Keturah and Lord Death

“No, no. It is just foxglove, pickable for anyone who looks. No, sweetums. This is but a small thing, this foxglove, and so I ask only a small favor of you.” She stroked the foxglove thoughtfully. “Look at my sons while touching the charm.”

I was speechless.

“It is a nothing price, yes?” she said quietly, nodding.

When I remained silent, she went to the door and the window, and one by one her sons assembled. The room that was so roomy now became stiflingly small as the seven men trooped in, hunched and pouting like little boys caught in a misdeed.

Soor Lily placed the foxglove on the table. I gazed at it for strength to do what was required, and then, slowly, I reached my hand into my apron pocket and touched the charm.

One son folded his arms tightly, seemingly angry that he must be looked at. One, the baby whom Lord Death had allowed to live, looked frightened and bit his fingernails. One was pigeon-toed. Another picked at his ears, and still another breathed through his mouth, allowing spittle to collect at the corners of his lips. The other two hid behind their five brothers so I could barely see them.

Soor Lily put her mouth close to my ear. “Hold the charm now, sweetums,” she said. “Look at my darlings. That is the price I ask for foxglove—to look. Is that not the smallest of fees? Only look.”

For a moment I thought of grabbing the foxglove and running, but I knew I would never be able to run through that wall of men.

I gritted my teeth and held the charm while I looked. I felt the tiny jerking movements as my eyes passed from one man to the other. The men shrank from my gaze.

“Yes, that’s it, pretty Keturah. Look, look,” Soor Lily whispered. “Wouldn’t you be the perfect one to whom I could teach my magic arts? Aren’t you the very daughter I should have had? And don’t I keep smelling plague in the air? What if the road is not enough? If only you could love one of my sons, perhaps one of them might live …”

I studied the face of each one, and still the charm, blessedly, looked and looked and did not cease in its looking. At last I said, utterly relieved, “I have looked, and I will not love any of them, Soor Lily.”

Soor Lily put her long white hand on her bosom and made a sound like a wounded bird. “Not even one?” she whimpered.

“Not even a little,” I said.

She looked at them sorrowfully. “It is hard to believe, but it must be true,” she said. “Run and play now, sons.”

They vanished so quickly and silently that it was as if they had never been there.

“Goodbye,” she said to me.

“Not yet, Soor Lily. I have somewhat to say to you.”

She cowered a little. “Of course,” she said meekly.

“You are no wise woman,” I said.

She shook her head regretfully. “Not wise, not wise at all,” she murmured.

“I paid your price, didn’t I?” Panic rose in my voice. “Did I not pay? Did I not save your son alive?”

“Yes, yes! He is whole again, my baby,” she said. Her shoulders rounded and her head hung.

“But your love charm is not working. It slows down for Ben, but it does not stop. You tricked me,” I said with all the indignation I could muster.

With the other half of my anger, I took the eye out of my pocket and placed it on the table. She gazed at it, appalled, as if it were a severed hand.

In desperation, I spoke my heart. “Oh, woman, what shall I do?” I pleaded. “Perhaps it was the wrong eye, and it is the other eye that is necessary. You do have powers, don’t you?”

As if it caused her the greatest distress to say so, she said, “Yes. Oh, lass, that I do.”

I clutched her arm, which was as hard as a man’s. “I must marry today—don’t you see? I must marry my true love today … or—or go to him.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I thought as much.” Slowly she placed a long, pale finger on the eye. “There could be only one reason why it keeps looking,” she said sadly. “Only one reason.”

“Yes,” I declared. “You bungled the ingredients. You cheated me.”

“Bungled, cheated,” she repeated, as if she were considering the possibility. Then she shook her head slowly. “No. No bungling nor no cheating, lass,” she said. “Only one reason.”

“What, then?” I begged. “Tell me, what is the reason?”

“Keturah, you already love another. It looks for the true love you already have.”

I opened my mouth to laugh or rage, I did not know which—but no sound came. She looked into my open mouth curiously, as if she could read in my throat the words that would not come.

Finally I said, “No. I do not love another. That is the problem, Soor Lily.”

“Yes,” she said gently, calmly. “You already love. True love. So sorry. A tragedy.”

“Why should I lie to you? I do not love!”

“True love.” She began to blubber. “So sad, so sad …”

“Stop it!” I insisted.

Immediately she stopped. Her sad face vanished and she beamed at me, happy to be pleasing me. She placed the eye gingerly back into my apron pocket and took me by the arm. “Goodbye, sweetums,” she said, guiding me toward the door. “Goodbye, good luck, God bless,” she murmured, as she pressed me out the door. “So pretty … Goodbye.”