Poison's Kiss

by Breeana Shields

  Deven’s brow furrows. “Marinda, you can trust me. I—”

  “Time to go, Mani,” I say cheerfully, cutting him off. Mani sulks as he puts the book back on the shelf. My heart is thudding against my rib cage. Stay calm, I tell myself over and over. Calm. Calm. Calm.

  “Japa,” I call with too much brightness in my voice. “I’m leaving now.”

  Japa emerges from the storeroom and looks around. “The shop looks amazing,” he says. “I can’t believe what you’ve done.”

  He’s grateful for the cleaning, but his words hit me at an odd angle. Because I can’t believe what I’ve done either. I embrace Japa more fiercely than usual before I say goodbye. And then Mani and I walk out of the bookshop for the last time.

  I hold it together until we get outside, and then I can’t stop myself from shaking. What have I done? I let Deven notice me and he noticed too well, too much. I feel like a fool. What did I think? That he would ask me on a picnic? That he would invite me to dine with him under the stars? Stupid. I could tell as he looked at me and Mani that something felt off to him. I’ve piqued his curiosity, and that is the worst violation of tradecraft. I am supposed to be invisible. My life depends on it.

  A sharp pain shoots through my jaw and I realize I’ve been grinding my teeth. I take a deep breath and slow down. I’ve been rushing, moving way too fast for Mani. I glance over at him, but he’s having no trouble keeping pace with me.

  “Hey, monkey,” I say, “how are you feeling?”

  “Really good,” he says, searching my face. “What’s wrong?”

  I try to force cheer into my voice. “Nothing,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”

  “Your neck is all splotchy—that’s what always happens when you’re upset.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, I was reading a book today with a very distressing scene, so maybe that’s it.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Oh, please, I’m not four years old.”

  That startles a laugh out of me, which makes Mani giggle, and soon we are both cracking up. It’s the kind of laughter that often follows tension—exaggerated, as if that can somehow compensate. I don’t knock when we get to our flat, just slide my key into the lock and open the door.

  I stop laughing.

  Gopal is here. He stands in the center of the room, his hands clasped in front of him. Each of his thick arms is tattooed with a black snake, the tail starting at his elbow and the body coiled round and round his arm until the head of the snake bites the inside of his wrist with sharp fangs. “Hello, Marinda,” he says.

  Seeing Gopal always makes me feel like I have been caught doing something wrong. Mani’s grip on my hand tightens.

  “Nice to see you, Gopal,” I say, though it isn’t. He smirks like he can see my thoughts, and a shiver dances up my spine.

  “I need to speak with you,” he says, and motions for me to follow him outside.

  “But Mani—”

  “Gita will look after your brother.”

  Gita is sitting silently at the table, her arms folded across her stomach. I didn’t notice she was here. A small clay pot sits on the table in front of her along with the bottle that holds the medicine used to make Mani’s breathing treatment—it’s the same unspoken threat as always. We exchange a glance and she gives me a small nod. I kneel in front of Mani. “I have to go for a bit, but I will be back soon, okay?” Mani bites on his lower lip, and I can see the fear in his eyes. Gopal terrifies him, and Gita is only marginally better. I fold him in an embrace and whisper against his ear, “I won’t be long, I promise.”

  I follow Gopal outside. He begins walking and I fall into step at his side, waiting for him to speak. He reaches for my hand, and it takes everything I have not to flinch. When I was a little girl, Gopal held my hand wherever we went, the head of his snake tattoo pressed tightly against my skin. It used to give me nightmares, imagining those fangs sinking into the soft inside of my wrist, sucking out blood and replacing it with venom.

  Gopal’s fingers close around mine. I try to focus on something else. A half dozen soldiers are gathered on the other side of the street. The deep tones of their conversation interspersed with occasional bursts of gruff laughter float over my head, though the actual words have faded away before they reach me.

