Poison's Kiss

by Breeana Shields

  We turn the corner and Deven follows me down the narrow alley that leads to my flat. I glance back at him and laugh a little. He looks like he’s wearing a Mani hat. But then I remember that Gita might be home—or worse, Gopal—and the laughter dies on my lips.

  My door is a dull red that always reminds me of dried blood. We stop and I give two short knocks. Nothing. But it’s too soon for relief. I dig the key out of my bag and turn my back to the door. “Thank you for your help,” I tell Deven. “I can take him from here.” I reach out my hands as if to lift Mani from his shoulders, when it’s clear to both of us that I’m not tall enough or strong enough to do that. But I’m desperate for him to leave.

  Deven shakes his head. “Let me help you get him inside.”

  “No, really. I’ll be fine. Please just—”

  “Marinda.” It’s the first time he’s said my name, and it feels intimate hearing it from the mouth of a stranger. “He’ll wake if I set him down here. Let me lay him inside and I promise to leave right away.”

  I relent. “Fine.” My hands shake as I slide the key into the lock, and my heart feels like it could break free from my chest. Gita could be inside. She didn’t answer my knock, but it’s no guarantee. I hold my breath as I push open the door. The flat is empty and relief stings my eyes, burns in my throat. Deven ducks through the doorway.

  “You can lay him down there,” I say, motioning to my bed. Smudge is curled on Mani’s pillow and is unlikely to relinquish her position without protest. Deven gingerly lowers Mani to the bed and pulls a blanket over him. Then he stands up and his eyes sweep over the room. It must seem so drab to him. So plain. His expression is unreadable.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Sure.” He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. His eyelashes are thick and long, and his nose—right where his fingers are resting—is a little crooked, like he might have broken it as a child. He opens his eyes and sighs. “Will you be at the bookshop tomorrow?”

  I don’t answer right away. I just want him to leave before Gita gets here. The possibility of her walking in is thrumming loudly at the back of my mind. Deven raises his eyebrows and I manage a nod. “Yes, I think so.”

  “I’ll bring some fruit for Mani. It should make him stronger.” He doesn’t wait for an answer before he spins on his heel and strides away. I watch him until he turns out of the alley and disappears. I close the door and rest my forehead against the cool wood. Slowly, all the pent-up tension seeps out of me until I no longer have the strength to stand. I sink to my knees and escape the only way I’ve ever been able to—by closing my eyes and letting sleep claim me for her own.

  I wake to noise and have to blink several times to adjust my eyes. I fell asleep slumped against the door, and now my back aches and my neck won’t move properly. Someone is pounding outside; it’s an insistent smacking sound—all palm and no knuckle. I peel myself from the floor and open the door.

  “Finally,” Iyla says with a groan. She shoves a large paper bag into my arms and makes a show of looking me over. “You look terrible.”

  “Nice to see you too,” I say. I peek into the bag, and the smell of spices makes my stomach grumble. The bag is filled with containers of thick sauces in deep red and nutty brown, loaves of flatbread, lidded cups filled with rice.

  “You forgot to eat again?” Iyla flips her long hair over one shoulder and shakes her head. She is clearly dressed for a job. Her dress is snug but not indecent—just fitted enough to highlight where the contours are. Gold and silver bracelets jangle from her wrists, her lips and cheeks are painted crimson, and she smells like an exotic flower.

  “I didn’t forget,” I say, pulling containers from the bag and spreading them out on the table. “I just hadn’t gotten to it yet.”

  Smudge jumps from the bed and circles Iyla’s ankles, mewing for her share of food. Iyla shoos her away. “Gita said you would forget. She thinks you can’t even be trusted enough to feed yourself.”

  I roll my eyes, but I’m surprised that this small criticism stings a little. “Mani doesn’t have much of an appetite and I’ve been a little preoccupied.” I’m annoyed with myself that I’m justifying my eating habits to Iyla, so I change the subject. “Are you working?” I open the cupboard and pull out two plates.

  She laughs. “We’re both working.”

