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You’re so pretty is something Shelby has heard many many times before: when she was so very young, her memories rare and fragmented, up to this very day, where it should be the last thing one tells her — especially one that got her wrists cuffed and face covered with spit.
His «you’re so pretty,» now and here means “that’s your weapon”, “this is how you work for the devil”.
«Shelby Goodkind, you’re charged with witchcraft.»
\
It’s a convent, somewhat between an orphanage and a farmhouse, where Shelby is left, in a foundling wheel: a revolving wooden barrel lodged in a wall, with no name and no letter. No sign to tell the nuns to take care of her, no sheets to cover Shelby’s tiny hands and feet, not a single thing. The very first sign of the world’s rejection, life’s way of telling her “thanks, we’d like to return your order.”
Born in the wrong era, one would have said, seeing how things progressed — or born with the wrong face, after the umpteenth you’re so pretty, but for what, the unrequired courtship of boys and the misdeed of envious fellow girls. Courtships that turned into acts of violence, ego bruised by her rejection, and misdeeds that turned into microaggressions — Shelby growing up lonely, having been born lonely, in this lonely world.
A story that opens its curtains at the turn of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, in Piedmont’s rice plateaus, with an orphan child with the face of an angel.
\
«You’re not that pretty,» is new, and is said in a raspy voice, by a girl to which Shelby hasn’t talked at all, not until now, but she’s seen many many times before. Her name is Antonia, a typical local name, but everyone calls her Toni. She’s short-tempered and has approximately Shelby’s age: a decade spent in this lonely life, looking just as angry as Shelby feels.
Shelby has been watching Toni across the church, across the dormitory, across the courtyard, the playground, the learning rooms with their hands laid on the desks ready to be beaten up for the wrong answer. Shelby has been watching Toni quietly, from afar, because Shelby wouldn’t have minded loneliness, before witnessing the Toni’s phenomenon. An outcast just like she is, but so fierce and loud and claiming the attention of the whole room constantly, as if Toni never learned her punishment, as if Toni wanted to be punished. To be bratty and difficult and give everyone a hard time just because she could.
Shelby would have loved to be her friend.
(Lonely like Shelby has always been, but so majestic, despite her age, despite her solitariness.)
Shelby blinks, because “you’re not that pretty” should have been an insult, but Shelby knows that being told she’s pretty is a weapon of control, even if she’s this young: you’re so pretty always precedes something bad. You’re so pretty so it’s my right to push your head down the communal bathroom, you’re so pretty so it’s my right to push my hand up your skirt, “you’re so pretty so you have to be quieter than the rest of the girls, and nod, and smile, because this is what you have to capitalize on and nothing else or you’ll be too powerful, and we still need to control you” — but Toni can’t be controlled, and Shelby thinks she might use being a little more like her, too.
«Excuse me?»
«I’m Toni.»
«I know.»
«And you’re really not that pretty.»
Shelby’s heart stops, because even if she heard correctly the first time, why is this girl repeating herself? What does she want from Shelby? If from you’re pretty follows something bad, maybe from you’re not that pretty might follow something good.
(And it does, it will, so beautiful, the only, truly, pretty thing in Shelby’s life. Not her face, but Toni’s friendship.)
«I’m Shelby,» she says, and Toni sits next to her, at that, on the creaky bench on the front wall of the church.
«That’s a dumb name. Where are you from?»
«And you’re a dumb kid. How do you think I’d know?»
That’s how their friendship starts: between insults and swinging of legs, because they’re both so short, both so young, their main concern being playing tag and compete for who’s the best.
\
Being friends with Toni is something that just happens, and their friendship doesn’t follow what Shelby sees in other girls’ friendships: there’s no making each other’s flower crown and playing house and sharing the few dolls they’re allowed — there’s sneaking out together, there’s standing up when one of them gets sent out, there’s skipping service to hide in the bathroom and snicker when they hear footsteps approach, just because they can, just because this life has been so unfair to them, they can at least laugh about it. That’s the one big life lesson young Toni teaches Shelby without even knowing it, neither of them: Toni being unapologetically her, and Shelby already feels as if that’s the only acceptable way to live one’s life — for it’s just one, after all.
Toni is all laughing and smiling and smirking and grinning, she’s all fake insults and you’re not that pretty, actually scratch that, you’re so very ugly Shelby! said in a way that makes Shelby’s heart race, as they throw little rocks at the Mother Superior’s window, sure they will be spanked in less than an hour.
So Shelby always answers that Toni is ugly too, even if Shelby’s teeth are yet to grow out again while Toni’s are all there, and Toni’s curls are so pretty when she runs and they get moved by wisps of wind, and Toni has freckles and deep eyes that every time they lay on Shelby, Shelby forgets how to breathe.
They’re probably thirteen when Shelby realizes that for how much she says that Toni is ugly, even if this is their twisted love language, she can’t bring herself to believe her own words.
