Vile Bones

I flex my hand, testing out the newly unstitched finger. The Marrow-Weaver had sewn along the seams of my inner pinky to leave minimal traces of the incision, even once it scars. I don’t know whose bone I’d been switched with, but that’s rather the point - if I knew, naturally their secret would not be Kept very well at all. It couldn’t have been a very large secret for a bone so small - a simple pinky promise if you will. But it had to have some degree of importance in order to be Kept in a Crypt such as me.

The Marrow-Weaver leaves my cell, medicine bottles clinking in the leather purse on her hip. I’m still groggy from the draft I’d been given, but I begin my walk along the cell walls.

Calling this room a cell sounds ungrateful when faced with its surface-level description: warm tapestries along the stone walls, a plush rug, a mattress on my cot. I don’t remember bringing them, but I even have some of my original belongings from my humble time as a Crypt before I was taken here.

But that is what makes this a cell. I do not choose which bones, which secrets, I Keep now. I do not choose when the door opens, when it closes. And above all, I do not choose to be here.

I stare out the barred door window when I see shadows moving. The guards are rotating. My lip instinctively pinches when I see a mess of brown hair take its place before my door - an indistinct, boring, nothing color that bothers me all the more for knowing it so well by now.

He’d been the one to drag me to this room all those months ago by my own hair.

Dyer’s low voice finally hushes when the footsteps of the previous guard fade out. I prefer his silence to the hateful words he would say were he to speak through the bars, but I will admit I had not spoken much to the Marrow-Weaver when she’d been in my cell, and my throat is dry from lack of use, so I consider insulting him just to clear it.

I shouldn’t waste words on him.

I continue stepping around the rug, gliding my many mended fingers along the walls, the tapestries, the window, the wooden door. I see the profile of his face again, see his badly healed, crooked nose and dull tawny eyes. My nails make a sound as they scrape along the grain.

I continue my turn about the room, shoving syllables back down my throat as they threaten to bubble over my tongue, the gray daylight slowly slipping into something more orange.

“Vita.”

My feet stop. I wait.

“Vita,” I hear again. I still wait. He knows I am in here; he knows I am awake. Why do I have to answer aloud?

“You are an infuriating creature, you know that?” He does not look through the bars as he speaks.

“I do.”

“Then you’ll understand that what I am about to say is with no remorse, and instead with great satisfaction: this is my last god-forsaken shift at your door.”

“Congratulations, how will you celebrate?”

“Serving the crown is celebration enough, not that you’d understand that.”

I laugh - truly laugh. Though he isn’t looking at me, I waggle my scarred fingers at him. They are from countless secrets I currently Keep for the king and his court - war plans, missions, confessions, affairs. Though I can’t be sure whose bones hold what secrets, I am caged for a reason. The vulnerable knowledge or the shameful thoughts are buried within my skin and forgotten by me and the donor until the need for them arises, truth only brought forth through the Marrow-Weaver’s medicines - and the breaking of bones.

“I think I understand well enough.”

“There is a difference in choosing to serve, and fighting the Marrow-Weaver every time you are given a new secret to Keep.”

“Well,” I say, crossing my arms and sitting on my cot, “you do have me there. But why shouldn’t I fight not to have my skin split open to hold foreign bones for a king I despise? If I am used, I will not at the same time be useless to myself. I will make it difficult to use me.”

“You should cooperate because things are bigger than you, Vita. Bigger than me, bigger than this kingdom even. You might end up with fewer bruises on your spiteful face, at the very least.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, cocking my head at a stiff angle, “why in god’s name are you wasting your breath on me again? I thought you were thrilled to be done with me and my door.”

“That is a great question.”

Silence.

Still more silence. I grind my teeth and touch my temple where it had split after he’d shoved me to the cell floor when I’d first been locked up. It’s entirely healed now, unlike his nose.

He doesn’t deserve a comfortable exit, especially not one where he comes out on top.

“Pray tell, where is it you are going?”

“That,” he says tightly, “is simply not your business to know.”

