The Last Tale of the Flower Bride(62)

Because if I could be wrong about something that had felt so sure and so vast, then what else could I be wrong about?



Indigo’s eighteenth birthday was a small affair. We went to the Otherworld, carting our rugs and pillows, blankets, and candles. Indigo took a small wagon with her, all bundled up in ropes. I figured they were different tea supplies than the ones we always kept in the turret, but when she untied the ropes, my eyes widened.

Inside was a handful of priceless heirlooms, pieces of Caste?ada conquest that I had only ever seen from the other side of the glass cabinets that held them—pink and blue imperial porcelain from the Ming dynasty; a necklace of Colombian emeralds, each pendant fat as an egg; a glass panel of coins from the ancient kingdom of Pontus; and a beautiful jade bowl that Tati had won in an auction last year.

I loved that bowl. It was rumored to have once been used by Mongolian khans who prized jade for its ability to neutralize poisons. I’d been too scared to touch it when Tati had brought it out to show us. Now I watched as Indigo arranged flowers in the vase, hung the emeralds around her neck, propped the coins against the teapot, and poured raspberries and cream into the bowl’s jade hollow, mixing them with a finger before popping a sweetened berry into her mouth.

It was a hopelessly decadent display of treasure, and where it might’ve once made me delight in her casualness, now the tea turned to acid in my belly. It meant nothing to her, when to the world outside every artifact was a piece of some grand, infinite story . . . and here she was wearing it around her neck like a charm.

“What?” asked Indigo, holding out the bowl. “Want one?”

I shook my head.

Indigo shrugged, relaxed against one of the pillows. “Now that I’m officially the adult, I can take care of us both and you won’t have to go back to Jupiter and his hovel.”

Indigo and I often laughed about Jupiter’s house. Now that he wasn’t in it, though, I thought only of my mother wiping down the counters, heating two noodle cups, stepping carefully as she brought them to the couch. I thought of the self-conscious way she arranged flowers picked by the roadside on the table. We didn’t have a vase, so we used an old liquor bottle with the label peeled off. It wasn’t the vintage crystal Indigo used, but it still caught the light.

“I have to go back to her,” I said before amending my words: “I mean, them.”

Indigo wrinkled her nose. “Why?”

Even I didn’t know the reason. I fumbled for one Indigo might accept.

“Because she can curse us,” I said. “You always said the women who gave birth to us had to possess some magic. If I make her mad before graduation, she might ruin things.”

Indigo held my gaze over the rim of her teacup and then she nodded.

“Fine,” she said. “At least it will all be done soon. Then we’ll be transformed, and we won’t even remember their names.”



The next morning, I returned to my mother’s house. Without Jupiter, the place seemed a little wider, the gray carpet cleaner, the light brighter. It was almost . . . friendly. My mother sat at the dented square dining table, feet propped up on the gingham seat cover of a chair. This time, I spoke first:

“You used to say we were cursed.”

My mother blinked at me. “I know.”

“How?” I asked. “Why?”

My mother looked at me with a steely tenderness I’d forgotten she could summon. Once, that look had meant she’d hold off the night for me if I asked. That old ache to throw myself into her arms wrenched through me, and the force of it made me sway. I hadn’t felt that impulse in so long I’d forgotten how to guard myself from feeling it anymore.

Silently, my mother stood and walked the short distance to the kitchen. She reached into a cabinet by the stove, shoving things aside, standing on her tiptoes, until she had pried something loose. It was an envelope, which she set down on the table and slid toward me. Neither of us sat.

“The curse is that we get trapped easily,” she said, still not looking at me. “Our illusions weave roses around us, and when we try to escape, we are met with thorns. I see that now. I see that as someone who, even if I can’t open the lock, at least knows it’s there.” She nodded at the envelope. “I’ve been saving this for you for years. I know I haven’t done many things well, but I never forgot the curse. I don’t want you to be trapped. Like me.”

My mother’s fingers trembled on the table.

“I don’t want you to get trapped by things you thought were there and weren’t . . . or by someone who says they’re the only one who can love you.”

I opened the envelope. Inside was an index card with the name and address of a bank, a routing and account number. Another folded slip of paper showed the balance in the account, which was under my name. It would not be a lot of money to Indigo, but it was a fortune to me.

“When I turned eighteen, I moved in with my boyfriend and never spoke to my parents again,” she said with a faint laugh. She sank into the chair. Her sweater slipped off her shoulder. She looked so bony, like she’d been worn down to a gristle of a woman.

“Soon, you’ll be eighteen and you won’t have to live under my roof. You’re barely here anyway.” Her mouth twisted, and I braced myself for a kick that never came. “But whatever you do, I want it to be on your own terms. You could use the money for college if you wanted. Or travel? What will you do after graduation?”