Portraits of the Forsaken

by E. E. Holmes

  “Oh, right,” Alice said, her expression clearing at once. “Well, cheer up there, love. Ain’t no one who wore something I made what didn’t love it, and no mistake. You just settle down now. That dress is flawless.”

  Milo might have been trying to smile, but the effect was more of a grimace of intense pain. He didn’t seem able to find the words to respond. He dropped his eyes back to the TV and began biting ferociously at a fingernail, a habit that couldn’t possibly bring relief to someone with no actual fingers.

  “Is this your steak and ale pie?” I asked weakly, pulling a sheet of tinfoil off the first casserole dish and inhaling the mouthwatering aroma.

  “That’s right,” Alice said. “And that there’s the roast potatoes, the meat and veg pasties, the cheese platter, the rolls, the crisps, the trifle, and the banoffee pie.” She pointed to each container in turn, and then nodded in a satisfied way. “That ought to hold us through the evening.”

  “Through the evening?” I said, laughing. “Alice, this will hold us through the end of next month!”

  “All the better, then,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve seen you, walking out your door with a black coffee and calling it breakfast. You’re wasting away, you are. This way, I can be sure you’re being fed up, good and proper.”

  I helped Alice and Savvy set out all the food, trying not to drool over it as I did, while Hannah pulled glasses and plates out of the cabinets. Milo, unable to physically manipulate objects without draining his energy, concentrated on having a mental health crisis in front of the television instead.

  “Hey, Jess?” Hannah called, sounding stern.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait. This one has pulled pork in it!” I said guiltily through a mouthful of pasty.

  “No, not that,” Hannah said impatiently. “This.”

  I walked over to the fridge to see what she was pointing at. Her finger was tapping against a wedding invitation stuck to the door with a magnet.

  “Oh. Right.”

  “We have to RSVP before the end of the week,” Hannah reminded me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, we should do that.”

  I’d been avoiding even looking at that wedding invitation for the last three weeks, since it arrived in the mail in a shimmering white envelope covered in calligraphy. When I’d opened it, unsure of what it was, literal gold confetti hearts fell out of it and fluttered to the floor. After I recovered from the shock of being glitter-bombed, I’d unfolded it and realized that Róisín Lightfoot had invited us to her wedding.

  Ugh.

  It wasn’t that I hated weddings on principle. Weddings were great, in theory. Like, on TV, they looked just adorable. I mean, food, dancing, live music, happy people—what’s not to love? And Róisín’s family was mind-numbingly rich, so her wedding was sure to be worth the trip just for the passed hors-de-oeuvres alone. Even I could be convinced to socialize if someone was handing me things wrapped in bacon. Unfortunately, none of that could outweigh my disgust for scouting.

  Scouting was a Durupinen practice not unlike matchmaking, where young Durupinen would be set up with pre-approved young men in an effort to establish marriages with the best possible connections, advantages, and—most horrifying of all—best chance of producing the next generation of Durupinen. It wasn’t that I was naïve—I knew that these types of practices were common in cultures all over the world. But the idea that I was now part of one of those cultures was enough to make me want to toss that invitation into the nearest available shredder and then light the shredder itself on fire.

  Róisín wasn’t exactly a friend, but she was an acquaintance that I had grown to like, and I wasn’t jazzed about the idea of watching her walk into the arms of an arranged marriage at twenty-two years old, however willingly.

  “You don’t want to go, do you?” Hannah said. I hadn’t realized that she was still watching me.

  “What makes you say that?” I said, pulling open the fridge and pulling out a bottle of malt vinegar.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Probably just the way you were staring at that invitation like it was a portal to hell,” Hannah said, smirking.

  “Are you suggesting that’s not what it is?” I muttered.

  “We really should go. It was nice of her to invite us,” Hannah said.

  I snorted. “Hannah, it wasn’t nice. It was politics. We’re a Council Clan now, remember? I bet there’s some ancient rule somewhere that says Róisín’s marriage isn’t valid unless the entire Council is in attendance, or something.”

