Wicked Like a Wildfire

by Lana Popovic

  Before I could stop her, Niko gathered them up, bringing them to her nose. I caught my breath and watched her closely, but there wasn’t even a flicker of shock. She hadn’t caught that glimpse of Mara that I had. “How strange,” she said, eyes narrowing as she breathed them in, nose twitching like a bunny’s. “They do smell like a woman. Not a lady-smell, I mean, but they actually make me think of a woman I don’t think I’ve ever seen. A blonde, is that right? With eyes like the two of you?”

  I nodded. “That’s Naisha. The woman from the memory.”

  Luka was shaking his head with disbelief. “How could that be possible? Changing your appearance so completely. No, I know, I’ve seen what you two can do, but that seems . . .” He trailed off, spreading his hands in defeat, as if it was all too much for him to hold in two palms.

  “I can’t believe it,” Lina said, her voice tremulous. “She was someone else, all this time. I talked to her while she taught me, Riss. I told her so much, about you and Mama and . . . about how hard it was, sometimes. It felt so good, being around her. Like doing the right thing. Who knows what all she learned from me?”

  I squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault. How could you have known? And if she was family, somehow, maybe it was the right thing. Luka, is there anything else in there?”

  He twisted, rummaging in the drawer. I could see his spine stiffen and he turned back to us, holding something that looked like a scroll. He offered it to me and I accepted it gingerly, breathing out a sigh of pleasure as the fabric slid like water over my palm. If it was vellum, it was softer than I had ever thought that would feel, like felt or deerskin as I carefully unrolled it, its fabric whispering over the embroidered duvet without a snag.

  Unscrolled to its full length, it spanned across the bed. I could feel Lina’s and Niko’s breath fanning over my neck as I ran my finger up its length. Like an illuminated manuscript, the edges were filled with beautiful women in black and gray, rendered in the bare minimum of strokes it took to hold them. One had hair that cascaded to the floor, butterflies suspended in its length; another hung upside down, one ankle and one wrist wrapped in the hint of trailing bolts of silk. A third had leopard spots patterned on her skin, and a fourth sat cross-legged in the suggestion of a winter storm, some of the snowflakes as large around as her limbs.

  They surrounded what looked like a family tree, but with first names only, and no years marked. And instead of spidering branches, the names ran down a single column, two in every generation. In each, one was crossed out with a glittering silver strike-through, and the other provided the snaking line leading down to the next two names. I saw Naisha’s name about eight lines up; it sprang alive from the parchment, more embellished than any of the others. Maybe it meant ownership, a mark that this scroll belonged to her.

  “Look,” Malina whispered, her voice catching. “It’s us.”

  It was—we were at the bottom, both of our names in black calligraphy that reminded me of Mama’s fine handwriting, though this was even more stylized and sharply graceful, as if each name had been rendered in a single perfect stroke like a lovely fencing stab. The two names above us were Faisali and Anais. Anais was struck out with silver, and Faisali connected to the two of us. The last third of the scroll was blank.

  “But that’s not Jasmina’s name,” I said.

  “And Natalija’s face wasn’t her face,” Lina reminded me. “Maybe this used to be Mama’s name?”

  “Wait,” Niko said. Her hoarse voice sounded scratchier than usual, almost warbling. “Look.”

  Lina and I followed her finger up the strange, laddered tree. At the very top was a single name, rendered with none of the flair. Because it needed none. Just its four stark letters were enough.

  MARA, the scroll proclaimed at its apex. Hundreds of lines separated us from her, but the connection was direct—Iris and Malina at the bottom, Mara at the top. The blood flowed from her straight down to us, connecting us to her through ribbons of ink.

  She was the first mother.

  She was what we’d come from.

  TWENTY

  ČIČA JOVAN HAD ALREADY GONE TO BED BY THE TIME WE staggered in, Niko and Luka having walked us home. He’d be surprised in the morning to find us there, after having been told that we would be spending the night at the Damjanac house, but we’d wanted to be alone, together. And even talking to him in the light of day was difficult to imagine. Lina and I had stepped off the edge of the earth in the night, and the coming morning felt like a different world, some undiscovered continent. A modern age full of mundane things, like McDonald’s, talk shows, and machines, that would either never come or had already passed us by.

