Supposedly, the ceremony was meant to ensure a good harvest, but Serilda had lived through enough disappointing harvests to know that the gods probably weren’t listening that closely. There were many superstitions associated with the equinox, and she placed little trust in any of them. She doubted that to touch Velos with one’s left hand would bring a plague to the household in the following year, or that to give Eostrig a primrose, with its heart-shaped petals and sunshine-yellow middles, would later make for a fertile womb.
She already tried her best to ignore the muttered comments that abounded this time of year, following everywhere she went. People muttering to themselves about how the miller’s girl should not be allowed at the festival. How her presence was sure to bring bad luck. Some people were brave enough, or rude enough, to say it to her face, always as a thinly veiled concern. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy an evening at home, Serilda? Best for you and the village?…
But most just talked about her behind her back, mentioning how she’d been at the festival three years ago and there had been droughts all that summer.
And that awful year when she was only seven, when a sickness had come through and killed nearly half the town’s livestock the next month.
It didn’t matter that there had been plenty of years when Serilda had attended the festival without consequence.
She tried her best to ignore these mutterings, as her father had told her to since she was a child, as she had all her life. But it was becoming more difficult to ignore old superstitions these days.
What if she really was a harbinger of ill fortune?
“You’re doing wonderful work,” she said, inspecting the buttons that Nickel had sewn onto the face—one black eye, one brown. “What happened here?” She pointed to a place where the cloth had been cut open on the god’s cheek and stitched back up with black thread.
“It’s a scar,” said Fricz, shoving back a flop of blond hair. “I figured the god of death has probably been in a good brawl or two. Needs to look tough.”
“Is there any more ribbon?” asked Nickel, who was attempting to make a cloak for the god, mostly out of old towel scraps.
“I have grosgrain,” said Anna, handing it to him, “but that’s the last of it.”
“I’ll make do.”
“Gerdy, no!” said Hans, snatching a paintbrush out of the little girl’s hand. She looked up, her eyes wide.
On the god’s face, there was a dark smear of red—a smudgy mouth.
“Now it looks like a girl,” snapped Hans.
Gerdrut flushed bright red beneath her freckles—embarrassed and confused. She looked at Serilda. “Is Velos a boy?”
“They can be, if they wish to be,” said Serilda. “But sometimes they might wish to be a girl. Sometimes a god might be both a boy and a girl … and sometimes, neither.”
Gerdrut’s frown became more pronounced, and Serilda could tell she hadn’t helped matters. She chuckled. “Think of it this way. We mortals, we put limitations on ourselves. We think—Hans is a boy, so he must work in the fields. Anna is a girl, so she must learn to spin yarn.”
Anna released a disgusted groan.
“But if you were a god,” Serilda continued, “would you limit yourself? Of course not. You could be anything.”
At this, some of the confusion cleared from Gerdrut’s expression. “I want to learn how to spin,” she said. “I think it looks like fun.”
“You say that now,” Anna muttered.
“There’s nothing wrong with learning to spin,” said Serilda. “A lot of people enjoy it. But it shouldn’t be just a job for girls, should it? In fact, the best spinner I know is a boy.”
“Really?” said Anna. “Who?”
Serilda was tempted to tell them. She had shared many stories these past weeks about her adventures in the haunted castle, many more fictional than true, but she’d avoided telling them about Gild and his gold-spinning. Somehow, it had felt like too precious of a secret.
“You’ve never met him,” she finally said. “He lives in another town.”
This must have been a dull-enough answer—they didn’t press her for details.
“I think I could be good at spinning.”
This statement, spoken so quietly, went almost unnoticed. It took Serilda a moment to realize it was Nickel who had said it, his head lowered as his fingers made perfectly tidy stitches on the cloak.
Fricz stared at his twin, momentarily aghast. Serilda was already bristling, ready to come to Nickel’s defense when Fricz made whatever teasing comment came to his mind first.
But he didn’t tease. Instead, he just gave his brother that lopsided grin and said, “I think you’d be pretty good at it, too. At least … you’d be way better at it than Anna is!”
Serilda rolled her eyes.
“So, what am I supposed to do about this mouth?” asked Hans, dark eyebrows bunching.
They all paused to stare at the effigy’s face.
“I like it,” Anna said first, at which Gerdrut beamed.
“Me too,” Serilda agreed. “With those lips and that scar, I think this is the best god of death that M?rchenfeld has ever seen.”
With a shrug, Hans started mixing up a new batch of egg tempera.
“Do you need more madder root?” Serilda asked.
“I think this will be enough,” he said, testing the paint’s consistency. He looked almost mischievous when he raised his eyes. “But I know what you could be doing while we work.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him, but needed no explanation. Immediately, the children brightened to an encouraging chorus of “Yes, tell us a story!”
“Hush!” said Serilda, looking back toward the schoolhouse’s open doors. “You know how Madam Sauer feels about that.”
“She’s not in there,” said Fricz. “Said she still needed to gather some wild mugwort for the bonfire.”
“She did?”
Fricz nodded. “She left right after we came out here.”
“Oh, I didn’t notice,” said Serilda. Lost in her own thoughts again, no doubt.
She considered their pleas. Lately, all her stories had featured haunted ruins and nightmare monsters and heartless kings. Burning hounds and a stolen princess. Though the children had been in raptures for most of her tales, she had overheard little Gerdrut saying that she started having nightmares in which she was kidnapped by the Erlking, which had filled Serilda with a flood of guilt.
She vowed to make her next story cheerier. Maybe something with a happy ending, even.
But that thought was eclipsed by sudden grief.
There wouldn’t be any more stories after this.
She looked around at their faces, smeared with dirt and paint, and had to clench her jaw to keep her eyes from filling with tears.
“Serilda?” said Gerdrut, her voice small and worried. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” she said quickly. “I must have pollen in my eyes.”
The children traded doubtful looks, and even Serilda knew it had been a terrible lie.
She inhaled deeply and leaned back on her hands, turning her face toward the sun. “Have I told you of the time I came across a nachzehrer on the road? He was newly risen from the grave. Had already chewed off his burial shroud and the meat of his right arm, straight down to the bone. At first when he saw me, I thought he would run away, but then he opened his mouth and let out the most bloodcurdling—”
“No, stop!” cried Gerdrut, covering her ears. “Too scary!”
“Ah, come on, Gerdy,” said Hans, draping an arm over her shoulders. “It isn’t real.”