Siren Queen(35)

“You came back,” she said, and I tilted my head, a slight smile quirking my lips.

“I said I would.”

Of course I had planned a speech on the way back, something cocky and off-hand, nonchalant without overlooking the danger of what I had done. In front of Emmaline, however, that melted away. Instead I offered her the bouquet with two hands, and she accepted it the same way, her face tilted up to mine, eyes bright and clear.

The flowers looked too humble in her hands, but she brought them close and buried her face in the white petals. She breathed deeply, one breath and then two and three, before looking at me again.

“Yes. Love-comes-home. It’s what I remember.”

“Good,” I said, and I might have stood there forever if she hadn’t shifted the flowers to one hand and offered me the other.

“Come sit with me,” she said, tugging me down. I started to say that there was no room, but then I saw that there was. The chair she sat in, what I had thought of as her throne, was just large enough for two girls to curl into each other, locking like the whorls of a seashell. I leaned against the brocade cushions, my hip snugged close to hers, her arm resting around my neck.

In the dying light of the fire, she tugged a bloom from the bouquet, tucking one flower behind my ear.

“It was common as dirt back home,” she said, “less common than good dirt. But then I came here, and I never saw it again until today.”

“Do you like it?” I asked inanely, and she smiled.

“‘Like’ isn’t the right word. It’s not really that pretty, is it? Scrawny, gawky, strange…” I felt my heart crumble like mountains into the sea until she smiled. “More like I needed it, and I never knew.”

She shaped the word “need” in her mouth so perfectly that I could almost feel the tip of her tongue touch the roof of her mouth. She laughed softly, and then she leaned in.

“God, but you’re pretty though,” she murmured.

We were so close together that the kiss was almost an afterthought. She was warm, and her kiss tasted like apple wine, sweet and dry. I was frozen at first, but then I chased her mouth, wanting more of the taste of her and the pleasure of her. My hand came up to touch her face, her hair, and she tangled her free hand in my dress. It was as if she wanted to hold me still, as if I might have run away.

The flowers were crushed between us, and now I could smell them better. It was a scent that was more fresh than sweet, even slightly herbal. She moved them aside, and wrapped herself around me more tightly.

I felt like I was being carried away, down into someplace held against the molten heart of the earth. There was something more than bodies here, though it was that too. More than having never been kissed, I had never touched another person before, not really, not in a way that mattered. We kissed and kissed until my mouth felt overused, like it would never need paint again, and I marveled at the softness of her mouth, her sharp teeth, the bones of her hand where she pressed it against my jaw.

I could have kissed her until the sky fell in, but it lightened instead. I looked up after what felt like only a moment to see that there were livid streaks of salmon in the sky. Greta stretched like a cat before coming over to collect me.

“I suppose it’s that time,” Emmaline said regretfully. She kissed the corner of my mouth as if stowing it away for me to savor later, and climbed to her feet.

“Will you bring her again next week?” Emmaline asked, and Greta shrugged with one shoulder.

“She’s free to do as she pleases.”

“Will you, then?”

I smiled, looking likely as dazed as I felt.

“If you’ll have me.”

She smiled at that, bright and vivid and sunny. She and Greta were stamped from the same mold, both fair-haired and blue-eyed, but where Greta was sultry in her flesh, Emmaline had shed everything to gleam like gold wire.

“Over and over and over again,” she promised, and something in me quickened.

Greta finally had to take my hand and lead me back to the dorms. By then, Emmaline had her own place in the Palisades, all white columns and heart-shaped swimming pool, her own gardener, driver, and cook as well.

Greta and I fell into my bed together, hands clasped and staring at the ceiling. Love drew a darkness out of her, but to me it was only a warm sweetness, desert honey poured down my throat.





VII


Summer was the realest time in Wolfe Studios. In summer, everyone was working, running, building or hustling at one thing or another. There was no hiding in summer, not when there was always a picture to cast and new stars to launch into the sky. Most fell down in the autumn, but some climbed even higher to light the solstice.

Even if the casting directors didn’t quite know what to do with me, they were figuring it out. It wasn’t much better work than I had had with Jacko on Baker Street, posing in the backgrounds, smiling or sneering on command. I ignored the whispers that it was my exotic race that put me into Kensington Grove and They All Do Fine. I didn’t care if it was true or not. All that mattered was that I was earning my way, earning my star, a bit of silver at a time. I was the messenger girl dressed as a boy in Her Surrender, Her Claim, I did high kicks in a cabaret scene for Emerson Lankin’s A Night in New Orleans, and I died beautifully in Lukas Waite’s arms while he pondered war and its devastation in A Terrible Light.