Dalia had lied. Bay had asked her to. And all this blazed through them, the sting like a shared wound.
Bay was not gone from them. It was a joy that would have bloomed into a thousand each of the flowers they’d been named for, if those other truths hadn’t dulled it.
They had all thought Bay had loved them, or not loved them, the same. But Bay had shared the trick of her death with only one of them.
Azalea tensed, her collarbone looking sharper. “You know, you could really make it on the stage if you wanted.”
“Don’t.” Dalia threw a glance toward Estrella. “I’ve already heard that speech from her.”
Azalea’s head whipped toward Estrella. “You knew?”
Estrella lifted her eyes to glare at Dalia, a look of thanks a lot.
“I told her not to tell anyone,” Dalia said.
“And anyone means us,” Gloria said. The way she put no questioning in her voice gave the words a bitter edge.
“It was bad enough she had to lie for Bay, and for me,” Dalia said. “I didn’t want all five of us to have to.”
“We all would’ve lied for her,” Calla said. “And for you. But we don’t lie to each other.”
“Except they do.” Azalea set her hand on Calla’s shoulder. “Come on. If they’re too good for us, we can leave.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of this?” Dalia asked.
Azalea looked back at her. “Of what?”
Dalia closed the space between them so she could keep her voice low. “All five of us acting like we’re one person?”
For once, Estrella couldn’t guess what Azalea or the rest of her cousins were thinking. Their faces didn’t show her. Estrella was left wondering if they, too, struggled for full breaths in the tight space of being one in five, one more generation of Nomeolvides girls. Guests never learned their names. At balls, Marjorie’s business acquaintances mixed them up, Azalea with Estrella even though they looked the least alike, Calla with Gloria even though they were years apart, for no other reason than that they were both tall.
In Azalea’s flinch, Estrella thought she might have caught it, the sting of her realizing Dalia was right. But then it was gone, replaced by Azalea asking, “So you’re better than we are now?”
“Azalea,” Gloria said. “Just listen to her.”
“There’s nothing to listen to,” Azalea said. She looked at Dalia. “You’re a liar”—then at Estrella—“you’re her little apprentice liar”—she circled back to Gloria and Calla—“and if you don’t realize that, you’re both as stupid as they think you are.”
“Stop.” Gloria held out her hands, one toward Dalia and Estrella, one toward Azalea and Calla. Her eyes crawled back to Dalia. “Do you swear she’s alive?”
“Jazmín, Verónica, Mirasol, Luna, y Amapola,” Dalia said, listing all five names of their deceased great-grandmothers. It was an oath between them, as solemn and sacred as crossing themselves and naming the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Gloria held a breath between her lips, letting it drain with a sound like wind through the blossoming branches. “Then we thank God and La Pradera for it.”
Azalea’s eyes slid over to her. “That’s it?” she asked. “You don’t care that she lied to us.”
“Of course I care,” Gloria said. “But what I care about more is that what we were afraid happened didn’t happen.”
“We only thought it happened because she pretended it did.” Azalea’s eyes snapped back to Dalia. “We really need to make sure you get some kind of award for that performance.”
“What do you want more?” Gloria leaned into Azalea. “To rip her apart right now, or to make sure we keep Bay safe?”
Azalea tensed, caught between her own conviction that she had been wronged, that all of them had, and the raw truth Gloria put in front of her.
Gloria kept looking at her, her expression urging her on. So? Which is it?
Azalea tilted her head back, her shoulders falling with one slow breath out. “Fine.”
This was how, on Gloria’s insistence, they all took the hundreds of stone steps down to the sunken garden. They did as Gloria said, giving La Pradera the offerings that showed their gratitude for not taking this woman they all loved.
Gloria and Estrella took out their earrings and tossed them into the curling vines. Calla brought her favorite book of fairy tales and buried it among the rocks and ivy. Dalia crushed dulce de cacahuate estilo mazapán between her fingers and sprinkled it over the earth like fairy dust, peeling the candy rounds of sugar and crushed peanuts from their rose-printed wax paper.
Azalea kept her eyes on Dalia. “We’re not okay.”
Dalia gave a small nod, accepting the hard edge of Azalea’s grudge like a knife offered blade-out. “I know.”
Azalea slid the thin bangles off her wrists, throwing a glance at Estrella and then back at Dalia. “And you dragged her into this.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Dalia said.
Azalea tossed the bangles into the pond. “I don’t care what you meant.”
They watched the bracelets, the gold glowing like rings of light as they sank.
“Do you ever wonder if this is a sin?” Calla whispered to Estrella.
Estrella was lifting her skirt, ripping away the crinoline layer that was her favorite shade of blue. “Why would it be?”
“Because we’re supposed to be giving our offerings to God, aren’t we?” Calla asked.
“You really think God hears us down here?” Dalia cut in, doing the same with her dress, pulling away the layer that was the softest shade of coral.
“We’re Nomeolvides girls.” Azalea threw the last of her bracelets into the water. “I don’t think God hears us at all.”
The glow from the band billowed out like rippling water. Estrella and Dalia lay their skirts on the pond, and they twirled and sank down like veils of light.
La Pradera was their god. Her family could pray. They could read their Bibles. But the bright colors and the night voices of this place scared off any saints and angels. What God would listen to the prayers of girls whose hearts were poison?
The wind picked up, blowing a spray of water into Estrella’s face. She shut her eyes, let it brush over her cheeks. She remembered the fever La Pradera had settled over her when she ran, the swelling sense that still things were moving. The feeling that the darkness outside was ink or an ocean. Wondering if the wind was shivering all the flowers in the world as much as it seemed to be.
La Pradera held them. It took the men and the women they loved, and if they ever tried to leave, it took them, too.