The Chalice and the Crown

by Kassandra Flamouri

  * * *

  There’s a boy staring at us. He’s young, maybe ten, and eating some kind of kabob. I lick my lips, studying the glistening drops of grease on his hands with an intensity that scares me.

  A stray breeze blows the smell of roasted meat in our faces; we suck in a collective breath, as if that will let us taste it. My mouth fills with so much saliva that some spills out. I can’t even spare a thought to be disgusted with myself, though saliva trickles unchecked down my chin. My every brain cell is trained on the meat.

  The boy giggles and skips across to the men’s wagon, holding the kabob just out of reach of a sea of outstretched hands. I wish I could feel sorry for them, tell them they’re making fools of themselves, but all I can think of is how much I wish I were closer so that maybe I could reach the kabob.

  The boy wiggles the stick of meat, taunting his rapt audience in what sounds like the same strange language the guards speak. And then—he wiggles the stick a bit too far, and someone’s fingers catch the tip. The kabob topples to the ground and the man who touched it licks his fingers madly. The boy scowls and kicks it aside as a woman, likely his mother, swoops in and shoos him away. I can see her scolding him—for dropping the food, no doubt. No one seems to care about us. They don’t even seem to really see us.

  I turn my head in disgust and immediately wish I hadn’t. There, in the center of the square, the skinny boy, the one who was branded just before I was, is on the auction block. The townspeople look at him with frank, cold appraisal, like he’s a mannequin in a store window.

  They don’t see a person. They don’t see a scared, pimply pre-teen. They see a thing; an object. And who knows? Maybe they’re right.

  * * *

  I walk offstage and stagger slightly as someone thrusts a bouquet of roses into my hands. Why—am I done? Did I do it? I don’t understand—but James and Emily are pulling me into a joint embrace, hugging me and each other simultaneously.

  “You were amazing, Sasha,” Emily tells me, her eyes wet. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Any notes for me?” I ask James, smiling weakly through my confusion.

  I almost hope he does, that he has a laundry list of critiques. Maybe it would help me remember something—anything—from the performance. My fingers creep up to my temple, where my grandmother’s crown bites into the tender skin. My head throbs under the crown’s suddenly unbearable weight.

  “Not a thing,” he says with a grin. “Come on, there are some people you should meet.”

  Before I know it, I’m being passed from hand to hand in a whirl of faces and flashing cameras. Compliments rain down on me, the cacophony of excited voices crashing against my eardrums. I haven’t slept through the night in days—weeks—and my body is on the brink of failure. It’s all I can do to maintain a faint, polite smile through it all. My murmured responses go mostly unnoticed, until a man with a particularly toothy grin catches my hand.

  “Beautiful,” he says. “You dance just like your mother.”

  “I—thank you,” I say stiffly, trying to tug my hand away. “You knew her?”

  “I met her once,” he says. “Lovely woman. Such a shame…”

  My lips part to release something gracious and appreciative, but I have no breath. It’s as if some vital connection has been severed and my lungs are collapsing in on themselves.

  James pulls me away and steers me toward a distinguished looking woman—another trustee of some prestigious school, no doubt—but I duck out from under his arm. My head, already aching from the strain and bright lights, is starting to spin and pound simultaneously. The toothy man’s words echo in my ears and on everyone’s lips: just like your mother.

  I push my collection of bouquets into James’ arms. “I need to go.”

  Before he can protest, I slip away through the crowd, dodging admirers’ outstretched hands and calls for my attention. My smile has slipped, and I can’t seem to get it back. I know I must look ungracious, maybe even haughty, but I can’t help it. I have to get out of here before I vomit or pass out or do something else equally shameful. Better to look like a bitch than an invalid.

  The dressing rooms backstage don’t offer the privacy I hoped for. My fellow dancers lounge on couches or on the floor, leaning against each other in easy camaraderie. Jealousy flashes through me and morphs into a stab of pain that makes me hiss.

  “Sasha!” Dave rises to greet me with a huge grin. “My queen, my light. The belle of the ball.”

