Golden Child | ✓

4. Caged Luck

The mayor's family took them in. Her father had always been on good terms with the mayor himself—they were third cousins once removed or something of the sort. Aurelie could never remember for certain. Their situation was temporary, only long enough for her father to rebuild them a home. He was a woodsman and a carpenter. Aurelie had faith in her father's strength.

Cynical Gin shook her head and muttered, "Shoemaker's children go barefoot, doctor's wives die young, and woodsmen's homes fall to the wind."

In an uncommon fit of annoyance, Aurelie snapped. "Gin, hold your tongue. Father's doing the best he can."

Without missing a beat, Gin pinched her tongue between two of her fingers and winked at Aurelie.

Always the charmer, the village said of Gin. Her beauty will rival her mother's someday.

But Aurelie knew Gin's charm was her acidic wit and intellect. People wanted her to like them, because she was so unconcerned with being liked herself. Aurelie could never stay angry at her, for her anger never affected Gin in the slightest.

As she watched her sister attempt to sip apple cider with her tongue still held in literal check, Aurelie wondered if she could be more like Gin: as much swayed by public opinion as a stone in the wind.

Following the storm, Aurelie ceased calling on her luck. She shook her head at her father's requests and turned away when his brow creased with concern. At school, she refused offers of pretty kittens and daisy chains in return for divine help on tests. At home, she stayed in her mother's shadow, where her father and sister didn't dare speak of her fortune maiden tasks.

"Aurelie, your hair is falling out," Gin said worriedly. Her sister showed her the hairbrush, which had an alarming amount of spun gold clinging to the bristles.

Aurelie's mother looked over from where she chopped up potatoes for stew. The mayor's wife had fallen in love with her food and didn't mind any extra expense of groceries as long as Akemi's cooking graced the table. Especially if said cooking included mushrooms. "Aurelie, are you not feeling well?" she asked. "You need to eat more. Mama will make you seaweed soup."

Aurelie balled up her hands in her skirt and said nothing of the odd lump that had formed in her chest. Her luck wanted release.

Instead, she sipped from her spoon in silence at supper and repeated her mother's words.

Seaweed soup cures all ills.

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"I'm not going to school," Aurelie told Gin a week later.

Her sister glanced at the schoolhouse within sight. "Are you feeling alright? You should have said something before we left home." She shifted her books to one arm and then the other. If there was one thing Gin disliked, it was the mere idea of being tardy.

"I'm going to the forest," Aurelie stated, bracing herself.

Gin's eyes darkened to stormy grey. "You can't. Mother said not to. The lights are a trick to lure you away."

Aurelie waved her hand at the sky. "It's too early for the wisps to be out. That's why I'm going now. Besides, I'm going mushroom hunting, not searching for nonexistent faerie gold." She lowered her voice, intent on hitting Gin's soft spot. Her sister had them. She just hid them better than other people. "You know father's been struggling with money right now. He's having to replace everything we lost and can't work while building at the same time."

Gin stiffened, but nodded. Aurelie could tell her sister was debating whether to go with her, but school won out. "Be safe," Gin said. "Bring home lots of pine mushrooms."

Aurelie saluted her and sprinted off, golden ribbon fluttering behind her. She stashed her school books in a hollow tree at the forest's edge.

The day before, the mayor had announced important politicians from the larger city of Thrynya would be coming to visit. Aurelie was willing to bet he would offer a pretty penny for rare mushrooms to impress his guests at dinner.

Nature lined up in her favor. It'd rained again earlier in the week—and not Aurelie-induced disaster rain. With the work of her luck, she filled her lunch basket to brimming and had to eat the lunch she'd brought early to make more room.

Spicy. Earthy. Earthy. Spicy. Earthy. She sorted through the giant pile of mushrooms that she'd carried in her white skirt.

Carefully. Very carefully. There would be no misfortune this time.

On the way home, she left three of the nicest mushrooms at her mother's shrine. It was nothing compared to the golden and crimson arches and pathways of shrines in the west, Akemi always said. She and Aurelie's father had built it shortly after they married and now the stone was moss-covered and spiders liked to spin their webs inside the square niche where Aurelie placed her offering.

Blue light.

Aurelie's eyes widened in fright as three wisps of flame appeared around the shrine. They seemed to dance in greeting and she was sure if she listened, she could hear them.

They looked happy and carefree. "Get away from me," Aurelie hissed at them. She gathered up her skirts and ran until she reached home, retrieving her books on the way.

Her father's beautiful silver eyes shone with delight when she handed him the mushrooms, but he placed the basket on the ground and picked her up instead. Aurelie squealed when he threw her up in the air and caught her, as if she were a small child again. "My little golden girl," he said proudly.

At dinner, the mayor and his guests ate their fill of matsutake.

Later, Aurelie learned that someone else had enjoyed mushrooms as well—one of the village children, tempted by the abundance of fungi she'd found and too young to know better.

She'd eaten her fill of poison and fallen deathly ill.

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