The Last Tale of the Flower Bride(39)

Indigo positioned a stool next to the tub and handed me a tin of lather. My razor dangled lazily from her fingers, inches away from my left hand. She liked helping me shave, said she liked the soft, scraping sound it made. We both knew that was a lie. What she really liked was the way my neck bobbed when the blade touched my skin. She loved my surrender.

“They’re an odd custom, don’t you think?” she asked.

She tapped my wedding ring with the end of her blade—a dented band of iron and tungsten.

“How so?”

“Everything about it . . .” she said, trailing the blade’s tip over the ring past my knuckle and up my wrist. “Some believe that it connects to a vein of love, vena amoris, one that goes straight to your heart. But have you never wondered why it’s a ring and not a necklace or a tattoo?”

Indigo twisted it now. “A circle is a fixed infinity. Even the way it looks when it’s held up to the light is curious, as if it’s a portal to some place of mystery and your choice to wear it means you’ve allowed your marriage to be a threshold to the unknown. And yet, even in the unknown, there is a demand of mutual trust.”

I reached for her. “Indigo—”

“I know what she said to you,” said Indigo, her eyes cutting to mine. “Let me guess, the House will answer some secret wish of yours if you find out where she went?”

She. Azure. I knew better than to lie. I nodded.

“No doubt she disparaged me or made it sound like I did something to make her leave . . . and no doubt, it got to you.”

You say she loves you, but what is she anyway?

I caught Indigo’s chin, holding on as she tried to move away.

“You let me walk into the dark, Indigo, and then you left me there. You can’t be mad when I can’t see properly.”

And you cannot blame me for what I will do to set you free.

The set of her chin softened. She blew out her breath. I relaxed my grip, and she leaned her cheek into my palm, gentle as a dove. The steam from the bath pulled at her hair.

“Once Tati loved us like we were her own daughters,” she said carefully, for this was surely a peace offering. Azure’s name remained unspoken, a physical object she stepped around. “She was my sister in all but blood; then something changed. Tati couldn’t see it. It was after the accident, and she wasn’t the same anymore. Tati started seeing things that weren’t there. Hearing things too. And when it came to . . .”

Again, the fragility around the name. The color of it was azure.

“I loved her in a way that almost made me wish never to love again until I met you.” Her gaze turned pleading. “I would have kept her with me all her days. I would have killed for her. She was half my soul. Tati should know that I would have never done anything to hurt her.

“But I won’t look for her either,” said Indigo, her eyes lowering to the water, her thick lashes casting spikes across her cheeks. “There are some things we can never come back from. Not now. Not ever.”

Indigo’s face was soft, unlined, but when she lifted her gaze, her eyes seemed ancient. This was how I knew that grief had marked her. Only grief can make time change its tempo like that, expand seconds to centuries, with only our eyes marking the distance crossed.

“Do you believe me?”

I stepped around this trap. “I believe.”

Indigo stroked my cheek. A bemused smile played on her mouth. “You need a shave.”

I leaned my head against the tub and showed my wife my throat.

“You do it,” I said, and she smiled.



All marriages possess their own tongue.

It is a lexicon discovered in that space between clipped sentences. Its poetry can be heard in the rustle of blankets as you shift to curl around the other in silent apology. In this way, I spoke to my wife. I let the slow drag of my thumb along her jaw say what I could not—

I have to do this for you, my love. My brother has left me, and maybe he won’t come back. How shall I live if you leave me too?

We fell asleep midsentence.

That night, I dreamt once more of my brother. This time, we are in the House of Dreams. The armoire that my brother disappeared into now stands beneath a grinning baboon skull on the wall in the dining room. Hippolyta and Indigo sit on one side of the table. On the other, my mother and father.

Sit, my love, says Indigo. Why are you standing?

I’m waiting, I say, pointing at the closed armoire.

From within comes a soft knock. It grows louder as I reach for the handle. The knocking is the slow pulse of something coming alive, and when I open the door, I can feel another heartbeat lying atop mine.

My brother is inside. Our mother’s violet scarf flops over his head. He sits with his legs crossed beneath him, pudgy hands in his lap. When he lifts his head, his mop of black curls gives way to a sharp, pointed face that is feathered and speckled. His face is a starling, and when he sees me, he cocks his head to one side and screeches.

I sat up in bed, turned on the light. I smelled iron and saw blood on my hands. I touched my nose, but it was dry. There was no blood on Indigo. She lay asleep, her face sweetly creased as she dreamt. I threw off the covers, checked my arms and legs.

But there was nothing.

I did not know whose blood was on my hands.





Chapter Seventeen