  As if we were the sole survivors of an apocalypse, even with the rest of the world spinning around us fast asleep.

  We’d tucked the scroll into the farthest back of one of the knobbly drawers. It was too much for either of us to look at any longer. Then we’d talked in circles for an hour, facing each other with hands tangled.

  “If she’s alive—if Mara’s alive,” I began. “And we’re related to her . . .”

  “But how could she be, whoever—whatever—she is? Did you see all those names, Riss? If that’s a family tree, that would make her, what, thousands of years old? That’s impossible. There are no . . . no witch-goddesses that are just too interesting to die. No matter what the legend says.”

  “Well, there’s clearly witches,” I pointed out. “There’s us, and Mama—who didn’t die when she should have. There’s Sorai and Naisha, possibly Dunja. And how do you even know the two of us are categorically mortal? We’ve never been sick, not in any real way. We haven’t tried to die so far, so we can’t know what would happen if we did.”

  “Let’s not make an experiment out of it yet, maybe?”

  “Agree. Early yet.”

  “It’s just—” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s crazy to think it.”

  “You’ve felt her, too, though,” I argued. “We both saw her in the dream, and we’ve been feeling her through the ribbons somehow. She’s alive. Or at least a piece of her is. Otherwise, what’s happening to us?”

  “So let’s say she is alive. How are we going to find her?”

  And if we do, neither of us said, does she have our mother? And could she give her back to us?

  We stalled out there every time, islanded in a sea of questions. If Mara existed, how, and where to find her? Maybe Natalija—Naisha—knew, but she had disappeared—why? And Sorai too might know, but why hadn’t she come back for us after that single glimpse of herself she’d let me have? Why had she given me back that stolen memory, like a note pressed into my palm, and then melted back into nowhere instead of approaching us?

  Finally I flung the light covers off me, my limbs so heavy with fatigue that they almost felt light, like a magician’s trick.

  “Lina, I have to go,” I said, pacing the length of the room. “I have to walk. There’s something, I almost have it, it’s that perfume Koštana made for Mama. My mind keeps snagging on it, and I don’t know why. I’ll think better if I’m walking.”

  She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes, like a little girl. “Then I’ll come with you.”

  “You’re tired. And you don’t think better on your feet like I do.”

  “You’re tired, too. And I don’t want to be alone. Please?” She peered up at me, fists still balled against her cheekbones. “Let me come? Or stay with me?”

  “I can’t.” She closed her eyes so slowly, like shutters lowering, and I steeled myself against the pain of abandoning her like this, of how selfish I was being. “I’ll be back soon, I promise. Just try to sleep.”

  “I know why you’re really going, Riss. I can feel it.” She shifted, covers and mattress rustling like husks beneath her, until her back was turned to me. I nearly winced at the venom in her voice, so unusual from her. “I wish you’d at least try not to lie to me, you know?”

  I stood in the darkness for a moment, shifting from foot
to foot, listening to her ragged breathing and trying to think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t be a lie. When I couldn’t, I climbed out the window before I could say anything worse.

  Outside, I leaned against the side of the house, stones still warm from the day breathing their heat into my back. My phone screen glowed overbright, like an artifact from the future that had no place in my hands.

  Are you awake? I typed, my fingers trembling. I’d seen him just the night before, and I couldn’t understand why I felt this way, so desperate and fretful. Like I would sooner collapse from his absence than beneath the weight of everything I’d learned tonight.

  The response chimed in seconds, only three snaps of my wristband in. Of course.

  I snorted a laugh, a wave of relief washing over me. He was there. I would see him soon. Why? It’s so late.

  Waiting for a rare specimen of the Night-Blooming Iris. I’m told the color and the scent are second to none.

  My cheeks rushed with blood. That was cheesier than expected. Not saying I don’t like it, exactly. Just an observation.

  I’d like to see you say that to my face, flower girl.

