The Calyx Charm

by May Peterson

  I touched the paper, silently asking for her to set it aside. She raised an eyebrow.

  I cleared my throat. “You were right. Mio is queer.”

  It’d been a concern of hers years ago, one that never sat well in my belly. I had no anchor for what my feelings should be on this. Part of me had felt like she was insulting him, and another part felt jealous, as if it must be a strange relief to be known through your disguise. Perhaps I’d been feeling my way through my lies even then.

  She sat back in her chair, blond hair loose around her shoulders. She crossed her arms, said nothing. An invitation to continue.

  “Does this mean he’s dead to you now?”

  A scowl crossed her features. “No. He made his choice and I made mine. Mio will return to us when he’s ready. I love him and wish him no ill.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “He just chose staying with his male lover over our family. You were in my mind, Mamma. I felt what you felt. And I would describe it as rage.”

  Her expression darkened into something like hurt. “And you think the fact that his lover is a man is what enflamed that rage? Not his abandonment of our cause?”

  “Abandonment of our cause, horseshit. You were worried about him before we found out he wasn’t willing to come back. Are you telling me that if he were with a woman, this all wouldn’t sting less to you? To Papa?”

  It sure as hell would sting less to me, and that was as much a part of my shame as my resurfacing feelings for Mercurio. I wanted what Mio had, dammit, and it was selfish of me. Mio had been through hell for this freedom, the least I could do was be happy for him without privately resenting the situation. What would my parents do if both their children left the family for taboo lovers?

  Papa might never look at me the same again.

  Mamma leaned against the table, took a few breaths. “I am not going to let you make me and your father out to be some kind of bigots. No, it would not sting less.”

  All right. I daintily dabbed blood off my mouth and hunkered down. “So if I told you I was in love with a boy, one who I wanted to live with, you’re telling me you would accept it?”

  My heart leapt into my throat as soon as the words left it. This was the boldest I’ve ever been with her, at least about a matter like this.

  Amazement danced in her eyes. “A boy? Someone your age? Do I get to meet him?”

  Let some god fucking kill me again right now. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with my mother. “I am being hypothetical.”

  She shook her head. “Hellfire, Tibario. Use your head. If you want a lover, by all means take one. But do what every other sensible person does and keep it from the public eye. Plenty of mafiosi love who they choose, of all sexes. But think about the impact. I’m not some vain social climber, trying to make my children look good so I’ll be comfortable in my old age. I’m concerned for your safety. A young man of your station who is known to be queer is going to be a target. Rivals will come for your lover, for your weak spots. You’d be more vulnerable than if you marry a pleasant dualistic woman and have the family that’s expected of you. If you’re going to throw that aside for love, make sure it’s stable. Safe. Why do you think I didn’t press harder for Mio to come home? At least now he’ll be protected.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  Mamma arched her brows. “Think. You and I still have Lord Casilio to take care of, and until we do, Mio is safer with his wealthy lover than he is here. I still have a brain. When Mio has taken the time he needs to rethink whether he wants to be part of this family, we will have made things safe for him to return.”

  That answer left me a little breathless. “So us parting ways was part of some plan of yours?”

  Her laughter carried a note of surprise. “Isn’t everything I do part of a plan? Now I wonder why you didn’t stay with him. He had a place for you in his new life, but you chose to stay with me. Why do it, if you felt me so horrible?”

  It was a cheap swing, but I was up for it. Plenty of anger to go around while I sorted through my self-loathing. “Because I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  Maybe I’d intended that to guilt her a little, but it was sincere. The idea of Mamma’s face if I had walked away... I couldn’t stomach it.

  Her expression lightened. “My boy, that is very sweet of you, but I assure you I can defend myself with ease.”

  “I didn’t mean that. It just seemed. Like it’d be miserable.” I looked down at my hands, wind going out of my sails.

  She waited a few moments before replying. “I’m not alone, Tibario. I have your father, and I am ready to come for Casilio’s head.”

