Lotus and Thorn

by Sara Wilson Etienne

  Another memory-idea floated to the surface.

  A white room. Cocooned . . . suspended in a strange sling. The acrid scent of chemicals. I was lost. No.

  I’d lost something.

  And there was that voice again. Edison’s voice.

  Don’t be scared. I’ll see you soon.

  But in the memory, I had been scared . . . and angry, but I didn’t feel any of that now. Like all those emotions had been left behind in that white room.

  Instead, my brain felt like the gauzy curtains draped around the bed. I made myself sit up, perching on the edge of the mattress. Cautiously, I touched the black gown I was wearing—not wanting to snag the fine fabric on my rough skin. But my calluses were gone. I marveled at my hands, all twelve fingers practically as soft as the gown itself. And the cloth felt fantastically cool and delicious against my skin. In fact, I realized that right now everything felt good against my skin.

  I got up and started touching things. The textured coolness of the wooden bed frame. The shiny metal handles on the ornate dresser. The etched stone fireplace. The perfect crystal-clear smoothness of the glass doors leading out to balconies on either end of the room.

  Then a different door swung open, a bedroom door that led out to a staircase, and in came Sarika’s daughter. She was smiling—like it was perfectly normal for her to be there. She carried a mug of something hot, the steam curling the loose hair around her face.

  “Marisol?” Though I’d grown up with her, I hadn’t seen Marisol for years. A Curador had noticed her from the window of a magfly one day and she was gone the next—without a word about it to anyone but Tasch.

  “The one and only,” she said, doing a little twirl to show herself off—without spilling a drop from her mug. There were mirrors decorating every wall of the room and a hundred Marisols twirled with her.

  Giddy laughter spilled out of my mouth without my permission. I’d never made that high-pitched giggling noise in my whole life. I was sure of it.

  “Ah,” she said fondly. “You’ve got a good case of Dome-haze. Enjoy it while you can . . . it’ll wear off by tonight.”

  “Dome-haze?”

  “It’s just what the girls call the aftereffects of the sedation. Makes you a little loopy. But in a good way.”

  Marisol grinned and handed me the mug, making the wispy curtains sway as she sat next to me on the bed. It was surreal seeing her here. She’d barely changed. Sure, her button-faced proportions that’d made her just too cute had settled into a more grown-up beauty now. And her orangey-red hair was longer. But that was about it.

  Marisol’s hair was a much kinder version of my anomaly. Like my extra fingers, red hair cropped up in Pleiades once every few generations—a legacy of our ancestors. It was still considered a Corruption, a reminder that we had not yet been absolved of the Colonist’s sins. But at least Marisol’s red curls were a beautiful aberration. And, in Pleiades, she’d always been careful to tamp them down, braiding them firmly behind her back so they wouldn’t stand out.

  Not anymore. Now Marisol’s hair spread out into a kind of fan around her head, jutting high into the air, showing off the unusual color. It was a strange look, but it suited her, accentuating her perfectly turned-up nose and her huge hazel eyes.

  She’d been sixteen when she’d left Pleiades over four years ago—a year younger than I was now. Lotus’s age.

  That’s what I’d lost. Lotus. And Taschen. Home.

  But there was no pain when I thought of my sisters. No emotion at all. Like someone had stolen the most essential parts of me. I couldn’t even mourn the loss. I could barely even focus on the reason I’d come here. Tasch’s death was wrong. The Curadores were wrong. I hoped what Marisol said was true, that this vague euphoria would wear off fast.

  I wrapped my hands around the warm mug for comfort, blowing on the creamy-looking liquid. A toasty, nutty scent hit my nose.

  “You’re gonna love it,” Marisol said. “It’s coffee. I can get the food synthesizer to put in more milk if it’s too strong.” Then she sighed dramatically. “I envy you, ya know? You’re about to experience all these delicious, lovely things for the first time. It’s wonderful being new.”

