by fallensea
“You have malaria,” Rosalind revealed with tears in her eyes. Like me, she was hoarse, the air in the hospital full of a debris that could not be seen because it existed within. “The malaria hit with aggression. They weren’t sure you were going to wake…” She stopped to catch a shivering breath, feverish and wild-eyed.
I didn’t know much about malaria, but it was a disease people survived, so I found no reason for her to be so distraught. “Is Deddy here?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said hesitantly. “But not here at your bedside. He’s in the men’s ward. He’s also taken ill.”
“Will they let me see him?”
“No. You can’t leave the bed.” She gripped my hand tighter. Her touch was cold against the heat of my skin, foretelling. “Mama, your organs are shutting down.”
I was confused. “How?”
“The malaria—that’s what it does. There isn’t enough oxygen traveling within your body. The doctors—they can’t stop it.” She broke down, sobbing into my hand.
They were not the last words I heard spoken, but they felt like it. I wasn’t going to make it. My waking was a platform, a chance to wave goodbye. Speechless, I stared at my daughter, took in the hardness of her face and the bravery in her eyes, a bravery that existed beyond her grief. If death waited for me, I wanted Rosalind to be my last earthly vision.
“It’s okay,” I assured her, reaching out to touch her chestnut curls, struggling against the weakness in my body. We were not that far apart in age, not compared to the years stacked beneath us. The sea had cracked her skin, matured her, but she was still my little girl. “It’ll be okay.”
“I have so many regrets,” she said, unable to stop her tears. “I regret not spending more time at home. For so many years, you were all alone.”
“I was never alone.”
“You were. But most of all, I regret that you never got to be young.”
“That wasn’t because of you.” I couldn’t prevent her grief, but I could ease her guilt. “My youth disappeared long before you were born, but I did not fade. I may never have been young, but because of you, Rosalind, I was never old.”
Sleep seized me once more and threatened to drag me down. Rosalind could see it. Her tears turned heavy, her grip on my hand unbreakable. She cried out that she loved me, and then I was alone in my dreams, trying once more to claw my way out, back to her. And then I dreamt no more.
***
Heaven’s Lair
“I don’t know if my husband is alive or not,” I said to the brides who sat around me.
The woman in the black hoodie and the woman in the floral dress listened carefully, but I did not believe the redhead heard any of it. She remained in shock, sitting at my feet in the sand like a bird fallen from the sky, her almond eyes looking out into the water but seeing a fate much more gruesome than the sea. I imagined it was Rosalind who sat in the sand with such a stare, mourning me.
“I would like to know if Deddy is alive,” I continued, “but Deddy isn’t the one I need to go back for. Rosalind is. I need to return to my daughter. She is the true love of my life.”
Part III
The Couture Bride
Chapter Sixteen
Suspicions
Ronnie
Listening to Storme speak of her daughter plunged me into an icy chill, forcing me to recognize how much I wanted to be chosen. Sitting amongst the ruins of the cove, I had become a willing participant to the Trickster’s unwholesome game. I wanted Dermott. Being with him again was worth the gamble of my soul.
I didn’t feel animosity towards the women who sat around me. I did not see them as competitors, but rather the Norns who weaved my destiny, much like the women at the shelter had. These fellow brides could return me to Dermott, make our final pages more than a man crying over the ashes of his darling. There was more I needed to say to Dermott. Much more.
I wondered where Dermott was. When he was. How did time move here? To me, it was paused, suspended over our heads, waiting to crash down as soon as a decision was made. As he stood in the morgue with his sisters, did Dermott also feel the weight of purgatory? Or had the days already passed, allowing him to grow older while I let the Trickster pull my strings?
Just you, me, and the harvest moon.
I shook the memory away, just as the Trickster rattled towards me. “There’s no harvest moon in heaven, my dear. If you want to see your man again, you have to speak up.”
It irritated me that he could invade a thought so sacred. “You can read our minds?”
