Marek (Buried Lore Book 1)

by Gemma Liviero

  Silvia was teaching me to stitch. She mended and made clothes for the wealthier townspeople and she thought I would made a good clothes-maker one day and take over her business. She showed me fine stitching and looped ones for pockets. And she would give me a coin each week, which I put aside in a purse under my mattress.

  I would have perhaps still wished to live with Marek in his house on the hill where he could see the whole world, but it was proper, even for a peasant like me, that an unmarried, orphaned girl live with an older female, and Marek was no longer my master. There were no slaves on the island.

  I sat with Marek on the beach cliffs in front of his house. It was his day off for he worked with his father, and in their free time, they were building a boat. He told his father about Valona and how he could sell more there. His father was very pleased about this. Ricco was a good man. So often I caught a tear in his eye when he looked at Marek. I sensed that he carried much regret: perhaps that he could not prevent the suffering endured by both his wife and son. Though I did not know much about his history with Marissa, and Marek talked so little about it.

  Marek and I sat without sound. We did that often. He sometimes did not want to talk. I fell asleep in the sun and woke to find him tickling my face with flower petals. It felt good yet in the back of my mind there hung a dark cloud. I wondered how long these days would last.

  Ricco

  My boy came back. He did not speak much of his travels. His scar, he explained, was the work of savages he encountered in the Black Forest. He also said he had met his sister but that was all. I hoped to know about her in time. But I could see that there were inner scars also, and it pained him to remember the past months.

  There was something unusual about the tame wolf they called a dog. He seemed to be listening to our conversations. If we moved he followed. He was never very far from Marek and me, and growled when anyone approached Celeste. Both Marek and the girl had a secret bond with the beast, yet I sensed he was searching for something else, and he tended to sit with me.

  Sometimes when Marek and Celeste were sitting together I felt excluded. There was much unspoken about Marek’s time away. In time, maybe, but I did not push him. I myself hid much from him and still do. The boy was returned as a man and his words were his alone to use as he chose.

  And Celeste, she was smart and sweet and visited often. They went to the cliffs together daily. An unusual pairing. I still thought that Marek was better suited to one of the girls from Gildoroso. It would have helped if Celeste had talked. Many men at the osteria counted a woman’s lack of speech as a blessing. Marek ignored these comments. He did not see the lighter side to their conversations anymore. That was what was different about Marek. He did not find humour in the small things, and brooded more often. Perhaps it was just maturity. Often I caught him looking out to sea as if he was yearning to travel again, even though he said constantly how wonderful it was to be home.

  Sometimes though, he sat for hours watching the moon. But, stranger still, one day he asked me where his mother was buried. Something about that question left me cold, and I lied and said no, and for the first time I was pleased her body was buried far away on the mainland.

  For reasons about which I knew little, they say witches should be buried in unmarked graves.