Toni tells Shelby she’s ugly, and it starts as a relief, but somewhere along the way, Shelby wishes Toni would be the only person to tell her she’s pretty — the only person whose opinion she values, and does she care that I’m ugly? The only person Shelby believes in, because Toni always speaks the truth: that’s one of the many things she loves about her. So even if the whole world tells Shelby she’s pretty, she’s not pretty enough for Toni, or she would have told her, right?
\
Shelby has a beautiful voice too, and for how much she loves to sing — alone and loud, during bath day, controlled and measured in choir lessons, or when hiding in the wine and cheese basements next to Toni — she knows this is a curse as well.
Because Toni gets adopted when she’s fourteen, but Shelby gets to stay here, since she’ll take the vows because she’s this convent’s gem, and if Shelby won’t be some patriarch’s property, she’ll be God’s.
When they tell each other goodbye it’s heartbreaking, because Toni has confessed to her many times that she would have loved to have a family, even if she never said it rightfully. Toni said it like she says she loves Shelby: under insults, under accusations of injustice. «Everyone leaves but us,» and «I’m sure they’ll have the time of their lives, why won’t they take us? It’s not like we can’t lend a hand.» but never “I’m lonely,” or “I want my mom.”
Just like Toni doesn’t tell Shelby she loves her: she just tells her she used to have a best friend, Marta, who got adopted very soon, when they were seven — and that she hates Marta for that, even if it’s not her fault, so it’s best for Shelby if Toni doesn’t love her as she loved her, so when Shelby will leave, Toni won’t hate her.
«I used to write her name with a h in the middle just to piss her off, but she liked it, so I think she still goes by that name,» she says too, and Shelby wonders if Toni will find a way to keep a piece of herself too.
\
Toni is even more difficult there, and gets returned quickly enough, not even a month in. Shelby has missed her like crazy and she’s the first to welcome her back: breaking the line she was supposed to stay in and running to her, hugging her, «Toni!» and «Shelby!» and spinning around, Toni’s bag by her feet, the nuns shouting to them to keep their composure — but Shelby really doesn’t care.
Shelby never broke the rules during that month, because without Toni to laugh about it with, what was the point? And Toni doesn’t look that sad to have come back, and maybe Toni missed Shelby just as much as Shelby missed her. Maybe one gets used to being rejected by this life, so maybe that’s why Toni doesn’t look very sad to be back.
«What did you do?» Shelby whispers that night, after the nuns have made their check and all the candles are unlit, both of them under Shelby’s covers, knowing that they’ll have to wake up before anyone finds them.
«What I had to.»
Shelby sees Toni’s eyes shining under the moonlight, and Shelby wonders how the sentence ends. What I had to do to come back to you, maybe, if Shelby is hopeful enough to dream, like only one who hasn’t been rejected enough times by this cruel life would.
(Maybe it’s Toni, who makes her reckless all again. Who makes her bold and daring and dreamy.)
\
They’re approaching fifteen, and the nuns tell Toni the sensible time span in which one would get adopted, even just to serve, is running out, so she’ll have to take the vows as well. They recite them to her and Shelby is present: Toni’s face is stoic but Shelby can read there’s something bothering her.
«What is it?» Shelby asks later, over lunch, both of them sitting at the end of the long table. As one gets older, the convent gets filled with new people, and Toni and her see them being taken one by one. It’s just the two of them, as older nuns die and younger kids get welcome and sent out — just the two of them, always, and Shelby wouldn’t have it any other way.
«Vow of poverty, check. It’s not like I own shit.»
Shelby wonders where did Toni learn all those words from, but it suits her, in a way, and only Toni could turn something Shelby has learned to mark as foul as something suitable, funny, endearing.
«Vow of obedience, well, they will never have me.» This makes Shelby laugh just as much, and the new Mother Superior glares at her across the room, to which Toni rolls her eyes. Another thing about growing old here is the nuns understanding that you’ll probably stick around here, so you might as well try to work towards an equilibrium. But there’s no equilibrium with Toni: she takes and takes, and an eye roll seems so little now, but it would have been the end of the world, back when they were ten.
(Shelby wonders how come Toni takes and takes with anyone but Shelby, so it must be really true, it must be that Shelby isn’t pretty enough for her, and Toni doesn’t want her, not like that.)
«And vow of chastity, well…»
Shelby opens her eyes wide, because she’s been listed those vows too, last year: she knows what chastity is, and she also knows how one isn’t supposed to talk about that stuff.
When a nun eavesdrops on the word she shushes them, and Toni holds her hands up, but she’s smirking, and Shelby feels her face go on fire.
What does it mean?
\
«Do you believe in God?» Toni asks her, as they’re laying on the grass, watching the farmers pick rice like they always do every summer, the mosquitos annoying like they always are, but there’s a nice cold wind making it all more bearable.
They’ve talked about it plenty, and Shelby knows how Toni never bought the story for a second, while Shelby has always been one shoe in, one shoe out, all of her life. Perhaps if Toni never showed up, Shelby would have been more committed to God.
