Rose was poking the oversized iron pot that sat on the grate over the hearth. The heavy lid had been moved to the side and the bits of carrot and beet bobbed around in a simmering broth that would hopefully be a gravy soon enough. She reached out and placed the lid back on top and turned to walk to the front counter. Her mother kept the herbs hanging there and while the clear-eye and basil tongues weren’t entirely dry yet, they’d still do. There was a bowl of rolly insects there and Rose began to shell them and prepare them for the soup.
From across the room Hester was playing. She was too old to be playing at this hour of the day and should have been doing chores, but Rose wasn’t about to bother her. The window was open wide letting in the pink light of the sky outside. Rose couldn’t see the whole of the garden from here, but just the edge and the woods beyond. She could somehow make out the longer edge through the wall beside the window, but that happened to her sometimes and she couldn’t see people through it anyway. Her mother would be out there in the part of the garden she could see through the window. The idea filled Rose with a sort of dread, but she knew they still had time before she came back. She would expect Rose to have dinner going by the time she did, after all.
“Hester, don’t make any messes you can’t tidy up. You’ll need to have that all cleaned up before dinner.” Hester made no answer, though she did get down on all fours and push a ball around with her nose a bit. Her sister was a curious one, but she was Rose’s favorite person. She watched as her sister took first one, then another of her teeth out and cast them to the floor, crawling after them to see what the future held. In a voice that was both deeper and more velvety than Hester’s, she said, “You will need to rely upon your friends, but even they cannot save you from yourself.”
Then she put the teeth back in and laughed in Hester’s happy voice and Rose almost forgot all about the proclamation. Almost.
She crossed the room in three strides and picked her sister up under the arms and drew her very close for a hug. “I love you, piglet.”
“Love you too, Rosie.” Hester was the only person who could call her Rosie. When she looked back down she was still holding her sister, but now she was in Rose’s lap. Oh, right. The chair. She was in the chair now. She’d mostly gotten over hating the chair and resenting the chair, but sometimes…..
“I’ll see you soon, okay, piggie? I’ll get mummy and bring her back.”
“But Rose. She is back.”
The door opened. Their mother was back lit by the red of the sky, and she was huge. A wide angry woman. Not the woman Rose knew from the yelling match the day she left, but the terrifying woman who would beat her as a child. The hateful woman who called her sister a pig so many times that Rose had been forced to make it a term of endearment. The drunk woman who put her in the chair. But today, as she stepped forward out of the dark of night and into the firelight of the cabin, Rose could see that she only had half a face. The left half of her face was dark and wet and glistened in the firelight. As she scowled Rose could see the wet muscles working to draw half her lips down into a rictus.
The huge monstrosity reached out for Hester and Rose screamed herself awake.
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