  A blond girl whose name I should know sniffs and gives me a wide, fake smile. “Shouldn’t you be out there with your adoring fans?”

  “I just need a minute,” I mutter, and turn to go.

  “Wait,” Dave calls. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course she isn’t,” the blond girl says. “She’s a total fraud. She doesn’t deserve to be out there. She doesn’t deserve any of this.”

  I whip around. “Excuse me?”

  “What?” The girl frowns at me. “You know it’s true. You’re weak. You’re broken. You’re going to end up a failure, just like your mother.”

  “Shut up.” My voice is low, almost soundless, like the growl of a dog about to strike. “Shut up.”

  Everyone is staring at me. Dave looks worried—scared, even.

  “What?” I ask him belligerently. “You heard what she said.”

  “Sasha,” Dave mutters, “she didn’t say anything.”

  Waves of heat wash over me and then turn to ice, freezing me in place. Why is he lying? But then—what if he isn’t? My stomach plunges, and I stagger into the door frame.

  Dave leaps to my side and slips an arm behind my back, supporting me. “Let’s get some air,” he says. “And some water. Sound good?”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”

  I’m not fine. My legs are shaking so badly my knees knock together. The ground spins beneath me. Saliva rushes into my mouth. I choke and clap a hand over my mouth, breathing hard through my nose. Dave pulls me down the hall and into the bathroom, his arm tight around my waist.

  “I’m fine,” I say again, but my voice is a ragged thread.

  “Of course you are.” He blots my face with a damp paper towel. “You’re good. You’re the best.”

  I am—it’s not arrogant to say so. But is that enough? My mother was the best, too. That didn’t stop her from going crazy. It didn’t stop her from dying. And how many times have I heard it today?

  I’m just like my mother.

  * * *

  The next day, I begin my hunt for answers. I slip into the office furtively, like a thief, though I have every right to be there. The business is going to be mine, as Emily pointed out, and so will the house once I turn twenty-one. Or maybe thirty. Emily explained the terms of my grandmother’s will, but I can’t remember any of it. It doesn’t matter, though, because everything here is mine by right. My desk, my file cabinets, my everything. But I still don’t want anyone to know what I’m doing in here.

  I go to the squat wooden cabinet where Baba Nadia keeps the family records and slide open one of the drawers: Birth certificates for my mother and me, social security cards, the deed to the house…not what I’m looking for. The next drawer has a tab labeled “Medical.” I pull out a handful of folders and flip through them until I find one labeled “Lara.”

  I open it, heart pounding. It’s filled not only with typed medical reports but whole packets of what must be my grandmother’s handwritten notes. My lips move silently as I struggle with the Cyrillic characters. Minutes pass, then hours. Page after page until the letters blur before my eyes and I can’t tell anymore if the symptoms I’m reading about are my mother’s or my own: Insomnia, nightmares, hallucinations, delusions, weight loss, heart palpitations, panic attacks…it’s all there. My story or my mother’s, it doesn’t matter. It’s all one in the end.

  And the end is right there on the last page, staring me in the face.

  “Lara umerla. Vrachi skazali eto byla anevrizma. Oni n
e mogut byt’ uvereny. Chto by yeye ne ubilo, yeye bol’ zakonchilas. Bozhe, daruy moyemu rebenku pokoy.”

  Lara is dead. The doctors said it was most likely an aneurysm, but they cannot be sure. Whatever killed her, it ended her suffering. God, grant my child rest.

  I rise from the desk slowly, as if I’ve aged seventy years in the last—how long has it been? The sun was high when I started reading, but now the moon hangs heavy and solemn over the rooftops.

  The house is silent; Emily must be out with James. I’m glad. She needs time for herself…and time with James. She’ll need him when I’m gone.

  My eyes burn. How long will I last? What a cruel irony it would be if Baba Nadia were to outlive me. But we won’t be parted for long. There’s some comfort in that, at least.

  I drag myself up the stairs and stagger into the bathroom, my grandmother’s notes still clutched in my fist. The tile floor, usually freezing, seems warm under my chilly feet. I’m so cold all the time, like I’ve already turned into a ghost. Or a corpse.