«Perhaps.»
Toni rolls on her stomach at that, shoving her a little, and Shelby’s heart skips a beat every time Toni touches her, lately. Toni is already sixteen and Shelby will turn the age that October, so they’re old now, old enough for Shelby to start feeling different, to feel everything ten times amplified.
«C’mon Shelby, don’t give me those half-answers.»
«Why do you care?»
Toni looks unbothered as ever, one grass blade in her mouth, the low sun kissing her eyelashes. Shelby would switch her ability to sing for one to paint, because she’d give everything to keep this image with her. An image of true beauty, an image she’s more than glad no one else has picked on, because being beautiful has been such a curse for Shelby, she just wishes to protect Toni.
«Just because. It’s a big deal, isn’t it?»
«Then don’t ask it as if it wasn’t.»
Toni frowns and turns back at her, «why are you mad now?» and Shelby truly doesn’t know, but sometimes Toni looks just so distant, she’d do anything just to get a reaction from her.
So Shelby sighs and turns on her back, staring up at the sky.
If God existed, would he reject her too?
\
«Here, I made you this,» is Toni’s offering, over Shelby’s birthday. She holds a camellia in her hand, and they don’t own anything, so Shelby never expects anything, but Toni always brings her something. A particularly round rock, a turtle she picked by the river, a silky button she stole in church.
«I know it’s cheesy,» she starts, and it’s such a common flower in these lands that it shouldn’t feel as special as it does. Perhaps it’s the fact that Toni is growing up this beautiful, way more beautiful than anyone gives her credit for, but Shelby is glad, because being beautiful is a curse, when you don’t own your body.
She’ll gladly keep all of Toni’s beauty to herself, for her eyes to gratify and her eyes only.
«So, do you like it?» Toni presses, and she looks so impatient, all big eyes and raised brows, swinging on her feet. Shelby loves it, and suddenly she wishes she had a different way to say it: so she places the flower down, by her bed, and at this hour of the afternoon the room is empty. So she takes a step in and hugs Toni, even if they never do, not commonly. Toni’s body pressing against hers, and it feels so good but it also feels like it’s not good enough, so Shelby sighs against the top of her head, and Toni might understand it, as she holds her closer.
«Damn, and here I was thinking I was being the cheesy one.»
«Shut up.»
\
It goes all downhill, one day.
There’s a new priest in town, and he’s “one of the big ones”, like Toni says: maybe not a cardinal, but one that is powerful enough to talk to the Pope himself. He’s one of the big ones and has a whole shrine business, one he can make so much money from he could buy ten times their little convent, all the girls inside and sell them as slaves.
Him coming to town is a big deal, because the village is very small, and Shelby knows it can only mean danger — but the nuns tell her again: you’re so pretty and you sing so beautifully, so she gets sent in first-row of the chorus over the welcoming service they hold for him.
It’s no surprise when the nuns tell her he wants to see her, the next day.
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«Scream.»
«Toni?»
«Just, if he tries anything, scream. I’ll be right there, under the stairs. Understood?»
This is Toni’s warning that evening, right after the last prayer for the day, the rest of the girls heading to bed, the two of them sneaking out like they always do, before being caught.
«What do you mean, if he tries what?»
Toni huffs, looks impatient, looks like she wishes Shelby wouldn’t be delusional for a minute, and Shelby hates it. She hates how Toni seems to treat her as if she was stupid sometimes, as if it was Shelby’s innocence and carefulness her stupidity, and not rather Toni’s recklessness and hotheadedness.
«If he tries-» Toni starts hushed, and they’re sitting by that same bench they met on, their little spot, even if they agreed many times they should have a more hidden one. One place Shelby might be more daring in, maybe. One she wouldn’t just stick to hugging Toni, one she’d explore what her confusing and complex desire consist of. One she’d ask Toni to teach her all the things she knows of, if she’s done the things they aren’t supposed to, if she’s done them with others.
Shelby’s only knowledge of the topic dates back to two years ago: how a nun told her not to engage in intimate contact with boys, because it’s sinful, and only God can have her intimacy.
«If he tries to touch you,» Toni finishes, more softly, as if saying the words disgusted her deeply.
Shelby has known the touch of boys up her legs a few times, but she’s been so young, it’s so hard to recall: how far it went, if they knew what they were doing, and they’ve always been stopped, or so it must be. Shelby is pure, just like her face, just like her voice, even if her teeth never grew and Toni hasn’t told her once that she finds her pretty. (Maybe the world isn’t in black and whites, in good and bad people: maybe Shelby is a grey, and if they had a more hidden spot, she could indulge in her blackness too.)
The thought makes Shelby’s heart race, and it’s confusion and it’s frustration, powerlessness for something that feels exceeding her comprehension — can’t she leave, can’t they run away together? Can’t Toni protect her out in the open, and not hiding behind the stairs? Can’t Shelby shout she’s hers, and not God’s, for she’s never seen Him but has felt Toni’s love again and again?
