Weyward — Chapter 41: Violet

41

VIOLET

Five days. Violet worried that she would lose track of the times the sun dipped in the sky and rose again. Here, in the cottage, time followed different rules. There was no gong for dinner, no Miss Poole demanding she conjugate ten French verbs in as many minutes. She spent most of her days in the garden, listening to the birds and the insects, until the sun glowed red on the leaves of the plants.

She could almost imagine that she was already free.

Almost.

At night, she slept with Morg’s feather gripped tight in her hand, dreaming of her mother.

Her mother. Elizabeth Weyward. She who had given Violet her middle name. Her legacy. She whispered the name out loud, as if it were a spell. It made her feel strong, steeled her for what she had to do next.

On the fifth day, the wind roared and sucked at the cottage, bending the branches of the sycamore so that the leaves looked like they were dancing.

Violet strained the mixture in the kitchen. She used two empty tins to separate the golden liquid from the sodden petals with their smell of rot.

She waited until she was in bed to drink it. It was strong and acrid, stinging the back of her throat. Her eyes watered. She lay down and listened to the wind shake the walls of the cottage, waiting for the pain to come.

Gradually, she felt a pulling inside her. It started out like the cramps that came with her monthly curse, dull and pulsing, but soon grew stronger. It was as though there was something inside her, tugging and contorting her innards into strange shapes. Violet tried to find a rhythm to it, to breathe through it as though she were sailing a boat through a churning sea, but

there was none. The pain was overwhelming now. The window rattled, and Violet heard the crack of a branch hitting the roof. There was a rushing inside her, a breaking free, and then a great flood.

She marvelled that such a bright colour could come from her own body.

It was like magic, she thought. The blood was still coming: her legs were slick with it. She shut her eyes, reached the crest of the wave. Then she fell.

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