Juniper & Thorn

by Ava Reid

Rose had cut a sheaf of dried wheat stalks for my hair, the color slightly too pale, and with none of my real hair’s untended frizz.

“Dear Marlinchen, no one will believe we’re anything but witches if you don’t put a comb through your hair.” A flush crawled over my cheeks. I left my bed and sat down at my boudoir, scrutinizing my face in the mirror. My sallow cheeks now bore two splotches of red. My hair was a mess of coils that fell as heavy as a quilt over my shoulders. “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “It’s too long.”

I did not have a dulcet singing voice, but I smiled at our clients as sweetly as I could.

Rose managed to tie up my hair with a ribbon, in some butchered emulation of the Oblyan women’s hair. The pink silk ribbon matched my dress, a crinkled cranberry with a neckline low enough to make me blush. Not that it mattered very much. Pinned between my beautiful sisters, I was little more than a piece of furniture, a particularly elaborate candle stand.

OK OK your beauty is overlooked and you're not like the other girls I GET IT. Stop hitting me over the head with it.

Through the garden, the damp soil sucking at our shoes. Arm in arm, we picked our way past the scrying pool, as bright as a tossed coin, through the thistles with their purple buds, careful to bypass Rose’s delicate meshwork of baby’s breath and feverfew. The flowering pear tree coughed white petals at us, but all the monsters were cowed or slumbering.

Asking the reader to imagine A LOT here...

Still, we were quiet.

If nobody is talking.... point made. no need to add this.

Rose and Undine had—but

What did undone do to deserve such a name? and her sister gets rose??

There were the black amber plums, fat as bruises, which were suffused with a fatal poison.

Fat as bruises?

and a gasp came out of my throat.

wording? why not 'I gasped'

The chandelier whirled gently with candlelight, each flame glinting like a knifepoint.

Her sister had shoulders like kitchen knives, now candle flames glint like knifepoints... I'm noticing a pattern

Several of the women around me were weeping, kohl tracked down their pink faces.

Why are their faces pink? 🤔

“I told you,” Undine said as she hauled me out of my seat. Even her voice was breathy, her blinks too quick. “It was worth it, wasn’t it?” But the curtains had closed, erasing Sevastyan from view, and I felt as though I had been left unanchored, adrift in the sea of voices.

But the curtains... but? what is she opposingi

Reeling, my mind still addled with its ebbing panic, I picked my way toward him and leaned down to examine his face.

Picked her way? its a bit dark but there are no obstacles...and this fellow seems to be fairly close by... off putting word choice

The other dancer—Aleksei—paused and turned.

How does she know his name??

When we came to the gate, it unlatched for us so easily, without a sound, that I was astonished. It was like a wanting mouth, eager to swallow us back down.

Wtf? weird metaphor but also there's no precedent for the gate being squeaky or anything... they didn't mention it when they left...

My mind should have been spinning out like a compass point, fear turning me manic and unmoored. Yet the walk back through the garden passed me by almost obliviously. I was focused only on Sevastyan. All other thoughts had been momentarily evicted. It was as though I had forgotten how to even feel afraid.

Telling not showing. It shouldn't be 'I don't feel afraid I'm just thinking of Sebastian' just show her feeling free and thinking about him

I had expected my limbs to feel heavy with exhaustion after our nightly sojourn, solid, weighty relief lowering my eyelids.

Nightly means every night... I think she meant nighttime. also...the 2 halves of this sentence don't match...oh wait they are both her expectations? in the midst of her earlier anxiety, she was imagining how she would feel in bed later? I don't think so. just take this paragraph out

I thought of him, and my fingers slipped between my thighs. As I stroked myself, I bit down hard on my pillow, so that I would not risk making a sound.

And then she gets herself off! wtf! such a random short thing but like... wtf. does she do this every night? her first time? I didn't even realize she was horny until she put her hand in her pants. I thought she was intrigued by this new world experience