The Calyx Charm

by May Peterson

  I was also preparing for a birthday party while waiting for the end of the world. There was no name for whatever kind of afterlife this was.

  I was going to this birthday party with fucking enormous fangs. As I leaned into the mirror, I kept thinking—why had no one told me my fangs were so big?

  * * *

  The night rolled gently on. I showed up at the party at the Fragrant Rose, where its warmly festive aura had risen to a new height. The party was full of mollyqueens, tomkings, and the queer peoples that filled the flower district. Music, drink, and dancing lit up the tea house.

  I thought about what Violetta would do if she knew she could change her future.

  She must have considered it more than anyone, because changing the future was the task an entire nation had given her. But in that way, her own place in that future remained fixed. Maybe that was the whole problem.

  But as I mingled closer to her in the festivities, something struck me.

  I was a fucking heel.

  I must have been, to attempt this reentry into her life. With her dazzling friends with their street mystic charm, I danced with them when dancing took over the common room; I drank with them and participated in jumbled group songs, the lyrics of which were slaughtered like lambs because everyone was too tipsy to care. I let Violetta transfix me with her wide-open smile. A glow of rosé wine and warm bodies and emotional safety made the air lambent; when time came to offer hands for pair dancing, I offered her mine.

  I perhaps should have kept my distance more. She’d made her feelings clear as crystal, but after years of holding back out of shame, distance felt like the problem. It was an odd mix of instincts, telling me to step forward and to fall back.

  But the world was ending, and she had also made clear she wanted her friends nearby. And her body against mine as we danced felt relaxed, supple, so hot with energy she might have had a dragon inside.

  I could guess what she’d want, if she believed we could win against the future. Earlier, I’d seen her behavior as cautioning me away. Now, it had a new interpretation.

  Year after year, she had asked for me to come closer. I had always found an excuse to say no. Now, with no more years left, I would stay.

  She wanted a dream because a dream was safer.

  So I would be a dream.

  During a particularly feisty dance, I gently spun her outward, holding her hand so she could whirl into the dance floor with a flourish. She nearly stumbled, reminding me that she must still be a bit drunk.

  Momentary panic rose in my throat, and I caught her without thinking, pulling her close in my arms. Before I knew it, our faces were all but pressed together, and her hair had whipped into an endearing tornado of red. She peered up, blew away tresses that had stuck between her lips, and her eyes widened like floodgates. A crooked but bashful smile bloomed.

  “Ho there,” she breathed, and I became aware again of just how snuggly she fit in my embrace. We were so similar in height that I could have taken her mouth without leaning over.

  “You all right, kid? You look a little flushed.” An urge welled up to stroke her reddened cheek. I didn’t fight it.

  “I, uh.” She bit her lip and disentangled herself, teetering as she stepped back enough for our heartbeats not to be resonating. “It’s a hot room. May have had too much to drink.”

  A few clusters of eyes had fallen on us, along with the embarrassing feeling that something theatrically romantic was about to happen. Hot room, indeed. I scratched the back of my head. “Do you want to sit for a while? Might spoil the party if someone knocks their head dancing.”

  With a fluttering sigh and a hand through her hair, she scanned the room. “Well...if you don’t mind, I was wondering if you’d walk me home? After I say goodnight to Rosalina and Weifan.”

  It must have cost her something to ask, by the tremor in her voice. Of course I agreed.

  Of course I always would have.

  Shortly, we had fresh air, an idyllic Vermagnan night washing over us, islands of lamplight dotting the dark. We walked side by side, and the darkness had a lively, aware feeling to it, as if thousands of shapeless creatures were harmlessly enjoying the quiet with us. Maybe they were, in our city full of ghosts and forgotten wonders.

  The street felt peaceful and safe here, as they often didn’t elsewhere in Vermagna. The danger in this city had never been thieves or ruffians as much as politics, each mafia house like their own fiefdom. But it held no safe place for someone like Violetta and her friends. The Fragrant Rose was the closest they had, a magical refuge from the world. Maybe there was something to those old myths—that tomkings gave good luck in gambling and strategy, and the presence of mollyqueens blessed their neighborhoods with safety.

  It seemed fitting that the Honored Child should be a mollyqueen.

  Violetta was wrapped in her indigo cloak, as if communing with the consciousness of the night. We were quite a pair, me with my tail and fangs and she with her omens and old charms.

  I wanted, right then, to put my arm around her as we walked. So many people would argue that only a dualistic woman would need a strong protector at night, but I had never felt so aware of what an obvious lie that was. She and I had both been alone for so long, and she had suffered more for it.

  Violetta lifted her head. “I hate to say it,” she breathed, “but this is almost morbid. Not everyone at the Rose knows about the prophecy. Something I’ve learned is that it’s very cruel to give a prognostication if I can’t give advice with it. But I hate to think that it was such a happy night, when it was like a goodbye party for all of us.”

  A grim thought, but also beautifully poignant in a way I wished we could hold on to forever. Not many could say they could see their death coming weeks away and know it would be shared with everyone they loved, and be able to celebrate what they had left. If only we could simply stop here, at the edge of our personal apocalypse, never really moving forward.