  “Stop it,” I mutter. “Stop.”

  I turn on the faucet and pour a handful of hot water over the back of my neck, my face. I brace myself against the counter, my head hanging between my shoulders. Then I look, unwillingly, into the mirror.

  My bloodshot eyes stare back at me like two flickering embers in a bed of ashes. Deep shadows lie in the hollows of their sockets, emphasizing the harsh redness of the lids. I turn off the light before splashing more water on my face. I don’t want to see my reflection—if that’s what it is. That…creature in the mirror can’t be me.

  I take the notes again, staring down at the words that hold my fate. I look at them for a long time. Not reading, just looking.

  Finally, I stir and move to fish a box of matches out of a drawer, pushing aside my moonstone necklace. I don’t want to see it. It’s not mine anymore; it belonged to someone else, someone who could live the life Baba Nadia worked so hard to prepare for her.

  I’m not that girl.

  I set the notes on the tile floor and hesitate for just a moment before striking a match. No one can know what those pages contain. No one. I won’t let them send me away to rot in a mental institution for the rest of my life—however long that might be.

  I drop the match and watch my future burn.

  * * *

  Hot water hits my body, making my many cuts and abrasions sting. A rosy-cheeked older lady in an apron sets down her bucket and picks up a sponge. She dips it into a basin of water and quickly wipes away the topmost layer of grime from my body. The water feels heavenly but having someone scrub me all over—and it really is all over—is uncomfortable and intrusive.

  When the worst of the grime is gone, the lady leads me to what looks like a small swimming pool. She carefully cleans the cuts adorning my arms and back and then pushes me into the pool.

  None too gently, she rubs powdery soap into my hair and pushes my head under. Once my hair is clean and detangled, she gives me another good scrub with a long-handled brush and then goes to work on my hands and feet, trimming and cleaning my nails and rubbing lotion into my cracked skin. Then comes hot wax. Even if I had the courage to protest, I wouldn’t. Though excruciatingly painful, it feels like she’s tearing away all those weeks of sweat and grime and hunger along with my body hair.

  Afterward, she rubs a soothing, lavender-scented balm into my skin and brushes my teeth with a kind of bristly cloth. I feel like a dog at the groomer’s, but I don’t care. It’s wonderful. Being clean is even better than being fed, and being clothed is best of all.

  I nearly weep as the woman swaddles me in a soft, supple wrap dress. The creamy white cloth feels comfortably secure against my torso, like a harness. She puts thin white slippers on my feet and I close my eyes, wiggling my toes inside the smooth leather.

  Next, the woman brushes out my hair until it’s dry—strangely, it only takes a few minutes—and braids a few pieces back to keep it out of my face. She steps back, looking me over with sharp eyes, then nods once and shoos me out into a small garden.

  Though my feet keep moving, my mind recoils. There’s no auction block, but I just know that the richly clad spectators milling around the lush garden are in fact buyers. My eyes flick to the other girls. They stand in a row beside a long decorative pool, clean and clad in the same white dresses. The row is short; our numbers have dwindled as we meandered through the countryside. Some died, most were sold.

  We reached the city—this glittering, dizzying, magnificent city—two days ago. Those of us who are left are young and lovely and strong…at least, strong enough to have survived this long. We are the elite, it seems, the only stock worthy of the city’s wealthiest inhabitants.

  A man in red shoves me forward, and I take my place—next to Pouter. Of course.

  I curl my fingers into my skirt and resist the urge to pull her now-shiny yellow hair. Her hands twitch, perhaps with the same desire. I stare straight ahead, inspecting a garden wall artfully draped with ivy and climbing roses. It comforts me that I can still appreciate beauty after everything that’s happened. I hope they never take that from me.

  I shiver.

  My name is Sasha.

  I have to remember. I don’t want to become like the blank-eyed slaves who trickle into the garden bearing trays of food and drink. They’re like ghosts, impervious and empty, more like cardboard cut-outs than people. The man in red, the one who ordered our branding, roams among us, adjusting a neckline on one girl and smoothing a lock of hair on another.

