Chapter Six

I’d avoided my father as well as I could for a while, asking my friend Brandel, the other watchperson, to push back his watch hours long enough for the Bandymen to return home before I came out for my shift. Of course, that meant I had to work later and return home well after sunrise, but my wife’s company helped the time pass a bit faster. Half the time she spent with me, though, she slept through. I didn’t mind. Having already lugged an extra chair up for her—thankfully, the builders had had the foresight to include a miniature pulley crane atop the perch—getting a pile of blankets and pillows and a chest to keep them in seemed well worth my time.

And as the weeks turned to months, the days became colder, and my idle season approached. My body began to shift—subtly at first, but it soon became noticeable enough for a few of my neighbors to mention. Even Brandel, often a rather absentminded lad, pointed out that I looked “right about five years younger.” Every time someone confronted me, I laughed them off and fled. I doubt that eased their suspicions. But what was I to do? How does one walk up to someone they’ve known for nigh on twenty years and say “oh, and by the by, I’m turning into a lass?” And yet, I couldn’t help but stare at myself in the looking glass for ages, marveling in shock that I’d somehow, at some point, actually started resembling a human being.

But that joy never lasted. Every time, I’d continue to gaze at myself and realize how hideous I still was. Yes, I had come far from the exaggerated manhood I’d affected for my whole life, but the longer I looked, the more I saw his face creep out from underneath my features. That sloping brow, the dark shelf above my eyelids, the horrific protrusion in my neck that signified my unmistakable, unchangeable maleness… None of those flaws would ever resolve themselves. No amount of tinctures and potions would reshape the horrible, disgusting features of my Highest-damned skull.

And yet, Lynn always told me how beautiful she found me whenever I donned my dresses and aprons. She refused to entertain my self-loathing. Not for a second. And that both delighted and frustrated me. Sometimes, I wanted to scream at her for lying to me, trying to goad me into believing I looked pretty when I obviously, objectively was not. Other times, I felt grateful.

But no matter what she said, I couldn’t imagine anyone else mistaking me for a woman. That is, until I forced myself to visit the butcher’s shop for a few cuts of venison and mutton, and she stared me up and down. I pulled my cloak tighter over myself.

“Say, Rondren,” the butcher, my third cousin Aoife, said, “you’re looking a tad… different, eh?”

“S-so I’ve heard,” I muttered. Shuffling through my inner coat pocket, I produced a small, handwritten list on a scrap of linen paper. “Anyhow, these are the cuts Lynn asked for.”

“Aye,” Aoife said, looking the cuts over. “We’ve got these in stock. I’ll paper them up for you.”

She took another look at me, then wandered over to a skinned deer airing on a hook just off to the back of her open-air stall. It had a bit of a musky stench, but she cleaned her space well enough that it avoided any lingering smell of rot. After slicing a bit off the deer’s flank, she cut it on a block of heavy endelwood, then strung it up in paper. She set it on the counter, then moved to the desk closest to me to grab some prepackaged pork cuts.

“So…” she said. “Here y’are, cuz.”

“Thanks,” I said, slipping my arms out of the cloak to take the bundles by the strings. She took a long look at my exposed chest in the few seconds it took to arrange them in my arms.

“Ro—eh, cuz,” she said. “Is there anything you’d prefer me to call ye? ’Coz I’d not mind, hon.”

I froze.

Aoife offered a soft smile as she hung her meat cleaver up on a hook dangling from the stall’s sign. “Not to put ye on the spot, but ye really do look a bit more… girlish? If’n you’re not offended by me saying that.”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I looked around to see if anyone could hear us. Fortunately, the market’s peak hours had long passed, so the cobblestone streets were about as barren as I’d ever seen them. “It… doesn’t.”

She let out a sly grin. “Ah, then that’d be why ye’ve been holing up inside for weeks. Yer dad’s been raising quite the ruckus. Mr. McCletus gets the brunt of it when ole Gredly comes in with the hunt to skin, but ye can hear it half across town. I swear the man’s face gets as red as an onion every evening.”

“Y-yeah,” I said. “I’ve… avoided him a while.”

“Hardly blame ye,” Aoife said as she leaned over the desk, her greying ponytail dangling over her shoulder. “But you know, he always was a bit of a prick. Still, family’s family. Hard to go avoiding your folks in a town this small.”

“I don’t know what to say to him,” I said. “I don’t think he’d approve of the… changes I’ve been going through.”

“Hang his approval,” Aoife said. “Ye look gorgeous, hon. Nothin’ he can do about that.”

Flushing, I glanced over my shoulder again. “If you want to, I like the name R-Rosalie… If that’s okay.”

“If that’s okay? Hon, that’s about as okay as okay goes. Don’t be such a stranger, Rosalie. You’re a good kid. Just ’coz your dad’s the way he is doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Morreton’s about as open as a gutted hog. I reckon ye’d look downright fetching if ye didn’t hide away under that old rag.”

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“Thanks, cuz,” I said, offering Aoife my warmest smile. “It’s been tough, but I… I dunno, I think I might start spending a bit more time out and about—this’ll probably be my last season in the militia.”

“Really?” she said. For a second, she waved to my second cousin Lindana, the woodworker, who was carrying a basket of fresh leeks as she headed down the street to her house. Then, she looked back my way. “What’re ye looking to do instead? Or are ye taking a break?”

“Hi, Aoife!” Lindana said, sidling up by me. “Hi, Rond—oh!” She jumped at the sight of my face.

I stepped back a bit, pursing my lips and clutching the inside of my cloak as tight as I could. “Hello, Lindana.”

My second cousin looked me up and down with thin eyes. “You been seeing the witch, Ronny?”

I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. Glancing at Aoife for a second, I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Oh. You a lass now, then?” Lindana asked.

I nodded again. “Yeah, it—it’s Rosalie, now…”

“Wicked. Leek?” Lindana said, offering me one of the greens in her basket.

Without thinking, I took the vegetable from her slender, yet calloused fingers and absentmindedly chewed on the white end. It tasted like a sweeter, blander onion.

“Well, some things never change,” Aoife said. “Never seen anybody else who liked those raw.”

“And she eats onions like apples,” Lindana said, elbowing Aoife in the shoulder.

“Shove off,” I said, crossing my arms. “Only the red ones.”

“Highest above,” Aoife said, wrinkling her nose.

“They’re not that bad!” I cried.

“Uh-huh,” Lindana said, crossing her arms, her blue eyes twinkling. “For sure.”

Aoife stared between us for a moment, chuckling under her breath. “Well, terrible taste or no, Rosalie, if’n you’re looking for a new job any time soon, I’d be glad to have ye at the stall if you wanted to apprentice.”

“Oh,” I said. “I… uh, I was actually thinking about working with Lynn at the spinhouse.”

“Really?” Lindana said. “Well, that’s exciting! I commission upholstery every week or so, so we’d probably see each other a fair bit more.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m definitely looking forward to winter. Anything to get out of that old tower.”

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