A Dark and Deadly Beauty

The Tree in the Shed

Electra had lied, just a little. The truth was she had finished the twin’s dolls early yesterday, but needed to finish the details of the formal tunic she was sewing for Colm. Her brother had spent so long in rags and bandages. Once healed, he had insisted on keeping his wardrobe minimal and basic. A few tunics and wool breeches, one pair of sturdy boots. But he was about to attend his first court festival, and Electra felt he deserved to be dressed in finery like every other noble that would be there.

So last night, while Colm cleaned the dishes and put the fire to bed, she hid away in her chamber to finish her secret project.

She had stood in a shallow tin basin, stark naked in the candlelight of her jewel-toned bedroom, and doused herself in tepid water from a pitcher. She lathered herself scalp to soles with soap, sluicing the cloudy bath water out of the basin as she poured another jug full of water over herself to rinse clean.

She dried herself with a linen sheet and rubbed sweetly scented almond oil over her brown, taut skin. Using a bone comb, she raked rosewater through her hair and left it down to dry, obsidian tendrils sticking to her damp skin.

Clad in a lightweight cotton nightshirt, she had climbed onto her bed and put Colm’s shirt in her lap, a spool of black thread and needle in her hand.

The fabric was a satin of the purest white, as bright as the snow the Realm would surely welcome in the coming weeks. With her needle, she created thick ebony feather stitches along the tunic’s cuff. It gave the impression of thorny vines creeping along the wrists and neck, sharp darkness against the brilliance of the white.

She wove the needle in and out, in and out, biting the petal-pink tip of her tongue while she worked. An hour later, the pattern was finished and the last thread was knotted.

She had unfurled from her bed and went in search of Colm, the promise of wine and other draughts fresh in her mind. What she found was her broad bodied brother, a few sips into a forlorn cup of malted mead, snoring on the settee.

She downed the mead and snuffed the candle. She had climbed into her bed last night and cocooned herself beneath the new fur pelt she had bought herself for the cold winter months. Drifting off to sleep,she realized that even though Colm had lived with her for years, this was the first Yule where she didn’t feel lonely.

They slept in late, a grey morning greeting them as they drank hot tea so sugary, it was almost syrup. Still in their night clothes, they hung evergreen branches over the hearth and breathed deeply of the bracing, earthy scent that the boughs gave off.

Before they sat for their lunch, Colm tried to discreetly slip away with a basket full of goods.

“Off to see Lady Jacinde, then?” Electra smirked.

“I was just…yes. I thought I might bring her some of the vegetables from the garden for her Yule table.” He closed the toggle of his cloak. An orange-red blush bloomed on his neck and the tops of his ears. Electra knew her brother well, and could tell he was getting his hackles up.

“For all she does for the folk of the realm,” he huffed, “I think she deserves at least to be given a small token of appreciation for her labors, such as it is.”

“You’ll hear no disagreement from me,brother. She is a good woman. Give her my regards. In fact, invite her and her father to join us in our carriage to the palace for the feast.”

With a curt nod of his head, he was out the door.

A half an hour later, he was back. A troubled look tinged his face.

“Was she in, Colm?” Electra casually asked,prying without seeming to pry.

“Aye. But…she didn’t seem well, Electra. She was still in her robe when she opened the door. She had a hazy look to her eyes. She claimed she was just tired, that she was going to rest today and she would perk up in time for the feast.”

“Well, there is no shame in taking a day to rest. I’m sure she is exhausted. She works harder than a rented mule. Did you offer her our carriage?”

“I did, she said that she and her father would greatly appreciate a ride. I told her to collect Lord Florian and we would arrive to get them from the Healing Guild at half ‘til.”

“Perfect. Now, I’m starving. Get that duck out of the oven and let’s eat!”

Lunch was nostalgic and pleasant. They talked about their childhood and mused about what their family at the brothel we’re doing while they licked their fingers clean. If their mam were here now, Electra thought, she would chide them for their poor table manners while trying to hide the smirk she always reserved for her feral children.

“Oh! I’ve got you a gift. Sit tight, brother.”

She had wrapped it in linen and twine. The look in Colm’s eyes when he unwould the binding and took in the lush fabric in his hands could have melted even the snow-peaked mountains of the north.

“Electra! Tell me you didn’t toil so long over this just for me. It’s a thing of beauty.”

“It’s for you to wear tonight, and to other formal events you will be invited to as my brother. I’m a Lady after all. Can’t have you showing up covered in dirty hemp pants with a trowel in your pocket!” She teased, but knew that her brother was touched. Not by the smooth fabric or the cut of the frock, but if the tedious labor she poured into every living stitch.

“I’ve got something for you,too.”

He grabbed a small leather pouch from the mantle and placed it in her lap.

She was puzzled. Colm had no job aside from selling some produce, so she would be livid if he spent the little money he earned from his garden on a gift. When she opened the pouch, heavy and fat in her palm, she gasped.

“Pistachios! How on the bastard earth did you get these?”

“I know they are your favorite,” he smiled down across the table at her.

Electra vividly recalled the first, and only, time she had tasted the salty slight sweetness of pistachios. Her mother had a client, Skynner, a merchant mariner who made his fortune by bringing goods to the realm from the desert lands across the Glass Sea. He came only once a year, spending a week in Sera’s company while he unloaded merchandise to the folk of their little town.

He was wealthy in a way Electra would never know. He was one of the few who dared brave the Glass Sea, with it’s horde of kelpies and tentacled leviathans who gleefully pulled ships full of men to their deaths.

