Poison's Kiss (Poison's Kiss #1)(3)
Gita leaves then, promising to check in on me tomorrow. When she closes the door behind her, Smudge leaps over Mani and bumps my hand with her head. A not-so-subtle demand and I obey without thinking. She purrs softly as I rub the spot between her ears and worry that my only talent is compliance. But will I be talented enough to save Mani?
The next morning I wake to Mani perched on the edge of my bed, giggling. I rub my eyes with the heel of my hand. “What’s so funny?”
He grins at me and points to my middle. “Your tummy sounds like a creaky door.” I look down as if there were something to see. It’s true, though. My stomach is making horrendous noises, and I realize I haven’t eaten since the day before yesterday. I learned a long time ago never to eat on the day of a kill. I can’t keep anything down anyway, and so my body runs on adrenaline and guilt instead of food.
Besides, I work better when I’m hollow inside.
I sit up and rumple Mani’s hair. “Maybe we need to stop for pastries before we go to the bookshop today.”
His eyes light up and he bounces a little. “I forgot it was a bookshop day,” he says, and the excitement in his voice touches something raw inside me. He is so easily pleased. Life never gives him a full meal, but he is always so grateful for the table scraps. I wish I could be like that.
I help Mani get dressed and then I sit on the floor to braid my hair while he plays with Smudge. He waves a piece of yarn just out of her reach, and she flies through the air like a furry gymnast, sending Mani into a fit of giggles. They play until Smudge grows bored and saunters away.
Mani moves to the edge of the bed and begins swinging his legs, kicking the bed frame. The sound is grating; it thumps in time with the pounding in my head, but I don’t tell him to stop. I spent most of last night staring at the ceiling, and I didn’t fall asleep until pink light had already started seeping through the curtains, so I couldn’t have slept long. I feel that weird detached feeling that comes from too little sleep and not enough food. Or maybe from killing a man.
But today will be different. Today I get to step into another world. One where people die only in stories.
I slide wide bracelets onto both of my wrists to hide the scars there—dozens of pairs of shiny marks to remind me of the price of poison—and then I stand up and hold out a hand to Mani. “Are you ready, monkey?”
“Ready,” he says as he slides his small hand into mine. Holding on to him makes me feel substantial, like if he weren’t there, I might just float away.
Mani begins to tire after only a few blocks, so I let him set the pace and it’s a plodding one. But when he catches sight of the bakery, he tugs at my fingers and speeds up. The smell of butter and sugar hits us in the face, a blissful kind of agony that coaxes a happy little sigh from Mani.
I buy two fat pastries slathered with pale orange frosting. We sit at a little table outside and eat in complete silence but for the sound of Mani sucking on sugared fingers.
He knows what I am, what Gopal made me. A visha kanya, a poison maiden capable of killing with nothing more than a kiss as a weapon. I explained it to him two years ago, when he had just turned five. Right before we tried to escape. He tilted his head to the side, like a small bird. “Is that why you never kiss me?” The question gave me a lump in my throat and all I could do was nod.
Mani patted my hand. “It’s okay, Marinda,” he said. “They’re bad guys, right?”
“They are,” I told him. But I’ve never been sure it matters what kind of guys they are. I have to kill them anyway.
I finish my pastry before Mani and sit with my chin cradled in my palm and watch him. After he takes his last bite, I slide my chair back, but he shakes his head and holds up a hand. “Not done,” he says, and I laugh as he licks his thumb and presses it against the waxy paper to trap the crumbs. There’s so much I can’t give him—parents, friends, a life free of disease. But I can give him this. There is so little that’s sweet in our life to savor.
We don’t leave until his paper looks brand-new again.
The bookshop is cradled in the elbow of Gali Street, between a butcher shop and flower peddler. The contrast never fails to startle me: one window blooming with bright life, and the other filled with limp geese swinging from the rafters, pink and freshly dead. Life on one side and death on the other, with only stories in between. Little bells on the door jangle when I push it open, and Japa pops his head from behind a stack of books. “Marinda,” he calls, “you’ve just made my day. I’m swamped.” Japa has a full head of silver hair and the kind of eyes that smile even when his lips don’t.
I shrug off my identity at the door and feel lighter as I step over the threshold.
Gopal doesn’t approve of me taking a job here. It makes him edgy, my interacting with normal people, though he would deny it. “There’s no reason for you to work, rajakumari,” he said when he found out about the bookshop. “Do I not provide you with all that you need?” We have enough in the way of money, but he doesn’t come close to meeting all my needs or Mani’s.
“It’s good tradecraft,” I told him. “Haven’t you always taught me I should blend in? Girls my age work, Gopal. Most of them are apprenticed by now.”
He had no reply for that. He just grunted and shook his head. But he didn’t forbid me, so I keep coming at least once a week.