  They wear black uniforms with a bright orange sun representing Sundari on one shoulder and the Raksaka on the other. One of them glances toward us. I see his gaze travel from my face down the length of my arm, where my fingers are intertwined with Gopal’s. The soldier’s expression registers shock, and I realize how I must look to him, hand in hand with Gopal like we are lovers. I taste bile at the back of my throat.

  The soldier whispers something to his comrade, and then they are both watching us—no, watching Gopal—with expressions I can’t quite place. Then understanding washes over me. They must know him, must know who he is to the Raja.

  It’s fear on their faces.

  Gopal sees them staring and yanks me around the corner, out of view. He continues walking. “The Raja is in need of your services,” he says after we’ve put some distance between us and the soldiers. I swallow hard and stare at my feet as we walk. Iyla said another job was coming, but usually it takes weeks before I am needed.

  “Of course,” I say, because this is the correct answer and the only answer that will please him. “When?”

  Gopal’s jaw tightens as if even this question crosses a line. He sets the pace of the conversation, not me. “Tomorrow.”

  I gasp. “So soon?”

  He stops walking and spins to face me. “Is that a problem?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “Of course not. I am just impressed that Iyla was able to close it out so quickly.”

  Gopal’s eyes narrow and I realize I’ve made a mistake. “Iyla should not be discussing her work with you,” he says softly.

  I shake my head. “She wasn’t. She didn’t.”

  “Then how do you know when she started this project?”

  “I saw her dressed up last night. It was nothing. She said nothing.”

  He presses his lips together and looks toward the sky. “Iyla will need to be dealt with.”

  My stomach goes cold. “No, Gopal, please—”

  He holds a hand up to stop me. “It is none of your concern, rajakumari. I will handle it.”

  But I can’t let it go. “Iyla didn’t do anything wrong. She was just bringing me dinner. Please, Gopal, I really don’t think—”

  He grabs my wrist and twists it painfully. “We are finished discussing Iyla. Is that clear?”

  I bite my lip and nod. I’ll only make it worse for both of us if I say anything more. He lets go. “Good. Now on to the details. The meeting will take place tomorrow morning sometime before midday. The boy will approach you with a book titled The History of Sundari. You will dispatch him as quickly as possible and then report back to me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I say, rubbing my injured wrist. “Where is the meeting place?”

  Gopal smiles and there’s something unsettling about his expression, something predatory about it. “That little bookshop you love so much.”

  All the breath leaves my lungs. He is punishing me. He knows I have grown fond of Japa, maybe he even knows about Deven, and now he’s going to force me to make a kill in front of them. I feel sick. The bookshop was the one place where I didn’t have to be this.

  I try to keep my expression neutral, but I am shaking all over. “They know me there,” I say. “Couldn’t that compromise the mission?”

  His laugh is humorless. “Nonsense. They will simply see you kiss a boy.” He leans in so close I can smell his sour breath. “They won’t know that the boy dies painfully later.” My cheeks heat with shame, and Gopal laughs again before he leaves me standing in the street all alone.

  It was years before I knew that the men I kissed died. When I was small, Gopal told me we were helping people. “Spreading the love of the Raja,” he said, and he had all kinds of methods of get
ting me within kissing distance of his target. Once when I was about five years old, he took me to the marketplace for jalebi. At first it seemed to be one of our rare outings with no strings attached. He bought me my treat and we sat under a tree while I ate. Buttery sunlight filtered through the leaves, and the sky was the pale blue of springtime. It wasn’t until I popped the last bite of warm fried dough into my mouth with syrup-sticky fingers that Gopal said, “Someone needs our help today, Marinda.” My stomach tightened into a hard ball, and I had trouble forcing myself to keep chewing and then to swallow. I liked helping people, but it seemed that it always involved pretending, and I wasn’t very good at pretending.

  “I know a man who needs a kiss from you, rajakumari.” I kept my eyes down, wiping my hands in the grass to try to clean them, but only managing to make a bigger mess—now my fingers were stained green and black and they were still tacky. “Look at me,” Gopal said. His voice had a sharp edge to it, the edge that demanded I pay attention.

