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CHAPTER ONE

UNLUCKY MOONS

Corrin Erinnsdotter had no luck.

Nanny had said so. Her family and everyone in the village of Rivrtonn knew it. As a toddler, when Corrin fell and scraped her hands and knees, Nanny would lift her up, kiss her sores and tell her she had no luck. When she got old enough to help her sisters around the house, every time she dropped a dish her oldest sister, Kate, would shake her head and say, "I can't give you anything proper to do, you have no luck."

Those words were a curse over her life.

Nanny loved her; it was only her superstitious way. Born under the unnatural light of a double eclipse, during harvest season at the stroke of midnight. All the universe lined up to single out the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter of Erinn. In the sky, the Mother and Father moons turned red with omen. When her poor mother died twelve hours later, Corrin's lifetime promise of bad luck descended in a permanent stain. Corrin thought it was silly to think the two moons of Dorsus would care enough about one girl child, in one tiny river town, to turn red for the entire world to see. She'd later learned in school that a double eclipse happened for perfectly good scientific reasons. Just as a mother who had a home birth without a doctor present could bleed to death if the afterbirth wasn't properly taken care of.

Until the day she died, Nanny bemoaned Corrin's lack of luck. Every bad thing that happened in her granddaughter's life boiled down to that one fact. "I love you, my dear child. But you have no luck. Someday, I pray someone loves you enough to give you theirs."

She'd asked Nanny why she didn't give Corrin her luck, since her grandmother loved her most of all. Corrin lived in the big house with Nanny, her six sisters, and her grandfather. As the youngest, only Nanny and Grandfather had time for her. Nanny said that if she could give Corrin any decent luck, she would. Her youngest daughter was gone, and all her other children lived beyond the mountains in the steel cities. Nanny was alone. She, too, had run out of luck. Nanny said she'd done the best she could, but a good strong man was the only answer. So, Nanny and Grandfather set aside a large dowry for her.

Corrin had asked why her father didn't come back from the steel cities and give her his luck. For some blasted reason, it seemed to Corrin that the men were the ones who had all the luck. They owned property by themselves, sat on the town council, and decided who to ask to marry.

Nanny never answered that one.

The stories of Corrin's mother and father's love were legendary. People talked about the couple around the community celebration fires as an example of the greatest love they had ever seen. There were even songs to immortalize them. The village people often spoke of the lucky man from the city who came to learn the antiquated craft of net fishing with the rustics who followed the 'humble life'. He married the fisherman's prettiest daughter, refusing to leave her behind when it was time for him to go.

In fact, he built her a big house and decided to stay with her.

He hadn't had any trouble leaving his seven daughters behind after his beloved died.

Nanny, for all her belief that a good man would solve Corrin's luck issues, worried that her father's house and the money to support it would not be enough to catch one. As Corrin grew, she decided a good man wouldn't care about money or property any more than a good man might abandon his children.

Nanny didn't always make the most sense. But, she'd been married three times herself, was full of practical knowledge, and willing to share all the details of her experiences with the granddaughter who loved her most of all. Corrin had been a little disgusted, perplexed, and a great deal intrigued by those stories. Nanny said when a man gave her his luck, it would feel so good she wouldn't want to stop— that was how she would know. The process sounded far too intimate and messy, but Nanny assured her it was worth it.

Nanny was gone two years now, having followed her river fisherman husband to the grave. Rivrtonn was small, the number of bachelors limited. The only man in the village to ask for Corrin was the pig farmer, Barthollo. Wealthy and established, he took after his pigs in manners and appearance. Corrin didn't think he would give her his luck. No, his plan was to stick his thing in her to warm himself on winter nights and fill her with his piggy sons. He'd said as much on his last visit.

With her parents and grandparents gone, Corrin still lived in the big house with her oldest sister, Kate, and her third oldest sister, Beth, and both their husbands.

Her other four sisters lived in their own homes in different villages further south on the river. Though Corrin avoided her own home, a large two-story wooden structure during the day, she made a point to sit at the head of the table each night and eat with what remained of her family. By inheritance, the house, the farmlands connected to it, and the bag of gold set aside to support it, belonged to Corrin as her dowry.

Kate and Beth, bossy and judgmental, were merely guests. They lived with her because in Rivrtonn Village, young ladies did not live alone. It wasn't done.

Kate forked steaming cooked fish onto Corrin's plate. Years had passed since anyone allowed Corrin to lift the dishes. Even the wooden trenchers split when she got a hold of them. The rule embarrassed Corrin, but she found it difficult not to agree.

Unlucky things happened when she came in contact with dishes. With stair steps. With new clothing.

Since her grandmother's death, her oldest sister had taken over the household. She bossed their one servant and decided how things were done. Twelve years older, acting as Corrin's second mother, it had felt like a natural progression. Corrin wouldn't think it a bother if only Kate had fewer ideas about the future.

"Barthollo was here to see you this afternoon, and I had to tell him that you were fishing. Again," Kate said. The plate of fish passed on, she spooned boiled beans onto Corrin's plate. Kate knew that Corrin did not like over-cooked, mushy boiled beans. Yet a big heap of them went right on to Corrin's plate.

The one thing that Corrin was good at was fishing. The trout on the table had come from her catch that morning. Kate disapproved of the manly pastime, but she never turned away a string of fish either.

"I don't want to see him." Corrin reminded her.

"Sister. You are getting on in years. It's a long time since you should have been married and he is a very good match. No one else has asked for you. You know he doesn't care about your clumsiness or bad luck. He will offer you a good life." She poured water into Corrin's cup. Kate liked to remind her, often, of her age and unmarried status, while at the same time treating her like a child. She made a solicitous effort to take care of her baby sister, out of the goodness of her heart.

Not a week ago, Corrin had lifted a cup to her mouth to have it slip out of her hands as if greased with butter. In dismay, she'd watched it shatter into a thousand pieces on the floor. The dishes had belonged to Nanny. She'd let Kate treat her like a child in this one thing.

"I don't like him, don't want him, have no intention of marrying him. This house is mine and I will live here happily, as long as I like." She gave her family a tight smile. "You are welcome to move out whenever you want."

Beth said from across the table, ignoring the offer to move. "You are too independent. You stomp through town like a boy, stink like a fisherman, and act like a ruffian. You're rough and clumsy and do nothing to make yourself better!"

Beth's words were a common refrain spoken repeatedly over the last two years. "You are as pretty as

Rubbing Me Pot O’ Gold at the Rainbow’s End

Quinn Blueheart

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