Arch-Conspirator(26)

What ought a person wear to go to their tomb?

I opened the doors of my wardrobe and stared. Just an hour ago, an aide from the Trireme office—a dusty, neglected place with a handful of employees, all of them engineers—had come to my door escorted by soldiers to tell me what to expect from the journey. I could pack a bag, he said, as heavy as I wanted, though I knew no one would offer to carry it for me. When he left, I had numbly filled a small sack with underwear and socks, comfortable pants and clean T-shirts, my father’s old sweater, my mother’s old necklace. I had bathed, meaning to savor the warm water for the last time. But that was the thing about last times—you kept pressing into yourself for a more pure experience, but the pressure made any experience impossible. I barely felt the water.

I stood naked in front of the wardrobe, my skin still drying. Did I feel different, now that I had been seen, known? Now that I had felt yet another thing my body was capable of doing? More than two decades on this Earth and my body still surprised me. Perhaps that was why some people were so eager to have children. They wanted to test the boundaries of what their bodies could do, enter into a mysterious state that was no less mysterious for being experienced by so many others. I would not feel those things—life stirring inside me, my belly swelling and hardening like an eggshell. I would never feel them. But not all things are guaranteed for all people. That is the way of things.

I took out the box from the bottom of my closet and opened it. Inside was my mother’s wedding gown. A simple garment, all things considered, with some beading at the bodice that she had stitched herself—I could tell by how crooked the threads were, when I looked closely. It was white, its brightness only a little faded by time. The fabric was so fine it felt like water in my hands. I shook it out, gently, and then unzipped the back and stepped into it. She was built a little narrower than I was, but also taller. The straps were set a little wider than my shoulders, and the train dragged on the ground by an inch or two, but it fit.

I felt wild, mad, as I twisted my hair up away from my neck. As I dabbed a red stain on my lips, so like blood, and smeared it into my cheeks to make them look flushed. I stood before the mirror, facing away from the room as a servant arrived with my lunch tray.

“Tig.”

I had not given the servant a second glance. She was dressed in the usual uniform, her hair pulled back so tight it looked painful. But as I looked at her in the mirror, standing with the tray in her hands, I realized she was Ismene. I turned, heat rushing into my cheeks as she saw me in our mother’s wedding gown.

“How did you get in here?” I said.

She set the tray down on my desk and rushed toward me, her hands outstretched. I took them in mine without thinking twice. Her palms were cold and trembling. Her entire body was trembling, her breaths shaking on the way out.

“I bribed the maid with coffee,” she said. “The guards didn’t recognize me.”

No one ever recognized Ismene. There was something about her face—pretty, but forgettable.

“Idiots,” I said.

Her eyes dropped to my body, wrapped in fine white fabric, and my feet, bare and dusty on the floor.

“You’re wearing Mom’s dress.”

I cringed, pulling away. “I know. It’s stupid. I should leave it here for you—”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, you have to wear it. Imagine the look on Kreon’s face when he sees you in it.”

She turned me around so we were both looking at my reflection in the mirror, her chin just above my shoulder.

“Besides,” she said, “I don’t intend to marry.”

“Nor did I,” I said. I gentled my voice. It was different for Ismene than it was even for me, I knew. “We don’t always have a choice in the matter.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” She frowned at me. “I intend to go with you, instead.”

“Ismene—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t knit our fates together like I should have. I’m so—”

I pulled her into my arms, fierce, our heads almost colliding. I could feel her jawbone against my cheek, her fragile shoulders under my wrists. Life had made us both spare, even living in Kreon’s house. We were very sharp to the touch, knife-edge women.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Do you think I want you to suffer the same fate as me? I’m so glad you didn’t help me, now.”

But she shook her head and pulled back from me.

“I don’t want to go with you so that I can redeem myself,” she said. “I want to go with you so that you won’t be alone.”

“Your reason makes no difference, I still won’t accept.”

“My reason makes all the difference,” she said firmly. “I am not a miserable sinner wearing sackcloth and dust. I am your sister, who would rather live a few years with you than many years without you. Is that so difficult to understand?”

In that moment, I wanted to accept her offer, and I felt ashamed. I didn’t want to die alone in the emptiness of space. I didn’t want to see and have no one to share with, to scream and have no one hear me. I didn’t want to be the first and the last of us to know what it was like to float among the stars. There was warm temptation in agreeing, like giving in to the desire to fall back into bed on a cold morning. But behind it was the horrible guilt I knew I would feel if I did.