I tried to hide the smile that threatened to burst onto my face. Daydream, I liked it. People could dream about going to the bar and having fun while going about their daily business and chores. It was clever and humorous.
“It’s simply atrocious.” Victor spit out a bone.
“Has this demon done anything illegal?” I asked.
“No.” Victor wiped away the gravy dripping down his chin with his fingers, ignoring the napkin in front of him. “But we don’t need another magical creature coming to Arcadia.”
I nodded. Arcadia had recently seen an influx of powerful, nonhuman immigrants. Where had they been all my life? And why were they all coming out now?
“Top me up.” Victor waved his beer jug at the bartender.
I stirred my now-cold soup, humming a song.
“What did you say? Speak up.” Victor lifted his head and looked down at me.
“Nothing.”
Victor gulped down his second beer. “If I weren’t a good man, I would try to convince you to come to my place after this.”
A shiver darted through me.
“But I’m an honorable man, and you’re an honorable girl. We’ll have to wait until we’re married.”
The relief I felt at us having to wait vanished as he said we had to get married. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready.
“Once I save up enough money to move out of my parents’ house and buy a place, we’ll have a wedding. Nothing fancy. No point throwing money out of the window, but it’s important to get the papers. We’ll be respectable people with our own home. And we’ll raise a respectable family.” Victor pushed his almost empty plate toward me. “Are you hungry? I told you to get the roast, not the soup.”
I pushed my nailbed back. “I’m good, thanks.”
“Then why are you staring at the food and not me?”
I rubbed my temple, feeling a headache coming on. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“Fine, let me walk you home.” Victor threw down a few Marks and rose. I followed him out of the bar, busying my hands with the Rhombus cube Tia had given me last Christmas. I was still trying to solve it and kept it in my pocket.
Halfway through the walk, Victor grabbed my hand, sending the cube flying. “Why are you always fidgeting with that thing?”
I darted forward to pick up the cube. I shook off the street dirt and pocketed it. “I want to solve it.”
“It’s stupid. It doesn’t have any real-life application.”
“I suppose it doesn’t. It’s just fun.”
Victor shook his head. “This nonsense has to stop. You’re not still writing songs, are you?”
I opened and closed my mouth several times. “They just come to me. I never sit down to write them. I don’t have the time.”
“That’s good.”
Bubbles of anger floated up through my chest and popped from my mouth. “What would be so wrong with writing them down? It wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“It’s one thing to sing them while you work, but don’t get a big head over it.”
“Why would I?”
“I don’t know. You’re a woman. Who knows how your mind works,” he said as we reached the boarding house. He opened the door, but I made no move to step through it.
“Why would you say that? Not all women are alike. How would you feel if I said all men are the same?”
Victor threw up his hands. “Calm down. I didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t be so sensitive.”
His dismissing me only enraged me further. “What if I do think I’m a good singer or songwriter, what’s wrong with that?”
Victor let the door fall shut and stepped closer, pushing a hair strand behind my ear. He smiled, but his eyes were hard. “I really care about you, Halia. I don’t want to see you get hurt. Girls like you, innocent girls, are easily taken advantage of by their environment. I’m afraid someone will promise you riches or fame, or who-knows-what, and you’ll go with them, straight into a trap. You still remember the incident in the alley, don’t you?”
The memory froze me into place. The stranger’s hands shoving me, ripping the top of my dress. If Victor hadn’t interfered, my virginity would’ve been taken by force in the best-case scenario. In the worst-case scenario, the stranger would’ve slit my throat afterward.
“Remember, the world is a dangerous place.” Victor stroked my upper arm. “You’re safe with me. I won’t let others hurt you, but you need to be smart. You need to be a good and reasonable girl, understood?”
I nodded, too exhausted to contradict him.
“Good. I’ll be busy for the next two nights, but I’ll meet you at the night market on Sunday. We can go somewhere you like, perhaps that Mediterranean place that has the vegetable dishes.”
I couldn’t help the smile forming on my lips. Victor hated vegetarian dishes, but he was willing to go to Ali Ali, even though the few meat dishes they served were never spicy or salty enough for him. “I’d love that.”
Victor leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to my mouth. Then he turned around and left. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“Yes.” What would it be like to lay with Victor? Would he consider intimacy a duty? Would he try to get it over with quickly, and see it as something we had to do from time to time in order to produce children? Or would he want to do it daily?
My throat closed up. The idea of doing it terrified me. I didn’t want to be naked and exposed. What if I hated it? What if it hurt? What if it was boring and awful?
I chewed on my lip. I’d have to ask Tia about it. Even though she had grown up with me in the boarding house and technically wasn’t allowed to go out after nightfall, she had managed to sneak out and meet a guy last spring. For several months, she had spent her nights with him while I had to cover for her, until eventually, he moved away to live with his uncle who lived in a different city, leaving her behind. Afterward, Tia had insisted she didn’t need a man in her life, but occasionally she would spend the night with someone. I never asked her how many, and I never cared why or what it felt like, but now, I needed to know. Was it always the same? Was it better sometimes? Was it different with different men? And if so, was there any way to know if I would like it with a person before committing myself to him in holy matrimony?