  A grin flashed over Violetta’s face like flame in the dark, like the night was talking silently to her. Then, she spoke, bringing me into the communion. “When I was a child, I was aware of things not everyone else was, which meant I could help. As I got older, all that awareness was more and more of a burden. You lose hope after a while. I know I must seem very defeatist, and perhaps I am. But this doesn’t come from my head, a decision I’ve made intellectually. It’s more like...” She paused on the sidewalk, hand pressed to her belly, as if to say the pain is here.

  I waited, giving her time to finish, but after a moment her hand merely dropped. “You wish you felt more understood.”

  A fervent nod. “Yes. Maybe the answer is staring us all in the face, but it needs to come from someone with more distance from the fear. Someone who isn’t me, who isn’t looking into the chasm every single day. It isn’t that I think others have it easier.”

  “But you’re trying to say what’s so difficult about this for you.”

  Another nod, slower this time, accompanied by a rueful, grateful expression. “That’s it. Thank you. It’s so hard to put into words.”

  It warmed me to be able to understand. This was my recurring fear—that we could never really understand each other. Not me and Violetta, not me and Mio, not any two people under heaven. We were all ultimately separate minds, born alone and fated to die alone, with the richness of our inner worlds unshared like jewels that could never be seen.

  Only magic had ever bridged that gap. Mamma had held me in her inner world, given up her psychic privacy to protect and guide me, and in exchange that meant I understood her and she understood me. Not every corner of each other’s minds, but she had proven that behind their faces, inside their hearts, other people truly existed. The world was real. If someone acted like they loved me, I could believe I was really loved and not merely dancing with my daydreams.

  I might lose Mamma, but the hope remained
. I could understand Violetta. I could believe that if she acted like I mattered, then maybe I fucking did.

  At her door, she turned before opening it, cloak falling open slightly to reveal the flush running down her throat. “Tibario. This may not be fair to ask you, but...would you mind keeping me company for a while?”

  I stiffened, watched her face, tried to grasp for what she hoped I would say. If I listened to my unruly inner voice, it said that I very much wanted to hold her in my arms again. If she let me.

  She appeared to interpret my quiet as hesitation. “You’re still my best friend, Tibario. We...we have so little time left.”

  And then the dream would be over. My insides quaking with pain, I agreed.

  The inside of her flat was tinged soft blue. It was messier than before—blankets strewn more haphazardly over the furniture, empty bottles standing like hollow jewels on the floor and table. She must not have stayed here as much since I came back. It had to have been hard for her, after confronting Casilio, to be alone.

  She lit a trail of candles. I stood awkwardly by the door, unsure where to put myself. The closeness of the glow reminded me that this tiny flat was all her extended bedroom. The disarray of her things was like splashes of intimacy.

  She poured herself a tall glass of water, gulped it down, and sat hard on the disheveled sofa. She swiped shaking hands over her face, hair glistening in the candlelight, before sinking into her body and sighing. “Sorry it’s such a mess in here.” She sounded like she was speaking from the bottom of a well. “I haven’t had an easy time being alone since...well, since the prophecy.”

  I had to act. She was asking for something, I just didn’t know what. “You call this a mess? Try keeping your room clean once you’ve begun regular shedding.”

  Her laugh was shaky but genuine. I approached, settling on my knees next to the sofa. “Violetta.” I didn’t mean to sound like that, so low and gentle that it might as well have been a caress. “I can stay here if you just want someone nearby. Distance isn’t a problem for me, and being an ear to listen isn’t either. I’m not going to push you into doing anything. But I’m not sure how to help.”

  She turned her wide violet eyes on me. “Tibario. I made a mistake. I need to ask your forgiveness.”

  My gulp was dry. “For what?”

  “I asked you to stay a dream. But you aren’t a dream, you’re right here in front of me. A real person, who actually came back from the dead. I—” Emotion caught in her throat. “I prayed so hard the power would come to me. To keep you from death, to bring you back to me. And when you did, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face the thought of being happy, because then happy could go away. But if we only have weeks left to live, we’re losing it all regardless.

  “Tibario. I love you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Violetta

  The words felt so good coming out. Like finding something bitter and sharp lodged deep within me and finally dislodging it.

  Tibario’s head was tilted gently to one side, mouth slightly open. “I love you too.” He sounded hoarse and ancient and full of soft death. “I would have been a dream for you. If I could have.”

  He was still struggling to be what I hoped he would be, right up to the final days.

  I reached, trembling, across the distance and slipped my hand into his. His fingers closed around mine. The sensation was like a burn.

  Tibario’s breath was cool. “Is it all right if I put my arm around you again? I just want to feel you touching me.”

  And I hungered for the same. My nod was quick, and then we were holding each other again, like two petals closed against the onslaught of the world.

  “I have a confession. This is probably terrible, but I also fantasize about...being able to shield you. I want to cover you with me, keep anything else from harming you. I fantasize about that almost constantly. I see now how condescending that must be. Ordinarily I need no help remembering that women aren’t fragile, childlike creatures that require a strong man to guard them. I don’t mean to defend that disrespect, but I wish I could have spared you...what happened.”

