Whichwood(56)

This was how they’d discovered her:

It’s midday. The sun is directly overhead, happily oblivious to the heavy, ceaseless snowfall blanketing the immense acreage of the mordeshoor’s land in a thick, fresh layer of powder. There’s a single porcelain tub half submerged in the snow, its depths full to the hilt with scarlet liquid. Within the tub lies our heroine. She is fully clothed, one leg flung over the side of the tub, her head held back, face up to the sky, long brown hair grazing the frost. Her gown is bunched up over one knee and dragging along the edge of the tub, where the sopping lengths of silk drip red water in terrifying patterns over the infant snow. She holds a long bristled brush in one hand and scrubs it roughly against her heavily embellished shoulder; diamonds burst free from their embroidered seams only to land, glittering, in the drift. She appears to be bathing in a pool of her own blood, errant rose petals caught in her hair, crimson tears frozen on her cheeks, and she smiles at something the reader cannot see—a memory?—as she sings softly to the afternoon wind. She sings in a language we cannot understand—something old and beautiful that vibrates on the tongue. It sounds like poetry, like melancholy and sadness. It’s Rumi again, her old friend, reminding her of something that soothes her heart.

Here is a translation of the part she sang most clearly:

Don’t turn your head

Don’t look away from the pain

The wound is the place

Where the light enters you

Mordeshoors were required to be rid of any hypocrisies while washing the dead—which meant they themselves had to be clean in order to properly cleanse. It was a ceremonial washing of the spirit, not the skin, that mattered most, of course, and Laylee had performed these rituals of the mordeshoor with regularity. But on this, the day that might’ve been her last as a mordeshoor, she was feeling rather emotional about it—and Rumi’s words were the only ones that felt quite right for the moment.

And so these were the words they heard when they first saw her, when Oliver and Alice and Benyamin came upon the mordeshoor without meaning to. They’d rung the doorbell several times to no avail, and finally, worried, they’d decided to sneak into the backyard. It was there that they’d discovered this unusual sight; indeed, it was a moment so simultaneously beautiful and disturbing they scarcely knew what to do. (Strange, these were the same two adjectives Alice would one day use to describe her dearest friend to me.) Alice, you see, was in awe; Benyamin was intrigued; but Oliver Newbanks had gone weak in the knees. He reached out without meaning to, grabbing hold of Benyamin’s shoulder at first sight of her. Everything about Laylee was unusual and extraordinary—and yet she seemed uninterested in being remarkable in any way. Oliver, who had worked hard his whole life to stand out—to make a mark memorable enough to distinguish him from his peers—could not make sense of this girl, this mordeshoor who did not seem to know or even care whether she terrified or enchanted the world.

But Laylee Layla Fenjoon was in possession of a rare gift she’d yet to understand:

She did not allow the opinions of others to dictate who she was.

This was not a quality she’d been born with. It was not a skill she’d intended to acquire. No, this was an ability forged exclusively from hardship; it was a lesson unearthed from the ashes of betrayal and loss. Pain had hardened her skin while suffering had softened her heart. She was emotion and armor all at once, empathy and resilience combining to create the most intimidating opponent of all.

Still, she wondered then whether she even knew what she was fighting for.

Reader, I share this anecdote of Laylee’s bath because I think her time spent therein was transformative. Laylee was assaulted by a barrage of thoughts and feelings as she sat in her porcelain tub that day, and she wondered, with increasing anxiety, what on earth she’d say to a jury to convince them of her worthiness. Most of all, she hated that she had to care what anyone thought of her. She didn’t want to change who she was—she didn’t want to have to apologize for things she didn’t regret—and she worried that Whichwood would want her to alter the composition of her character in order to accommodate their narrow opinions of what was right.

Much later, towel-dried and furnished with a fresh set of clothes, Laylee would hear the doorbell ring for the first time. She would descend the wheezing staircase of her ancient home with a tightening apprehension, feeling desperately alone and outnumbered. She had no expectations—no certainty of anything but disappointment—and yet, as she reached into her pocket to curl a loose fist around her father’s twenty-six remaining teeth, she dared to hope for a miracle.





Clever reader, I wonder—is the end of our story coming into focus for you?

Do you require the many details of the next twenty-four hours to know whether our mordeshoor’s tale ends in triumph or heartbreak? It is my dearest wish to skip ahead and simply tell you what happened, but I fear you might require more than a mere summary. Where should we begin?

Would it be of interest to you to know what the children discussed that evening? To know that they gathered round Laylee’s humble fire with cups of hot tea while Alice excitedly shared her plan to save Laylee’s career?

Or perhaps you’d like to hear more about how Laylee laughed until she cried, falling backward onto a dusty chair as Benyamin and Oliver bickered over the details of who, exactly, would be playing a more critical role in saving the day tomorrow?