  I could tell that Marisol meant what she said, but there was a glitter in her eye too. I recognized it. Marisol had a few years on my sisters and me—but between our mutual outcast status and our mothers’ friendship, we’d all been stuck with each other. More family than friends. The look she had now was the same one she’d had when she talked me into stealing a precious raspberry out of the garden and then tattled on me. Or when she told me a secret she knew would be torturous to keep.

  I took a sip of the coffee and let the rich flavors roll over me. Roasted sesame seeds. Caramely agave. And the bitter bite of dandelion greens. But it was none of these things either. Marisol was right. I did love it.

  Best of all, the coffee seemed to be clearing away some of the giddiness. And the question I should’ve asked first thing made its way to the surface. “How did I get here?”

  “They took out your last IV this morning and moved you from the isolation room . . . to make your transition more comfortable.”

  I looked down at my wrist and there was a bandage tied around it. I pulled off the cloth and saw a purplish bruise around my veins.

  Sharp pain. Needles pushing through my skin. Plastic tubes, so many of them. Like spider legs stretching out to bags of ruby-red blood. And Edison leaning over me while people in isolation suits scurried around the room, pressing buttons.

  “We have to keep you here so we can filter your blood and run some tests . . . eradicate any germs you might bring into the Dome with you.”

  “How long?”

  “Just a few months.”

  “Months!”

  “Yes. But you’ll be sleeping the whole time. You won’t even know the days are passing. When you wake up, I won’t be there. But don’t be scared. I’ll see you soon.”

  Edison had been wrong. When I forced my fuzzy brain to focus, I did remember a vague sense of time passing. Men in white suits coming in and out of the room. Bright overhead lights. A tiny silver knife. And my own voice, crying out.

  “Months.” I said the word out loud without meaning to. What had been happening out in Tierra Muerta while I’d been sleeping? And memories surfaced through layers of dust and sand—as if they were being uncovered by a desert storm. My crew dying. Being trapped in the shuttle with Edison. Finding Lotus. Only to lose her again. But they were just facts. I still couldn’t feel anything attached to those memories.

  “Three months. Standard quarantine procedure. All Kisaengs go through it when we arrive from Pleiades,” Marisol said. “I know the sedation thing is disorienting, but don’t worry about it. Time feels different here. Not so . . .” And she searched for the right word. “Relevant.”

  Then she changed the subject. “Are you hungry yet?” She pointed to a bowl of red fruit on the dresser. They were like the tiny strawberries that Sarika nursed and coddled in her garden, only these were enormous. My mouth watered.

  “Evidently. You look like a feral animal. You can eat them while we get started.” Marisol grabbed the bowl with one hand and me with the other and pulled me into a pristine bathroom. She’d been one of the only people in Pleiades—besides my sisters—who hadn’t shied away from my extra fingers.

  “Tonight there’s a dinner in your honor and everyone is going to be there.” Then she gave me a scathing once-over and said, “Looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  I’d known Marisol for too long to let her barbs get under my skin. In fact, I was always more comfortable with a prickly Marisol. It was when she was sweet—when she wanted something from you—that you had to watch out.

  Marisol twisted the gilded metal taps on the tub and steaming water poured out. I just stared at it. There was no hot water in
Pleiades, there never had been, as far back as anyone could remember. Though on winter mornings I’d often stared at the H on the water taps and willed them to work.

  “One of the many perks of living here. Now come on.” She grabbed at my gown and started yanking it up over my head.

  I jerked away. “I can get it.”

  I turned my back to her and pulled the gown off, feeling exposed.

  “Turn around,” she ordered.

  I didn’t have many other options, so I did. Like in the bedroom, there were mirrors everywhere, reflecting every inch of my body back to me at every angle. I shivered in the chilly bathroom.

  “You didn’t turn out half bad.” She nodded approvingly, staring at my curvy hips, then moving up to my breasts. “Yes . . . those will come in quite handy. I always knew you were gifted.”

  Feeling awkward, I crossed my arms over my chest. Marisol slapped them down, hard—leaving a red mark on my wrist. “Don’t ever do that again. Your body is power. It is the food you eat. It is the roof over your head. Don’t do anything that will lessen its value.”

  My Corrupted body. I looked down at my hands.