“But you have been my noble and valiant guard for nigh a year now, Dyer. How am I to sleep at night without knowing if you’re dead or alive? How can I possibly - ”

I flinch, his furrowed eyes suddenly appearing through the bars. Then I grin.

I win.

“If it pleases you to know, I will likely die, so I can ease your wondering there.”

I place a hand on my heart. “Oh,” I gasp, “so it will be two of us having something to celebrate!”

Silence again. I stand and wrap my fingers around the bars of the door window, giving myself a better view of his scowling face.

“So, allow me to guess… my brave guard is off on a quest on behalf of a king who likely does not even know his name, risking his life for a cause of some kind or another which will probably end in life continuing on as normal, because these things never truly pan out as we wish... at least the risk on your life doesn’t carry much weight now, does it?”

His eyes begin to burn. “How does it feel, Crypt, to know that soon your entire skeleton will be composed of nothing but every vile bone you despise so much? Does the mirror feel the same repulsion as others do to look upon you, riddled with the ugly scars of dirty little secrets?” He scoffs, glancing at my fingers. His face turns smug when he notes my pinky, instinctively held out from the rest to favor its newest injury. “Don’t be surprised if my hand slips and you find your draft is accidentally replaced, so I can enjoy the thought of you squirming under a blade without anything to dull the pain.” He looks down, and his expression shifts suddenly to something less sharp, though I pay the change no heed.

Instead, I say through a dry smile, “But how can you enjoy that thought if you’re dead?”

And it is the last thing I ever say to him.

Morning comes, and with it, the Marrow-Weaver.

“Tibula,” she creaks. “Left.”

I curse quietly. My right shin is unmarred - if she is asking for my left, then she is asking to reveal a secret already Kept. It will not heal so fast as when it is simply replaced with an unfractured bone.

Two tall guards follow her in, grabbing me instantly by the torso when I try to split past them through the door. One guard I recognize - he is the one pushing air from my lungs with his strong arms, keeping his hands away from my face. The other is new, and not so wise. He shoves his grubby hand over my mouth to quiet me, and I bite down, drawing blood.

He shouts and slaps me ferociously with his bloody palm, causing my vision to blur.

There is a sharp sting in my neck, and I know nothing until I am awaking atop my cot, left shin bandaged.

It is dark. The window is drawn, and my candles have been snuffed out. I reach for my side table, but my hand meets air.

It aches to do so, but I sit up and place my feet on the floor, careful not to put weight on my left leg. The cold stones prick my toes, and I lift them back up in surprise.

Where is my rug?

My hands scan the bed, snagging over embroidered designs I do not recognize.

I am up and limping for the door within a breath, stumbling through it easily, for it is not locked - not even fully closed. There is no barred window within it either.

Heart using my ribs as an out-of-tune harp, I stumble through the dark halls that I don’t remember ever walking through, terror and confusion pulling my breath out in tight rasps.

I am met with another unlocked door.

And then with the open night sky.

I steady myself on the wooden post attached to the cottage I’d just woken up in. I hear a creaking sound, and I turn slowly, scanning the porch.

I begin to search for anything to grab and use as a weapon when I see her.

The Marrow-Weaver sways back and forth in a rocking chair, puffing on a pipe emitting a greenish smoke.

“What am I doing here,” I demand.

She frowns, looking at me with dissatisfaction. “Good evening to you as well, miss Vita.”

“Is it?” I scan my body for new bruises or scrapes, but I only feel the slap on my cheek and the bandage on my shin.

“Oh, it is.” She jerks her head to the horizon, not that I can see what is beyond it. Her frown curls into a papery grin. “The kingdom falls, after all.”

“What?”

“Everyone in the castle is dead.” Her grin slips into a wobbly laugh. “The guards, the prisoners, the maidens and their ladies in waiting.” Her laugh begins to quake the porch. “The queen and her king!” She sighs happily, “They are one with the rubble now.”

“What,” I breathe, “how can this be?” The stars are off kilter, the clouds slipping into my eyes and fogging up my thoughts.

“Oh, quite the plot. Not one I was permitted to know much about, nor would I have understood all the details had I been.” She meets my eyes, and they glisten in the moonlight. “Funny, though, the final piece of the plan was all in your little shin this whole time.”