  What’s my prize if I do?

  Anything you like. More of a promise than a prize, really.

  I leaned my head back against the stones and took a long, openmouthed breath. The beach again, then. I’ll see you soon.

  HE’D BROUGHT ME flowers and fairy lights. The flowers were clipped, stemless and strewn all across a fluffy red blanket, with battery-powered LED strings spooled around and through them. There were candles, too, along a broader perimeter, little tea lights that marked out the edges of our territory. An oasis on the dark beach.

  I smiled at him as I eased myself cross-legged onto an edge of the blanket, the petals spotlighted in the glimmering, holiday light between us. I rubbed one between my fingers, silk on the topside, fuzzy velvet underneath. He smiled back, so wide and white, his face breathtaking with its Valhalla angles lit up from beneath. He was shirtless already, an amber pendant dangling from a leather cord around his neck, a tiny fossil suspended in it. I couldn’t quite tell what it was. A centipede caught midwriggle, maybe, something sectioned with too many legs.

  “Did I miss something?” I said. “Is it our two-day anniversary, and me without a gift for you?”

  “That’s five-day counting from when we met, and not to worry, we aren’t official,” he assured me, running his hand through his hair. It was already down, the spiraling silver earrings glinting from amid the blond, and I wanted to reach over and bury my hands in it with an almost feral desire, as if touch had become a need like breathing. “Though I did bring you something special to mark this nonoccasion.”

  He twisted behind him—the muscles in his abdomen leaped at the swivel in the most interesting way—and turned back to me with his hand held out, a cupcake glistening with dark berries sitting incongruously small and dainty on his large palm.

  “It’s a skyr cake, with blueberries,” he said at my bemused look, and for the first time he looked a shade uncertain. “A very small one, obviously. Usually they’re full-size, proper cakes. I thought you might like it; it doesn’t taste like anything you have here. We were speaking of flavors the other night, and your mother’s desserts . . . my mother always prepared this for my birthday. It tastes like home to me, more than anything else. The happiest of my home. So I thought I would make some for you, whisk you there with me for a moment.”

  “I . . .” I swiped my hand across my eyes. At least it was too late to make a mess of any lingering eyeliner. The slim silver lining of these long days. “Thank you.”

  The cake was little even in my hand; I peeled back the wrapper and took half of it in one bite. The blueberries burst across my tongue first, a bright dominance of flavor, crushed tart and sweet between my teeth. The cake’s base was crumbled butter biscuits and the frosting cold and densely creamy, something like cheesecake but much lighter, more air and less tang, with a startling, earthy hint of resin. Fjolar was watching me so intently he must have seen the moment I tasted it, that surprising, ghostly scrape of bark against my palate.

  “Birkir,” he said. “Birch liquor. Unusual flavor, isn’t it? And the skyr is like your yogurt, but without quite so much zest.”

  I took the second bite and chewed it slowly, rolling the cream across my tongue, savoring the grit and butter of the crust. As soon as I swallowed the last of it, I set the paper aside and nearly vaulted myself across the blanket, settling onto his lap with my legs wound around his hips. “Thank you,” I said again, against his mouth. “That was so kind. No one’s ever—”

  Liar liar liar, a small, outraged part of me sneered. You know someone has. Think of all the flowers he gave you, for no reason at all. Think of all the quiet and strength, all those years of holding your hand and expecting nothing back.

  “—done something so thoughtful for me,” I finished, nose to nose with Fjolar.

  He exhaled once into my mouth, then buried his hands in my hair and kissed me, hard and deep. As soon as his tongue swept wet against mine I could feel everything inside me clench and rise up toward him, wanting deeper, wanting more. But he pulled back as soon as I leaned into him, brushing his lips lightly over my cheek and the lobe of my ear.

  “Will you show me?” he whispered, his breath setting every minute hair inside my ear to tingling, like tiny lightning rods. “I’d like to see these flowers bloom, Iris. To see them burn as wild and beautiful as you.”

