Page 16 of Those Fatal Flowers

It’s a bright late summer morning, though a light blanket of fog still envelops Scopuli’s meadow. This time of year, it’s filled with goldenrod, meadowsweet, and, of course, mullein. Bumblebees flit through the haze from bloom to bloom, and the field vibrates with their communal hum. If we were younger, I’d close my eyes and let the soothing frequency wash over me, but today, there’s no peace to be found in quiet moments. There’s only Raidne’s pain.

Mullein’s familiar clusters of browning yellow flowers crest above the tall grasses, but before I can push through to collect the large, soft leaves, an unfamiliar sound rises behind me to join the bees’ song. It’s a delicate, silvery tinkling, and it halts me in place as my ears rush to place it. Pisinoe?

I look to the sky for her. She jingles as she moves, courtesy of the countless jewels she adorns herself with. But this noise is more delicate than the clinking of gold against silver. No shapes materialize through the fog, and there’s no whir of wings to indicate her arrival; there’s only the buzzing of bees and the soft cascade of bells.

A shiver prickles along my spine. During our first weeks on Scopuli, Raidne took jewelry from the ships that wrecked here and hung it in Scopuli’s highest branches. She was mimicking the behavior of mortals who understood that the gods could communicate with them through the wind. They hung chimes and bowls in the trees surrounding their settlements, and their oracles deciphered the cryptic messages delivered through the varioustingsandbongscreated when wind filtered between the artifacts. Raidne spent hours in the woods, her body nestled in vacant deer beds, her head craned toward the sky as she prayed for a response. Wind swished through the leaves, but the baubles remained untouched and silent, and the message was clear: There would be no answers for us.

Like a lover scorned, she stopped dressing the trees centuries ago, but I still catch Pisinoe with a string of bells or an old flute heading into the woods on occasion. These attempts at divination have also gone unanswered. Until now, it seems, when someone finally speaks.

Could this be a trick of the light reflecting off the haze, some sort of strange recall of memory? It sounds just like the tintinnabula, the tiny assemblages of bells that hung in the palatial gardens when we were children. When we lived with her. I look to the treetops, but no golden sheen or metallic reflection catches my eye, no logical source for the tones.

My throat tightens as my mind races for an explanation.But my heart, its thuds growing louder against my ribs, already knows it. Each beat is the mysterious, shimmering song’s refrain:It’s her. It’s her. It’s her.

When I finally turn around to face the path home, I see it. My ancient body can’t absorb the shock, and in the time it takes to blink, I fall hard onto my knees with a sickeningcrunch. But if there’s pain, I don’t feel it. I can’t—there’s no room for anything other than wonder.

A lily blooms in the crook of a maple root. Its bright orange petals are a beacon, stealing my attention from the other members of the forest’s undergrowth. It towers over the narrow, fine-toothed blueberry leaves that mingle with the simpler, serrated margins of the sweet-pepper bushes. The honeysuckle vines with their trumpeted blossoms don’t crowd the noble flower; instead, they snake up the opposite side of the maple, forgoing their claim to sunlight. The lily, with its deep amber hue, even outshines the bunchberries, which punctuate the rest of the underbrush like crimson staccatos in a larger symphony. They accentuate the foliage around them, but the lily doesn’t need their help to highlight its beauty. The lily is a solo.

I don’t breathe, afraid that any disturbance to the air will shatter the image before me, but this electric unknowing is too raw to perpetuate for long. The hair on my arms stands at attention; my feathers quiver with anticipation. After I’ve done my best to memorize the curve of each petal, the arc of each stamen, I finally teeter from the edge of being terrified to lose it and tumble forward into needing to know if it’s real. Inhaling deeply, I force myself to look away from the flower. My eyes find a wren on one of the maple’s limbs, and I listen to a few moments of its song, giving my mind time to exorcise the fantasy, if it is one. When my focus returns to the spot atthe base of the maple, relief floods my veins. The flower is still there. Sunlight filters through the gold-kissed leaves above, and the lily stretches its petals to lap up the light.

The first lily in a decade. In all my years trapped here, I’ve never seen one so deep an orange, as if blood courses through its stem and soaks into its petals, like ink on papyrus. The beauty of its symmetry, its six petals radiating from its darkened center, where stamens erupt like little tongues, brings a knot of emotions to my throat, and when it escapes, the sound is neither a gasp nor a cry: It’s a noise that has no name.

“A ship’s coming.” I crawl to the bloom and whisper into the lily’s center, an act that feels shockingly intimate.

Shielded by the maple, we’re safe from wind, and still the lily leans forward to answer. Gratitude, sorrow, or some mixture of the two emotions wells in my chest, and I let its petals graze my lips. They’re as soft as Proserpina’s kisses were, and I close my eyes to take in their sweet scent. The bells, this flower. They’re messages.