  My stomach goes cold. I set the dishes down with more force than I intended and they rattle loudly. “What? But I just finished a job. It’s too soon.”

  Iyla narrows her eyes. “Your part takes two seconds. It’s not exactly straining.”

  My fingers find the scars at my wrists and trace their contours. Two seconds. If only it were that simple.

  “That’s not fair,” I say. I busy myself setting out napkins, pulling glasses from the cupboard—I’m afraid that if I look at her, she’ll see how easily she can hurt me.

  Iyla and I have been paired for years now. She does all the reconnaissance for my kills. Gopal has all his girls matched up this way, in neat little couplets—one part spy, one part visha kanya.

  Iyla’s job is getting information, and she’s good at it. She could charm the sweet from honey without breaking a sweat. When Gopal gives us an assignment, Iyla does the wooing, the flattering and the seducing. She coaxes information from the mark with small touches, significant glances, compliments; she does it with finesse. And when Gopal has all he needs, I finish the job.

  Iyla loves her part. I hate mine.

  I finish setting the table and glance up just in time to see Iyla’s gaze skitter away from my bare wrists.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” She’s toying with her bracelets—pressing them together, twisting them around, taking them off and putting them back on again. Under all that gold and silver, her skin is as smooth as river stone.

  “It’s fine,” I tell her, because I don’t feel like fighting tonight. “What’s the job?”

  Her head snaps up. “You know I can’t tell you that.” It’s another of Gopal’s rules. We aren’t allowed to know any specifics about what the other girls do. Iyla is the only other of Gopal’s girls I’ve even met. We are kept separated so that we can’t be linked to one another if one of us runs into trouble. But it seems so unfair that Iyla always knows all about my tasks, while I know nothing about hers.

  I miss the days when we were small and there were no secrets between us.

  I try to remember the last time it felt like we were friends instead of adjoining pieces on the Raja’s giant game board. But it’s been a long time. Since before Mani was born. Gopal was away on an assignment for the Raja, and so Gita took us to the Festival of the Beasts—a huge celebration to honor Sundari’s history. Iyla and I were wide-eyed at the riot of color. Men and women with their entire faces painted in bold hues, dancers with brightly dyed skirts and tall headdresses, children twirling umbrellas shaped like stars and moons.

  But it was the painted elephants that had us begging Gita for coins.

  Their trunks and foreheads were decorated in various designs—delicate pastel vines that sprouted lotus blossoms, geometric shapes in purple and green, wide stripes of orange and pink. And it wasn’t just the paint. The animals were swathed in shimmering silk, golden bands glittered from their tusks, and they wore anklets of silver bells.

  It was the most majestic thing I’d ever seen.

  We pleaded until Gita relented and dropped a handful of coins in each of our palms, and then we raced to get in line with the masses of children waiting for their chance for an elephant ride.

  When it was finally our turn, Iyla and I climbed on the same elephant—a huge beast with painted flames racing up the length of her trunk and exploding on her forehead. She wore a red silk scarf over her head, and her floppy ears donned gold hoops.

  “Wow,” Iyla said, sliding her arms around my waist. “Being this high makes me feel so…so…”

  “Powerful,” I said.

  “Yes,” she breath
ed against my neck. “Powerful.” The shift in perspective was intoxicating. It was like we could see the secrets of the entire kingdom.

  Across the expansive crowd, people waved banners of the Raksaka, but the occasional group had a flag that featured only one of the guardians of Sundari. We watched as a scuffle broke out between two clusters of men, one waving a flag featuring Bagharani, the tiger queen, and the other wielding a banner with the Nagaraja, the Snake King. It started with arguing, but soon the men were shoving each other and throwing punches.

  “Why do they even care?” I wondered aloud. What a foolish thing to argue over a preference for a legend. The animals were symbols of a kingdom in balance, not leaders to rally around.

  Iyla sighed. “I think some people just want to belong so badly that they pick sides, even if it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “So whose side are you on?” I asked her.

  She rested her cheek on my shoulder. “Yours,” she said.

