground—speckling the countryside—washing it with watercoloured hues and fragrant bloom.
It was unnatural that he would have died then.
But, as she had learned at an early age—things are often not natural. Or explicable.
Catch-me-if-you can had led to a tussel in the leaves, and she had laughed, even though her sides and back ached from that morning’s initiation into the Mysteries of Womanhood and Blood.
She laughed, gazing up at him from a pile of summer-leaves—her pitch dark hair fanning out around her like a pool of ink—her eyes two saturnine jewels set in a pale oval of a face, and at the turn of her head—the flash of a birthmark next to her right eye.
It was nearly heart shaped---no---it was heart shaped, and perched there today just as it had any other day—and every other day.
Only today she would dwell on it---in its curious imperfection---as she lay in the leaves and gazed up at her brother—him seventeen and graceful as a cat.
“At the fort, tonight? After supper?” she queried, lazily trailing her hands through the grassy bed.
“Of course, madam. I must make haste.” A wink and a smile.
“Archaic!” she called out after him. “You’re a relic Grif!”
He never returned.
Her mother had given birth just three months earlier to a baby girl—Tess—the infant was called---and Susan had ruminated on the fact that not only had they named the child carelessly—but it was practically a flying in the jaws of fate to name the girl after a living relative of flesh and bone and heart and blood---and if she were superstitious at all she might have thought it had almost begged for Granny Tess’ death—but the old woman lived on, even though, in her odd manner—which grew even stranger with Griffin gone missing—she sang without warning. But softly.
The townsfolk were conciliatory, and even saddened at such a turn of events, but Susan would have none of it.
Her brother, you see—had been the victim of rumour. It was his manner—his walk and graceful gesture—his flashing smile and clear-eyed faintly feminine gaze that had prompted many a maid to turn his way—
--even the fair-haired, bright daughter of Baltus Van Tassel.
But she was Brom’s girl—even then—and though she’d meant him no harm there was harm in stolen glances.
And Brom was not the only one to take offense.
Quite obviously.
The rumours had started as a vicious, childish joke---that Griffin Hawke was not just effeminate in his gaze—but in his affections---more crudely, that he was a lover of boys.
And Griffin had been struck hard by such accusations, though he’d done his best to put on a brave face.
They were, in fact, unmistakably true—though the accusers couldn’t have known. Not really.
It was Griffin’s silent secret---and though he’d never spoken to his sister---somehow Susan had guessed---
---keepers of secrets have a way of recognizing such traits in one another.
But if Griffin had ever suspected of her secrets—of where she—in the middle of the night—and oftentimes in the day—had stolen off to with her books and her basket—he’d never made mention of it.
She would have two graves to tend, now.
Or would have—had his body been found.
Some of his clothing—soiled and bloodied in a manner that spoke of death—and a rope hanging from a twisted tree where he’d been lynched by an unknown number of village boys.
And a few others, perhaps.
Susan had scanned their faces, that sad, sunny day in the spring when nothing more than a few scraps of clothing had been buried in the earth—in the churchyard.
Katrina Van Tassel had caught her eye from across the crowd and offered a small, sympathetic sorrowful smile.
It was a black period from which Susan never truly recovered.
**How ridiculous---to bury his clothing as if it were a corpse—I’ll not attend this grave.**
And she didn’t.
For a year every headstone and marker in the churchyard was graced with flowers from Susan’s basket—save that one.
But dead he was. That she knew.
From the day he went missing she could hear him—plain as day inside her head.
Oh, he was dead alright.
**And not buried. I’m not buried, Sannen…not with my head at least…it’s not quite time for tea…but I don’t know where I am. Be careful, Sannen…my neck stretched and hurt and strained and I couldn’t breathe but it didn’t snap right away. A quick death is always better.**