  Tiny frown lines creased Hannah’s brow. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  It wasn’t all that surprising that Hannah hadn’t considered the invite a political move. We’d only been involved in politics for a few months, since Hannah won a seat on the Durupinen Council in a shocking, landslide victory. She’s been attending weekly meetings and learning the ropes, but it was all still very new, and we hadn’t really had time to process the implications yet.

  “Well, no matter why she invited us,” Hannah went on, “I still think we should go. I don’t want it to seem like a slight on her or her clan if we don’t show up. At the very least, I’m going to have to go to represent us, and I’d rather not go by myself. Just think about it for another couple of days.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, sounding like a sulky teenager. “Just send it back and tell her we’re coming. And every single freaking particle of food better be wrapped in bacon.”

  The door banged open a second time, this time revealing a breathless, pink-cheeked Tia Vezga pulling off her raincoat and staring around wildly.

  “Did I miss it? It hasn’t started yet, has it?”

  “No, no, you’re good. Still a few minutes until they start airing the red carpet,” Hannah told her.

  “Oh, thank goodness! We got chatting and I lost track of time,” Tia sighed, hastening to hang her coat and umbrella in the hall closet. “Hi, Savannah! Hi, Alice!”

  “Wotcha, Ti,” Savvy called from the couch, where she was already tucking in to a heaping pile of her mom’s cooking.

  “Hello, lovie,” Alice said. “Come make a plate.”

  Tia looked up and caught my eye, spotted my grin, and immediately looked away, rolling her eyes as she did so.

  “So, lost track of time, huh? That’s a good sign,” I said.

  Tia pointedly ignored me, choosing instead to pick up a plate and start filling it with food.

  “I mean, that’s what you want on a first date, right?” I pressed, grabbing a plate and trailing behind her. “For the conversation to be so good that you forget what else is going on around you?”

  “It was not a date, Jess,” Tia said loftily, thrusting her hand into a crisps bag. “How many times do I have to tell you? We are just friends. It was just a cup of coffee. That’s all.”

  “Does Charlie know that?” I teased.

  “What’s this, now?” Alice asked, twisting around in her chair, her expression perking up with interest. “Who’s Charlie?”

  Tia narrowed her eyes at me and then turned back to Alice, smiling politely. “His name is Charlie Wright. He goes to school with me. We were paired up as lab partners and we got to talking. He asked me out for a cup of coffee as friends to discuss our next project. It’s really not a big deal, even though Jess insists on making it sound like one.”

  I dropped the subject, but Tia didn’t fool me for a second. It was a big deal, and we both knew it. Tia and I were in the same proverbial boat: the S.S. Emotional Shitstorm. On the very same day Celeste sent Finn away, Tia had her own heart broken when her boyfriend of more than three years, Sam, broke up with her. Rather than allowing her to wallow in misery halfway across the world, I’d encouraged her to come to England and, to my absolute shock, she’d done the most un-Tia-like thing she’d ever done in her life and spontaneously bought a plane ticket. And thank God she did, because I’d never needed my best friend more than I’d needed her over the past few months. Misery loves company, right?

&
nbsp; “Hey, Milo,” Tia called, “I bumped into Flavia on campus this morning. She said she’s going to dismiss her class a few minutes early so that she can catch the live stream of the red carpet, and she wanted me to wish you luck.”

  I chuckled, shaking my head. “It’s so weird that you know Flavia,” I said to Tia. “My worlds are colliding.” Flavia was a friend of mine, a Traveler Durupinen and a recent London transplant who was finishing up her doctorate at the same college Tia now attended. She and I had bonded even more now that we lived within a few miles of each other, each healing from recent rifts in our lives—my separation from Finn and her separation from her entire clan, who refused to speak to her since she had chosen to move away from the isolation of the Traveler camp and into the city. It was quite the makeshift little family of misfits we had created, banding together as we attempted to build lives for ourselves in a new place.

  “Oh, God. OH, GOD!” Milo’s voice rose to a pitch that threatened to shatter the window panes. He pointed a violently trembling finger at the television. “It’s starting!”