  But that day seems like a lifetime ago, and now I’m the one she keeps her secrets from instead of the one she tells them to.

  “You must be able to tell me something,” I say. Iyla presses her glossy lips together and tips her head toward the ceiling like she finds me exasperating. She sighs and glances toward the door as if Gopal might walk in at any moment and catch her violating tradecraft. “It’s someone important,” she tells me. “Someone big.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “That could describe all of them,” I say. “You aren’t telling me anything.”

  She shrugs. “That’s all I’ve got.” She combs her fingers through her hair and runs her palms over her dress, smoothing invisible wrinkles. “Wish me luck,” she says, heading for the door. “I’m off to make your mark fall in love with me.”

  I shake Mani awake and we eat our dinner. Mani sneaks bits of chicken and bread to Smudge, and I pretend not to notice. I smile and make small talk, but my stomach is hectic with dread. Because Iyla looked beautiful tonight and there is no doubt that this boy will fall for her. And then, whoever he is, I’ll have to kill him.

  I wasn’t born lethal. I wasn’t that unlucky. My misfortune came later, when my parents decided that they longed for money more than progeny.

  Gita loves to tell the story of how I became a visha kanya. She says that my father presented me to Gopal swaddled in a blanket the color of a ripe tangerine. He watched while Gopal filled a small dropper with toxin and then drained it against the squishy pink inside of my baby cheek. “Bring her back in three days if she’s still alive,” Gopal said.

  He never expected to see me again. Most of the babies didn’t make it through the first night.

  “But in three days he returned,” Gita says. Her eyes are always bright during this part of the story, her voice filled with wonder. “You’re our miracle.”

  The story gnaws at me; what does it say about me that I am a miracle to Gopal but disposable to my father? Even now, I wish it were the other way around.

  Deven is already there when Mani and I arrive at the bookshop the next morning. He and Japa are at a table in the corner, their heads bent together, talking so softly that I don’t even hear the low murmur of conversation. Japa raises one hand in greeting but doesn’t look up.

  Mani scampers off to find a book and I stand at the front of the shop waiting for instructions. But it quickly becomes obvious that Japa and Deven won’t be finished with their conversation anytime soon, so I grab the broom leaning against the wall and start sweeping, easing the bristles under the bookshelves and pulling out thick piles of dust. Japa obviously hasn’t swept in ages. Working soothes me, the purposefulness of it, the sense of accomplishment.

  The next time I look up, Japa and Deven have disappeared. I poke my head around the corner and peek into the storeroom, but there’s no sign of them. Then I notice a swirling pattern of dust on the floor in front of one of the bookcases at the back of the shop. It’s not a bookcase for customers—it’s piled with an odd assortment of cleaning supplies and boxes of unsold merchandise—and the pattern on the floor suggests a gust of air coming from beneath the lowest shelf. I brush my hand along the bottom of the bookcase, and a cool breeze tickles my fingers. There’s something back there. I stand up and see three shiny marks in the dust on the side of the bookshelf at about chest height. I turn my hand and match my fingerprints to the marks. A door, then. I wonder if this is the secret storage room where Japa keeps the more valuable manuscripts, but I don’t dare test my theory. Japa probably wouldn’t look kindly upon me barging into a meeting he’s worked so carefully to conceal. But I can’t help being curious. Why would they need to move their conversation so far away? Do I seem so untrustworthy? Or are they talking about something more important than priceless books?

  I rub at the marks with my sleeve until they disappear—no use having a secret entrance that calls attention to itself.

  I finish sweeping and then find a soft cloth in the storeroom for mopping. I’m on my hands and knees, scrubbing at the floor, a bead of sweat trickling down the back of my neck, when I hear Mani’s name. A ping of alarm zips through my stomach, and my eyes flick to the far corner of the shop. Deven and Japa are back—Deven is talking and Japa is watching Mani, his eyebrows drawn together and down in V-shaped concern. I glance at Mani. He looks like he always does, absorbed in his book. Though his lips are pale at the edges and his breathing is labored. Deven glances up suddenly and I drop my gaze.

