Aunt Bryony lifts her plate. “I will be if she doesn’t share this.”
“Get your own frankincense. You have a Cloud Air card.” Mother pushes her flowerpot of eggs into Court’s midsection. “Do you know how to boil water?”
Aunt Bryony tsks her tongue. “Don’t mind her.” She steers Court by the elbow toward the kitchen. “She gets cranky every time she’s incarcerated.”
Mother doesn’t release her mask of control until they disappear into the house. Then she heaves a long sigh and reaches for me. “Honey, I’m sorry.”
She hugs me tight with her bony but stalwart arms, and tears spring to my eyes.
“I shouldn’t have tried so hard to keep you from the world.” Mother’s voice trembles and she caps her words with a loud sniff. It turns up the waterworks happening in my own eyes. “Though you can’t blame me for wanting to save you from a curse.”
A laugh escapes me and that sets her to laughing, too. But then she turns serious again. “You see, I just didn’t want, want to—” She claps a hand to her mouth.
“You won’t lose me, Mother. We’re a family.” An odd one, but is there any other kind? “And I want to be an aromateur. One day.”
“As great as your grandmother Narcissa?”
I slip my warm hand into her cool one. “No, as great as you.”
FORTY
“THERE IS NO FLOWER QUITE SO EXQUISITE,
AS SHE WHO ANSWERS TO ‘DAUGHTER.’”
—Rosie, Aromateur, 1672
KALI’S EYES HOP from Aunt Bryony to Mother. “Dang. Which one’s witch?”
The four of us stand in the garden near the well, which overflows with gardenia.
“Aunt Bryony is the one with the earrings.”
My best friend looks like a Polynesian princess in her homecoming attire—white lavalava, styled with flip-flops and a gold bracelet. For me, she procured a dress of blush-colored silk from Twice Loved with balloon sleeves that my aunt snipped off with the sewing scissors. I float my arms above my head, reveling in the freedom of my strapless gown. According to Aunt Bryony, the dramatic decrease in the number of botanicals going in through my nose means a proportionate reduction in aromateur pollen. In other words, I’m no longer so contagious. For the time being.
Aunt Bryony places a tuberose lei around Kali’s neck, while Mother produces a corsage from a box. I gasp when I see it. It’s the second bud from Layla’s Sacrifice. It’s no longer shriveled like a dried corn nut, but a white bud edged with pink, like the head of a brush dragged through paint. Mother wrapped it with tiny loops of pearls.
“How? I burned it.”
Mother fusses with its placement. “Some things never die. It’s useless for elixirs now, but it’ll still smell sweet.” Then she sprays BBG on my hair like a beautician. “Just in case.”
Aunt Bryony swats her arm. “She hardly needs No Mister anymore, I told you. And that stuff is expensive.”
“I know that. You used half my jasmine to make it.” She stops spraying and fiddles with one of my hairpins. “How would you like to spend the summer with Aunt Bryony in Hawaii?”
I pull away from her to see if she’s serious. She clamps a hairpin between her lips.
Kali clasps her hands together. “Say yes, Nosey.”
“Yes! But, who’s going to help you?”
She removes the hairpin from her mouth. “I decided it’s time to modernize.”
Aunt Bryony snorts. “It was that time twenty years ago.” She removes the lens cover from an expensive-looking camera and aims it at Kali. “More attitude. Come on, work it!”
Kali unleashes a supermodel pout, and Aunt Bryony snaps away.
“Your aunt’s going to order some new equipment for me. But I’m keeping my beam scale.” She throws Aunt Bryony a warning look.
Loud squawking from overhead halts further conversation. A swarm of birds with bright-green feathers swoops down out of nowhere and dives into our palm trees.
Aunt Bryony shades her eyes with her hand. “Well, isn’t that something? I haven’t seen them since Mother died.”
“Neither have I. They haven’t been back for twenty years.”
“Those are the parrots?” I stretch my eyes open as wide as they can go.
Kali covers her ears. “They sure make a lot of noise.”
The parrots leave the trees and start circling above us. “That’s not all they make.” Mother covers her head with her arms. “Let’s go inside before they ruin your finery.”
From the minute I lay eyes on my tuxedoed escort aboard the SS Argonaut, I’m floating. Even when Kali is crowned homecoming queen to the squeals of her date, Cassandra, I’m still so starry-eyed that I almost forget to snap their picture.
One table over, I hear Vicky boast, “I knew Kali was a lesbian all along.”