«I think you should go now,» is the last thing she expects to say, but she does, and maybe it’s for the best.
Toni looks at her intently, but doesn’t press any further. «Just scream, if anything happens,» she repeats, before walking away — and that night they don’t sleep together.
(Shelby wonders if what she does with Toni is sinful, because it sure feels intimate, but Toni is not a boy, so it should be fine. Also, sin is supposed to make you feel bad, but she’s never felt safer anywhere that wasn’t between Toni’s arms.)
\
Shelby screams.
Shelby screams even if it wasn’t that necessary: the man had many rings, and the cold metal was colder than his deadly fingers up her tight. Shelby doesn’t know if that was intimacy, if she was breaking her vow, but he’s a priest so he should know better, he should know what God wants and what he doesn’t. Shelby still screams because the metal is cold, and his rings are shiny: if Toni was here she’d steal them and sell them, but Toni is here, and that’s what turns Shelby’s gasp, shut eyes and trembling legs into a proper scream.
Toni comes, and the man steps back, shouting, accusatory, witches and engaged with the devil, but Shelby’s mind works slowly as Toni grabs her wrist and they run away.
Toni can’t fight him: she’s no prince in shiny armour, but it’s more than enough: Shelby doesn’t need a man, she doesn’t need blood spilt over her honour. She doesn’t need anything, but one thing she wants, and it’s leading her out of the room.
\
They switch convents: they run and run and run, they get a lift in the back of a chariot, and soon enough it’s another village and another convent, but they’re no longer babies in the moving wheel: they’re almost adults, on their way to complete the process of taking their vows, half nuns and half nothing.
Toni looks contemplative during the whole ride, when the farmers ask them where they’re headed and why. Shelby expects her to spill it out: to say the truth, as hard and raw and ugly as it is, like she always does.
But this time she bites her tongue and fakes a smile. «We’ve been sent north.»
And that’s how their run starts.
\
Shelby understands Toni is protecting Shelby’s secret, as time goes by. Because «he can’t find us,» which sounds an awful lot like this is no place for us, we’ll have to hide forever.
Shelby doesn’t mind. She’d hide forever, in stables and caves, if she got to stay by Toni’s side. The one person she needs, the one person she wants. Who’s God, if not her love?
\
They witness a stake when they’re seventeen and a half, and they’ve kept travelling, until the accents mix together and the language isn’t unified yet, but they still manage to recite their Latin prayers well enough for them to buy a ticket there under the false premise of their faith. Now it truly is just them against the world, where they don’t understand half the sentences and the other half get said behind their back, whispering, because she’s so pretty and how come she’s a nun?
Shelby is sorry to have dragged Toni down with her, and she’d like to switch that life for one of a man, and take Toni far away with her, and hide from the prying eye. What do they care, anyway? She’s sorry even if they’ve talked about this before, because Shelby’s beauty wasn’t her fault, but it was her curse, and Toni could have lived a much quieter life.
(They’ve talked about this, and they keep talking about it, every time Shelby feels its weight: «you should go back, they aren’t looking for you.»
«I’m not leaving you Shelbs, don’t be stupid.»
And, like every other time, Shelby wonders why, but doesn’t ask. Is Shelby as necessary to Toni as Toni is to her? As vital, as needed, no air without her, no means to run, if not to just come back in Toni’s embrace at night?)
They witness a stake and the girl has red hair, that’s the accusation, red as the devil’s skin, so she’s the devil’s offspring. A priest recites an exorcism, and there are children too, under the deck, pointing their fingers at her and laughing. It’s such a cruel scene Shelby turns her eyes away, but Toni’s warm hand finds hers, and their tunics are mixed enough for only them to feel it.
So Shelby brings herself to look, Toni’s hold steadying her, as the woman screams, as flames eat her skin alive.
Shelby doesn’t sleep that night, but Toni holds her, so she thinks she’ll manage like she always has.
«Do you think she really was a witch?» Shelby asks, just above a whisper, against Toni’s bare shoulder. She loves to speak this close, as if she could taste her, and sometimes she gets the weird thought of what if . What if she did, what if she parted her lips and let her tongue slip on it? Would that be intimacy, would that be a sin? Would Toni’s skin taste as salty as Shelby’s, would it taste different? Would Toni find it weird, would she like it?
«I think it’s all such bullshit. God doesn’t exist so neither does the devil, it’s just another method they use to do as they please.»
To do as they please, Shelby thinks about it all night. She feels like she doesn’t want much: she just wants not to be on a constant run, not fearing to be burned alive with no means to justify herself. She just wants Toni, and even if she can’t have her more than she already has, it might be enough.
\
«We need to leave,» whispered in a cold night, while Shelby is well asleep, body tangled against Toni’s, wakes her up — leave why, for what, why so soon?
Toni stands up and gets dressed so very fast, and to Shelby it feels unnecessary, but usually Toni’s ears are tuned to the danger, having grown up to be the main attraction for it — so Shelby trusts her, blindly, like she always does.