I had never asked myself those questions, but then, I had never spent time alone with a man until Victor. The orphanage was all-female, and I was too busy directing the female chorus. The chorus brought me a lot of joy and the orphanage a lot of money, which it desperately needed for new mattresses and kitchen repairs. Selfishly, I had hoped that if I oversaw the chorus, I would get to stay after I turned eighteen and be paid a small salary. Alas, the orphanage had other plans.
Victor was right. It was better not to get my hopes up. I could continue singing to myself, but there was no need to share it with others who might feed my unrealistic dreams and desires that would only bring me pain in the end.
2
16th July
Working as a maid had its advantages. The daily physical exertion ensured I was asleep as soon as I collapsed in my bed and slept through the night until my clock rang.
With my shift starting at eight, my alarm was normally set for seven, but on days that I saw Acacia, like today, I got up at six.
I slammed down the alarm button on clock and trudged toward the basin. My eyes were half-closed, and I splashed cold water onto my face to properly wake up. Only then, did I shoot a glance toward Tia’s cot. She snored and smiled in her sleep. Since she only snored after drinking, I guessed she’d had one drink too many and would appreciate it if I brought her a fresh coffee before our shift started. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have been too thrilled to share a room with them, but Tia was the only family I had, and I was glad we worked and lived together. It made me feel less lonely. I didn’t mind her returning when the sun rose or eating garlic bread in her bed, even if it made our room smell like garlic for days to come.
I dressed in my
gray dress, not bothering to put on my apron for now. Then, I made my bed and drank the glass of water on my bedside table that I always put out the night before. Then I tiptoed downstairs.
Acacia preferred it when I didn’t have breakfast before seeing her, which was fine by me since I would rather not go into the kitchen anyways and risk someone seeing me and asking what I was doing up so early.
The only other person who knew about me visiting a faerie twice a week was Tia. I hadn’t even considered confiding in Victor and wasn’t sure I ever would even if we did get married. I supposed I should tell my husband the truth, but I really didn’t want to. I had the feeling that Victor wouldn’t appreciate knowing that his wife had strange golden circles around her irises, which she had to hide every three to four days with the help of a faerie. The way he had talked about magical creatures yesterday made me suspect he would blame me for having this abnormality, perhaps even accuse me of getting a sense of importance from it.
Obviously I had no control over what my eyes looked like, but still, I didn’t want to risk hearing such accusations from him. The girls in the orphanage had teased me about my abnormality, and I never wanted to go through that again.
No, even if I married Victor, I wouldn’t tell him. I would simply sneak out twice a week early in the morning to see Acacia. Or maybe I wouldn’t marry him at all. But what would I do then? Did I really want to spend my life cleaning the boarding house? If only I had a skill that made me employable. Alas, all I was good at was singing, and there was no way someone like me could find the right contacts and make it as a singer.
Enveloped in my gloomy thoughts, I reached Acacia’s rose-colored house in low spirits. I knocked thrice as the faerie had instructed me to do the first time I had met her. Several seconds passed before there was a rustling, and the door opened.
Acacia’s sky-blue gaze scanned me. “You need to worry less, child. It’s not an attractive quality.” She waved me inside and walked down the corridor, her gauzy train brushing the ground, her knee-length hair glinting like liquid gold.
The corridor was narrow, allowing only one person to pass through at a time, but it was beautiful, decorated with stained glass and paintings that depicted merry fae families.
At the end of the corridor, was one single door that led into Acacia’s workspace. The room looked like a pharmacy. It was lined with countless cabinets and tables that displayed multi-colored bottles and tinctures of all kinds of sizes and shapes.
The scents in the room kept changing as if different perfumes were being sprayed at one-minute intervals. At first, it smelled citrusy and refreshing, then the scent unfurled into a flowery bouquet, heavy on lilies. Next, it morphed into something heavier with luscious plum notes before turning into a spicy scent, then back to the citrusy aroma.
Even though the lamps looked standard, the light in the room also too kept switching. Mint light gave way to a light pink light, followed by a magenta blue, azure blue, and back to the green light.
Acacia motioned for me to sit down in the wooden chair opposite her plush throne, an opaque table separating us. She took my hand. I tried to relax and not think too much about what she was about to do. To distract myself, I studied the bottles arranged on the tables.
Acacia hummed as she read me, sifting through my emotions, deciding which one she wanted to take in exchange for making the gold flecks in my eyes disappear.
“How interesting.” Her voice was tinkling, yet it also had a low quality to it. She was like the room we were in, constantly changing. As a mortal, I couldn’t even begin to understand what it was like to be her and how her mind worked.
“Interesting,” the faerie repeated. “You’re practically bubbling over with emotions. Normally, when that happens, a person is driven by one emotion. In your case, however, there’s excitement, fear, anxiety.” She smiled wickedly. “And underneath all that is anger, something I haven’t seen much in you, Halia. What triggered it, dear?”
None of your business. “Which emotion would you like to take?”
