Raw Winter

Chapter 13: Blood in Water

Winter was curled in bed the next day and felt sick and desperate. She had already eaten all her food for the morning and was still hungry. She had asked Charlet again if there was a way she could rid herself of it, but he had told her there simply wasn't any concoction he could give her that would actually prevent it. He also hinted it would be very obvious to those watching her she had been pregnant and miscarried, even if he did.

Winter closed her eyes and tried to think of other things; anything else.

She recalled when she was much younger and accidentally entered Charlet's room without permission. She hadn't understood what she was seeing. Most men had flat chests when they weren't wearing a shirt, she knew, but Charlet did not. He seemed startled when he saw Winter. It was the first time he had raised his voice at her, telling her to leave and never speak of what she had seen.

She thought he was going to leave it at that, but went to speak to Winter about it after.

"I'm sorry, Winter. I shouldn't have yelled at you, but you weren't meant to see that," he had said.

"Why do you do that?" She had asked, young and innocent. She asked, hoping to hide from the monsters she knew their masters were, "Can you hide me like that?"

"No," Charlet told her. "This isn't because I'm hiding. It's for different reasons. I don't feel comfortable the way I was born, and this feels how I should be, so it's how I dress. For a very long time, I sought the approval of a man that didn't care about me, so after he died, I became what I always felt I was. If anything, I feel like I'm no longer hiding when I'm like this."

"Alright," Winter replied, not sure she understood, but knew Charlet was kind and took care of her. There was something Winter found attractive about him, especially as she grew older, but never knew how to tell him without sounding as if she didn't properly understand what he was. She didn't know how to handle it, but she was around him so often and he was so much older than her it didn't really matter.

She knew it wouldn't have worked even if he had been willing to try. She doubted things would have been different if she was a boy rather than a girl, and it would have been for entirely wrong reasons. She also didn't think her voice was deep enough. She thought it might be now, but that was after they had their way. For her, it was only a disguise, and not one she could have maintained.

She imagined when they went to town it would be so much easier to get away if she were a man. They were always looking for more men. However, if she disguised herself as one, and they found out—and with her current predicament, they would—they would throw her overboard. They considered women bad luck out at sea. She laughed softly as she remembered how she wanted to be a naval officer. It felt like a cruel joke, but there was still a part of her that thought she might pull it off.

Sometimes, she wished she was like Charlet. She sometimes wanted to be a man so much it hurt, but knew she wasn't. She wanted to be a man because of what men could do compared to women. Charlet, without question or doubt in her mind, was a man because he was a man. She hadn't really considered what that might mean. She just knew she respected it, and it didn't do anyone harm.

She couldn't stand waiting, knowing something had to give and wasn't about to let karma find her for lying around. She went to find books to read. Lately, she had grown interested in the gods of the sea, and there were many of them. Despite how she knew she should hate Hades, she often imagined what it would have been like if he wasn't so superstitious, and if he had kept her on his ship. She imagined having so many conversations with him about the things she had learned. She imagined telling him the gods of the sea loved her, so he had absolutely nothing to fear from her sinking him or his ship.