  I looked up at him and he smiled, but it wasn’t a very nice smile. “That’s better,” he said. “I’m going to buy you a balloon, and then you are going to go stand by a man—I will point him out to you—and let the balloon go. Then—and this is very important, Marinda—you must start crying, you must make the man help you. When he does, you can kiss him for being so kind.”

  I hated that I had to let go of a perfectly good balloon, but I hated pretending to cry even more than that.

  Gopal pulled a small jar of lip balm out of his pocket, and I held very still while he slathered a bit of the ointment against my mouth with his fat finger. I hated how it made my lips feel—sticky and suffocated—but I knew better than to complain.

  “What if I can’t make the man help me?” I asked.

  Gopal’s face turned hard. “You don’t want to find out.”

  And I didn’t have to find out, because as much as I hated pretending to cry, I could do it. I could pinch the palm of my hand, hard, and think about how I didn’t have parents or any siblings, how I was all alone, except for Gopal and Gita, who only sometimes seemed to like me. It worked every time.

  The man Gopal pointed out had salt-and-pepper hair, like a grandfather, and a kind face. When I let go of my balloon, I already had my tears ready, but he had fast reflexes. He jumped up and snatched my balloon right out of the air and handed it back to me. Only a few tears had escaped. I gave him a wobbly smile and threw my arms around his neck. I kissed the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it, because now I got to keep my balloon with very little pretending.

  He chuckled and said it was no problem and that I was such an affectionate child. I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded nice and it made me feel good.

  Years later, when Gopal told me what I really was, when he explained to me (with a fair amount of glee) that my kisses killed, it was that man who popped into my mind and then haunted my nightmares for months.

  “I don’t want to be a killer,” I told Gopal.

  He laughed and laughed. “You already are, rajakumari. You already are.”

  Gita shakes me awake the next morning before dawn. She presses a finger to her lips, but I don’t need to be told not to wake Mani. My nerves are already coming unraveled and I know I can’t handle a tearful goodbye.

  I dress in the dark, fumbling with buttons and with shoes. With jewelry and perfume and thick bracelets to conceal my scars. I wear my hair down.

  When it’s time to go, Gita steps outside with me.

  “Take care of him,” I tell her, and even to my own ears my voice sounds hollow. Every part of me wants to run. If not for Mani, I think I would.

  Gita nods. “He was so much better last night,” she says. “He was full of energy.”

  For a half second I consider telling her that he had some fruit yesterday and that I suspect that’s what made him feel better. But then I swallow the temptation. I don’t need her help caring for Mani and I don’t want to open up to her about anything right now. “Tell him I love him,” I say. “Tell him I’ll be back soon.”

  “I will,” Gita says. And then after a pause, “I’m sorry, Marinda.” She doesn’t say for what. She doesn’t have to. Seventeen years stretch between us, and sorry seems too feeble a word. I leave without replying.

  Pale pink dawn creeps over the horizon as I walk toward Gali Street. The world is still asleep, and the slap of my sandals on the cobblestones sounds harsh against the backdrop of so much silence. I can hear myself breathing. Do I always breathe this conspicuously? It should be a comforting thing to hear your own breath, to have proof that you’re alive, but right now it’s disconcerting. I try to hold my breath, but then I can hear my pulse rushing in my ears, and that’s even worse.

  The bookshop won’t be open yet, so I turn down a dirt path and make my way to a small wooded area in a park nearby. There’s a flat-topped rock in a copse of trees that serves as a nice bench. I sit on the rock under the canopy of a devil tree and put my head in my hands. There’s no escape.