  Marisol misread my self-consciousness for coyness. “Don’t pretend to be naive; it doesn’t suit you. You chose to come here. What did you think you’d be doing?”

  The truth was, I didn’t think. The idea that the Curadores had killed Tasch . . . that I had to leave Lotus again . . . that I would finally find out what was beneath the glittering Dome—those things had left little room for the reality of becoming a Kisaeng. That night in the Indigno camp, I’d forgotten Suji’s most important rule. Survival is in the details.

  So now I looked closely. As I saw it, I had two problems. One: I was here to find answers about Taschen’s death, but didn’t know where to start. Two: I needed to play a convincing Kisaeng—Edison’s Kisaeng—but I had no idea what the rules were.

  I could only hope that if I kept my eyes open, the first problem would fix itself. But the solution to the second problem was standing right in front of me. Marisol.

  “Now. You’re going to get in the bath and I’m going to do what I can for you. Then you’re going to wear what I tell you to and do what I tell you to. And you’re going to be grateful for my help.”

  There was an undercurrent of bitterness in Marisol’s words that made me alert. But I nodded and climbed into the hot water.

  “Now! Tell me everything about Pleiades.” And Marisol was back to her chatty self. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

  She knew nothing about my exile or the Indignos or the recent outbreaks of Red Death. And nothing would be served by telling her any of it. Despite the fact that Marisol was playing nice (or because of it), I didn’t trust her. But I had to give her something.

  “Sarika is well.” I hesitated—thinking of the hurt that’d shadowed Sarika ever since Marisol left—then added, “She misses you.”

  Marisol snorted. “I bet she does.”

  But I saw the bruise behind the flippancy. Marisol and Sarika had always been opposites; they’d spent more time bickering than anything else. Marisol was difficult on a good day. But, I realized, so was Sarika.

  I’d always been too caught up in being annoyed with Marisol, or envious of her, to see the reality of it. It couldn’t have been easy growing up as Sarika’s daughter, and a Corrupted one at that. And Marisol had never known her father. He and Sarika had chosen to enter into a Reproductive Pact—fulfilling a requirement, nothing more. It must have been a lonely, cheerless upbringing. It suddenly seemed obvious why Marisol had left as soon as the opportunity had presented itself.

  Marisol was still silent, scrubbing my head a bit harder than necessary. Finally, pouring a pitcher of water over my hair to rinse it, she said, “Now then. What about the gossip?”

  So—while Marisol washed my hair and scrubbed my skin raw and complained about my cracked nails—I dredged up bits of things I remembered from before I was exiled. I told her about which boys had become worth looking at and who had gotten married or had kids. But the truth was, I’d never really been part of Pleiades. Tasch and Lotus had been my community. So when I ran out of real gossip, I started making stuff up—elaborate stories about who’d jilted who. Family rifts. Illicit love affairs. Anything I thought Marisol would care about.

  I was just starting to enjoy myself when she interrupted me. “And . . . Tasch? Did she marry that handsome boy from Building Four?”

  I forced myself to look at Marisol when I broke the news. “Taschen is gone.”

  Marisol’s face went slack. But she nodded, accepting what she must’ve already guessed from my avoidance. “Red Death?”

  “Yes.”

  And finally, I could feel it again—the weight of grief just under the surface. My sisters. Taschen, who made up beautiful stories and beautiful dresses, never doubting that somehow she’d escape this dreary desert. And Lotus, who was still alive, but who might as well be on another planet. The loss of both crushed my lungs so I could barely breathe.

  But I was grateful for the pain.

  “I wondered what you were running away from. Now it makes sense.” Marisol sniffed and splashed some of the tepid bathwater on her face.

  “Enough. This bath is turning us into old ladies.” And she held up her water-wrinkled hands for me to see. “Let’s get you dressed.”

  I dried off and, while Marisol got a towel for my hair, I grabbed a strawberry, greedy to stuff it into my mouth. But Marisol put her hand on mine, stopping me.

  “Not like that.”

  She stepped in close, so I could feel the heat of her body—her silk dress shivering across my bare skin. She smiled, teasing as she tugged the fruit out of my fingers.

