The Owl Killers

osmanna

tHEY’RE IN FRONT OF ME, blocking my way. I turn, but they’re behind me, all around me, a noose of white faces. Torches clenched in their fists. Flames scorching my face. Choking in the smoke, I shrink, terrified that the flames will catch my hair. My sisters, Edith and Anne, are here among the zodiac. Their sallow moon-faces swim in at me. Their lips curl back, laughing. Bridget the dairymaid, the cook, the chambermaid, the wet nurse who is dead, the crone who begs without a tongue-they’re all here.

Edith sweeps the brand across my face. I flinch back, but more torches wait behind me.

“Come now, Agatha, you’re not afraid of a little fire, are you? Saint Agatha will surely protect you from the flames. Were you not named for her? Named for her in every particular.”

They spin around me, laughing. The necklace of eyes glitters in the torchlight.

“Let me go. Please let me go.”

“Why, little Agatha? You’re not ashamed of having so fine a name, are you? Are you ashamed, Agatha?” They laugh louder, raucous as the rooks in the elm trees. “There’s no need to hide it. We all know why you were named Agatha. Everyone knows. Can’t you see them pointing at you as you pass? Everywhere you go they whisper it, because they all know, Agatha. They all know.

“You’ll die an old maid, Agatha. There isn’t enough gold in the kingdom for your dowry.”

They screech with laughter. Edith snatches at the front of my dress. “Show us, go on, show everyone why they call you Agatha.”

They all grab at me, trying to rip away my robe. “Show us, Agatha. Show your name.”

I WOKE WITH A CRY and found myself fighting to get free from the tangle of blankets. It was a stiflingly hot night; my face was running with perspiration and my body was soaking. For a moment I lay there until my breathing grew calm again.

As I turned over, I was conscious of a wetness between my thighs and with it a great surge of relief so strong that I almost cried out again. It had finally happened. I had been worrying for nothing. It was going to be all right.

I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could and tiptoed to the door. It creaked as I pulled it open, and Catherine made a little mewling sound in her sleep, but she didn’t wake.

The courtyard was flooded with moonlight; a silver sheen glistened on the reed-thatched roofs of the beguinage, but no light shone from any of the shutters on the rooms. No one was awake. I started as a ghost-white shape glided silently over my head, but it was only the barn owl that lived in the threshing barn.

I hurried across to the latrines. The lantern burned there all night, for any who might need it. I crouched against the rough wall and touched my fingers between my legs and held them up to the yellow flame. Nothing stained my fingertips but a faint sheen of perspiration. There had to be, there must be. I tried again and again, but there was no blood. Three moons had gone and still no blood.

Was it growing inside me? I stood up and slowly inched my fingers across my belly. It didn’t feel swollen, but when did a woman’s belly start to swell with child? I pressed my fists into my belly as hard as I could. If it was in there I had to crush it. I had to kill it. I couldn’t have that demon’s spawn inside me. It couldn’t be happening to me.

I turned and faced the wall, pressing myself against it with my full weight, using it to crush my fists into my belly so hard I almost cried out. My blood would come, I would make it. The blood would wash that thing out of me.

I mustn’t think about it. If I didn’t think about it, it couldn’t grow. I wouldn’t let it live inside me. I wouldn’t let it live.