“Only when they’re talking as loud as yours. Your longing for your beloved is lurid enough to wrench all brides from their grave.”
“So there have been others?” Hayley asked, attentive. “We’re not the first to be put through this?”
“The circle goes round and round,” the Trickster answered, spinning his finger.
“He likes his riddles,” Storme noted with caution, drawing the redhead in closer, protecting her from the merry-go-round.
“Yes, he does,” Hayley said, folding her arms as she analyzed the Trickster like he were a bad cold. “Who are you?” she demanded of him. “What do you get from all this?”
He reached down and picked up a handful of burnt sand, darker than the rest in the cove. “Passage,” he reflected, watching loose grains escape his hold. The grains matched the brown in the feather fastened to his ear. His style coordinated with the cove, the color and the magic, as if he were a child of this otherworld, but glitches of him were entirely human.
“Passage where?”
“Everywhere!” he shouted, breaking his meditations, and he threw the sand up where the grains froze between us, motionless in the air. I reached out and touched a grain in front of me. It crumbled beneath my finger and fell to the ground, like brown sugar pouring from a jar.
“Passage,” the Trickster repeated to me, as if it were an explanation, and with a flick of his wrist, the rest of the sand dropped.
Hayley was not impressed. “Stop playing around. Tell us something of substance. Are you one of the bad ones my momma warned me about?”
“Are you one of the good ones your momma told you about?” he countered. “Before she passed away?”
“No,” Hayley said, suppressing her spite. “I’m not one of the good ones.”
“Neither are you bad.”
She was uncomfortable. “No, I’m not one of the bad ones either.”
“Then who are you?” the Trickster implored.
“I’m someone in-between.”
“Let me tell you a secret,” he said with a taunting revelry. “There is no in-between. We are not books on a shelf squished between two ends.” He laughed as if it were a joke. “I exist. And you exist. And the grains of sand between our feet exist. And what lies beyond the sea exists. That is all.”
Hayley persisted. “Maybe there is no good and no evil, but there are good and bad intentions. What are yours? Tell us who you are.”
“I’m like all of you, but I think the others would prefer to hear your story, not mine,” the Trickster contended with his mirth, unfazed. “That is why you’re here.”
Hayley looked down at her floral dress, defeated. “I fell in love, and I died. Same as everyone else.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, my wild cat.”
Seeing her struggle, I stepped forward and put my hand on her shoulder. “Who do you love?” I asked.
With a suppressed anguish, Hayley refused to raise her head, keeping her sorrow to herself. “My teacher.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Call
Hayley
The pain in my stomach was back. I tried to ignore it as I walked down the cobbled streets of Old Montreal with my friends, but it stuck to me like tar. For the first time since the pain started, coming and going like a burgeoning tide, I felt the bitter taste of fear. I could not disregard the pain. Doing so was like ignoring the leaves change color, in denial that the summer was ove
r. It wasn’t summer, it was spring, but I was in denial.
“Hayley, come on!” Marietta called to me a few shops ahead. I had not realized that I’d stopped to steady myself against the side of a boutique, falling behind my friends.
I waved her on, pretending to admire the sandals in the window of the boutique as the pain increased its iron grasp, making me lightheaded. I breathed it back, pushed it away, causing everything around me to turn white. By some sweet mercy my father would tell me was divine intervention, the white that surrounded me allowed me to disconnect from the pain. I embraced it, as if I were flying through clouds. It allowed me to move again.
“It’s not Paris, but it’s the next best thing,” I said, rejoining my friends, trying my hardest to enjoy the designer boutiques encased within the brickwork of Montreal’s historic district. The streets were narrow and the buildings low, shadowing our movements against the grey of the day, but there was a charm to the place, enough that I could almost imagine I was on the Champs-Élysées.