“But…” I lift my bandaged leg to observe it as if that could help me see my thoughts more clearly. “This secret was Kept well over a year ago, before I was captured.”

“An entire castle has been obliterated, my dear Vita. A new kingdom is being reborn under the insurgency. This does not happen overnight.”

“But how could they plan it if the secret was Kept all this time?”

“Oh, it was only the last step, and Kept by the one who was most vulnerable to spilling the beans - the queen herself.”

I shake my head in disbelief.

“She knew she was to unweave the secret on a certain date, at a certain time, but beyond that, she was ignorant of the cause as soon as her bone was laced into your skin. And what better way to keep her out of suspicion until the moment was just right? Once her part in the plan was Kept, no one knew what to do next, only to wait for her.”

I hold my head in my hands, trying to keep my thoughts from falling out. “So why am I here? Are my secrets so valuable that I must Keep them even after their owners’ deaths? What purpose is there in my remaining alive while the rest die?”

“That,” she says, “is simply not your business to know.”

“I would say that it is!”

She pushes her finger to her lips and shushes me. “It is a secret,” she winks.

~

It has been almost three years since I left the Marrow-Weaver’s cottage. When she had refused to indulge my questions, I had refused to remain there. She didn’t resist - her part, she had said, was done.

My hands roam the garden now, selecting what to bring to the table, and then fly to my stomach when I feel the fluttering inside there.

“Eldon!”

He rushes outside, his dark hair instantly soaking up all the sunlight. The look of concern flees his sharp features when he sees my smile. Tears begin to cloud my eyes, turning him into a yellowy watercolor amid the golden day.

“Feel,” I say, bringing his hand to my round belly. “Little One has finally learned to use their legs.”

He wraps his strong arms around me, burying his face in the hollow of my neck, and I feel his tears wetting my skin, his quivering smile kissing me.

“Vita,” he whispers, then pulls back and cups my face in his calloused hand. “How should we celebrate?”

“Knowing they’re well in there is celebration enough.” I smile, then pause. “Though a trip into town could do.”

He shakes his head with a grin and kisses me deeply, then pulls me to stand. “Come then, dear. We can have tomatoes tomorrow.”

I nod in agreement, abandoning the hardly filled basket and following him out of the garden, nearly skipping in my shoes.

The bright banners in the market ripple in the late summer breeze, forgetting the black and gray of the old kingdom’s flags. I find myself stroking the inner lines of my pinky, over the last secret Kept within me before the final time I ever saw those dark colors waving.

I picture the Marrow-Weaver’s wrinkled wink and gnarled whisper - it’s a secret.

I lean my head on Eldon’s shoulder as we walk, bring my pinky to my lips, then place it over my belly.

Keep your secrets, vile bones. Carry my skin to my next happiness, and my next.

~

There will come a day when Vita is buried. It is what happens to most who have lived a life in love. Their bodies are laid beneath the grass, shrouded in flowers and sweet memories.

When this happens to Vita, her skin will finally disintegrate into the earth, revealing her collaged skeleton to the elements and critters within it. Her bones, as well as the others within her, will be leached dry, their marrow decomposed, their secrets lost to oblivion.

A worm might curl itself around her decaying pinky, nibbling on a forgotten secret.

Would it taste, as it sucked on the marrow, the promise once kept in whispers and lips and skin? Would it see the eyes full of tears looking longingly into tawny ones, begging him not to go through with the queen’s plan?

Or would this little worm have its fill and slip on by, leaving behind the secret that had guaranteed an imprisoned woman would be taken to safety, and that a guard would fight valiantly to overthrow the kingdom that hurt her and so many others - a woman and a guard who had met in destain, but who had changed each other. Changed a woman to believe in love and refuse to leave him, swear to come back for him, and a guard to do anything in his limited power to see to her happiness - even if it meant forgetting her, and she him.

No, this critter would not know this quiet secret, this pinky promise woven into his marrow and embedded in her skin.

Indeed, it would go to the grave with her, this secret of I love you.