  My heart beat frantically against his chest. I wanted to do it so badly, to call the flowers’ fractals for him, but I was so tired. Even abuzz as my body was, electrified from all his nearness, I didn’t think my muscles had it in me to power that bright surge.

  “Fjolar . . . ,” I said hesitantly. “I’m not sure I can. . . . It’s been such a long day, I haven’t even told you all of it. . . .”

  “Would you like to try? I’ll be here to help you, make you stronger.”

  I considered it. Why not? Why not make something gorgeous out of this hideous day, show him what beauty I could muster?

  I nodded, and he lifted me like I weighed nothing, like my bones were a hollow bird’s and not my own, then shifted me around so that I sat in his lap with my back against his chest. With one hand he swept all my hair over my right shoulder and sank his open mouth onto the tender space at the base of my neck. I arched against him like a strung bow, feeling all surging quicksilver on the inside, his lips and tongue the sweetest, tickling pleasure against my skin.

  “Will you bloom them for me?” he whispered.

  I could barely breathe, and I so desperately didn’t want him to stop. “Yes,” I said faintly. “Just let me . . . I just need a minute.”

  I focused on the cluster closest to me, a pile of black-eyed Susans and pale crocuses, their colors both muted and strange in the LED light. My eyes nearly crossed with the effort as the flowers multiplied, murky yellow petals and muddy blues racing around each other, like spirals of falling dominoes tipping each other over. Fjolar chuckled into my ear, nipping at the lobe.

  “Very nice, flower girl, so nice. Could we see a true spectacle, do you think? All of them together, rising toward the infinite.”

  He gripped my upper arms until I gasped, and it would have been almost painful if he hadn’t run his lips down the line of my neck. I could feel the heat spread between my legs and flare into a pulsing throb, and even with my vision blurred I pulled at the flowers as hard as I could.

  I would do it. For him, I would do it.

  They burst into the spectacle he’d wanted, a fractal of component fractals like a massive, turning clockwork flower. It rotated like some steampunk dream, as if my glass sculptures had been used to build a gorgeous and infernal machine powered by petals. Gears of gum cistus, white with crimson-and-orange insides, notched into spears of violet larkspur, while silk vine and rose bay roped between and through them. Leaves, stems, and ferny frills spiderwebbed throughout in precise patterns
, like an overlay of a stained-glass mosaic. And the fairy lights shed a luminous corona around it all—halo within halo of strung beads of light, shaping the fractal into a glowing orb.

  I dimly wondered if somewhere nearby, a thoroughly mind-blown individual thought they were seeing a UFO hovering over the beach.

  “Oh,” Fjolar breathed into my ear. “Oh, Iris.”

  I sagged against him, my heart beating sluggishly, as if it were pumping bog water instead of blood. I was so tired my muscles fired twitches at random, and still I wanted him, the contours of his chest in sharp relief against my back. He feathered his fingers down my arms and gently flipped us so that I lay on my back, my hair fanned out as he hovered above me, propped up on his forearms. The ends of his hair tickled on my face, got in my mouth, made me want to sneeze. But I didn’t dare move for fear he would.

  Exhausted as I was, I felt so lit by the way he looked at me, lips parted in awe, eyes heavy-lidded with desire. The flowers and loops of lights beneath me dug painfully into my spine, but they also reflected in his irises. Almost by instinct, I tugged at that too.

  I’d never fractaled eyes before, had never thought to. Even as my own eyelids grew swollen-heavy, dragging toward sleep, his irises filled the space between us like a single compound eye. Silver and gray striations flickered above electric-blue orbs, like captive lightning bolts, and even his pale eyelashes were fringed throughout like transparent lace, around white sclera threaded faintly through with red.

  It was stunning. It was also improbably grotesque, the ugliest thing I’d ever made.

  “Look at that!” he whispered, delighted as a child. “My eyes! Look what you made for me, you wondrous thing.”

  “Thank you, I . . .” My mouth was so dry. It was hard to talk. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “I don’t like it,” he said, low, eyes narrowing. “I fucking love it, flower girl.”

  He began kissing me then, like hot summer rain, a shower down my neck and chest.