  I sniffed, watched her guarded face. I couldn’t remember when, even at her lowest, she hadn’t seemed so armored. “Where is Papa? Why hasn’t he been around?”

  Now her demeanor shifted toward consoling. She touched my hand across the table. “I wanted to wait until things were more settled until I explained this to you, but since we’ve already discussed the advantages of Mio being away, may as well go into it. I sent Gino away. He’s safe, staying in another town with one of his cousins. Before I brought you home, we decided it was best. You and I now are uniquely armed to fight Casilio and his crew. Gino would also be vulnerable, and I can no longer allow that. Not after everything that’s happened.”

  I swallowed hard. Why did that hurt so much? He hadn’t even waited to say goodbye? “Then if you and I can finish things with Casilio, Mio and Papa can come home?”

  “Of course they can. Why do you think I’m doing any of this?”

  I drank another half cup of coffee to moisten my mouth. Mamma, her odd red and blue eyes turned fully on me, looked strong, prepared. I should be able to trust her.

  “All right.” I sighed.

  She nodded. “Still want to run off into the sunset with the lover you’d been hiding?”

  Maybe my parents would take my revelation better than I expected. But she hadn’t answered my question.

  And I still hated the idea of leaving her, even if Mio and Papa came back. She didn’t need me to protect her, no. But we were joined in a way that few others had ever been joined. What would happen to her heart, if I refused the future she had built for me?

  “I’m not hiding anything.” Still damned good at lying. Even to a sorcerer.

  She merely looked at me for what felt like a long time. “Then we have a mark to catch.”

  Chapter Three

  Violetta

  Rosalina dragged me back to the light.

  She’d appeared at my door two days or so after Serafina’s visit. A few of her knocks, familiar as old friends, and then, “Violetta? Darling? You must be home, I’ve searched everywhere for you. Unless you’re out at some pier, blending in with the fish.” A sigh. “Damn. Maybe she’s gone and become a mermaid.”

  It should have been enough to make me laugh, but my emotions jumped instantly to tears. Hot, insistent tears, the kind hard to make silent. But every boundary holding me together has become brittle as paper, and I balled up against the wall where I sat and clamped hands over my mouth, stifling gasps so she wouldn’t hear.

  After some moments, a sheet slid under my door, and her shadow vanished.

  I needed some time to calm down enough to see what she’d left. A message, reading: You are missed at the Rose.—R.

  The Fragrant Rose. Her teahouse, and hub for mollyqueens like me and tomkings like Leo, and all manner of other colorful sorts.

  I wanted to go back. To see her, other human faces, something to shake loose the phantasmal stranglehold of Tibario’s death. But that was also what I feared.

  Missed. I was missed. Someone was waiting for me to come back. The thought cut my heart in half.

  Once, I might have expected such intense grief to strike me numb. But something else came at the end of its sting: panic. Drowning, mind-
draining panic. My intuition cast shadows everywhere, and I could feel the future crawling in my stomach like snakes. A little of the alcohol Tibario had brought me remained, and it had taken on the significance of a holy elixir. I imagined maybe being able to summon Tibario back with it, if I poured it in a circle and chanted his name into the night.

  If I exposed this grief to light, he would well and truly be gone. He hollowed out my senses with his absence, and I would not give that absence up. It was my only remnant of him.

  The truth was not that I couldn’t live without Tibario. His death was simply one wound too many. I had been doing my best to endure Mother’s disappearance, leaving home, the aroma of doom on everything I touched. I had very nearly found a way to live with Tibario never returning or knowing that I loved him. His friendship had been a barrier of warmth against a winter that appeared to never end. It hadn’t been what I wanted. None of it had ever been what I wanted. But it had been enough.

  Now the warmth was fading from my limbs, its loss finally pushing me past my limits. Nothing remained to hold on to now. I would freeze over, surrender to the frost, and die. Surely death would come to finish the process. I couldn’t bear the alternative—an infinite, ruinous future without meaning or form, trapping my consciousness in its coils forever.

