Remember, says my sister by the water, envy and desire are often one and the same trance.
“First, though, I think you should take a closer look at this Glow,” I say. And then the look in his eye shifts. Slowly, I take his hands and bring them up to my face. Press his palms into my cheeks. I feel his hands trembling against my skin or am I trembling at his touch, Sisters? But my sisters are sighing. Sighing as Hud Hudson is shuddering, shaking his head like he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, even though he’s only moving in closer as I’m moving in closer. Not pulling back, not like our boyfriend did earlier. Sighing now as he strokes my face. At first very softly, tenderly, like he might break me. Then more intensely, with hunger and wonder. “Holy fuck,” he whispers into my ear.
All around me, my sisters are sighing at the touch of the beautiful detective. Our souls open like a flower opens to the light.
Entrancing, whispers my sister by the flowers.
So long as we’re just using him, mumbles my sister on the couch.
Finally, the sea, sighs my sister by the water.
I lean in and kill him on the lips and he kills me right back. Kisses. Deeply. I taste roses. I feel the want in his hands and lips, deep as my own want, its mirror. Deep as the mystery of the first mirror.
And something else is there too, in his touch that can’t get enough. Something under its want, in its depths, I feel it creeping in. A dark, aching thing, I used to know its name. The one that empties. That consumes and is consumed. It tastes bittersweet, thorny like the roses in his kill. My sisters turn away their golden eyes.
22
I arrive in the grand hall, my red shoes panting on my feet. “Right on time,” the woman in silver says when she opens the door. When I’m announced, the applause is deafening. A full-on roar. For me? But this is so unexpected. Thanks so much, merci.
“I’m actually just here because I’m looking for someone. Have you seen—?” But my voice is drowned out in the roar. A raising of red fizzing flutes in their opera-gloved fists. The grand hall is all lit up tonight. The red curtain is drawn and the Depths are exposed. The blue-green water glows gloriously as if lit from beneath. Even the red jellyfish seem to be clapping for me. Their bells pulsate in time to the human applause, tentacles undulating wildly. Except one. A large one, very red. Its strange jelly eyes are fixed on me. Sadly? Can’t be. Oh well, never mind. I’m looking for someone, aren’t I? Mother, that’s right. Is she here? Don’t see her. The hall is crowded like never before with shimmering people trailing silks of red and black and white. Their sin looks made of actual diamonds. Skin. Not sin, why sin? All of them are smiling at me. Never too widely, of course. They have their own sins to think of. Skins. They congratulate me as I pass. They’ve mastered the art of speaking without moving their lips, quite like my sisters.
“Many félicitations on reaching the Precipice,” they say through their teeth.
“Thank you,” I say. And I think, Precipice? I’ve reached a Precipice? “I’m actually here because I’m looking for my—”
“What a big fucking night this must be for you,” a woman says as I pass. “Reaching the Precipice so quickly.” Gripping my shoulder so hard, her red nails nearly sink into my shoulder flesh. “Who did you have to fuck?”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s right, they don’t fuck. Was it extra money, then? What did you do to move through the treatments so fast? Tell me!”
Another woman won’t stop stroking my neck. “Incroyable, astounding really,” she whispers, nearly throttling me. “I envy.”
But I’m saved at last by the woman in red, who pulls me away.
“Now, friends! Mes amis! Let’s not congratulate Daughter of Noelle too much, all right? There’ll be plenty of time for more félicitations later. We don’t want to exhaust our dear Daughter. Let’s just have some bubbly for now, yes?”
I see the twins on the stair, the Lord and Lady, staring at me from behind their black veils. Raising their red fizzing flutes as if to toast me.
“Yes,” I say, and feel them smile through their veils. Can nearly feel the cold silk of their hands grazing my skin from here. So happy they are to see me. Music plays, a harpsichord-heavy opera, and a powdered man in a red ruff sings soprano on the stair. I dance with many partners, and my partner keeps changing. My shoes seem to want to dance me very close to the Depths, very close to the glass behind which the medusae drift and pulse.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I tell my partner, who stares at me, trembling. “I’m actually looking for someone.” She’s an extremely pale woman with very blond hair. Her features suggest she wasn’t always so pale, she was something else once, hard to say what or from where, but don’t I always hate when people try to guess a place from my face? Anyway, she’s Brightened. Washed away like how at night we wash off the day. She wears a long white dress, spilling diamonds from her throat. She’s looking at me with a pained expression. “My plight—pleasure to dance with Daughter on the eve of her third treatment,” she says.
“Third treatment? It’s tonight?”
“Of course it’s tonight,” she says, like it’s obvious.
“What a happy surmise that I’m here, then.”
“Such a happy surmise,” she hisses. “Very woeful. Wonderful.”
“I actually came here because I’m looking for someone. Funny, I can’t remember who just now. Drawing a bit of a blank.”
“That is funny,” she says, not smiling. “Daughter is very amusing and delightful. And why shouldn’t she be when she is on the Cusp of achieving her Most Magnificent Self,” she says through gritted teeth. Obviously lying. And yet I’m charmed by her troubled energy, the way she’s looking at me like I physically hurt her to look at, but she can’t look away. She looks so lonely. Lovely.
“You have so much Glow,” I tell her.
I think this compliment will soften her, but it makes her smile sharp. “My Glow is Shadows,” she says, “compared with yours, Daughter. A cold rock in the outer orbit of your Impossible Brightness. The literal embodiment of Dull.” She’s spoken the truth, she knows it. Tears fill her eyes because it stings. “I envy,” she whispers. “So much.” She looks at me through stinging tears. And I see the dark love there in her eyes. Veritable soul poison. How it loves and looks in spite of itself.
“Thank you,” I hear myself say. “I envy too.” But mine’s a lie. I don’t envy. I know I’m the Impossible Brightness. I know she is the cold rock. She sees the lie in my eyes and she runs away, crying. Everyone around us keeps dancing like nothing. Envy, it happens all the time. The harpsichord music keeps playing and the white man in the red ruff keeps singing operatically. I should follow after her. Tell her, I’m very sorry my Glow hurts your eyes. I wish we could all Glow like I do. These would be more lies, of course. I’m not sorry. I don’t wish that. But I would be very happy to tell them if only to dance with her again. I enjoyed her wanting eyes on me so much. But wait, wasn’t I looking for someone? Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice something funny. One of the jellyfish has moved very close to the glass, right beside me. The large red one that didn’t applaud when I entered the hall. I see it has a pattern like petals on its bell, how pretty. Its eyes, slanted and strange and translucent, are fixed on me. It wants to say something.
“What is it?” I hear myself ask.
“Talking to the fish, Daughter?” says an amused voice. I turn away from the tank to see the woman in red beside me now. We seem to be dancing—when did we start dancing?—and she’s smiling at me with her sharp white teeth. I look into her very blue eyes, flecked with gold like bits of sun, and I think lie.
“Not talking. Just one of them seemed to be staring at me for a while.”