Then, he would land across the sea in scorching deserts of Bhardarthia and make deals with the sorcerers and their armies of clay-bodied golems,or with the packs of hyena shape-shifters that turned into cackling furred beasts beneath the light of the moon, or the mysterious djinn whose words are designed to trick and ensnare.

Skynner had traded with them and more, bringing exotic riches to the shores of the Dark Realm.

Once, when Electra was just a girl of ten, Skynner had arrived at the brothel with a pocket of coin and a satchel of goods for Sera. There had been olives soaked in brine, dried dates, pods of spicy cardamom…. and a five pound bag of roasted, salt-coated pistachios in their cream colored shells.

That very night, Sera gathered all of the women to the parlor and shared the green little nuggets. Electra sat at Auntie Tati’s feet beside the fire while everyone took a handful of pistachios. Together, they cracked open the shells with their work-worn fingers and lapped the nut meat out with their tongues. Little Electra imagined “This must be what it’s like to eat gemstones of jade.”

“Colm! This must have cost a King’s ransom. Why did you buy these?” She was ready to bear her teeth and berate his foolishness.

He simply held up his hand and motioned for her to follow him outside.

They stomped to the back of the house where Colm kept his garden.The little bark shed, roofed with cloth, that stored his tools stood proudly at the back of The modest allotment at the back of their cottage.

With a flourish, he opened the shed’s creaking door.

Inside the dry, warm air of the temperate shed, a green leafed pistachio tree sat firmly rooted into the soil, it’s pink-shelled drupes blushing bright against the green.

She stood there. Motionless. Speechless. Blank.

“I did not buy you pistachios, but I did get you a tree.”

The tale of how Colm got his hands on a pistachio sapling was almost as fantastical as the children’s tales their mother told them at bedtime. It had belonged to a man of means living on the outskirts of town, whose three young children had been patients of the Sanctuary, cursed with a wasting sickness so cruel it was unconscionable. The tree sat stunned and fruitless in soil too cold and shallow.

Through Emilia, the children were cured and sent home. Colm, as a volunteer carer for cursed and recovering folk, regularly visited the children and brought them medicine for their nausea and growing pains. Slowly but surely, the children’s faces grew rounder and their limbs grew longer. On his final visit to this family's estate, on a arid late summer morning, Colm could hold his tongue no longer about the state of the pitiful tree.

“Sir,” Colm had ventured respectfully, “that pistachio tree of yours isn’t thriving.”

“I don’t know what to do with the damned thing,”the man had admitted. “My father-in-law is an arborist, sent that to us as a gift when our youngest was born. I had it planted, but I haven’t got a talent for growing things. I’m an alchemist, damn it!”

“Well, sir. I can give you a few tips on helping it along. I’m an earth elemental, and I do have a talent for growing things.”

“Do you, now? Take it.”

Colm had nearly swallowed his tongue. A tree as exotic as this would surely cost more than he made in an entire year as a farmer.

“I couldn’t possibly! As valuable as-”

“What value does it have dying in my garden? Young man, you have helped my children grow fat and hearty. My wife is smiling again. Take the bloody tree. The value of that thing is nothing against what you have given me.”

So the tree was delivered in secret to the cottage, where Colm stealthily built a place for it to grow. It had dry, warm air and deep, loamy soil. The cloth roof opened to allow sun and keep out the cold at night. He had babied it and nursed it and spilled the gift of his abilities into it.

Now, it was Electra’s.

And she hadn’t stopped grinning since.

She was dressing for the feast, and she felt effervescent.

Rose scented powder was dusted over her throat and shoulders, giving her skin a shimmer. She oiled her thick, black hair and combed it into a sleek tail, sliding the agate-topped pin of her copper hair cuff in place with an effortless push. She loved this hair cuff because the pin that held her mane in place was hollow, a sheath for a deceitful stiletto dagger. A lethal weapon, prettily hidden in plain sight. Despite its diminutive size, Electra could kill a man with it as easily as she made her bed.

She painted thick, swirling liner along the lashes of her dark brown eyes and dabbed plum-colored lip stain on the taupe swell of her lips. Her small, hooked nose suited the sharp cheeks and pointed chin that gave her the ferocious look she had become known for. A beauty, though dark and deadly.

Colm’s knock on the door signaled the carriage had arrived. Electra quickly stepped into her skirt and shimmied it over her hips. It was strawberry red satin with just a kiss of violet, it hugged her body like a lover, slitted up each leg to the thigh, covering just enough to be decent but leaving her tiger-striped legs free to jump and dance. The belt of the skirt was a thick band of violet brocade that she buttoned before slipping her arms through the long, tight sleeves of her form-fitting bodice. Purple velvet encompassed her as she hastily tied the black corset lacing that closed the front of her shirt. Though it was winter, she had cropped the bodice so it only covered her from clavicle to ribs. The swash of taut bronze stomach this exposed made her feel bolder, more daring.

So often Electra wore leather armor or training clothes. Tonight, she would sparkle.

She grabbed the rag dolls and sped to the door. Colm waited, impatiently tapping his foot. He looked dashing and Electra felt a squeeze of gratitude in her chest that he could finally join her.

They hopped into the carriage, the horses pawing anxiously. They were ready.

The moon peeled out from behind the clouds as they rode into the darkness to fetch Jacinde and her father.

This night, Electra thought with a sigh, would be one to remember.