The news travels with them, when they’re on the back of a donkey, next to some late-night travellers, kind enough to let them come with them.
«I’ve heard they found two witches, a couple of villages south. One with missing teeth, the other one with freckles,» one of the men says, and Shelby takes note not to open her mouth for the rest of the trip. When asked why, it’s Toni who answers in her place, saying she’s mute.
«That must be why,» one of the men replies, and Shelby understands the implications. That must be why she’s a nun: no one will take a mute wife, for how pretty she might be — but for how Shelby has known men, she would have disagreed.
\
From convents they switch to farmhouses, feeling it safer offering their manual work, and it’s such a pretty life, Shelby feels happy. Genuinely happy, with a consistency she hasn’t felt in a long time. The couple who takes them in is a couple of old people whose sons have died from the plague, so they have no one to work the field for them: they treat Shelby and Toni like normal people, and they all eat their meals together and pray together.
«They’re not our family,» Toni cares to remind her, from time to time, and Shelby wonders if she might be jealous. Shelby wishes she was, because jealousy is something someone holy shouldn’t feel, and if Toni won’t be holy enough to be happy for them, then maybe Toni won’t be holy enough to deprive Shelby of her sinful desires. Shelby is not holy, not by any means, torn between hoping for Toni’s soul salvation, and hoping she’ll care enough for Shelby’s earthly life to be jealous of her.
«I know,» but if Toni won’t say that she’s jealous, Shelby won’t say that she knows because Toni is Shelby’s only family, ever was and ever will.
\
One can only run so much, and that’s why Shelby is here.
A kidnapping over the night, Toni finding the old couple dead in the kitchen, running to wake Shelby up, but Shelby having been woken up with the Church’s guards already. Toni kept down to the ground with her wrists behind her back and one boot on her back, while yelling «let her go! Let her fucking go!» at the top of her lungs, as if it could change a thing, Shelby’s throat too dry to say anything, and the guards dragging her away.
The name they tell the accusation is from is that same “big one” from years ago, returned just to scratch an itch, to make up for perhaps the only time one has said no to him.
\
«You’re so pretty,» feels so damn out of place, but it’s been days and no one has talked to her: they’ve just brought her food, and down here it’s so dark and humid, and Shelby hears the constant falling of water drops on the ground, and her bones are so cold she feels like she could faint. The days mix together, and it might have been a week just like a month. Her head is dizzy and eyelids are so heavy, and she truly can’t be pretty, she must look devastated, malnourished and ghostly.
«Shelby Goodkind, you’re charged with witchcraft.»
Toni would have turned nineteen in just a month, and Shelby would have picked a flower of her own just to have an excuse to hug her, and they would have dined with those old people, and once passed away, they would have kept their house and carried on with their own life. Just like Shelby wanted, everything Shelby wanted: a simple life by Toni’s side and nothing more. No glory, no pressures, no beauty, no fancy rings and no institutional power. Just Toni, and her laugh, and laying by the grass and touching the nature around them.
But «you’re so pretty,» and «the inquisitor will come in soon.»
\
The inquisitor’s name is Manini, and he makes a funny face when he reads Shelby’s name: «where do you come from?» but she doesn’t know, and the question reminds her so much of Toni’s, nine years ago, when everything started. Shelby has spent exactly half her life with her and half without, and the second looks so pale and meaningless in comparison.
“Shelby” always sounded funny to her own ears too, but Toni always told her it made her special. Shelby always countered that Toni chose a boyish nickname, so she wouldn’t take her advice, even if Shelby loved Toni’s name, just like every other part of her.
«I just need you to admit your involvement with witchcraft,» he says.
«What’s the evidence?» Shelby asks, in pure Toni style, and she knows Toni would have been proud, if they had been younger. Young-Toni would have been proud and old-Toni would have called her careless, because old-Toni cares more than she wishes to admit, Shelby sees it now. She sees it as she’s one step before death, one step before stake, one step away from telling Toni that she never wanted anything but her, if one single desire is allowed to someone like her.
If life won’t reject her this time too, Toni is all the life she needs, the only one for which rejection she’d die.
«Missing teeth. Retractable fangs.»
Shelby would have laughed, because vampirism is part of folklore, certainly not of the Roman Church’s doctrine, but she keeps her laugh to herself, because what’s the point in laughing if Toni isn’t here to look proud of her?
«There’s no fangs. I just dropped them as a child and they never grew back.»
«You could be holding them back now.»
«How can I prove my innocence?»
«You really can’t. But I have to make sure you’ll testify for when the stake will be ready.»
Shelby should have seen it coming, that’s the end someone whose body never really was hers ends — but «what if I don’t?»
And that’s perhaps the stupidest thing she could have asked for.
\
It’s torture, and Shelby would have given up instantly, if she didn’t have Toni constantly in the back of her mind. Her just scream and I’ll come, even if Toni doesn’t, this one time, and where’s Toni now?