I shopped with three of my closest friends—Gerty, Edna, and Edna’s cousin Marietta, the youngest of the group. It was a girls’ weekend. We had planned to go to Paris on a lavish European spree, but the business consultancy firm where I worked with Gerty and Edna in Toronto had recently picked up its largest client to date. Those with bigger paychecks and better cars were forming a super team to handle the client’s affairs. Being placed on the super team could accelerate our careers. While we waited anxiously for the call, Montreal was the furthest we were willing to stray from the graces of Toronto.
“Hayley Leighton, you are so cute,” Gerty said smugly, flicking her long raven-black hair behind her. “If you had ever been to Milan or London or Madrid, like I have, you would know the next best thing to Paris most certainly is not Montreal.”
“For sure,” Edna contributed. “This blows. I wanted to eat croissants and people watch. Compared to Paris, the air here is dull.”
Marietta was much more optimistic. “Come on! If anyone should be mad, it’s me, but I’m not. I was disappointed when you three bailed on Paris, but just look at these clothes! That window there—isn’t that the designer famous for his feathers?”
“Yeah. It is,” I said, struggling against the pain once more as we carried on down the street. Maybe it was a good thing. My efforts to sidestep the pain stopped me from reminding Gerty how big of a bitch she could be. I liked her, but I didn’t always tolerate her.
Before becoming a business consultant, Gerty had traveled the world as a pyrotechnic street performer. I had seen videos of her dressed in her white catsuit, a stark contrast to her dark Armenian hair, while she masterfully twirled rings of fire around her body as if she herself was the oxygen that gave birth to the flame, so in control and fearless. It was mesmerizing. She’d been everywhere, from China to Belize. She’d performed for ambassadors. She’d performed for tourists. She’d performed for anyone willing to acknowledge her talent.
She hit a turning point several years ago, after she turned thirty. Gerty no longer wanted to be purchased. She wanted to do the purchasing, so she began a career that could satisfy her need for silk and cashmere, something I understood well. We shared a predilection for fashion. During our limited lunch hours at the firm, we tapped away at our smartphones as we shopped the upscale collections in Bloor-Yorkville. We weren’t rich, not like the aureate, power-hungry clients we worked for, but we earned a healthy salary, enough that we felt like the empresses of Bay Street, scuttling from meeting to meeting in our Jimmy Choo stilettos with cosmetic bags full of Elizabeth Arden toiletries tucked inside our satchel briefcases.
Our influence had yet to convert Edna to the Versace side, but Marietta was starting to pay more attention to our upscale chatter, especially now that she was dating a semi-famous hockey player. Knowing she had Marietta’s attention only made Gerty more of a bitch, like her footprints were made of platinum.
Outside of a designer fashion house, Marietta squealed. “This is it! This is the dress I have to wear to the gala this summer,” she insisted, pressing a hand to the glass.
In the window was a sparkling white corset gown with a skirt of peach chiffon. I thought it lacked imagination, but it was enchanting, and it would complement the highlights in Marietta’s golden brown hair and her freckles, traits she shared with Edna, except Marietta wore her hair long, and Edna had hers cut pixie short.
“Too bad you’ll never be able to afford it,” Edna said dryly. “Hell, I make at least twice the salary you do, and even I couldn’t afford it. Stop being such a wannabe and buy something in your budget.”
Disappointed, Marietta let her hand slip from the glass. “I know a woman in her mid-twenties shouldn’t cry over a dress, but I’m about to. Remind me again why I chose hairdressing over becoming a business consultant like you three?”
“Because you’re not qualified,” Gerty answered.
“And because you love what you do,” Edna added, softening. “You make people happy. That’s your thing, cuz.”
Marietta stood taller, defiant. “Well, maybe I want more.”
As they spoke, I eyed the dress carefully. I knew the designer well. The dress was part of their spring collection, but spring was fading, and fast. “The season is almost over,” I said. “If you can wait a few weeks, this dress will be discounted. I’m sure the store in Toronto carries it. If not, I have connections.”
“You mean you can steal it for me?” Marietta asked, pleased.
