Sweetbread: An Epilogue

My sister has always had a soft heart. Soft as sweetbread.

She cried after the old woman, despite everything. Maybe because of everything. I remember holding her as she wept, both of us covered in soot, her fingers scalded from holding shut the oven door. 

After the tears, she was quiet. She trailed me through the awful house with its sweetbread walls and sugared windows. I found the clothes we’d arrived in, offered up her kirtle, and she donned it without a word. She showed no whisper of response when we found the treasure in the attic, only nodded vaguely when I asked her to help me fill up the few bags we could easily carry back through the woods. 

Maybe…maybe it would be enough. Enough to keep us safe from our stepmother’s whims. 

“I do not want to go back there.”

It was the first she’d spoken in hours. I hesitated outside the witch’s cottage, looking back over my shoulder at her. 

“I do not want to go back to them.”

I sighed. “Nor do I. But where else can we go?”

She wrung her fingers together in front of her skirt, eyes downcast and her teeth digging into her lower lip. Eventually, though, she nodded. “Fine. You are right.” She looked back at the house. “Wait one minute. There may be something left in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen?” I repeated in horror, but she only nodded. 

“Yes. She did not think I paid attention, but I did. I know which of her potions might be useful--if nothing else, we can sell them when we get back.”

I nodded slowly and followed her back into the cottage, though I stopped in the open arch that led into the kitchen itself. She moved easily though the space, reminding me painfully of just how long she had been under the witch’s thumb while the horrid crone tried to fatten me like a prize hog. She collected some dozen bottles and vials, tucking them carefully in between the bolts of silks and satins we had pilfered from the attic before returning to me.

“Let us go.”

Though there was no trail this time, she seemed to know her way through the trees. I asked how, once, when we paused to wait out the dark. But all she said was that she simply knew now. As though the forest spoke to her in a way it hadn’t before. 

I felt the first thrill of fear at that. But I knew that she was still so scared herself…I refused to let her see it. I tried to coax her into dreaming about what sort of life we might have with the witch’s pilfered treasure, and managed to earn a wan smile for my efforts. But it was cold and dark, and soon enough we simply huddled together under a gnarled tree as we waited for the deepest part of night to pass. 

When grayish dawnlight began to filter through the leaves, she was the first to stand. She had gone quiet again, and only answered me with faint hums or single words as we continued on our way. She seemed more comfortable to be leading us now, but something in the set of her shoulders reminded me of…of something. Something I could not quite name. 

Eventually, I lapsed into her silence. 

When the trees broke apart to reveal the familiar shape of our father’s home, she froze. Then she broke into a run, and I was only half a step behind her. 

The door was already opening when we reached the stoop, and our father met us with his arms open and tears in his eyes. He held us close and apologized, over and over, praising the Lord’s name.

I embraced him in turn, but alongside the relief in my chest there was an anger in my gut. It had started a spark, but over the length of our trek back through the woods had grown into a steady flame. 

I met my sister’s eyes over our father’s shoulder, and a chill ran through me. 

If my anger was a flame, then hers was the dead cold of darkest winter.

Our father explained that our stepmother had been stricken ill, not long after we left. She was in her room now, asleep, and had been for days. He did not expect her to recover, though he had been following the physician’s orders as best he could. 

“Perhaps she shall rally to see you,” he offered us hopefully. 

When neither of us answered, he sighed and dragged a hand down his thick beard. There was more gray in it than I remembered. 

“I know you must…be angry with me. With us,” he told us wretchedly. “That I--I could lose track of you so easily. It is an unforgivable failing in a father.”

“Lost?”

I started slightly at the sharp edge in my sister’s voice. Our father did, too. She had always had a soft voice to match her heart. 

“We were lost?” she repeated, staring at him intently

Our father stared back, eyes wide with a hint of fear. “...Lost,” he confirmed at last in little more than a whisper. 

I dropped my eyes, unable to continue looking at him. 