Shelby almost asks it, exhausted and beaten up, but she’s also reminded of Toni’s he can’t find us, so she keeps her lips sealed, Toni’s many little teachings to walk her through the torture as if this was one of their many games.
And Shelby might be tripping over the verge of insanity, when she finally admits it, because that’s the easiest way to go, and she wants Toni to be proud of her, even on the deathbed: if young-Toni wished for a careless champion, she knows this Toni wants her to be smart.
«Maybe I am a witch, alright? Maybe I am, just kill me quickly.»
If Manini looks taken aback, so very used to this kind of job, he doesn’t say a thing, and just walks away.
«Very well, then.»
\
Shelby truly has tripped over insanity, because it’s desperation, what brings her to bring out her smartest game. A sharp metal bar by the floor, the edge of the table and a work of quietness and consistency, for starters: that’s how she makes her first knife. She rejects inflicting death, and she’s never minded so much dying, even if solely out of curiosity, even if just to see if God truly exists and if He judges her as one of the good ones. That’s why it’s total insanity, and maybe witchcraft, what possesses Shelby to fake to be asleep by the time one of the guards walk in, walks close enough for her to stab him and takes his clothes.
That’s how Shelby escapes: dresses like a guard, keeping her mouth shut, knowing she only has so much time before they’ll find the man’s body.
\
She also knows it was total insanity because she shows up at the marketplace where the platform is ready for her to burn on. She’s recognizable, if Manini sees her it will all be worthless, the guard’s life wasted, if he truly died.
But if Shelby knows Toni a bit, she knows she’ll find her way to be here, so she shows up, her hair tied back to make it look as if it was short, her mouth shut, head tilted downwards.
«Look at that guy, so young and already serving the Pope!» is one of the many comments that make Shelby tremble, sure she’s catching the attention with her delicate features, sure everyone knows — but she only needs one person to know.
And it’s the person standing in front of her, right now, looking as if she just saw a ghost.
«We need your help at the convent, sir,» is Toni’s voice, a couple of steps afar, making her way through the crowd as if that was the most pressing matter in the world.
And maybe it is, maybe it truly is, because it sure feels like that, as Shelby follows Toni quickly, before they understand that the witch who’s supposed to be burning is late, and she’s late because she fled.
\
«Oh my fucking god-»
«You shouldn’t swear.»
«That’s what you’re concerned about? Me fucking swearing? You’re- you made it-» Toni’s urgency is told by her eyes, wide and open, running all over Shelby’s body as if it was the last time she saw her, as if she was trying to paint a picture of her in her mind, and if I’m not pretty enough for you, why bother?
«What the fuck are you wearing?» is Toni’s first attempt at getting the story, but she must be truly worried, because she tries harder: «how did you do it? My, you’re so smart, I had no doubt.»
It’s in that desert sewers, as everyone else is in the square, waiting for the witch’s trial, that Shelby tells her everything, walking quickly, running again.
\
«We can’t go back there.»
«But we had our house.»
«You need to get rid of those clothes.»
But they do it: they end up working here and there, saving up and picking up skills, until it’s their own little house in the woods and their own little vegetables they cultivate. The water that rains the one they drink, the animals that preceded them the ones they have to be aware of — but also the sky that they’ve always had on top of their heads keeps sheltering them, wrapping their questions and never answering.
«So you think it was God?» Toni asks her, one night, and it’s been months now, they must be twenty and Shelby is yet to give Toni her flower.
«Thought you didn’t believe in Him.»
«That’s why I’m asking. Do you think it was him who…»
Shelby turns to face her, as they’re laying on the roof, and it’s unstable, if it breaks it will be hard to build back up, but Toni insisted, so they keep sneaking up here. Even if it’s cold and Shelby hasn’t knitted a long enough blanket, not enough wool, not enough sheep and not enough time. But it doesn’t feel ‘not enough’, none of that does: it’s everything more than Shelby could have hoped for, now that she realizes.
She turns to face her because Toni has shut down suddenly, and it’s a moment later when she speaks again, with a kind of voice she only has heard once before: let her go, shouted in a way that made Shelby wonder if Toni would have cared to lose all her breath just to beg them for Shelby’s life.
«…who kept you safe.»
It wasn’t God who taught Shelby how to run away, so Shelby should answer it was you, actually, and it’s to Toni the one whom Shelby owes her life to. Not physically, but at least as the cause to which her heart has been vowed to since she was ten: the only object she ever felt tension for, bent towards, always supposed to turn to its rightful house, someday. If there wouldn’t have been Toni, Shelby wouldn’t have cared to live or to die.
But Shelby knows a bit how Toni’s mind work by now, so she turns around, this big sky above them, but Shelby doesn’t feel little, not at all: she feels as if both of them fit perfectly there, as if it was all made for them, as if it all made sense: from this trembling house to this short blanket, because it’s so short it forces them to sleep so close, and Shelby wouldn’t have it any other way.
«I’m here now,» Shelby just says, and she doesn’t mind trading the star-sight for Toni’s neck, as she rests her face there.
