?I?A JOVAN HAD ALREADY GONE TO BED BY THE TIME WE staggered in, Niko and Luka having walked us home. He’d be surprised in the morning to find us there, after having been told that we would be spending the night at the Damjanac house, but we’d wanted to be alone, together. And even talking to him in the light of day was difficult to imagine. Lina and I had stepped off the edge of the earth in the night, and the coming morning felt like a different world, some undiscovered continent. A modern age full of mundane things, like McDonald’s, talk shows, and machines, that would either never come or had already passed us by.
As if we were the sole survivors of an apocalypse, even with the rest of the world spinning around us fast asleep.
We’d tucked the scroll into the farthest back of one of the knobbly drawers. It was too much for either of us to look at any longer. Then we’d talked in circles for an hour, facing each other with hands tangled.
“If she’s alive—if Mara’s alive,” I began. “And we’re related to her . . .”
“But how could she be, whoever—whatever—she is? Did you see all those names, Riss? If that’s a family tree, that would make her, what, thousands of years old? That’s impossible. There are no . . . no witch-goddesses that are just too interesting to die. No matter what the legend says.”
“Well, there’s clearly witches,” I pointed out. “There’s us, and Mama—who didn’t die when she should have. There’s Sorai and Naisha, possibly Dunja. And how do you even know the two of us are categorically mortal? We’ve never been sick, not in any real way. We haven’t tried to die so far, so we can’t know what would happen if we did.”
“Let’s not make an experiment out of it yet, maybe?”
“Agree. Early yet.”
“It’s just—” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s crazy to think it.”
“You’ve felt her, too, though,” I argued. “We both saw her in the dream, and we’ve been feeling her through the ribbons somehow. She’s alive. Or at least a piece of her is. Otherwise, what’s happening to us?”
“So let’s say she is alive. How are we going to find her?”
And if we do, neither of us said, does she have our mother? And could she give her back to us?
We stalled out there every time, islanded in a sea of questions. If Mara existed, how, and where to find her? Maybe Natalija—Naisha—knew, but she had disappeared—why? And Sorai too might know, but why hadn’t she come back for us after that single glimpse of herself she’d let me have? Why had she given me back that stolen memory, like a note pressed into my palm, and then melted back into nowhere instead of approaching us?
Finally I flung the light covers off me, my limbs so heavy with fatigue that they almost felt light, like a magician’s trick.
“Lina, I have to go,” I said, pacing the length of the room. “I have to walk. There’s something, I almost have it, it’s that perfume Ko?tana made for Mama. My mind keeps snagging on it, and I don’t know why. I’ll think better if I’m walking.”
She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes, like a little girl. “Then I’ll come with you.”
“You’re tired. And you don’t think better on your feet like I do.”
“You’re tired, too. And I don’t want to be alone. Please?” She peered up at me, fists still balled against her cheekbones. “Let me come? Or stay with me?”
“I can’t.” She closed her eyes so slowly, like shutters lowering, and I steeled myself against the pain of abandoning her like this, of how selfish I was being. “I’ll be back soon, I promise. Just try to sleep.”
“I know why you’re really going, Riss. I can feel it.” She shifted, covers and mattress rustling like husks beneath her, until her back was turned to me. I nearly winced at the venom in her voice, so unusual from her. “I wish you’d at least try not to lie to me, you know?”
I stood in the darkness for a moment, shifting from foot to foot, listening to her ragged breathing and trying to think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t be a lie. When I couldn’t, I climbed out the window before I could say anything worse.
Outside, I leaned against the side of the house, stones still warm from the day breathing their heat into my back. My phone screen glowed overbright, like an artifact from the future that had no place in my hands.
Are you awake? I typed, my fingers trembling. I’d seen him just the night before, and I couldn’t understand why I felt this way, so desperate and fretful. Like I would sooner collapse from his absence than beneath the weight of everything I’d learned tonight.
The response chimed in seconds, only three snaps of my wristband in. Of course.
I snorted a laugh, a wave of relief washing over me. He was there. I would see him soon. Why? It’s so late.
Waiting for a rare specimen of the Night-Blooming Iris. I’m told the color and the scent are second to none.
My cheeks rushed with blood. That was cheesier than expected. Not saying I don’t like it, exactly. Just an observation.
I’d like to see you say that to my face, flower girl.
What’s my prize if I do?
Anything you like. More of a promise than a prize, really.
I leaned my head back against the stones and took a long, openmouthed breath. The beach again, then. I’ll see you soon.
HE’D BROUGHT ME flowers and fairy lights. The flowers were clipped, stemless and strewn all across a fluffy red blanket, with battery-powered LED strings spooled around and through them. There were candles, too, along a broader perimeter, little tea lights that marked out the edges of our territory. An oasis on the dark beach.
I smiled at him as I eased myself cross-legged onto an edge of the blanket, the petals spotlighted in the glimmering, holiday light between us. I rubbed one between my fingers, silk on the topside, fuzzy velvet underneath. He smiled back, so wide and white, his face breathtaking with its Valhalla angles lit up from beneath. He was shirtless already, an amber pendant dangling from a leather cord around his neck, a tiny fossil suspended in it. I couldn’t quite tell what it was. A centipede caught midwriggle, maybe, something sectioned with too many legs.
“Did I miss something?” I said. “Is it our two-day anniversary, and me without a gift for you?”
“That’s five-day counting from when we met, and not to worry, we aren’t official,” he assured me, running his hand through his hair. It was already down, the spiraling silver earrings glinting from amid the blond, and I wanted to reach over and bury my hands in it with an almost feral desire, as if touch had become a need like breathing. “Though I did bring you something special to mark this nonoccasion.”