“God no. But when they begin to advertise their new collection, I can probably source it for about a third of the price.”
“That would be excellent!” she exclaimed. “I’ll probably still have to sell my toes to afford it, but it’ll be worth it. It’s not every day you walk down the red carpet.”
Gerty rolled her eyes. “Yes, we know. You’re dating a hockey player.”
“Not just dating. I’m gonna marry him one day,” Marietta said with determination. “And when he sees me in this dress, he’ll know it too.”
“If love only worked that way,” I mumbled, thinking of my ex-husband.
***
Exasperated, I threw my heels against the wall of my hotel room. They hit the pinstriped wallpaper with a bang and cluttered to the ground, the way I cluttered against the wall next to the door, holding my stomach. Glad I wasn’t sharing a room, I inched my way to my bed and collapsed on top of the crisp duvet. The girls were downstairs knocking back margaritas. I wanted to join them, but there was no way I physically could, not with the pain.
I should go to the hospital, I thought, but I wouldn’t. This wasn’t an emergency. It was an inconvenience, likely an ulcer or kidney stone. I’d had my appendix out when I was a kid, so that was off the list.
With deep breaths, I tried to relax, hoping it would send the pain away. As I did, I stared at the ceiling, which was plastered with a sophisticated pattern, like the ceilings found in the staterooms of palaces. The pattern reminded me of the vintage gowns I had at home, each one unique and intricate. Following the pattern on the ceiling put me in a daze, which lowered my pain to a level that was bearable. Curling into a ball, I took my phone out of the pocket of my navy romper and rang my father.
“What’s wrong?” he answered.
“Why do you assume something is wrong?” I asked. My father was a lawyer, so his intuition was strong, but I doubted it could cross borders.
“You’re on your holidays. Girls don’t ring fathers on their holidays.”
“I’m tired,” I told him, curling further into myself. “That’s all.”
“Which means you’re not feeling well. You never admit when you’re tired. You should go see Dr. Bach when you get home. She’s better than that middle-aged man.”
“That middle-aged man is the best doctor in Toronto. Dr. Bach is good, but she’s all the way out in Richmond Hill,” I argued.
“Yes, but she’s a woman. And she’s black.”
“Daddy!” I protested.
> “I mean she understands your body. She probably knows it better than you do. Richmond Hill isn’t too far of a drive from your work.”
“Fine,” I relented. “I’ll go see Dr. Bach. How was Bible study?”
“The same as it always is—uplifting and mandatory.”
I wanted to chat more, but a click on the other line forced me to excuse myself. “Gotta go. That could be work. Love you.”
“Love you too. God bless.”
I switched calls, and I listened, sitting straight up in the bed, the pain in my stomach devoured by what I heard. It felt like I listened for hours, but by the time I hung up, the clock had barely changed. Quickly, I packed my bags, hindered only briefly by my stomach. With my bags in hand, I hurried downstairs to meet the girls. I found them at the bar counter with several empty margarita glasses pushed to the side.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to go,” I announced.
“What’s wrong?” Marietta asked, concerned.
“Nothing,” Edna said coolly, studying me. “I see that look every day in the office—so focused. Worked called. You’re on the team.”
“I am,” I admitted, ignoring the silent glare I got from Gerty. “They need me back for a meeting tomorrow.”
“You mean the stupid super team for your new client that ruined my dreams of Paris?” Marietta asked, sipping a fresh margarita. “At least we didn’t cancel for nothing. Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling like an outcast amongst my friends. Edna tapped her glass, molding her disappointment into impatience, while Gerty wouldn’t stop glaring. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get the call soon. The team isn’t complete yet,” I told them.
“Sure,” Edna said, forcing a smile. “Keep our seats warm.”
“I will,” I promised, but it held sourly in the air, making me anxious to leave. “I wish I could stay, but they want me in early tomorrow. I’m going to try to catch the last train back to Toronto.”