'Don't look, Lillian. Never look into the eyes of a Sin-Eater, you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'
Lillian Elmes remembers the warning her mother gave her about the town's Sin-Eater only too well.
How could she n...
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'Lillian dear, are you going to eat your grouse, or are you going to continue to push it around your plate in the hope that the act itself will wear it down until it is no more?'
Mama's voice has always been able to reach into any melancholy or fanciful daydream I might find myself in and pull me back out into reality. I look up from my plate, where the near-cold grouse sits in a rather thick mess of gravy.
'Sorry, Mama,' I say, offering a weak and unconvincing smile. 'I'm afraid I am really not very hungry.'
Mama places her cutlery aside her plate in the most delicate manner. Mama has perfected the art of delicacy in everything she does and often makes me feel like a wild boar crashing through the forest in comparison. She affords me a smile in return, but I see the concern in her eyes.
'You have not been hungry for two days now, dear. Am I to believe you are sickening for something? Should I ask Marie to call for Doctor Benedict?'
My eyes widen and I sit up straighter in my chair. 'No, no, Mama, that really is not necessary.'
Doctor Benedict has known and tended to our family for many years, but while he was a friend of Grand-Papa Elmes, he is an absolute buzzard who believes that women who sicken are merely proving their weakness to the world. I cannot bear to be in his company without wishing to wrap his stethoscope around his scrawny bird-like neck until he squawks.
William, who knows of my distaste of Doctor Benedict, smiles mischievously from his seat opposite me at the table. He has been looking particularly pleased with himself these past two days, which has only succeeded in deepening my troubles.
'Now that I think of it, Lily,' he says, innocently cutting at a piece of grouse on his plate and ceremoniously dunking it into the gravy, of which he appears to have a rather large serving on account of the fact Aggie the cook has a particular fondness for him. 'You do look rather peaky. In fact, some would say, positively grey of hue. Perhaps Marie should call on the good Doctor and have him prescribe you that rather delicious medicine you always say you love so much.'
I scowl at him and resist the urge to hurl a piece of gravy-laden grouse at his new silk vest, of which he has spent a ridiculous amount of time admiring in the mirror at every available opportunity.
'I am perfectly well, thank you very much, William and seek not the attention of Doctor Benedict nor anyone else for that matter. Perhaps you should concentrate more on your dinner than on me. I would so hate for you to ruin your vest, particularly when you have gone to so much trouble of admiring it in every single mirror that you pass.'
At the end of the table, Papa issues a snort and desperately tries to cover it with his napkin, doing a rather good job of pretending to wipe his mouth.
'Are you okay, dear?' Mama asks, knowing full well that he is. Not only has my mother perfected the art of delicacy, but also the art of raising a quizzical brow when she is already fully aware of the answer to her question.