  “Hey, pal,” Deven says, and his voice sounds so loud in the silence that I jump a little. “I brought something for you.” He holds a pale fruit—almost white—with a blush of pink at the top.

  I stand and join them, not sure I want Mani to accept anything from Deven. But I can’t think of a good excuse to stop him. Mani takes the fruit and gives it a sniff. “What is it?” he asks.

  “It’s called maraka fruit. My father grows it in his orchard.”

  “Your father has an orchard?” Mani says, like this is the most remarkable thing he’s ever heard.

  Deven laughs. “Not a large one. Go ahead, give it a try.”

  Mani takes a bite and his eyes widen with pleasure. Juice dribbles down his chin, and he wipes it away with the back of his hand. “This is so good,” he says, talking around a mouthful of fruit.

  I glance over at Deven and he is watching me with the strangest expression, like I’m a puzzle he can’t solve. “I heard you talking about him,” I say, tilting my head toward Mani. Deven doesn’t say anything, just raises one eyebrow a fraction and waits for me to continue. “What were you saying?”

  “That he looks ill,” Deven says. His voice is gentle, sad. I just nod, because there’s no response. Mani does look sick.

  “Why the fruit?” I ask after a moment.

  “He looks like he could use something healthy,” Deven says. I prickle at the suggestion that I’m not feeding Mani properly, but then I remember the pastries we keep eating for breakfast and I swallow my complaint. Besides, anything that makes Mani feel better is fine with me.

  Mani finishes his fruit and licks his fingers one by one. “You better go wash your hands before you touch any books,” I tell him. He hates anything resembling a bath, so I am expecting an argument, but instead he grins at me.

  “Completely worth it,” he says, before skipping off to the basin in the storeroom.

  Deven touches my arm. “Marinda,” he says. “Are you—”

  The bells at the door jingle, and a man and woman walk in. “Customers,” I explain to Deven before I head to the front of the shop. I can still feel his hand on my arm, can still feel the exact placement of his fingers as I ask the couple if there is anything I can help them find. They browse for a while before they bring their selections to the counter—two beautiful books of fairy tales, leather-bound, gold-tipped and stunningly illustrated. I wonder what child will be lucky enough to read them. I wrap the books in fine paper and reluctantly trade them for a handful of coins. The customers leave, and Deven is still standing where I left h
im, as if he’s waiting for me to come back. I busy myself stacking coins. Each one has a sun in the center with four rays that shoot toward the edges, dividing the circle into four parts. Each segment depicts a member of the Raksaka. I stack the coins and then twist them so that the bird is closest to me and the snake is farthest away. It’s a silly childhood superstition, but the snake has always felt like bad luck. By the time I nestle the coins in the wooden money box under the counter, we have, to my great relief, more customers. It’s several hours before the shop empties.

  Mani is curled on his purple cushion reading again, and Japa seems to have disappeared. I busy myself straightening books and hope Deven will forget I’m here. He doesn’t.

  He comes up beside me and touches my arm—in the exact same place, as if the physical contact is a vital part of whatever he has to say. My breath feels lodged in my throat, because I want to shake him off and at the same time I never want him to stop touching me. No one ever touches me. Not like this, all affectionate and casual and unafraid.

  “Marinda,” he says again. “Are you and Mani—are you okay?” I’m not sure what I was expecting him to say, but it wasn’t this. The back of my neck feels hot and I can’t meet his gaze. I thought for just a minute…I thought…

  “We’re fine,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “Because you don’t seem—it doesn’t seem…”

  I can’t have this conversation. There are a dozen reasons why I can’t have this conversation, and all of them are life-threatening. I have been careless and now Mani and I can’t ever come back here again.

  I touch Deven’s arm in the same place he touched mine. He is warm and I can feel the curve of muscle beneath my fingers. A little pang of sadness shoots through me, but I force myself to smile, to make eye contact. “Really, Deven, we’re fine.” It hurts a little to say his name, because I’ve never said it out loud before and now this is goodbye.