It’s silence, and it’s Toni’s fingers through her hair, in a soothing way that walks her to sleep. Then it’s a barely, so very quiet, Shelby almost misses it: «you might be a witch, all things considered.»
Shelby chuckles, «why?»
Toni takes a deep breath, and Shelby can’t bring herself to open her eyes, because she feels so good like this, but she’s sure Toni looks as serious as always, as beautiful as always.
«I feel so weird when I’m with you.»
«Weird how?»
«Bewitched.»
«That’s not an explanation,» but it does catch Shelby’s attention, for where the two of them come from witchcraft is dangerous and bad and something to never associate to. Does Toni no longer want to associate with her?
«I don’t have a better word.»
When there isn’t the word sometimes there is the concept, so Shelby only needs to know one thing: «good weird or bad weird?»
«The best I’ve ever felt.»
And it should be enough, it really should, but they both had been rejected by life so many times, it doesn’t mean that the best isn’t a different kind of bad, and Shelby wouldn’t be surprised if Toni’s lack of compliments came from a place of rejection.
«Do you think I’m pretty?» Shelby doesn’t know why she asks, but when Toni told her she’d been smart, all those months ago, Shelby felt it too: weird, the best kind of weird, a feeling only Toni produced in her.
«You’re fishing for compliments now.»
«I really am not. With you I really don’t know,» don’t know what to think, how to act, but Shelby doesn’t carry on, as Toni doesn’t answer.
It’s such a fragmented conversation, Shelby wonders if it’s the sleep in her brain what tells her only bits of it, or if Toni is talking to herself, only letting Shelby participate here and there.
«I worry, sometimes. That I’ll turn like them.»
This is enough to make Shelby wake up, and it all feels a bit clearer now, but it’s still so dark out, it can’t be sooner than dusk. There are little drops of dew on Toni’s eyelashes, and again, Shelby wonders what if she kissed right there.
«Like who?»
Toni turns to look at her, so that their noses brush against one another, and her eyes go from Shelby’s to her lips, face confused, pained, asking. «Why is it so important if I find you pretty?»
«Why haven’t you ever told me I was, if you think so?»
«Why would I tell you? Everyone told you plenty already. You could use some modesty.»
Shelby chuckles, because she knows Toni is only mocking her, in thick Mother Superior’s accent — and it all feels so timeless right now, suspended in another dimension, as if they weren’t somewhere in the woods, right by the Alps, and people weren’t hunting them down.
«I don’t have the right words for this either,» Shelby finishes, and her chest feels so tight like it always does before rejection, like it always used to before one you’re so pretty.
They stare in silence, and in Toni’s warm eyes, Shelby feels hers grow heavy once again.
«I’m glad you’re so smart,» Toni says softly, and it’s different, because it’s not you’re so smart so I have the right to..., but it’s I’m glad you’re so smart, I just am.
And Shelby feels like a word might exist for that feeling, as if the roof would give up under them, and Shelby would fall, fall, fall — but she wouldn’t care.
\
«I didn’t mean to be unoriginal, but there’s only edelweisses all around,» is how Shelby announces her gift for Toni’s twenty-first birthday. Even if they have no calendars this must be the reason, and Toni seems to understand, because she picks it up and pockets it.
«They make it for a mean soup.»
«Ew.»
«It’s not like we can be picky,» but it’s with a small smile hidden under her tilling work that she lets Shelby know she knows what the flower is for. «Thanks, it’s very pretty.»
«Even if it’s the most common flower here?»
Toni huffs, «even if it’s the most common, yeah. You rare beauties have something against us commoners? Not blonde enough for you?»
Toni’s irony isn’t news, but it’s her underlying compliment which takes Shelby aback. And her surprise must show, because Toni’s face turns a bit red, as if understanding too late what she let slip up.
\
«What did you mean the other day? When you said you’re afraid you’ll turn like them, who’s them?»
Shelby asks so when it’s more like “the other month” than “the other day”, but Toni doesn’t comment on it, as they’re both lying in their makeshift pile of hay, and it should be more uncomfortable, but all the blankets Shelby has staked make for a cosy mattress now.
«You should teach me how to sew.»
«Don’t change the topic,» and «it’s not like we have threads anyway.»
«You never know. I might steal some.»
«You shouldn’t steal.»
«I’m sure they’ll be fine.»
«Toni.»
«What?»
«Turn like who?»
Toni sighs, but she turns on her back, just like Shelby expects her to.
«It’s that I get it, sometimes. Why they think you’re a witch.»
«You think I am?»
«Of course not, I don’t even believe in god, let alone the devil.»
«Then I don’t think I understand,» and it’s bad, how Toni feels so distant now, distant and nervous, Shelby looking at her on her side, Toni just staring at their badly-made roof.
It’s bad and scary and Shelby doesn’t want anything, anyone, just Toni, but who would want to have something to do with a witch? Is Shelby turning crazy, has she made a deal with the devil, that night she told Manini that she was a witch?
