Page 71 of Scent of Desire
“Your mother would be proud of you.” My uncle appeared from behind me, a rose ice cream in his hand. “You should be the center of the attention, not hiding in a corner.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m—”supervising.I swallowed my last word, a shy smile slanting on my lips. That was truly a Radcliff thing to say. “I did some interviews, but it’s all very consuming to finally be… seen.”
“Well, you deserve to be seen. Look what you’ve accomplished.” His eyes flickered, locking on the bouquet of lilies of the valley at the entrance. “Her favorite flowers. Do you know why she named you after them?”
My uncle was trying. He had invited old colleagues and acquaintances of my mom to attend the launch, and for once, he wasn’t trying to steal the spotlight—just eating all the buffet.
“Because it’s a symbol of happiness and purity. I know the story, Uncle.” My mother wasn’t entirely right about me.
“No, that’s not the real story.” My uncle chortled.
“What?”
“Her favorite flowers were the lilies,” he continued. “Until you. When you were just a baby, you came out of your cradle and plucked out a lily of the valley that your mother planted in the garden. When she discovered what you did, she got so scared… She was crying and yelling.”
“Why?” The hair on my skin raised. I’d never heard this story before.
“Because the lily of the valley is very poisonous. You had ingested the plant, Lily. You had eaten all the little white bells. Well, it’s a common thing for babies to eat a bit of everything and to—”
“Uncle, get to the point,” I hurried him, my heart thumping wildly in my chest.
“You should have died or been hurt severely, my Lily, but you didn’t. You were smiling as if nothing happened. It was a miracle.” My uncle reached for my arm that he’d struck, his smile tinted with emotions. “Since that day, your mother had an obsession with that flower. She always put its scent in her perfumes. You were her flower queen. She called you Lily because she believed you were magical and that nothing could ever get to you, just like that plant. You’d be able to face adversity and defend yourself with beauty and strength.”
I felt like I had been hit by lightning.
I had been bound to hell from the start by making a deal with the poison of a flower. It all started from there.
All my life, I thought my mother had named me after the lily of the valley because she wanted me to be sweet and plain Lily. But she had named me after it because she had seen the real me.
My light and my darkness.
My strength and my curse.
She saw my duality, that mix of beauty and poison.
“Thank you for that story, Uncle.” I seized his hand in return, and just like that, my heart had forgiven him.
“We’ll get No. 27 back, I promise you.” With the palm of his hand, he wiped away his burgeoned tears. “Anyway, I should let you enjoy your night… but there is one more thing I wanted to tell you. I know you haven’t forgiven me and that I’ve lost the right to be your uncle, but—”
“Tell me.”
“Your nightingale will come back, and even if I think he’s truly unworthy of you, he wouldn’t want you to stop blooming in the meantime.” My uncle gave me a light smile, pointing to the buffet. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
He left, and my brows furrowed. I knew this legend. The love story of a nightingale and the lily of the valley. It was inside my mother’s journal.
Alone in the garden, the lily of the valley took affection of a nightingale that sang for her night after night. But one day, the nightingale had left her, thinking she was better off without him, that his singing didn’t touch her soul, because she never showed him how she felt. She waited in vain for the nightingale to return. After some time, she grew so sad that she stopped blooming. One day, the nightingale returned, hearing her agony, and she flowered again, her happiness restored, just as the sun beams on a dense woodland night, penetrating the deepest gloom.
Radcliff was my nightingale. My lips curved into a thin smile, but it wasn’t the moment to get emotional. Soon, I’d have a speech to make, and like my uncle said, he wouldn’t want me to be sad on this day. I cleared my throat and ambled with confidence toward the crowd.
“Congratulations,” a seductive voice interrupted me. It had the edge of someone important who knew his value.
I whirled around to face my interlocutor. “Thank you, I—”
My mouth hung open, and the words didn’t come out.
I hadn’t recognized him.
His arms were wrapped around the two women at his side—one blond model and one curvy brunette. His hair was now an ash blond, almost pristine white. His smile was sharp and vicious like a razor blade. His dress shirt was halfway open on a tanned body, as if he had spent a month on a yacht. An alcoholic drink was held in his hand, and he didn’t smell of purple anymore but of carmine red and orange fire, a mix of apple cinnamon, cranberry, and poppies.