  I tried to run once when I was ten years old. I didn’t have much of a plan—just a bag filled with food and clothes and a guilt compelling enough to chase away my fear. I was living at the girls’ home then, though I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the other girls. My bedroom was the last room in a hallway full of empty rooms. There would be no one to hear the window creak open, no one to hear me drop to the ground below. I had one leg halfway into the night when the door flew wide. There was Gopal with a baby in his arms. The sight was so unexpected that I froze, hand splayed against the glass, bag slung over my arm, mouth agape.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Gopal said. I didn’t answer him. I was too busy staring at the bundle wrapped tightly in the same tangerine-colored blanket Gita had described to me so many times. The baby must be a new visha kanya. Curly black hair sprouted from the top of her head. She had tiny rosebud lips and long lashes that brushed the tops of her cheeks.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  Gopal laughed. “Not she, he. He is your brother, Marinda.”

  My heart flip-flopped, and I climbed back into the room, set down my bag, closed the window.

  “I have a brother?”

  It didn’t occur to me then, as it would later, that Gopal could be lying, that Mani could be any baby—not really my brother, but a trick to keep me from leaving. But by the time this thought crossed my mind several months down the road, it was too late. Whether or not we shared the same set of horrible parents didn’t matter. He had become my brother and I wasn’t ever going to leave him.

  The sun has risen higher in the sky and it’s time to go. I unfold myself from the rock and take a deep breath.

  The walk to the bookshop doesn’t take nearly long enough, even though I walk slowly, even though I try to wish it away. I can see Japa through the window. He sits at the reading table sipping a cup of steaming liquid and flipping through the pages of a book. He looks so content, so at home. I wonder if my face has ever known that expression.

  After yesterday I never thought I’d be back, so it feels like a gift to see Japa for one more day. I feel a sudden rush of affection for him with his silver mop of hair, his easy smile and the papery crinkles around his eyes. He looks up and waves, and so I can’t delay any longer. I have to push the door open.

  “Good morning, Marinda,” he says.

  “Good morning,” I say. I try to smile, but it feels tight on my face. Japa’s expression falters for just a moment, and I wonder if he can see something in my eyes. Something that tells him I’m about to kill one of his customers. Something that reveals me as a monster. But then the moment is gone and his smile looks just as firm as it always does.

  “You’ve been here almost every day this week,” he says. It’s true. Before, I came only once or twice a week, and now I’ve been here three days in a row. Japa scoops up his teacup and drains it in one swallow. “You cleaned the shop so thoroughly yesterday that I hope I can find enough for you to do today.�
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  A spark of panic shoots through me. What if Japa sends me home? What would Gopal do to me? This was foolish of him to arrange a kill in a circumstance that I can’t control. Reckless. He is trying to send me a message that he owns me. That he has power to take anything from me, that I should have stayed isolated and not dared to carve out this small space for myself. But what if he has gone too far?

  Japa lays a hand on my forearm. “Don’t worry. I received new books yesterday that need shelving.” He has misinterpreted the concern on my face. He thinks I’m worried about money and I don’t correct him.

  The stack of books is small, so I move slowly. Each time the door opens, my stomach pitches forward, my hands begin to sweat. But so far no one has presented me with The History of Sundari. At least Deven isn’t here. I don’t want to have to do this in front of him.

  The bells on the door jangle. I shouldn’t have tempted fate. Deven walks in and gives me a small wave before he strides away. Probably to have another secretive conversation with Japa. I groan. His timing couldn’t be worse.

  I shove the books onto the shelves. Why is he always here? I am tense enough without having to worry about Deven, who seems to notice everything, lurking around the corner. The door opens again. My gaze snaps up, but it is only a mother with two small boys. I pace up and down the aisles and I feel like I’m pulled too tight, like a rubber band that could snap at any moment.

  “You’re going to worry a hole in the floor.” I spin around to find Deven smiling at me with only half his mouth. He’s infuriating.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I ask.

  He raises one eyebrow and I wonder if only half of his face is capable of expression. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “No, I’m just starting to worry that you’re homeless.”

  He laughs a big, full sound that makes me feel a little pleased with myself even though I wasn’t trying to be funny.