«I get why they think you’re a witch because some people are just born like you. And I haven’t met that many people, but I surely have never met a better candidate for a witch like you.»
«Will you stop talking like that? Saying things halfway? I’m not a witch, I swear, I never did anything to be one-»
Shelby’s breath grows laboured, and Toni grabs her wrists, and finally it’s contact, and who would touch a witch, isn’t she scared? Shelby is the scared one now, because why can’t they just have things simple like they used to when they were kids, when Toni held the whole universe with her you’re not that pretty, and Shelby didn’t lose her mind over it, didn’t wish she was — pretty enough for her, just for her.
«I know you aren’t, are you even listening to me? I’m just saying that I have these thoughts sometimes, and I know it’s not okay, and I surely won’t tell you you’re a witch and blame you , like they do.»
«You think of what, burning me? What are you even trying to say here?»
Toni’s hold on Shelby’s wrists eases up, and they’re both laying sideways, watching each other, Shelby feeling shivers down her spine, and maybe being a witch, if those existed, would have been for the best. Maybe she could have truly cast a spell on Toni, made her hers, and end the story there.
Toni’s firm grasp turns into soft circling, and it’s so nice, it hardly feels like they’re fighting, but maybe they aren’t. Maybe they aren’t because Toni gulps, and looks down, before looking back up at her.
«I just had a lot of reconsidering to do, lately. After they took you, just because they wanted you. It’s not fair. I don’t want to take something just because I want it.»
Shelby scoffs at her own mind, because she would have bewitched Toni, if she only could, and here Toni was lecturing her, even without meaning to, about consent, and of course she got to be the sensitive one about it.
«But what is fair is that I tell you, because I know you believe in God, at least a little, so you might believe in sins as well. And-» Toni’s hands leave their place on Shelby’s skin, and Shelby misses it instantly, but she gets this is a big deal for Toni, so she lays quietly and waits. Does she even believe in sins? (Does she even believe in God, when who saved her, back in the prisons, had been her desire for Toni?)
«-I wish I could touch you sometimes, like I’ve heard the kids talk about, back in the orphanage.»
Shelby’s heart stops, and she remembers bits of it: when they were thirteen or so, and Toni had been weird, but never revealed anything other than a few comments. Other than a few that’s disgusting and why would one want to do that, but to Shelby’s do what Toni never answered.
«What did they talk about?» She asks, softly, knowing full well where this is headed, because the moment Toni gives her all the information, Shelby is no fool. And when there isn’t the word there still is the concept, just like when there isn’t the knowledge there still is the nature, as a little something gets born in her, a little something that is new but has some familiar tones to its sensation, and she can’t quite let go of the feeling, as she stares at Toni’s lips while she talks.
«They took their clothes off, and touched where you’re supposed to cover.»
Toni’s voice is low, just like it always is, but her tone is measured, and Shelby’s mouth starts watering, just like before a well-prepared meal, but it’s late at night so it doesn’t make any sense right now — she feels as if she needs to busy it with something, not quite to eat but rather to bite, and that ancient thought comes back: what would Toni’s skin taste like?
«Then do it.»
It’s not just curiosity: it’s Shelby’s own desires, which never had quite this shape, but it feels only natural now, and it’s also Toni’s admission of a moment before. If Toni has thought about it Shelby wants to give it to her, for she is grateful for everything she has, for being the purpose in her life, for being her saviour without even knowing it.
«Then do it, Toni, I literally followed you across the peninsula,» Shelby jokes, and Toni’s worried expression softens a bit — even if they haven’t discovered how to make candles yet and they have to work with how bright the moon is tonight, Shelby doesn’t dare to sit up, and just by her lying position, she takes Toni’s hands in her own. «Risked my life to get back to you.»
«If we want to be technical, you were condemned to death for the very next day.»
But as Shelby rolls her eyes, Toni doesn’t seem that very concerned about technicalities, as her hands shake a bit in Shelby’s.
«I mean what I said. I don’t want to take you just because I can.»
«It’s not a take if I’m offering,» is the first thing Shelby clears, as she takes her hands and guides them on her stomach. That’s the first place, for hands are neutral, and we use them all day, but the stomach is to be protected from the cold and from hits, as it contains vital organs — so Shelby guides Toni’s hands there, for her to move freely, someone vital to her to somewhere just as much.
It’s also not a take if you already have me, Shelby would say, and even if she doesn’t have a word or a concept, even if no one has taught her yet, maybe that’s the way she’s supposed to feel about God, the way poets have talked about Him: sounding so in love, just like Shelby feels right now.
Now as Toni’s eyes are soft and hold the promise of a future together, still on the run, still her Toni, and Shelby gets it now: how beauty truly doesn’t matter, for Toni is the most beautiful creature she’s laid her eyes on, but it’s not you’re beautiful what slips past her lips: it’s «I love you,» even if that’s something mothers says to children, devotees say to Gods, and it’s only fitting, for Toni is her family and her reason to live.