  Maybe he meant what Father had done, or maybe he meant my role as living charm, the bauble of the revolution. But it abruptly felt immaterial.

  A chuckle loosened my chest. I felt strangely heavy and light. “It’s not disrespectful. Exactly the opposite. No one wants to protect mollyqueens. That’s the problem. Everyone thinks we should be able to take anything. That you can be as rough as you want with us and we’ll never break. Men prefer mollyqueen working girls all the time, because they can get away with more. Who’s going to care if they do to us what they can’t do to a dualistic girl?”

  Sympathy was rolling around in the background of Tibario’s eyes. “I think I am beginning to grasp that.”

  It felt good, cleansing, to be able to say this and be understood. “That seems half the reason men want to conquer us so badly. Like we’ll use our ‘man strength’ back on them, and they’ll be conquered instead. But you never hear about mollyqueens attacking men, always the other way round. The way some people tell it, you’d be forgiven for thinking my ‘man strength’ should protect me from everything. That I could walk naked across a busy street, deflecting wagons left and right, punching through walls.”

  He didn’t laugh. “Knocking aside carriages and punching through walls sounds more like my very dualistic mother, in fact. Petite as they come, and she still doesn’t need the occhiorosso to make grown men whimper. She’s always been the protector, not the other way around.”

  Tibario seemed to have taken some of that from her, in his less audacious manner, even if he flinched at using it. Him in his mask had been as magnificent a sight as it had been startling. “One of the earliest lessons I learned was that if a mollyqueen can find someone who wants to protect her, who thinks she’s worth protecting, she’s lucky.” I clasped his hand again. “We’re lucky.”

  He took a liberty just then, tugging me close and burying my face in his chest. But it felt more relieving than frightening.

  “You shouldn’t need luck,” he said into the crown of my head. “You should have love. Should’ve had it from the beginning.”

  Maybe I should have. Maybe I hadn’t had to earn it, after all.

  “That was why I’m afraid of anything that isn’t a dream.” I spoke quietly into his skin, knowing his supernatural hearing would catch it. I might only ever be able to admit this to him, here, in the sheltering dark. “When Father did what he did...it taught me how most of the world would see me. Like a living toy. My body was made to be treated roughly, not to be loved. Not to be seen in public with a man, to be held hands with, to be cherished. I’ve had men say how exciting it was to try something new, to be with someone ‘that didn’t need so much care.’ Not like a wife would. And also unlike a wife, they also wanted nothing to do with me where the rest of the world could see.”

  Tibario made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a grumble. “And you were afraid that if you and I gave it a chance, I might do the same thing. And then you wouldn’t even have the dream left.”

  I consciously restrained a wince. That was exactly what I was afraid of. “I hope you understand why? It’s not about judgment, but the more important someone is to you, the more terrifying every bad possibility is.”

  “Violetta.” He shifted so we were looking into each other’s eyes. “If anything, it’s like a knife to the gut to think that you should have to apologize for that fear. I never understood what it must be like. And you’re right to wonder if that’s how I’d react. I’ve wondered it myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tibario drew a deep breath, as if gathering his will. “Mio is in love with a man. I’m not sure Mio is even a man himself, though I haven’t got that from his mouth. But that’s why he left the family. He went to be with his lover against Mamma’s
command. He asked me to come with him, but... I couldn’t. It was like a wall came up in me. All I could think about was Mamma. Vi, I’ve never seen her so heartbroken.”

  This seemed like a perilous direction to go in. “Because Mio is queer?”

  “Not quite. I think she couldn’t bear Mio stepping out from under her wing and relying on someone else. She asked Mio, ‘Can he protect you like I have?’ Everything Mamma has done, wicked and good, has been in the name of rescuing her loved ones from destruction. And it worked. She is our rescuer. Then Mio looked her right in the face and said he didn’t need her anymore. A bullet to the chest might have hurt her less.”

  It was a profound but unsurprising insight into Serafina. I even related to it. Who were we, when we lost the use we had to other people?

  “A thought keeps tugging at my mind, as farfetched as it may sound. As a little one, I remember having the distinct sense that my Mamma was in love with your mother. She acted with Liliana so much like she does with Papa. Maybe it was just a child being silly, not seeing the difference between a lover and a friend. But that thought turns around in me over and over: what if she gave Liliana up? What if she thought she was making the responsible choice? Then when Mio left her, it was pursuing a freedom she herself had abandoned.”

  The idea stung me to the core. Mother had at times talked about a true love that had left her, that had once made her very happy, but had vanished into the distance of her life, leaving Father as the obvious choice.

  Could it have been Serafina?

  Tibario rolled on like a wave. “When I realized this, I kept imagining myself, leaving with you. Your hand open to me, asking me to go with you, to run away. Only this time I went with you, and Mamma was left all alone. I wasn’t appalled at Mio loving a man. I was appalled at the audacity of him choosing that love over family, not because he shouldn’t but because I want to do that. I’ve apparently always wanted that. And all I picture is Mamma. Alone.”