Page 13 of The Butcher's Wife

The priest thumbs through the Bible on his lectern, glancing with watery blue eyes over his glasses between me and the double doors to the nave. Now and then, he dry coughs into a worn handkerchief.

My wedding dress is cheap and paired with the tallest pair of white heels I could find online. I’m so short that even with these stripper heels, the dress still drags on the ground. I adjust one of the uneven sleeves and force myself to stay still, but the itchy lace makes me want to crawl out of my skin. The sleeve slips down again.

Mom didn’t want to bring our usual seamstress over tothe house. She thought the clever woman might recognize the difference between me and who I should be. Dad made me wait a month for his answer, and had only given me a day’s notice that he’d arranged the wedding.

I can only imagine what the rest of the family will say about this.

Every time I shift to lift my dress sleeve, a few dried petals flutter to the ground, and the priest gives me a dirty look. I wanted the last bouquet Serafina was working on—the one from her bedroom. Besides Dom, it was the only thing I asked for.

There’s no clock, and my toes are slowly going numb from standing for so long. I lift one leg to roll my ankle.

“Serafina,” Mom hisses.

I drop my foot back down. Instead of a massive crowd of people to witness my union, it’s just Mom, Rafa, and Carlo. Carlo is wearing sunglasses and looks like he might be napping through an all-day hangover. Next to him, Rafa types away at his phone, which he pulled out after two minutes of waiting. Dad is out there in the rain somewhere, hunting down my future husband.

Is Dom coming? Doubt blooms and with it, a touch of panic. He’s my last resort. I haven’t been brave enough to turn my phone back on after the call, but it doesn’t matter—the message had been sent.

My hands are so sweaty that I have to keep shifting the bouquet to wipe one palm along the side of my dress.

“Serafina,” Mom says again.

A faint pinkish stain streaks the sides of my dress.

I glance toward Mom, who’s pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Sorry,” I whisper, the sound magnified in the emptychurch. The bouquet in my hand shivers, and a few more petals shake down. “Sorry,” I say again, crouching to pick them up.

“Serafina, stand up,” Mom pleads.

“Sorry.” I launch up, holding the bouquet in one hand and a few dried petals in the other.

Ahead of me is a stained-glass image of Mary Magdalene calmly washing Jesus’s feet with her long hair.

I close my eyes and wait.

Maybe I’ll find myself waiting the entire night. I’ll stand here in the darkness like a marble statue at an art auction until another man comes up to claim me. With any luck, he’ll be strong enough to weather the danger I bring with me.

I wrinkle my nose so I don’t sneeze from the mildew surrounding me. I glance at the priest. Is it him I’m smelling? He looks up from the Bible and scrutinizes me.

I resist the urge to apologize, bowing my head to avoid his gaze.

The other reason I’d been looking forward to this wedding with the smallest scrap of anticipation is that I thought, Ihoped,that in this church, I would feel something—a powerful assurance at the presence of God around me, or a whisper to let me know everything is going according to plan. I’d light a candle, and I’d feel the weight of my sister’s cheek pressed against mine one final time, hear her voice in the wind, or God himself would plant peace in my heart.

There’s only emptiness.

Her soul is supposed to go somewhere. Isn’t that a law of nature? Energy isn’t created or destroyed.

But I can’t feel her, and I can’t make myself pretend otherwise, though I wish I could.

Tears prick my eyes. Even if she were only a prayer away, I wouldn’t ask for her. I don’t want her here in this rotting church. I don’t want her anywhere near me. My soul will corrupt hers and weigh it down with my sins like a yoke around her neck until she sinks to the bottom of hell.

A breath ghosts over the back of my neck, and my eyes fly open. The church doors burst open with two heavy thuds.

Licking his dry lips, the priest opens his Bible to a marked page. Mom points to her sleeve.

I pull up my dress collar, and a few more petals float down. My chest heaves as I inhale, and heavy footsteps thunder around the corner to the nave. Whatever happens now, I asked for this. I turn toward the newcomer, and my heart stops, the seconds unfurling into infinity. The man striding toward me doesn’t look like a husband.

He looks like a warlord. Somewhere outside, thunder cracks.