  Then a new warmth rushed in, invasive but life-bringing—Rosalina pounding on my door.

  I hadn’t even realized I was asleep until the sound separated me from the haze of my dreams. With it was her crisp voice.

  “Vi. Violetta. You have to be in there. By the grace of any goddess that is good, she has to be in there. Vi! Are you able to hear me? If you don’t make some kind of answer in the next five minutes, we are opening the door.” Her words dropped low, but yet audible. “She might be unconscious. Do you know if she took anything? Medicine, drugs?”

  A murmured, vibrating reply bore suggestions of Leo’s voice, but nothing to make out. The panic was returning, shocking my senses to alert. I should answer. They’d been worried. But what could I tell them?

  What could I ever say again?

  A clatter of metal peeled off the last of my haze. I was rising, slowly, with something like numbness finally coming to guard me from crisis. But the door was creaking open, Leo on his knees on the other side, lock-picking tools in hand. Standing by him was Rosalina, a rose-tinted shadow that rushed in like midnight.

  Her perfumed arms swept me into an embrace before I could speak. Time seemed to bludgeon me into submission, every second too bright and fast for me to absorb. I had no words, no response. Without warning, the gentle warmth of her touch overcame me, driving back the cold. Leo was rubbing my shoulder, whispering something soothing, and Rosalina was doing nothing but holding me.

  It took me a full minute to see why; tears poured out as if they would never end. The floral scent of her hair surrounded me, and the three of us stood in the center of my naked, cursed room, as if daring the future to strike us dead.

  I expected a concerned but insistent demand of explanation, kind but pressing questions, and knew immediately I wouldn’t be able to face it. Maybe that was the real reason I’d hidden. But miracle of miracles, the demands never came. Only Rosalina telling Leo to take the key on my table, asking softly if I wanted to bring anything with me.

  Nothing. There was nothing.

  I offered no resistance as they walked me from the flat, locking the door. Rosalina kept her arm around me, and Leo led us to the street. Thank the fates I didn’t have to make a decision. It was just this walk, these steps, and nothing else had to be considered for now.

  “There, there, Vi.” Rosalina pressed a kiss to my temple. “We’ll have ourselves a nice dinner and relax. Nothing else you need think about. Here, we’re almost at the Rose.”

  The insight of their care was shocking. Then it dawned on me that of course they would understand that the most immediate danger was that I might want to die. No denial, no mucking about with insistence that a sane person couldn’t want that. Rosalina had no doubt faced this with dozens of girls, or with Leo’s boys who she’d helped take in. Suicide was always a threat, a killer more subtle and persistent than the most vengeful of ghosts. It haunted our kind with a special doggedness.

  The Fragrant Rose came into view. Horror flooded me that I would have to wade through a room of our friends and their guests, but even this she and Leo had thought of. The back door admitted us into a gently lit breakfast room, where Rosalina never admitted patrons. Leo took my hand and guided me to the reclining chair against the wall, and Rosalina took to the stove to heat a kettle.

  Sitting felt acceptable now. I’d come all this way, left behind that flat full of impending shadows. The fabric at my back, Leo’s careful smile, the candlelit atmosphere of the room, all seemed like magical charms against the future’s brutality.

  “Now, love.” Leo patted my hand. “Have you eaten or drunk anything that might, er, come up?”

  Like poison. I gulped. “No. Nothing since... I think yesterday.” My voice was hoarse, tender. “I was too anxious to keep anything down.” He nodded without question, and turned to Rosalina, who was portioning tea.

  “Try a little something, unless you can’t bear the thought, will you?” She lit another lamp and opened a cupboard. “I have some pastries in the chest, and plenty to choose from in the larder.”

  I nodded, the idea of food rapidly gaining appeal. That apparently satisfied her, and watching her prepare plates was profoundly soothing. It slipped me back into my body somehow, brought the present moment back to life. The future might spare us after all. In less than half an hour, she had floral tea steaming in front of us, with trays of tapenade and bread, olives and salted peppers, soft cheese and figs and lemon-scented oil. Almond pastries gleamed under the sheen of syrup alongside cake with orange rind and rosemary.