My sister did not.

Abruptly, she stood from our small table. “We will go see her, then.”

I blinked, startled both by the sudden movement and the conviction in her voice, but I followed her into our stepmother’s sickroom. That flame of rage flickered a little higher in my chest, and I found that I could not make myself move more than two steps inside the door. 

My sister knelt beside the hateful woman, and smoothed a hand over her brow in a gesture so tender it made me want to break something. 

“Here.” She tipped one of the witch’s vials against her lips. “This will help.”  

I almost reached out to stop her, but as though she sensed the movement, she held a staying hand back toward me. 

When the vial was empty, she stood and brushed her hands down the front of her skirt. She did not look at me as she left the room. 

I hesitated a moment longer behind her, staring at the woman who had left us to the wood and the wild. Already, her breathing seemed easier. 

Anger and love for my sister warred, twin flames in the center of my chest. 

She had always borne such a soft heart. 

Our stepmother was awake and lively within a day. Though shocked by our return, she was mollified enough by the offerings of treasure we had stolen away with that she simpered and even summoned up some mockish tears through which to tell us she was so sorry we had been “lost to the wood”.

My rage burned hotter, and my sister grew colder. 

“We should celebrate your return,” our stepmother exclaimed, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders but no other sign of her illness remaining. “What do you wish for supper, my darlings?”

“Sweetbread.”

I jerked around to stare at my sister, eyes wide and mouth agape. She did not so much as glance at me, but I felt her hand take mine under the table. 

She smiled at our stepmother, and my throat went dry. 

“But you are still recovering, stepmother. I feel quite well, all things considered. I shall make it,” she offered gently. 

I could have stopped her then. Could have clutched her hand in mine and dragged us out. We could have taken the treasure and left--it had been foolish of me to think there was nowhere for us to go, we might go anywhere. Seeing our father again, hearing him refuse to admit what they had done, made me sure of that. 

But my sister looked at me, just for a moment, and the ice in her gaze froze me to my chair. 

She was not looking for permission, but I nodded shakily anyway. 

Our stepmother exclaimed what a “good, kind girl” she was as she moved into the kitchen. Soon enough, the cloying smell of the baking sweetbread hung thick in the air. It was all I could do not to gag.

My sister served the plates while the bread was still steaming gently, even drizzling the last of our honey stores over our parents’ portions. “We can always get more at the market now,” she said with a hollow little laugh. 

Our stepmother agreed happily, though our father hesitated a moment before doing so himself. He was watching my sister with a faint wariness as she took her seat beside me.

“Go on, then, let us eat!”

They did. 

We sat in silence. 

It took our stepmother first. A faint cough, a furrow in her brow. She looked up with confusion, which changed quickly to a horrified realization as she stared at my sister. 

“You--!”

Our father choked, red spattering his lips. I looked away, squeezing my sister’s hand tight where she had once more taken it beneath the table. 

“We--we were desperate,” he strangled out, reaching for her pleadingly. “I did not want to! She made me!”

My sister shook her head. “You let her.”

He collapsed forward onto the table, his breath a wheezing rattle that grew fainter with each passing moment. 

Our stepmother tried to lunge for us, but her legs gave out and she sprawled across the floor. A scarlet trail, like candied jam, trickled from the corner of her mouth. 

“You…” she gasped again, glaring balefully up at my sister. “You…little witch…”

They both began to convulse. I buried my face in my sister’s shoulder. I could feel her stroking my hair--even without raising my head, I knew she did not look away until their last breaths had faded into silence. 

Then she simply stood, her hand still in mine. We were both silent as we gathered up our bags--still unpacked by the front door--and stepped out into the cool evening. 

“...You are afraid.”

I swallowed. “Y-Yes.”

She smiled at me, squeezed my hand again, and all I felt was cold. “You do not need to be. I will protect you.”

My sister has always had a soft heart. Soft as poisoned sweetbread.