A crystalline laugh filled the air, but Acacia’s face was void of amusement. “I’m tempted to take your anger since I have never tasted it before, and I would love to know what it tastes like. But I have a feeling you’ll need it yourself, and I have many sources whose anger it is much easier to siphon off. Perhaps next time, when you’re more enraged.”
I flinched, pulling, or trying and failing to pull, my hand free from hers. “I’m not angry.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Anyhow, I’ll take some of your anxiety. I have several buyers for that.”
I tilted my head. “Who would want anxiety?”
Another crystalline laugh. “Not for themselves, silly.”
My jaw clenched. Somebody would buy anxiety to give it to somebody else, probably to control a person, and I was part of this disgusting manipulation.
Acacia pressed the spot between my wrist and my right thumb, a trigger point, drawing my attention toward her.
“Don’t beat yourself up. If you don’t give me your anxiety, somebody else will. But if I don’t hide your eye color ….” She didn’t finish the sentence, letting the implication hang in the air.
I didn’t want anyone to feel anxiety or suffer because of me, but I also wasn’t ready to die, which I would if my true eye color came out.
“Do it,” I said, giving the faerie the permission she needed before tapping into my emotion. Then, because I couldn’t handle thinking about how my anxiety would be used, I allowed the past to wash over me, searching for justification in my memories.
I was seven years old, and the girl in front of me, a twelve-year-old, was pointing at me. “What’s wrong with you? Do you have jaundice?”
“Why are your eyes so funny?” A second girl joined us. They were both so tall and big and mean.
“You’re a monster!” a third girl yelled.
“A monster, a monster, a monster,” they chimed in unison.
Hot tears stung my eyes. I darted out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the orphanage, managing to hold the tears at bay until I was safely hidden in an alcove. I cried for what felt like forever until a shadow leaned over me, and I jerked upright.
“Tia, you almost scared me to death.”
She scanned my face. “It’s happening again.”
I lowered my gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mrs. Woods told me to call her when it was time.”
I peeked up from underneath my eyelashes, wondering if the girl I had played with on a few occasions knew how to fix me. “What can she do?” I barely remembered Mrs. Woods. She had shown up around Christmas, held my hand, and called me a brave girl. Then she told me to find her when I needed her. I had forgotten all about that until Tia brought it up.
“Where do we find her?”
Tia wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t know. She made me promise to remind you. She said you would know how to find her. Did she give you anything?”
I shook my head slowly. “No.” Suddenly, it all came back to me. When you need me, you only need to think about me and speak my name silently three times in your mind; then, I’ll be there.
Not wanting the only girl who was willing to play with me to think I was a lunatic, I said, “I’m going to do something strange, please don’t freak out.”
Tia gave me a smile. “Stranger than Sister Catherine kissing the priest?”
I chuckled. That had been extremely strange. Our teacher had been so mad at us for walking into the church when we weren’t supposed to that she made us take our meals in the corner for a week afterward.
“All right, here it goes.” I closed my eyes and focused. Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Woods, please come. I need your help.
There was a popping sound, and then Tia and I were no longer alone in the alley. A woman covered in a powder-blue cloak stood before me. “So soon. It’s only been half a year. I suppose I’ll have to make my visits more frequent to you.�
�
“I don’t understand,” I said.
She held out her hand, and I gave her mine. Something floated through me. It felt like a strong combination of a water drop, a fresh breeze, and the caress of rose petals. The sensation only lasted for a few seconds. Mrs. Woods dropped my hand. “You should be good for another six months, but let me know as soon as the golden specks in your eyes begin to show again.”
“What are they? Why do I have them? None of the other girls do.”
Mrs. Woods shook her head. “It’s not for me to tell. All you need to know is that you must hide them. As soon as they appear, call me. Don’t let your eyes ever get to the state where you have golden circles around them.” She glanced at Tia. “You’ll help your friend, won’t you?”
Tia nodded solemnly. “Of course.”
For a moment, I forgot all about my questions. All I could think about was that I had a friend. Tia was my friend.
“Good. Until soon.” One moment, Mrs. Woods was standing next to us; then, she was gone in a cloud of dust.
Throughout my childhood, I wondered if Mrs. Woods worked for the circus and was able to perform magical tricks. It was only when I turned twelve that I realized she must be a magic wielder.
“What are you? Who sends you?” I asked again and again, but she refused to tell. At fourteen, I became so angry about not having any answers that after summoning her, I yelled, “Maybe I don’t want to change my eye color anymore! Maybe I want people to see that I have golden rings around my irises!”
A deep look of sorrow entered Mrs. Woods’ face. “If you do that, you’ll die.”
My burning anger transformed into icy fear. “Dead? How? Why?”
“I don't have permission to tell you.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Woods didn’t reply.
“Why are you helping me?”
Once again, she didn’t reply. All she said was, “I must go now.” Then she disappeared once again.
I tried a few more times to get the truth out of her, but, eventually, I gave up and accepted my fate. That was until the day before I turned eighteen, and Mrs. Woods came to visit me of her own accord, without me having to call on her. “I’m sorry, Halia. I won’t be able to help you any longer.”
Halia: Daughter of Cinderella Page 2