  My heart leapt into my throat. I snatched another pasty off the plate as I bolted past the table and flung myself onto the couch between Hannah and Savvy.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t watch it. Someone just Cross me right now and pluck me out of the Aether when it’s over,” Milo squealed.

  “Milo, I will seriously Cage you if you don’t sit down and shut up!” I yelled. “You are going to miss it if you don’t stop freaking out!”

  “Shhh!” Hannah hissed, flapping her hands frantically to shush us all, before snatching up the remote and turning up the volume. We all leaned forward as one, eyes glued to the screen as a parade of A-list celebrities began to strut their way up the red carpet.

  “Thank you for joining us for our live coverage of the Cannes Film Festival red carpet where it could not be clearer that the glitz and glamour are in full effect tonight,” gushed a waifish young reporter clutching a microphone. “I can’t remember the last time I saw so many statement necklaces, can you, Todd?”

  “No, Valerie. It is truly blinding!” chuckled a flamboyant older man beside her, clad in a navy-blue velvet tuxedo. “I hadn’t realized I’d need my sunglasses to conduct these interviews tonight!”

  “Nor I,” Valerie giggled. “But avert your eyes because here comes one of our night’s big stars.”

  One of Talia’s co-stars slunk over to the reporters, her neck encased in a stunning network of gemstones. She flashed a smile and struck a pose as they thrust their microphones in her face and began peppering her with questions, none of which we could hear because Milo was shrieking again.

  “I knew it. I knew we should have gone with the black! I’ve seen three women go by in black already!”

  “Yeah, but you don’t want her to blend in, do you?” Tia said soothingly. “You want her to stand out. What’s the point of getting lost in a sea of black dresses?”

  “Oh, sure, sure, there’s rising to the top, but then there’s sticking out like a sore thumb!” Milo snapped. “I don’t want her to do that either!”

  “She’s not going to!” Hannah said. “She looked stunning, Milo. The dress is a knock-out.”

  “It fit her like a glove,” Alice added. “I made sure of that. I still can’t believe I met her!” she added in a hiss to Savvy, who rolled her eyes.

  “Get a grip, Mum,” she muttered.

  “I should have had her accessorize more,” Milo wailed.

  “No way,” Savvy said through a mouthful of crisps. “That would have been over-the-top.”

  “But if the trend du jour is big jewelry…”

  “Screw the trend!” I said. “You’re setting your own trend!”

  “You did pick out that gold cuff,” Hannah added quickly, as Milo swelled with an angry retort. “The dress didn’t need more than that.”

  The reporters were now interviewing a dapper young man in a classic black tux. Hannah’s leg was bouncing up and down so hard she was making the entire couch vibrate.

  “Men have it so easy at these things,” I remarked, to break the tension. “I mean, any one of these women would be crucified if she wore the same dress more than once, and these guys can just dust off the same tired old suit for every single red carpet event they ever have to attend, and they’ll always be praised for looking ‘classic.’”

  “Yeah, not to mention the work it takes to get into some of them dresses,” Savvy agreed, cocking her head to the side and examining another woman as she walked by. “I mean, it defies physics, dunnit? She must have three yards of tape holding all them bits of dress where they need to go. Imagine someone like me trying to cram me girls into a frock like that. No wonder they all live on kale juice, them Hollywood types.”

  “I think… is that… yes! Here she comes!” Hannah cried.

  In the corner of the camera shot, a tall, willowy young woman was emerging from a limousine, swaths of red and gold fabric flowing around her like rippling water. Even slightly out of focus in the background, we could already tell. She was stunning.

  We all started clapping and shouting at once, so that Hannah had to shush us all again as the reporters realized that Talia had arrived.

  “And I think I see… yes, the star of tonight’s premiere Bridge Between Two Hearts, the lovely Talia Simms has indeed arrived on the red carpet this evening,” Todd said. “Let’s see if we can get a word with her here. Talia, good evening!”

