“Oh, that’s hysterical, coming from you, Nikoleta,” he muttered, turning on his heel and stalking toward the bedroom. “Riss, let’s go take a look while the children play.”
I trailed after him, nearly gasping as we stepped across the threshold. The bedroom was as opulent as the rest of the apartment had been sparse. A massive four-poster bed beckoned, with a sweeping canopy, looping sheets of white silk embroidered with fat golden roses that echoed the heavy duvet. A glass chessboard with figures hewn from crystal sat on one bedside table, and the vanity was white and gold, carved with a scene from the Garden of Eden—except that both Adam and Eve were biting the apple, entwined together beneath a tree like a weeping willow, drooping fronds of branches sheltering them. A trio of massive, intricately flowered courtesan’s fans splayed over one of the walls. Paintings hung all over, too, night skies and glittering cityscapes, and blossoms drifting in shining pools of water. Little curiosities dangled everywhere from the ceiling, a suspended constellation made from sea glass here, a set of wooden oddments there that resolved into the skeleton of a rocking horse when you looked at it from just the right angle.
Luka whistled low. “I would never have guessed it, from all the times I’ve bought guitar strings and picks from her, that Natalija would live in a place like this. How much would all this have cost?”
“I don’t think ‘Natalija’ would,” I said, picking up an ivory-backed brush with blond hair wound around the bristles like silk thread on a spindle. “But another woman pretending to be her might.”
“Riss.” His tone had changed. “Come look at this.”
I laid the brush down and joined him, sitting on the edge of the bed. He’d tugged open one of the bedside table drawers, and even from where I was sitting I could smell the rolling waves of that icy orchard scent, as if distilled to its essence. It didn’t smell just like frozen fruits, I realized as I breathed it in; the smell of it brought Naisha’s face to vivid life in my mind, the foxy finesse of her small, sharp features. As if the perfume projected her like a picture onto the strung canvas of my mind.
Leaning over Luka’s shoulder, I saw a spool of fine ribbons in the drawer, like the ones Malina and I had in our hair. Luka plunged his hand into them and offered them to me—I flinched back as soon as my fingers closed around them, feeling a jolt like a static shock as a flash of Mara’s face imprinted in front of my eyes.
Hands shaking, I dropped the ribbons on the bed. Lina and Niko had crept in, kneeling at the bedside in front of us, and as the full force of the scent broke over her, I could see Lina’s eyes turn so glassy they looked almost metallic. “They smell like Natalija,” she said, brow furrowing. “But they somehow . . . look like someone else?”
“I know. I see it, too. Don’t touch them!” I rushed as she reached for the ribbons. “They’re very . . . aggressive.”
Before I could stop her, Niko gathered them up, bringing them to her nose. I caught my breath and watched her closely, but there wasn’t even a flicker of shock. She hadn’t caught that glimpse of Mara that I had. “How strange,” she said, eyes narrowing as she breathed them in, nose twitching like a bunny’s. “They do smell like a woman. Not a lady-smell, I mean, but they actually make me think of a woman I don’t think I’ve ever seen. A blonde, is that right? With eyes like the two of you?”
I nodded. “That’s Naisha. The woman from the memory.”
Luka was shaking his head with disbelief. “How could that be possible? Changing your appearance so completely. No, I know, I’ve seen what you two can do, but that seems . . .” He trailed off, spreading his hands in defeat, as if it was all too much for him to hold in two palms.
“I can’t believe it,” Lina said, her voice tremulous. “She was someone else, all this time. I talked to her while she taught me, Riss. I told her so much, about you and Mama and . . . about how hard it was, sometimes. It felt so good, being around her. Like doing the right thing. Who knows what all she learned from me?”
I squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault. How could you have known? And if she was family, somehow, maybe it was the right thing. Luka, is there anything else in there?”
He twisted, rummaging in the drawer. I could see his spine stiffen and he turned back to us, holding something that looked like a scroll. He offered it to me and I accepted it gingerly, breathing out a sigh of pleasure as the fabric slid like water over my palm. If it was vellum, it was softer than I had ever thought that would feel, like felt or deerskin as I carefully unrolled it, its fabric whispering over the embroidered duvet without a snag.
Unscrolled to its full length, it spanned across the bed. I could feel Lina’s and Niko’s breath fanning over my neck as I ran my finger up its length. Like an illuminated manuscript, the edges were filled with beautiful women in black and gray, rendered in the bare minimum of strokes it took to hold them. One had hair that cascaded to the floor, butterflies suspended in its length; another hung upside down, one ankle and one wrist wrapped in the hint of trailing bolts of silk. A third had leopard spots patterned on her skin, and a fourth sat cross-legged in the suggestion of a winter storm, some of the snowflakes as large around as her limbs.
They surrounded what looked like a family tree, but with first names only, and no years marked. And instead of spidering branches, the names ran down a single column, two in every generation. In each, one was crossed out with a glittering silver strike-through, and the other provided the snaking line leading down to the next two names. I saw Naisha’s name about eight lines up; it sprang alive from the parchment, more embellished than any of the others. Maybe it meant ownership, a mark that this scroll belonged to her.
“Look,” Malina whispered, her voice catching. “It’s us.”
It was—we were at the bottom, both of our names in black calligraphy that reminded me of Mama’s fine handwriting, though this was even more stylized and sharply graceful, as if each name had been rendered in a single perfect stroke like a lovely fencing stab. The two names above us were Faisali and Anais. Anais was struck out with silver, and Faisali connected to the two of us. The last third of the scroll was blank.
“But that’s not Jasmina’s name,” I said.
“And Natalija’s face wasn’t her face,” Lina reminded me. “Maybe this used to be Mama’s name?”
“Wait,” Niko said. Her hoarse voice sounded scratchier than usual, almost warbling. “Look.”
Lina and I followed her finger up the strange, laddered tree. At the very top was a single name, rendered with none of the flair. Because it needed none. Just its four stark letters were enough.
MARA, the scroll proclaimed at its apex. Hundreds of lines separated us from her, but the connection was direct—Iris and Malina at the bottom, Mara at the top. The blood flowed from her straight down to us, connecting us to her through ribbons of ink.
She was the first mother.
She was what we’d come from.
TWENTY