A Tyranny of Petticoats by Jessica Spotswood Page B

be. Rosa is as empathetic as a wild animal. As benevolent as a disease. If she is a queen, she is one to be feared more than beloved. And the mortals used to know this. They used to fear her. They used to fear
us.
But, as I’ve learned, it is quite difficult to fear three young girls, especially ones that come in such beautiful and fragile forms as my sisters.
    I glance over at Maria Elena. Now crouched on the ground, she is running her hands over the threads that carpet the floor, as if she can find the tiny thread by mere touch. “You read the stars last night, didn’t you?” she murmurs.
    I hesitate, considering my answer before I speak it aloud. My younger sister is all heart. She makes up for the sympathy that Rosa lacks. Perhaps it comes with the territory. It is, after all, by her small hands that the threads of life are spun. She needn’t burden herself with the responsibility of determining the fate of another living soul. That is my job. And she certainly doesn’t need to know the real reason I was out there, that it had very little to do with the brief life whose thread we just cut. So instead, I merely nod and allow my sensitive sister to grieve the short life as she pleases.
    I still find it strange to look at my sister and see the face of a twelve-year-old girl staring back. And yet, despite the freckles that splash across her turned-up nose and the perfect ringlets that spill down her back, I can still see every lifetime we shared circling her brown irises like the rings of an ancient tree. Maria Elena has the eyes of an old soul, eyes that are, at the moment, brimming with tears.
    I pat my sister’s head, waiting for her sorrow to pass. I can tell by the patch of sunshine moving across the floor that the morning has faded into day and it is time for Maria Elena to pass the torch to me.
    “Maybe I’ll go see if Mamá needs help preparing for the fiesta,” she says, wiping her eyes before winding her way out of the room. My heart, in all its wretched glory, stops at the mention of tonight’s celebration.
    “Or you could see about the
ristras,
” I call. Maria Elena’s callused fingers make her particularly gifted at stringing the chili peppers we hang to dry in the sun. Mamá says they have healing powers, but I usually can only finish a few before my fingers burn from the peppers’ caustic bite.
    I move through the room methodically, filling a willow basket with the threads that are fated to be cut tonight. They are easy to find, those flashes of silver amid a sea of color. My sister’s threads haven’t always been so brightly hued. I assume that it’s a consequence of our surroundings. Colors exist here that can’t be found anywhere else. Things aren’t just
yellow
in the desert; they are saffron flowers on the top of a prickly pear cactus, golden sands encircling a sole mesquite tree. And red isn’t just red; red is the carmine dye made from crushed cochineal insects and chili peppers warm from the sun. Blue is the heart-shaped blossoms on the indigo plant and black the pitch of the piñon tree and that frighteningly dark desert sky.
    I don’t think about the lives that are attached to the threads I’m collecting. It is a method I perfected lifetimes ago, but it seemed easier then, when we damned the gods to fates befitting their sins. Tucked into the band of my skirt is the thread I’ve carried since yesterday, when its strands began to shimmer. Try as I might, I can’t ignore the life that is attached to this one. I wind one end of the thread around my finger and watch as another red strand fades to silver.
    By midday, our pueblo ranch is a bustle of movement and noise. Maria Elena sits among a gaggle of old women basking in the sun in the
placita.
The women’s cheeks are as withered as the blistered skins of the chili peppers resting in their laps.
    “Come, sister,” Maria Elena calls joyfully, setting her
ristras
to the side. “You’ve finished in time to help Rosa with her