Weyward

by Emilia Hart

Just last winter I had nursed their daughter back from fever.

A woman doctor = witch. Ffs

Her great-aunt had been an entomologist.

First intersection. 1942 girl, Violet, is the great aunt. Bet.

But a child? She couldn’t—wouldn’t—be responsible for that.

Good on her

No matter where they were, she was always letting things distract her

ADHD

The largest is glossy and black—almost blue with iridescence. Looking closer, she sees that it is speckled with white, as though it has been dipped in snow.

Are white feathered crows a magical thing?

Then, as she watches, dark shapes—hundreds of them, it seems—rise from the trees in unison, as if pulled by a puppeteer’s string. Silhouetted against the moon. Birds.

Horrifying

Just when I was sure that I could bear the pain no longer, I felt flesh come away, then the thick wetness of blood,

🫨

Grace Milburn.

Lover?

Grace took my hand in hers, and a feeling of lightness spread through me, as though I, too, was soaring through the clouds.

Sapphic? Or touch starved?

Kate’s insides clench with guilt. This is why it’s better that they don’t speak. She has hurt her mother again, like she always does.

Kate really needs to work on her self worth

“Don’t tell him. Simon. Don’t tell him where I am. Please.”

She should have told her everything or said nothing

“But it would have been an unusual occurrence, I assume, to see the accused standing on the edge of your field, not so long after daybreak?” “Not so unusual, sir. She is known for taking early walks.”

How is she at fault here?

“You know, you do seem much younger than sixteen,”

Gross

“You’re so much prettier when you smile,”

🤢

Wait.

Oh, he raped her

Will it be a boy, she wonders, and grow up to be like Simon? Or a girl, and grow up to be like her?

This way of thinking is always weird

He hadn’t commented on the beauty of the sun setting slowly over the valley at all, even though it had put more colors in the sky than she knew the names for.

Girl, he is not the one. You deserve better!

Violet thought of the toad—and she realized it was his tongue.

🤢

“Sick child. Always the way with that one, I’m afraid.”

WTF is with all the men being garbage?

If I hoped for a future with anyone, it was with her.

I knew it!

A great many things look different from a distance. Truth is like ugliness: you need to be close to see it.

I trust you enjoyed yourself? He must have thought she wanted him to do it.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

“I’m afraid we don’t have that information,” he says. “We only have the record of the indictment—not the outcome of the trial.

I feel like this is only the case so as not to reveal that storyline too soon. Poor writing choice.

“As we know, our womenfolk in particular are at great risk from the devil’s temptation, being weak in both mind and spirit.

Barf

There was only one way to escape Frederick’s pollution of her mind, her body. Her very cells.

Is she going to kill herself? Over a garbage man?

he had intended to ask for your hand, that he wanted to wait until after the wedding but you … wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

I am murderous!

She doesn’t want to risk Emily coming back and seeing it. It feels private, somehow. Secret.

Why?

Did I even want it to work? Why would Grace want to harm an innocent babe, which had not yet had its chance at life?

Don't like the implications here

Perhaps one day, she said, there would be a safer time. When women could walk the earth, shining bright with power, and yet live.

I would name her for my friend, I decided. For my love.

Violet knew, then, that she would never have her own baby.