  Watch. Learn, I commanded myself. The more convincing a Kisaeng I was, the better spy I would make.

  Marisol closed her lips around the berry in one juicy bite, then shut her eyes as if overcome by the flavor. A smile played at the edge of her lips. It was tantalizing—a hunger rose up inside of me that had nothing to do with food—watching pleasure slowly fill her face. It was so very private, and yet, I was suddenly aware that I was watching a performance. A perfect, seductive dance. But a dance nonetheless.

  She bit her bottom lip, sucking the last of the red juice from it, in an artful finale. Then her eyes popped wide and she laughed—that bubbling-up laugh that I remembered from childhood. A laugh that made you long to be part of whatever Marisol was doing.

  “Now you.” She tossed me a strawberry and scrutinized me. I realized she wanted me to mimic her, so I took the fruit in my mouth, feeling ridiculous, my lips feeling clumsy and huge. But the moment I bit into the berry, juice exploded on my tongue. I had to shut my eyes, to hold it all—the tart and the sweet, and underneath, the memory of sunshine and damp dirt and rain. This was nothing like the scrawny desert berries in the Pleiades gardens.

  When I opened my eyes again, Marisol had an odd look on her face. “I always thought Taschen was the pretty one. But I was wrong.”

  Then she pushed away whatever was bothering her and grinned again. “Forget the lip thing at the beginning, you looked like an Abuela without any teeth. But keep the rest. Whatever you did just then, do that tonight. You’ll drive all the Curadores mad!”

  “Well, I’m not sure I want them all!” I grinned as I tried to mimic her flirty tone. You can do this, I told myself. But there was an undeniable twist in my gut. Because pretending would only take me so far tonight, and I was not about to admit to Marisol of all people how inexperienced I was.

  It’s not like I’d never been with a boy before. Once, I borrowed one of Tasch’s dresses and worn it to the Seollal New Year’s Festival. The long sleeves trailed way past my fingertips—so I could play at being normal. I was curious. I wanted to see if everything Taschen said about boys was true.

  As we all lined up to perform our sebae bo
ws to the Abuelos and receive wisdom, I watched—singling out a quiet boy from one of the other buildings. Not too handsome. Or too needy. Or too anything.

  Despite the cool night, I led him to the outskirts of the bonfire—letting flickering shadows hide my hands. Not that that’s where he was looking. He’d been sweet and it’d been fine. Almost nice, even. But it’d also been awkward and messy and not a little painful.

  “Oh, you do want them,” Marisol said. And there was that laugh again. “Belieeeeeeve me. You do!”

  And I couldn’t help thinking about Edison’s low voice reading me to sleep in the stairwell. Him and me, standing in a desert of red and orange flowers, our hands folding together. And the way he’d looked at me when he’d “rescued” me from the Indignos. Maybe . . . maybe things could be different from that clumsy night at the Festival.

  “Now come on.” Marisol threw open a door opposite the bed. It led to a huge closet filled with fabrics of every color. The variation was breathtaking—sheer, heavy, silky, bright, and luxurious. Scattered among the meters of cloth were dresses—short, long, of every style imaginable. And many I’d never imagined at all.

  And in the middle of the lavish collection hung the most complicated dress I’d ever seen. “This will do nicely.”

  She pulled it out and held it up in front of herself—it was mesmerizing. The dress itself was short in front, stopping well above Marisol’s knees. But the back of the skirt flared out in countless layers, draping all the way down to the floor in every color of green. The greens were echoed in the top, a patchwork bodice, pieced together in a nod to Pleiades’ dresses. But this was no simple Festival gown. And there was even something that looked like it might be a hood, but I wasn’t sure.

  “I can’t wear that . . . I wouldn’t even know how to put it on.”

  “You can and you will.” Marisol searched my face, as if trying to find some answer. “Leica, as of today, you are a Kisaeng. It doesn’t matter who you were before, or what you are now, or what you feel comfortable wearing. All that matters is the fantasy. From this point forward, you are only what a Curador wants you to be.”