  Talia seemed to glide over to the two reporters. She had always been a bit of an introvert given her chosen profession in the spotlight, but nevertheless, she smiled politely and took her place between the microphones to be interviewed. She was clad in a red chiffon confection that Milo had dreamed up, with a high neckline, an open draped back, and a magnificent gold fabric flower at the collarbone. It clung tightly to her hips and then pooled around her feet where the red of the fabric seemed to melt into a deeper, richer plum color. She had worn her hair natural, with a plum-colored fabric flower, edged in gold, nestled in the halo of tight black curls. Milo had thrown his hands up over his face and was now watching through the cracks between his fingers.

  “Talia, I must say, you look absolutely stunning this evening!” Valerie gushed, and we all broke out into a chorus of cheers again. “I just finished telling Todd that this evening was all about the jewelry, but I think I’m about to eat my words! What a knock-out this dress is!”

  Talia smiled graciously. Milo, meanwhile, had gone so still he might have been turned to ice. His eyes, from what we could see of them between his fingers, were wide.

  “Thank you very much,” Talia said.

  “I must say, I agree,” Todd chimed in, stepping back to take in the full effect of Talia’s ensemble. “No need for statement jewelry when the dress is such a statement on its own. Who are you wearing this evening?”

  We all held our breath.

  “A brilliant new designer, Milo Chang,” Talia said, running a hand along the curve of her hip and executing a turn to show off the back detailing. “Gorgeous, isn’t it? And if the next piece he makes for me is this comfortable, I might just have to wear him exclusively.”

  Alice stood up and whooped. Savvy and Tia cheered and clapped, while Hannah laughed and sobbed simultaneously. Milo still hadn’t moved. Could ghosts go into shock?

  “Well, it is just breath-taking,” Valerie cooed. “As is your turn in this film. Tell us about the process of working with…”

  I didn’t listen to another word of the interview. Nor could I clearly see Talia anymore through a haze of happy tears. I turned to Milo.

  “You did it,” I whispered.

  “I did it,” he repeated, as though they were words in a foreign language, and he was simply trying them out in his mouth to see what they felt like.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  He dropped his hands. His lips were trembling. He gave me just the smallest suggestion of a smile, and then he burst into a stormy, uncontrollable mes
s of sobbing, every tear of which he deserved to cry without interruption.

  3

  At the Market

  “WE’RE HEADING DOWN to the market, Milo!” Hannah called.

  “Hang on, hang on! I want to come!” Milo called back, lingering in front of the laptop, where he’d spent the majority of the last few days.

  “You’re going to come? The great Milo Chang is going to grace the bourgeoisie with his presence and walk amongst us like a mere mortal?” I gasped.

  Milo winked. “You should be so lucky, peasant.”

  The three days following Milo’s red carpet debut had been complete pandemonium. Milo’s blog had exploded, and there had been numerous requests for interviews, articles, and podcast appearances. It was immediately apparent that Talia had single-handedly launched Milo’s fashion career, which was ever so slightly complicated by the fact that he was dead. Luckily, in the age of technology, aided by a few smoke and mirrors courtesy of Durupinen Castings, we’d been able to field most of the interview requests without Milo having to promise any public appearances. Best of all, several prominent actresses were now sending requests via assistants to see some of his other pieces. Once the initial panic wore off, Milo snapped into mogul-mode, and now it was clear that he was in his element.

  “I want to see if I can find a cool tea set. Like, a vintage one,” Hannah said eagerly.

  “Planning on hosting some tea parties?” I sniggered.

  “Hey, we’re proper Brits now. I’m pretty sure you have to acquire one within six months of becoming a citizen or they deport you. Besides, teapots are so cute,” Hannah replied.

  “I’ll go get Tia,” I said, walking down the hall.

  “Is she up?” Hannah asked. “Don’t wake her if she’s not up.”

  I snorted. “Is she up? She already went for a run, took a shower, made breakfast, and has been studying for two hours.” I knocked softly on the door.

  “Come in,” came Tia’s voice.

  “Hey, Ti,” I said, poking my head around the door to see her curled up in an armchair, buried in her customary exoskeleton of textbooks. “Fancy a break? We’re headed out to the Portobello Market to buy more junk we don’t need.”