  A tremor runs through my body as I’m reminded of the reason we’ve been bathed and clothed: Rich people don’t want dirty slaves.

  Customers appear a short while later and stroll around the garden admiring the sculptures and mosaics—and us, the merchandise. They’re certainly a cut above the buyers we saw in the countryside. They glitter with jewels and subtly iridescent cosmetics, men and women both. They wear loose, flowing robes and gowns—layers and layers of rich fabric in all the colors of the rainbow. Everything about them unapologetically screams “wealth.”

  One of them will buy me.

  One of them will own me.

  The man in red calls for the crowd’s attention and jerks the first girl in line to her feet. The bidding begins. The girl on display is the picture of resignation: bowed head, slumped shoulders, limp hands dangling at her sides. I cast my own eyes to the ground. I know I’ll be no different when it’s my turn. I’m not stupid; I remember the man who tried to escape.

  My eyes flick to the back of the garden, where the grizzled old guard with the scar on his face watches from the shadows. He stares at me with that same strange expression I saw just before he branded me. I plead with my eyes, silently begging him to help me. But he looks away.

  * * *

  “Babulya?”

  I drag myself out of bed and trip over—something. There isn’t anything on the floor. Anything but me. My stomach heaves. I pant and force myself to my feet. Where is Baba Nadia? Panic leaks into my chest. Something dark flutters against the edges of memory. Something about my grandmother. Where is she? Where is Emily?

  But—why would Emily be here in the house with me? I haven’t needed a babysitter in years. Baba Nadia trusts me, she—she’s not here. She’s not here.

  I sink back to the floor as the truth washes over me. Baba Nadia isn’t here because she’s at the hospital, in hospice care. She’s dying. She may already be dead. But Emily should be here, I remember that now. She must be here somewhere. I can find her. I can—I can…but I don’t. My eyes drift shut, and I find someone else instead.

  * * *

  Our mistress—Ismeni, I remind myself—dismisses us for the afternoon. She sits at her mirror and combs her long auburn hair with a complacent smile, as if she’s already forgotten we’re there. I turn and follow my fellow slave, Dove—I think her name means ‘dove’—into the garden. As always, she sits beside the fountain and stares into the water while I wander the garden paths. It does
n’t matter that the flowers I admire today are the same ones I marveled at yesterday. I forget them within hours. I forget a lot of things.

  I have to work hard to remember that I haven’t always been this dull-witted. Once, I was as bright and vibrant as these flowers, and I think I can be again. I used to be someone else, someone stronger. My mistress has started calling me something, but it’s not my name. I don’t know what it means. It’s just a word.

  It’s not me.

  Or maybe it is—I wouldn’t know. I don’t know who I am anymore, and I don’t like looking in the mirror. I don’t like seeing my reflection and feeling no recognition. That girl, that stranger, she’s not much to look at, anyway. She’s thin and pale, all sharp angles and shadows. Her eyes are empty, soulless, like two windows with a blank wall behind them. They make my chest ache.

  I blink, bringing myself back to the present, and let my eyes drift over the garden and up to where a hulking, ominous house of stone perches atop the ravine like a malevolent toad.

  It’s stark and ugly, nothing like the rest of the beautiful, sprawling villas that run the length of the narrow valley. At the head of the valley lies a truly magnificent palace which seems to cascade down the mountainside right alongside the waterfall. The falls bisect both the palace and the ravine itself and disappear into the ground—or the air. I often wonder about that, but rarely for long. There are other, less confusing things to think about.

  I sigh, imagining what it would be like to stand on one of the many bridges connecting the two halves of the palace. How pleasant, how soothing it must be to lean against the rails, to feel the cool mist on my face and listen to the wild rush of water surging past.

  The canyon wall surprises me, rising to meet me like a wave out of the ocean. I’ve come to the edge of the garden, though I don’t remember how I got here. I look around at the overgrown rose bushes and decide that I like this place: It looks lost and forgotten, just like me.