Myrken women, with their wary eyes and their old clothes and their thin hair, saw so little of themselves. They tightened their biceps, tucked their chins and put knives in their boots; they bled fluently, died quickly, and that was their lot. It was a pattern. Sew one dress, you've sewn a thousand. What separated Mary Ford from the memory of those lives waggling on the tongues of midtown gossipers was that she still had a heartbeat, and she wanted to make it count.
Mary wrote her. Mary came to her. Very suddenly, sickness twisted in her gut. "For someone who possesses precious little of these qualities," Gloria rejoined, "they are monumental boons, Menna Ford. Our place is to remind people that — that charming people and agreeable people are not soft people. But there are no hard rules, and — and they—" she wielded it with a faint disdain, "—hold no authority over what a girl ought to do, or how she should limit herself."
Sometimes she felt like she stole the shadows she stood in. Robbed Genny of her patience and resolve. Stole Ariane's power and strength. Siphoned the Lady Egris's calculation and determination. Did they sense the leech, she wondered. Did they know about this clay beast that had sloppily formed herself in the honor of their images? What do you think, Gloria? What would you want to do if you could do anything? The question, in all its looming openness, silenced her breath. Her cheek twitched, constraining thought. Dreams, desires, these misled as much as poppy, but—
"When I was young here, I — I needed to learn how to be Myrken. I was different, and the world felt strange and confusing. Rhaena — it was before she soured — taught schoolchildren, and despite being nearly twice their age, she let me learn with them, arithmetic and letters and all the proper things. She never minded that I was slowest to learn, or most easily confounded by the simplest lessons. Of all those who've taught me here, she taught me first. As much as I harbored embarrassment at being so — so old and doing children's exercises, cat and rat and two-and-two and the like, it warms me to reflect upon it.
"If she didn't love me, I imagined she did for all the time she sacrificed for me. Sometimes I think if perhaps—" Spoken, this, as quiet as a whisper, and Gloria stared down at her fingers and the dry flakes of skin alongside the abused nails and picked deliberately at them, "—if perhaps I had lied for her, or I'd been more obedient in that courtroom, it would all be so very different now.
"We could be having a different conversation.
"We could be different women.
"I would be less bold. But what else would I be?"
She swallowed. Coming face-to-face with unseen futures.
"What about you?" she deferred, desperately wanting not to talk, and having said so very little amid so very much. "I'm — I'm quite bad at possibilities, Mary. I always have been. Can you help me understand?"