  Eating reawakened my body. What first was hard to chew and swallow quickly became impossible to get enough of. They finished long before I did; I lasted through three pots of tea and four pastries, two plates of food, and a shot of coffee. Tears returned as I ate, as if I had recovered enough strength to cry. In time, I was lying back on the chair with my head on Rosalina’s shoulder, with Leo humming softly and tidying up.

  Neither of them said much more. Just Rosalina, looking into my eyes. “You can stay here tonight, and as long as you like. Maybe Leo can send Vincenzo to gather anything else you need from your flat.”

  I agreed silently, gnawing on the necessity of what was to come. “Do you...already know what happened?”

  A glimmer of dread shone behind her gaze. There was so much dearness there—her soft dark waves, the warmth of her skin against the strawberry red of her gown. A gold hairpin set off her dark complexion, making her at once as elegant as a goddess yet with the innocent air of a little sister. But she was older than me, shown in her painstaking protectiveness. Just now, it was ruefully clear how much she wanted to spare me talking about this, even if she didn’t know what it was.

  “I know something must have.” Her voice held its calm admirably. “The girls are agitated. I keep hearing tell of something amok, and Leo hasn’t seen Tibario for days.”

  All right. They deserved to know. May as well get it from the sybil’s mouth. “Tibario has died.”

  It was like speaking a lightning bolt into the room. Rosalina flinched and covered her mouth; Leo fumbled a stack of plates that crashed to the floor.

  “What?” Leo gasped.

  Rosalina rose to touch his arm, frowning down at me. “I assume you are speaking with...authority on this?” She tapped the top of her head with a fingertip.

  “Yes. Prescience-approved.” I struggled to swallow down a wave of nausea. “I didn’t examine how it happened or why. But it would have been four or five days ago. Serafina came to me, and that’s when...”

  Sobs threatened to choke me, and I stopped to breathe. Rosalina surg
ed back to my side, cradling my head and whispering comforting sounds. Soon, Leo joined in, embracing us both, and tears shone in the corners of his eyes.

  As I melted into my grief, their presence told me that they would catch me. They would not let me disappear. Slowly, with each wave of tears, solid ground was materializing under me. I might never truly recover from this, but I would survive.

  Leo and Rosalina formed a shield around me, covering me from the future’s scathing eye.

  * * *

  I was taught I could see the future.

  It isn’t entirely inaccurate—this is where the term seer comes from—but people are attaching it all to the wrong way of thinking. I can at times see the future, moving through my head, like being in a lucid dream, mapping out reality with the pulse of underground stars.

  But the place the future lives in me deepest is my belly. I feel it much more than I actually see it. For most people, the lucid dream is what they think of as a prophecy. But to them, that I can prophesy means that the future is like a book I can look into, or like it’s the opposite of memory. Just as someone can think back on something they’ve been through, even taste and see what happened, I can simply close my eyes and think ahead, finding the moment that hasn’t happened yet and tell you what it tastes like.

  What seeing the future and memory have in common is that they take artistry. We remember things wrong all the time. The flavor of a favorite day from childhood is seasoned with the flavor of now, of what we like now, so that the precise experience of that day is never truly captured again. There is no one to tell us exactly how the past was, even though we all went through it. Memory is the imprint it left on us, the marks of infinite fingers, and we can’t call the fingers back even as we feel the places they touched for the rest of our lives. Every memory is an eternal rebuilding, a hybrid edifice of what was and what we are now.

  The future crawls in me like snakes, living things that have weight and heat, coiling in my guts and sending tremors through my body. I have to decide what the tremors mean, the music they make in concert with each other. If I bring it all together and pay attention in a certain way, then, yes. The lucid dream congeals in my head. At times it becomes like a sea of images and sensations, pulling me along with the same gravity as a dream, sharp with meaning as the images move in time with the rhythm in my gut.