Once I might have found it comforting, this circular continuity, but today it felt wrong, or rather I felt wrong, as if this were some other people’s tradition and I was watching from outside—like one of the white travelers who sometimes came in search of the strange or exotic.
Rahvey was there with Sinchon and their three daughters. I watched her, uneasy, and there was something about her mourning black, her unnatural stillness, and the rare closeness of the family around her that bothered me. She had not known Berrit. None of them had. This was just community support, the rallying around of friends and neighbors, which was the best of what the Lani way had to offer.
But it felt like more than that. I watched the coffin burn, and for a moment I could almost feel the heat, as if I were in there with Berrit and Rahvey’s infant daughter, all the unwanted children burning together.…
Old Mrs. Chani leaned in and squeezed Rahvey’s shoulder encouragingly, so that my sister turned on her a brief, sad smile of thanks.
The moment the official part of the funeral ended and the crowd began to break up, I pushed my way toward Rahvey, keen to get the child to its next feeding. But something was happening behind me, and everyone had stopped moving, turning to look back toward the temple entrance. There was a commotion in the crowd, a rush of muttering and the craning of necks followed by a steady parting, like waves blown by a powerful wind. Through the resultant gap I saw a curtained sedan chair borne by five black men in navy robes and crimson turbans. They wore sabers and pistols at their belts.
The men stooped and the curtains parted, revealing a slender ankle and a foot in a sandal of fine strapwork. The foot found the earth, steadied itself, and an extraordinarily beautiful woman emerged. She wore a deep blue sari shot through with silver filigree and a veil of black mesh that masked her face, but there was no doubt as to her identity.
Vestris!
My heart leapt. It had been two years since I last saw my eldest sister, but her appearance now, after everything that had happened, felt like a lifeline.
Rahvey, sitting alone by the pyre, was transformed by the vision moving so gracefully toward her, and all her stoic solemnity fell away. Vestris slipped back the veil as she reached our sister, resting it around her shoulders like a shawl, and even this simple motion was effortlessly elegant. Her face—delicately, expertly made up—was serious, her fine, almost patrician features showing no emotion. She stooped to Rahvey and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and the younger woman flushed with undisguisable delight.
Vestris held her sister’s hand and whispered into her ear, so that for a moment Rahvey seemed to bask in the radiance of her attention. Then the elder was straightening up, a motion I recognized for its deliberation and finality. Rahvey tried to keep the conversation going, but Vestris was politely firm. She had to go.
I hovered, desperate to drag Vestris’s gaze away from the buzzing watchers. I shifted on the balls of my feet as if poised to step over the gap between two high ledges, and I felt the thrill of childish delight as my sister’s eyes found me. She approached and, without a word, enfolded me in a formal but tender embrace. I held on to her, swallowing back childish tears of joy and relief.
Vestris will make it all right—Morlak, the baby, even Berrit. Somehow.
Over her shoulder I saw Rahvey watching, jealous.
“How are you, Ang?” said Vestris. “It has been too long.”
I found myself tongue-tied and acutely aware of the crowd looking enviously on. “I’m well, thank you, Vestris,” I said. “Though not, perhaps, so well as you.” I grinned.
Ang and Vestris together again.
“Little Anglet,” said Vestris, smiling. “You always had such spirit under all that shyness.”
“You came to Papa’s grave,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
“Tsuli flowers,” I said. “Who else could afford them?”
She smiled once more. It was a complicated smile: knowing, amused, sad, but still strangely radiant. I felt it again, that sense of sitting in a shaft of sunlight. If she were not my sister, I would have fallen in love with her. Anyone would.
“Where is Rahvey’s baby?” she asked.
“Here,” I added, the words low and rushed, feeling the weight of the sleeping baby in the satchel. “I have a lot to tell you, much of it bad. I’m in danger and…” I risked a look at Rahvey, who shook her fierce head once. “I need to talk to you in private,” I concluded.
“I can’t, Ang,” she said. “Not tonight.”
“When?” I pressed. “I really want to see you again soon.”
And that was the truth of it. Whether Vestris could actually help, I had no idea. I just wanted to be with her again, like we used to be.