Juniper & Thorn(3)

Oblyans were gathering in the square, women in their puff-sleeved gowns and men in their top hats, all herding toward the ballet theater like sheep trussed in satin and lace. Their mingling voices had the low tenor of rolling thunder. Pipe smoke rose in greasy clouds. All the smells and sounds pressed in on me, and a gasp came out of my throat.

My sisters had made such trysts before, but I’d never had the courage to join them. Tonight I had been yoked into their rebellion like an ox, intoxicated by the promise of something newer and brighter and better than any of us had ever seen. But now that I was here, everything was too new, too much.

“I don’t want to go,” I whispered, leaning closer to Rose than to Undine. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”

“Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?” Rose gestured vaguely toward the theater, but her voice was not unkind. “There’s no one to walk back with you. You’ll have to stay.” She must have read the horror on my face, so she went on more gently, “Listen, it will be all right. Once we’re in our seats—”

“Oh, she’s being a baby, as usual,” Undine snapped. “She doesn’t want to come, but she doesn’t want to be left behind.”

I bit my lip on a reply; Undine was right. The last time they’d left at night without me, I’d gone paralytic with fear. Although my body had been at home in bed, my mind raced down a thousand dark alleys, wondering what awful fate my sisters were meeting, or worse, wondering what my father would do if he woke to find them gone. I would have been the only one there to answer to him, to swallow his fury like gulps of seawater and pray I didn’t spit them back up again until he had stormed out of my room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Rose had found me asleep under my bed that night, face streaked with salt, our spiny-tailed monster nibbling anxiously at my garter belt.

It was only because of Undine that they’d started leaving at all. A year ago, it had been unthinkable. Our father had barred us from setting foot outside the garden, not with his spells, but with his words and threats. Oblya was as dangerous as a viper pit, he said, and something or someone would snap you up in an instant. I believed him. The men who came to see me, my clients, were frightening even in the safety of our own sitting room.

But all of Undine’s clients were half in love with her and went weak-kneed with her every word. And one day one of them had, in lieu of rubles, offered her tickets to see an orchestra play downtown. She had refused at first—or so she said—but the man had insisted. And once the thought of leaving was in her mind, it grew and grew like reaching vines and could not be hacked down.

That first night had planted the same flowering seed in Rose’s mind. Their seats, she told me, were in the very back row, so they had to strain to see the stage over a topiary of feathered hats, and the heat of so many bodies had made them both return soaked with sweat, but there was a magic to it all; I could sense that even from a distance. A sly, coaxing magic had drawn my sisters out of their beds at night, reveling in the recklessness of it all, the thousands of possibilities that flitted around them like moths.

For my sisters, it was revelry, or even just the petulant thrill of knowing they had disregarded our father’s orders. For me, it was fear. I did not want to be left behind, not after that one awful night.

So I let Rose and Undine drag me through the crowd, chest heaving beneath my corset. The scents of strangers, sweat and violet perfume, soaked my skin like rainwater. Words poured into my ears.

“. . . found his heart torn out, like someone had plunged a fist into his chest . . .”

“. . . liver gone, too, just empty . . .”

Stomach tensing, I leaned toward Rose again. “What are they talking about?”

“Some nonsense from the penny presses, I’m sure,” she said, eyes trained forward. “The Grand Inspector found two men dead at the boardwalk, and someone started the tale that they’d been killed by a monster. More likely they beat each other down in a drunken brawl, or just drank themselves to death, which would explain the comments about the liver. But that doesn’t make as lurid of a story, and it doesn’t sell very many papers.”

I nodded, my belly uncurling just a little bit. Rose seemed to be able to understand things about the world that I could not, even though we were all trapped in the same house, under the same aegis.

She also must have done a good enough job wrangling my hair, because I did not receive any lingering stares. Women’s eyes passed over me and angled toward my sisters with suspicious jealousy. Men’s stares swept past me as well, landing on the cleft of Undine’s breasts or Rose’s bare shoulders. I could see the hunger, but also the guilt running under their gazes, the quiet fettering of desire. They knew anyone who desired a Vashchenko girl was doomed.

More voices swam toward me.

“. . . paid double the price to see him, but I don’t regret it . . .”

“. . . said it was the best show she’d ever seen—brought tears to her eyes . . .”

This time, I did not have to ask Rose what they meant. We were here for the same reason as the rest of them. As Undine maneuvered us toward the ticket booth, I drew in a steeling breath. My corset felt strangling-tight. She produced our three tickets and then smiled at the attendant, batting her lashes. I did not know how much they were worth—I hardly knew how many kopeks made a ruble—but judging by the size and eagerness of the crowd, I suspected it was quite a lot. Perhaps this particular client was even more in love with my sister than most.