The Last Tale of the Flower Bride(66)

I liked driving.

I liked putting distance between myself and the world. I liked the way the asphalt rumbled beneath me, the stubborn yield of the gear shifts, the way I could sip the perfume of honeysuckles through a rolled-down window. When the stars blurred overhead or the sunshine lanced through the windshield, I turned winged and sleek, a creature climbing through the sky beholden to no place on earth.

“You’re a fast learner,” my mother had said after my first lesson. She let out a breath that might have been a laugh held tight in her chest. “Next time I’m going to have to bring a helmet, won’t I?”

We spoke around what we wanted, and in this, I’d heard another question—Can we do this again?

So we did.

Our island wasn’t big, but the roads were long and empty, yawning past bridges that had fallen into creeks, snaking between spruces and firs tall as giants and outlining hidden coves that clung to secret beaches I’d never seen before.

Driving made everything seem large and within reach, and when I sank into my mother’s rusty sedan and heard the engine roar and felt the afternoon warm the back of my arms, I imagined I was the one pulling the sun across the horizon. Because with every drive, the world I did not know was illuminated.

My mother climbed into the seat beside me and for the rest of the evening I guided us down the winding roads. My mother didn’t say much during these drives, but the air rushing through the windows reassembled the space between us, rubbing out the edges so it didn’t hurt to sit so close.

When I sat in the car that day, I pulled the night alongside me. And in that shadow, my mother spoke:

“Not long left until graduation,” she said, then added, “and your birthday.” I could hear her mouth crinkle in a shy smile.

I heard her question between the things she said aloud: Have you thought about what you will do? Whether you’ll take the money I’ve saved for you and go elsewhere?

“I know,” I said.

And I knew she heard my answer: I don’t know yet.

“There’s still time,” she said quietly.

When we got back to the house, I tried giving her the keys, but she folded them in my hand.

“I’ve got a friend picking me up for the Saturday shift tomorrow,” she said. “Why don’t you take the car for the afternoon?”

“Am I allowed to do that?” I asked, my eyes wide even as I felt a pang. My mother had a friend, a friend she laughed with, shared food with—when did that happen?

She shrugged. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”



Early the next morning, I sat alone in the car. The day was a road, and it belonged to me. Indigo wouldn’t be expecting me until sunset so we could say our goodbye to the Otherworld before we said hello to our new lives.

I was reckless that day. I went to the gas station and bought candy, which Indigo expressly forbade. If we ate sweets, we had honeycomb dipped in chocolate and wrapped in gold leaf, or thick Mexican hot chocolate in blue porcelain cups. Indigo loved beautiful things, but nothing was more tempting to me than the bright packet of little red candies. They smelled like plastic and cinnamon, tasted of the exotic. I got goose bumps as I ate them in the parking lot, fingers splayed against my mouth to keep from losing a single one.

Afterward, I went back inside and bought a bottle of pop and more of the candies. I drove to the movies and snuck into the theater. I walked through a store and tried on sunglasses, imagined a place where I might need them. I recognized people from school and flashed them smiles, which they awkwardly returned. I ate a hot cinnamon bun, drank a smoothie, bought vending-machine chips, and played in an arcade with the quarters I had left before slouching back into the car, glutted on all that I’d consumed. I was vast, a horizon folded into a human, and lost in that vastness, I nearly forgot the hour.

I didn’t have time to shower or change before I went to the House of Dreams. My treachery was a scent, the buttered popcorn clinging to my hair, the smell of cinnamon on my breath. Indigo was waiting for me outside the gates, wrapped in the sable fur coat she’d offered me the day before.

“You’re almost late,” she said, tugging on her starling necklace.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

Indigo sniffed the air. In the half-light, I couldn’t see the whites of her eyes. She licked her lips and held out her hand.

“Time for us to say goodbye,” she said.

Hand in hand, we walked to the Otherworld. With every step, the food in my stomach congealed. I thought I’d be thrown out for good, met with a wall of air, but with every step my starling necklace fluttered against my bare skin—warm, breathing. Before long, it was my hand on the gate, our keys turning in the locks, the gates swinging open, and the smell of apple blossoms embracing us.

“It’s perfect,” Indigo sighed.

It was perfect. And here I was, untouched. The Otherworld had beheld me in all my grime and sin, and still loved me.

“Oh,” I said, my soul sagging in relief.

“I know,” said Indigo, wrapping her arms around me. “But we’ll be back soon.”

I didn’t answer. I was lost in the embrace of something greater. The moment I crossed the threshold, the Otherworld reached for me. The oak groaned and the willow stretched its limbs, the lilies nodded in acknowledgment, and the blossoms sang on the apple trees. I had been prepared to be orphaned by this world. Instead, it welcomed me, and in that second I understood the movement of holy things.