The Last Tale of the Flower Bride(20)

As much as she sneered when she uttered Indigo’s name, I knew my mother was secretly grateful for her too. Without Indigo, I’d be home.

With her.

With Jupiter.

In those days I could always feel Jupiter’s shadow—a gluttonous, sticky thing—clinging to my skin no matter where I went. When I opened the bathroom, he’d be there, smiling and surprised with a towel slung low around his waist. I would be forced to look at him then, forced to squeeze around the space he took up all around me.

I hated looking at him.

Jupiter was tall, thin, and narrow in the shoulders with a taut, hardened pouch of flesh around his navel that reminded me of an egg sac. He was the color of a tooth. That’s how I thought of him. One long fang of a man, and my mother caught up in him like a piece of wedged-in meat.

But his face was different.

“The face of a movie star,” my mother would say, leaning over to caress his cheek.

Jupiter had straight white teeth, a square jaw, yellow hair he kept at shoulder length, and heavy-lidded gray eyes that always seemed on the verge of sleep. There were paintings of angels in Indigo’s house that I couldn’t look at because their faces reminded me of him.

I didn’t hear him enter my bedroom that morning as I was packing my bag.

I never spent much time in the room that was supposedly mine. I never decorated or hung posters on the wall, though Jupiter had bought plenty for me. I didn’t want to claim any part of that place.

“I got a present for your mama, princess.”

By the time I turned, he was already a foot away. A golden chain dangled from his fingers.

“You want to try it on?” he asked before closing the bedroom door. I was reminded of the room’s smallness. He lowered his voice. “It can be our secret.”

“No thanks, I’m okay,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even.

I’d learned to stay still around him. If I was jumpy or my voice squeaked, he would hug me to calm me, and I didn’t like it when he hugged me.

“Shh, shh,” he soothed. “Look at you, so sweet you don’t want to try on your own mom’s gift no matter how much you want it? You’re my good girl, and good girls get rewarded.”

I held still as he moved closer.

“Turn around,” he said.

I told myself that if I did what he wanted, then he would leave. So I turned. His breath was cloying and rancid. He lowered the golden chain around my neck. The cold locket thudded against my collarbones. He spun me around. We both faced my bedroom mirror. I watched as he moved my braid aside and bent so we were eye level, his face rising like a horrible moon behind my shoulder.

“Beautiful,” he said. “I wish you’d wear your hair down more, Azure. It makes you look like a younger version of your mother.”

Maybe he could sense that I wanted to move away then because his fingers tightened on my shoulders.

“You know, princess—” he started when the door swung open.

My mother stood there. Jupiter released me instantly, breaking the necklace as he snapped it off my neck. I was so happy to see my mother, tears came to my eyes. I didn’t realize I was shaking until I grabbed my jacket off the bed and my fingers couldn’t catch the zipper.

“Azure, why don’t you go to Indigo’s?” said my mother.

Her voice was fire. I inched out of the room, staring at her, something vast expanding in my ribs. I clutched the end of my braid. My mother looked primal and huge in the doorway, and Jupiter’s face turned so pale I could see the spidering veins in his forehead.

“Honey,” he said, raising his hands.

The locket winked in the light.

“Why were you alone with her?”

“I wasn’t!”

“The door was closed,” she said.

Jupiter’s square chin jutted out. His face turned mulish. “The door must’ve shut by accident! Honey, I was showing her a surprise I got for you—”

“You’re always trying to spend time with her, and honestly, I don’t like it.”

I hovered out of sight. Indigo was expecting me, but maybe . . . maybe my mother needed me. I imagined us sitting on the couch. I pictured my head in her lap, her fingers in my hair. I held my braid so tight, my hand ached. My mother’s shoulders sagged, her voice hitched in a sob—

“Why do you always look for her?” she asked. “What about me?”

I let go of my hair.

I left.



Outside Jupiter’s squatting stucco house, the air was cold and metallic. Just breathing it stung my nose. Tears froze on my lashes.

The moment I opened the gate to the House of Dreams, reality inverted. The air shifted. Wind stirred my bones like they were wooden chimes and I might be translated into song. And when Indigo opened the door, I became a held breath finally exhaled.

Indigo took one look at me. “What is it?”

I touched the end of my braid as I entered. Normally, I felt a fine sift of electricity travel along each strand, its magic waking in the presence of the House. But my mother’s words lingered and now that magic felt less like power, and more like poison.

What about me? Why do you always look for her and not me?

I tugged the end of my damp, cold braid.

“I want to cut it,” I said. “I want to sacrifice it. Make Tati do it. Please.”