Then we’d choose the funny-shaped, extra fluffy ones. The clouds came and went like passengers at a train station. On hot, sticky summers, Auntie Tilda and I would lie on the grass by Charles River, cloud-spotting. That’s where we’ll meet, between the sunrays and the clouds.” “Just turn your face up, you silly goose. “How will I know you’re really here after your body is gone?” “But how?” I tugged at her gown, clinging to her promise.

Dead, alive, and in-between, I will always be there for you.” Her eyes shimmered with sickness so tangible I could taste it on my tongue. My aunt tucked wisps of blond curls behind my ear. She’d never braid my hair again, whispering magical tales about Greek gods and three-headed monsters. She’d never pick Belle and me up from school with Ziploc bags full of apple slices and strawberries whenever our parents worked long hours. Something that happened in other families, to other people.Īuntie Tilda was never going to scoop me in her arms, pretending to strum her fingers on me like I was an air guitar again. For the past few weeks, she’s slept sitting upright, falling in and out of consciousness.Īt twelve, death was an abstract concept to me. The cancer had spread to her lungs, liver, and kidneys, making it excruciating for my aunt to breathe. I soaked her hospital gown with tears, clutching the fabric in my little fists, ignoring Momma’s soft pleas to get off her ill sister. With the sound of my soul shattering on the hospice floor like delicate china.Īnd Auntie Tilda, wilting inside her hospital bed, her breath rattling in her empty lungs like a penny. The flower is known to be poisonous to the touch and deadly to consume.Īnd, like the mythological goddess Persephone, it only blossoms in spring. It is also referred to as the heart flower or as lady-in-bath. The bleeding heart is a pink and white flower that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional heart shape. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: “Red Right Hand” White Stripes: “Hardest Button to Button” He is about to find out the most lethal poison is also the sweetest. He thinks I’ll buckle under the weight of his mind games. Persephone wasn’t only the goddess of spring she was also the queen of death.

Now I’m the eldest Fitzpatrick brother’s little toy. The price for the money, it turns out, is my freedom. Only Cillian doesn’t hand out free favors. What’s a hundred grand to one of the wealthiest men in America, anyway? Bail me out of the mess my husband got me into.

Now I need him to do me another, small solid. To me, he is the man who (reluctantly) saved my life. Hades in a Brioni suit.Ĭillian Fitzpatrick has been dubbed every wicked thing on planet earth.

Boston belles the villain