Stigma

1

"You shouldn't be here."

"I know." His solemn face broke into a smile as he turned to look at her. He looked her up and down from green speckled eyes. His smile, she thought, studying it, was beautiful. It reminded her of summer, and of happiness. Suddenly she stuck out her hand for him to take and pulled him, breathless, along the streets until they reached a gate in a stone wall. Sliding the bolt across the metal pole, she tugged him inside. She missed the warmth and softness of his hand when she let go.

"You'll be safe in the orchard. The apples stopped growing so they stopped coming." She said in a low voice. He reached up and tugged an apple, a waxy fat one specked with yellow, from the tree they were leaning against. "They came back though." He murmured in between bites as he bit into the apple's skin, licking the juice as it ran down his hand.

"What are you doing here? Do you know how unsafe that is? If they found you here, nobody would ever see you alive again. And," she said, taking his hand again in her own, "that would be a real shame." He smiled again, and she blushed. "I came here to find a maiden as beautiful as you to marry," he said flippantly, brushing off her hand as he stood up to go. "But you're clearly not interested, so I'll be off." He made a motion to lift the bolt of the gate before she could bear it no longer. She had to stop him, she had to save him. She knew that if he was found here, he would be arrested and killed.

"Wait! No, you can't go! I don't even know your name..." she exclaimed, jumping up from the ground and grabbing hold of his shirt to stop him. "Juniper, but most know me as Jonathan" he replied, unbolting the gate. "Silver fern." "I'm Marigold." She said and dropped his hand. He bent down to kiss her ear softly as the gate swung open, revealing the busy streets behind. Sadly, she watched him disappear into the crowd and in her mind, she was praying that he wasn't seen, he wasn't caught, he wasn't killed. She could still feel the warmth of his hand, she could still see the curve of his lips, she could still feel the beating of her heart as she followed him, already losing sight of him in the crowd. She turned back the other way when she lost him though and walked silently back home.

It was only an hour later that she found herself hugging her knees tightly on her bed and whispering his name, touching her ear where he had kissed her. He was beautiful, in a silent kind of way, and she could tell that he was shy. But there were so many questions burning at the back of her mind: why was he here? Why wasn't he scared? How old was he? Did he like her too? Was he thinking of her right now, like she was thinking of him?

If Marigold looked strange that night, or if she was quieter and more thoughtful that evening, nobody noticed. But she hugged that image of Jonathan tightly in her head and when she drifted off to sleep she dreamed of his voice.