The Last Tale of the Flower Bride(22)

“I’ll be back soon,” I said.

As if to express its displeasure, a harsh wind blew through me, and it no longer felt like music. The sky on the walk home was gray and stripped of its diamonds, and with every step, the end of my braid slapped dully against my back.

I hated walking through Jupiter’s front door. Even when all the windows were open, the air in the house was cloying. A damp smell, like mushrooms and dirt, seeped up through the carpet and mixed with the intensely sweet candles my mother lit in the evenings.

I kept my jacket zipped to my neck as I walked through the foyer. I planned to disappear into my bedroom, but then I heard my mother humming. I could smell onions sizzling in butter and knew she was making my favorite pasta. An ache went through me. For a moment, I felt that same hum against my scalp as she rubbed oil in my hair. Beside the front door, the key holder was empty. Jupiter was not home.

“Mom?”

She poked her head into the entryway. Sometimes I forgot how beautiful she was, tall and dark-skinned. She wore her hair in ringlets that hit the top of her collarbones. She had on a red dress and her lily-of-the-valley perfume.

“Oh,” she said, her shoulders falling. “I thought you were Jay. He stepped out to grab some wine. We’re having a date night at home.”

I walked into the kitchen. The dining table was set for two with a long white candle flickering in the middle.

“I’ll bring the food to your room,” my mother said, her voice too bright as if selling me something. “With two pieces of cake.”

She was trying, but it wasn’t for me. I reached to touch my hair and found that my braid had come undone by the wind and fallen around me like a protective cloak. Her words stung right through it.

“What do you think?” she asked, smoothing her dress. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful.”

She almost smiled then, and I should’ve left it at that. But I had an odd glimmer of understanding. It was like reaching for a knife just to know its weight.

“Jupiter says I look like you,” I said. “But when you were younger.”

Her smile turned so brittle I thought it would snap her face. Her gaze went to my unkempt hair.

“You look like a slut with your hair down like that,” she said. “Get out of my sight.”



I stuffed my school things in a bag, grabbed an extra set of clothes, locked my bedroom door, and climbed through the window. An hour later, I sat on the edge of Indigo’s copper bathtub. A pair of kitchen shears lay in my lap. I held out my hair to her, my palms upturned like a supplicant. In the candlelight, Indigo looked like a priestess.

“Take it from me,” I said.

I felt nothing but the loss of weight as each lock hit the bottom of her tub. With every snip, my spine straightened. Indigo worked with quiet focus, her fingers hot on my neck as she shielded me from the blades. When it was finished, she took my face in her hands.

“There,” she said. “It is done.”

I closed my eyes.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Each sacrificed strand translated to a piece of armor. It was invisible, yes, but I felt it shimmer all around me. I flexed my fingers, stretched my neck from side to side, marveling at the lightness.

“Safe,” I said, opening my eyes. I touched the sawed-off edges of my hair. “I feel safe.”

“We should offer it to the faeries,” Indigo said.

I wasn’t sure what the faeries would get from it—maybe they could spin memories from its strands. Maybe their mattresses were filled with girl hair.

That night, we pulled on Tati’s old fur coats and leather boots. I stroked the House’s sides as we walked down the stairs, and moonlight twisted on the floor like a laugh etched in silver. Outside, we threw the fistfuls of hair onto the lawn and I knew that no matter what, I would always be safe with Indigo.





Chapter Ten

The Bridegroom




Perhaps I could have sat in the parlor and waited for Indigo, but I didn’t want to spend another minute in that House. I rubbed my thumb along the brass handle of the front door. The metal had been worn shiny by a dozen hands. Normally, such a repetitive exercise drew me back into the present. But I couldn’t shake the image that had invaded my mind.

The false memory had triggered a second one, and when I blinked, I saw an old canvas backpack filled with saltine crackers, two tins of sardines, and a pair of socks. It was midnight, and I was helping my brother into the cedar armoire, telling him: “Go. I’ll follow you to Faerie.”

But none of it was real. I never had a brother. This was nothing more than the House tempting me to break my promise, convincing me to pry where I should not.

I looked back up the stairs. The door to Hippolyta’s room was closed, though there was another wing I had not explored. I’d glimpsed it only briefly on my way to the entrance, and even that brief glimpse had unnerved me.

At the far end of that hallway, a slender set of wrought-iron stairs spiraled upward into some unknown space. An odd fragrance had drifted toward me when I noticed it. Apples and honey. A slanted twin of the perfume Indigo daubed on her neck and wrists each morning. I pictured the House’s exterior. There was only one place those stairs could lead.

The turret.

Nobody uses that room. Not anymore.