beneath the broken canopy.
My name is Adeline LaRue, she tells herself. My father taught me how to be a dreamer, and my mother taught me how to be a wife, and Estele taught me how to speak to gods.
Her thoughts drag on Estele, who used to stand out in the rain, palms open as if to catch the storm. Estele, who never cared as much for the company of others as for her own.
Who probably would have been content to be alone in the world.
She tries to imagine what the old woman would say, if she could see her now, but every time she tries to summon those keen eyes, that knowing mouth, she sees only the way Estele looked at her in those last moments, the way her face furrowed, and then cleared, a lifetime of knowing brushed away like a tear.
No, she should not think of Estele.
Adeline wraps her arms around her knees, and tries to sleep, and when she wakes again, sunlight is pouring through the trees. A finch stands on the mossy ground nearby, pecking at the hem of her dress. She brushes it away, checking her pocket for the little wooden bird as she stands, sways, dizzy with hunger, realizes she has not had more than fruit in a day and a half.
My name is Adeline LaRue, she tells herself as she makes her way back to the road. It is becoming a mantra, something to pass the time, measure her steps, and she repeats it, over and over.
She rounds a bend, and stops, blinking fiercely, as if the sun is in her eyes. It’s not, and yet the world ahead has been plunged into a sudden, vivid yellow, the green fields devoured by a blanket the color of egg yolk.
She looks back over her shoulder, but the way behind her is still green and brown, the ordinary shades of summer. The field ahead is mustard seed, though she doesn’t know it then. Then, it is simply beautiful, in an overpowering way. Addie stares, and for a moment she forgets her hunger, her aching feet, her sudden loss, and marvels at the shocking brightness, the all-consuming color.
She wades through the field, flower buds brushing her palms, unafraid to crush the plants underfoot—they have already straightened in her wake, steps erased. By the time she reaches the far edge of the field, and the path, and the steady green, it looks dull, her eyes searching for another source of wonder.
Shortly after, a larger town comes into sight, and she is about to weave around it when she catches a scent on the air that makes her stomach ache.
Butter, yeast, the sweet and hearty smell of bread.
She looks like a dress that fell from the line, wrinkled and dirty, her hair a tangled nest, but she is too hungry to care. She follows the scent between the houses, and up a narrow lane toward the village square. Voices rise with the smell of baking, and when she rounds the corner she sees a handful of women sitting around a communal oven. They perch on the stone bench around it, laughing and chatting like birds on a branch as the loaves rise within the oven’s open mouth. The sight of them is jarring, ordinary in an aching way, and Adeline lingers in the shaded lane a moment, listening to the trill and chirp of their voices, before the hunger forces her forward.
She doesn’t have to search her pockets to know she has no coins. Perhaps she could barter for the bread, but all she has is the bird, and when she finds it in the folds of her skirt, her fingers refuse to loosen on the wood. She could beg, but her mother’s face comes to mind, eyes tight with scorn.
That leaves only theft—which is wrong, of course, but she is too hungry to weigh the sin of it. There is only the matter of how. The oven is hardly unmanned, and despite how fast she seems to fade from memory, she is still flesh and blood, not phantom. She cannot simply walk up and take the bread without causing a stir. Sure, they might forget her soon enough, but what danger would she be in before they did? If she got to the bread, and then away, how far would she have to run? How fast?
And then she hears it. A soft, animal sound, almost lost beneath the chatter.
She circles the stone hut and finds her chance,