Chapter 8 Blood Mark
Daisy woke to the sound of her mother drowning.
The room was dark, save for the guttering wick stub jammed in a broken saucer, casting a sickly orange halo over the dirt-packed floor. Daisy lay on her back, pulse loud in her ears, cataloguing the shapes of her siblings sprawled like felled trees across the other mattress. Four limbs, then three, then the tangle of pale feet at the edge, none stirring at the gasping coughs that sawed through the room. She listened, counting the seconds between spasms. The more time between them, the closer to sunrise. She closed her eyes and let the numbers become a lullaby. Then she got up.
Her boots went on first, then the patched trousers, the second-hand wool shirt (too big, cuffs gnawed by moths), and last, her satchel, the only thing she’d ever owned from new, though now the leather was so dry it could crack with a frown. She emptied it onto the mattress: three wire traps, the small baton wrapped in cloth to hide the bloodstains, the old flint and steel, and a black-handled knife sharp enough to peel a peach or open a throat. She repacked only what mattered for the day. The rest, she left for the family.
She wiped her nose on her sleeve, then squatted by her mother’s cot.
Maribel Smithson looked like a bundle of sticks lashed with dirty sheets. Her face was sunken, her lips split from fever. Still beautiful, Daisy thought, in the way a ruin could be beautiful, every line a story, every hollow a proof of survival. She brushed a strand of greasy hair from Maribel’s cheek and pressed the back of her hand to her mother’s brow. Hot, then cold, then nothing. Daisy waited for the next breath; when it came, thin as tissue, she let herself exhale.
A cough racked Maribel, folding her in two. Daisy steadied her, tucking the stained blanket tighter around her bird-bone shoulders. The cough subsided into a wet wheeze.
“Leaving already?” Maribel’s voice was barely more than a hiss.
Daisy looked at the floor. “Just for the morning. I’ll be back before you miss me.”
Maribel gripped Daisy’s wrist, the bones sharp as wire. “Liar.”
It was the closest to a blessing Maribel had offered in months. Daisy smiled, a tight line, then kissed her mother’s forehead, fever sweat, sour and sweet, like overripe fruit. She pressed a scrap of muslin, the one that had always held Maribel’s scent, into her satchel. Daisy squeezed the frail hand and stood.
“Watch your back, Pesty,” Maribel croaked, using the name Daisy had pretended to hate.
“Always,” Daisy whispered. She touched her own wrist, feeling the raised spiral under the skin, then turned to the door.
Delia Moss blocked the way. She wore her hair braided back, a habit from days spent tending other people’s wounds, and her eyes were ringed with the bruised purple of sleeplessness. She held a small loaf of bread in one hand and a chipped mug of tea in the other.
“Thought you’d make a run for it,” Delia said. The words were soft, but her jaw worked like she was chewing glass.
Daisy shrugged. “Wouldn’t get far without breakfast.”
Delia tried to smile, then set the tea on the table. She glanced at Maribel, at the children still bundled on the mattress, and then back to Daisy. “You’re not going after the blue extract, are you?”
“Not stupid enough to rob a noble,” Daisy lied. She tore the bread in half and offered some to Delia. Delia shook her head.
“I know that look,” Delia said. “Same one my mother wore when the famine hit. That look means someone’s not coming back.”
Daisy chewed in silence. The bread was dense, gritty with bran, but she made herself swallow.
“I’ll be back,” Daisy said, voice flat. “Just need to check the market, see if—”
Delia’s hand was on her arm, fingers digging in. “Don’t. Please don’t lie to me, Daisy. I know you better than that.”
Daisy pulled free. “You think this is a choice? She’s dying, Delia. The medicine’s gone up again. Even the gutter apothecaries charge more than we make in a month.”
Delia’s face twisted. “Then take me with you. If you’re going to do something reckless, at least let me help.”
Daisy shook her head. “Who’ll watch them?” She jerked her chin toward the cot, where her siblings shifted in sleep. “They need you here. She needs you.”
Delia blinked. “And I don’t need you?”
The silence was a punch. Daisy looked at the door, at the fading night behind it, at the chance to run before she changed her mind.
She dug into her boot, pulled out the coin pouch, and pressed it into Delia’s hand. “Buy what you can. If I’m not back by sundown, sell the stove, then the bedding, then the shoes off their feet. Make it last.”
Delia clutched the pouch as if it were a newborn. “You can’t…”
“I can,” Daisy said. “And I will.”
She tried to step past, but Delia caught her by the shoulder. “Wait.”
Delia fished in her apron, pulled out a bundle the size of a thumb. She unwrapped it: a small scrap of linen, stitched with crude runes in faded blue thread. Daisy recognized the symbol, a crude copy of the spiral from her own wrist.
“It’s not much,” Delia said, shoving it into Daisy’s palm. “But it might keep the worst luck away.”
Daisy tried to give it back. “You’re not even sure it works.”
Delia snorted. “Like anything else in this dump works. Just take it, will you?”
Daisy pocketed the charm, feeling the scratch of thread against her skin. “Thanks.”
Delia caught her gaze, eyes raw. “Come back, Daisy.”
Daisy nodded, but in her chest, she felt nothing but the cold certainty of what had to be done.
She slipped through the door, boots silent on the splintered wood, and into the new day.