The thought is interrupted by something crisp and wet hitting my right cheek. I look up to discover darkling clouds swirling furiously overhead, and more raindrops follow the first. I blink back the tiny pearls of water as others land on the bridge of my nose, my lips, as they cling to my eyelashes. A storm is coming. If the clouds didn’t announce the approaching tempest, the scent in the air does. Suddenly, it’s sweet and electric all at once; it’s kinetic. I know this island’s weather patterns like I know my own moods. We are both mercurial, this land and me. I lean close to the lily once more and inhale deeply, trying to crystallize its scent in my memory. It’s time to return home.

Raidne and Pisinoe need to know what’s coming.

The rain falls heavier now, thousands of cold droplets kissing everything in their trajectory, from the leaves on the trees all around me to my exposed flesh, forming goosebumps on contact. The beads roll over me, descending dramatically into puddles at my feet. Lightning streaks across the sky in a brilliant flash that illuminates the forest all at once before it’s over. Thunder’s low rumble follows.

The dirt path beneath my feet winds gently upward, and when I emerge from the cloak of trees, our little hut is visible on its perch on the cliffs. It’s a tiny dwelling, no more than a single room, a crumpled hat that sits atop the highest, rockiest point of the island. We built it ourselves with large gray stones, following the hurried instructions given to us by some nameless survivor years ago. He thought the architecture lesson would sway us to spare him. It didn’t.

A muted light from within the structure flickers through the two windows that flank the front door, which creaks open to receive me. Pisinoe sticks her ashen head out from behind it, beckoning me forward. Her bracelets jingle on her wrist, but their sound is carried off by the quickening wind. Gusts shoot rain against my body like hundreds of little daggers. As if to underscore Pisinoe’s insistence, another lightning bolt tears across the sky, and the thunder that follows this time is no mere rumble. It sounds as if the heavens above are shattering.

I take off toward the door. Tiny rivers are forming, creating small waterfalls that descend off the cliffs into the sea below. Pisinoe steps aside to let me enter. I’m soaking wet. Small puddles collect on the dirt-packed floor, and I know what’s coming. I hear Raidne before I see her.

“Wash your feet.” She leans over the ancient iron pot hanging above the hearth and hasn’t yet looked at me, but instinct tells her that I’m making a mess anyway. She raises one arm and points a sharp finger at the large basin filled with water near the door. Her other hand keeps stirring the contents of the pot with a large wooden spoon, and the warm scent of basil mingling with thyme fills the cottage. The knowledge that Raidne’s stews will soon contain meat again makes my stomach rumble. “And dry yourself.”

Our home is humble despite our having accumulated the wealth of kings. Shadows cast from the fire flicker across the walls. A variety of drying herbs hang from old wooden beams that crisscross overhead. We don’t have much in the way of furniture, save for a large, creaky table in the middle of the room and the pallets along the left wall where we sleep. It would feel rather roomy if it were not for all the piles of books strewn about. Raidne can’t bear to leave them in the caves with the rest of our hoard.

I take a seat on a small stool inside the entryway, which we keep there for this very purpose, and stick my right foot in the basin to wash the mud from my talons. These feet used to disgust me, the three hooked nails in the front and the fourth behind, their only purpose to cut into flesh. However, the revulsion quickly faded. It was hard to remain disgusted by such strength. They’ve served me well.

The sound of Pisinoe’s gasp draws Raidne’s attention from the stew and mine from my washing.

“Thelia! What happened to your knees?”

Twin bruises have bloomed where I hit the ground, already a sickly purple and green. Only now do I stop to wonder how bad the damage is, though it doesn’t matter. In a few hours, it will all be erased. I put the washcloth in my lap and lean forward. “I found a lily.”

Pisinoe inhales sharply and looks to Raidne, who freezes before the cauldron, spoon still in hand. Her expression is blank, but I know from the way her body tenses that she’s running the same calculations I did: Was it simply a trick of the light? Of my aging, failing mind?

“It was beautiful, Raidne, so deep an orange it was nearly red. I can’t explain it, but it’s different from the others somehow.”

Though age has softened Raidne’s features, her gray eyes are as exacting as ever. They study me: the arc of my brows, the curve of my shoulders. The answer she seeks is in the culmination of my details. What she finds makes her grip tighten around the spoon’s handle. Before I can ask her if she believes me, she hobbles to the window that faces the sea and forces two of the wooden slats in the shutters apart to peer between them. I hold my breath as she stands there, suspended. The only indication that she hasn’t turned to stone is the sound of her own labored breaths as she directs that severe stare onto the waves. But then those breaths hitch in her throat, breaking her stupor: Something has caught her attention, and she unlatches the wooden panels to get a better look.

“What are you doing?” Pisinoe shrieks, throwing herself toward Raidne. Outside, the wind roars. “You’re going to let the storm in!”

“Help me open these!” Raidne snaps back, and Pisinoe abides. When they finally muscle the shutters open, the wind whips inside and nearly knocks them from their feet. It tears through the cottage, sending the cockled pages of Raidne’s books flying open as if looking for a specific passage.

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