Chapter Four

I grasp a swathe of slippery silk as it plunges toward the cobbled street seeking stains. It would be easier to work without gloves, but Halna would scream if I ever touched the smooth cloth with my bare hands, because the silk is more valuable than a cursed girl. I toss it onto the table in a heap.

“You’re in a fine mood today.” Kuran snorts.

I turn my back to her and scowl. Of all days for our aunt to fall ill, it’s this one. I can’t find any excuse to leave the market stall, and of course Kuran hasn’t forgotten last night. She won’t let me out of her sight for even a moment, so I bristle in silence.

I return to mending the rip in my scarf and go over my plan. It’s as full of holes as a sieve, but it’s the best I can come up with. The hardest part will be slipping away. No, the hardest part will be leaving my sister, because if I fail—

“Do you have any pineapple cloth?” An old lady with a short cloud of curly hair appears at the table we set up in the market. Though her tunic and trousers look simple at a glance, I can tell by the tight weave of the fabric and the fine stitching of its lines that she is someone with money.

I point out a length of pale off-white fabric hanging from the canvas roof. It’s beautifully embroidered with delicate flowers along its scalloped edges. The cloth is stiff to the touch and half transparent. I’ve only dared touch it once, for it is more expensive than silk—not because the materials are hard to come by, but because few people make it anymore.

“How much?” she asks, and I shrug. I’m only here to guard our wares, not to sell it.

“Narra,” Kuran hisses at me and walks up to the woman with an instant smile.

“I’m going to get some water,” I mumble and hop to my feet. I hastily grab a water jug as I slink away behind her back.

I check for Guardians, but they must be busy elsewhere. There are so many things to prepare, and I don’t have much time. I jog down a few wide streets and stop at an address I dug out of my mother’s old notebook. It’s not far from the market where we’ve set up our stall.

I stare at a tall wooden gate with the Jal crest emblazoned on its double doors. I have daydreamed what it looks like, but I have no memory of the place I was born, and it bothers me the way Bato-Ko does. Like I should know it but I do not. Like it is something that has been taken from me.

I raise my hand to knock at the gate and notice an orasyon for protection carved into the old wood. I pass my hands over the posts, and the magic brushes against my open palm like a feather, tickling slightly. Only the invited may enter, it reads above a carved symbol. I check the sun. I’ve made good time, so curiosity gets the better of me.

“My blood allows me entrance,” I declare and push the gates open. I do not sense even a ripple to indicate I’ve crossed the threshold, and it pleases me that not even my grandmother could deny that I belong here.

Beyond the gate, four buildings are arranged around a central square where the sunlight pools. Once it must have been grand. The buildings are two stories, with curving roof beams and wide windows.

This all would have been Kuran’s, if our mother had not taken us from Bato-Ko when we were children. This home should have been mine, too. There are enough rooms for generations of Jals to live together, but only one woman occupies it now. No laughter echoes here, and the patch of grass where children should play grows thick with weeds. It is a mausoleum. For my sister’s sake, I fight the urge to run.

I pull a folded letter from my pocket and head to the largest building. The letter contains my meager hopes for reconciliation—that Yirin Jal might have pity on her granddaughter Kuran and take her in.

Before I can wedge the paper under the door, an old woman pulls it open. She grips a cane with gnarled hands. From its carved shaft, the eyes of the seven supreme Diwata peer at me with glittering shell eyes, weighing my worth with grooved lines that suggest laughter.

Yirin is a pious woman, my mother always said, too righteous to see past the tip of her nose. When I raise my eyes to meet my grandmother’s, I see my mother in the stiffness of her back, the iron of her gaze, and the sadness that creases the edges of her lips. But she is short, as I am short. We have the same flat nose, straight hair, and wide mouth. She could be an older version of myself.

Yirin’s cane clatters to the floorboards. I look like the woman that my mother hated most in the world, and not my father, as she always told me. Another of her lies.

“Narra?” Yirin’s voice cracks.

My cheeks burn hot. Freezing Hells, how could she not know who I am when we look so much alike?

This could ruin everything. I toss the letter in her face and flee.

I return to the market without stopping and only remember my empty jug when I spot Kuran. Three black-uniformed Guardians glare at her from across the counter of our stall, and though Kuran laughs and flashes smiles at them, they don’t return even a flicker of emotion.

My hands tremble as I go straight to my sister’s side and press myself against her as if I’m glued there. I won’t let them take her without taking me, too.

“Where did you go?” Kuran asks. She doesn’t even notice me toss the empty jug under the table. “These most honorable Guardians were warning me about a rash of thefts lately.”

One of the Guardians looks me up and down, and I flinch from the coolness of her gaze, but none of the three is a curly-haired Guardian with unusually dark eyes. I praise the Heavens for that small mercy. The not-quite memory flares into life once again, and as I follow the curve of his smile, the air seems to warm. I sputter at the intrusive thought. “Water.” I gasp and reach for the empty jug. This time I curse that I didn’t fill it on the way back.

“Please call us if you see anything strange.” The Guardian ignores my antics.

“Of course, po.” Kuran bows, and I remember myself a moment later. I bow stiffly, and the Guardians move on.

“What really happened yesterday?” Kuran turns me around to face her, but I can’t look her in the eyes. “Tell me that you are in trouble, and we leave this instant.”

Everything threatens to spill out, and I choke on my words. “I thought someone saw my marks, but I must have been mistaken.” I offer the feeblest of smiles. “And if they’re looking for a thief, it’s not me.”

She lets out a long breath. “Good, because I’ve been invited to sing at a party and you’re coming with me.”

When she has a free night, sometimes Kuran joins Tanu to perform for extra coin, but it seems odd that she would be invited to someone’s home in Bato-Ko so soon. I fight my unease. “There’s no way Manay Halna will allow it.”

“She will.” Kuran grins. “You’ll see.”

…

I hide my face in my hands. The shouting is so loud that I swear the entire hillside can hear it.

“You will not take Narra,” Manay Halna repeats. “I will not allow it. Think of the scandal!”

Like most people we call auntie or uncle, Halna is not really blood. She was our mother’s friend and business partner. She inherited two Jals when Inay disappeared and would be happier with only one, but I don’t hate her. Some days I think she’s right to be afraid of me, because even I am afraid.

“Even if it were a scandal, and it’s not, no one cares who we are!”

The thin canvas of Halna’s tent muffles nothing. I jam my hands into my pockets, unsure where to run or hide, when I spot Tanu headed toward me. I make desperate signals for help, but his ears are already as red as mine feel.

“You insolent girl! You think you know better than me? I have given you shelter for months and only ask your help in return.”

Help? More like every bit of money we manage to scrounge up for ourselves. There’s always some unexpected expense that she needs help with: a new dress because we can’t look shabby in front of our customers, a new coat of paint on the wagons even though we just repainted this year, money for sweets to entice shoppers to our stall that we never get to taste even when some are left over. She takes everything and gives nothing in return.

“You are not our mother!” Kuran shouts.

“How dare you talk back to your elder! Someone needs to teach you terrible girls some respect!”

I rush into the tent and throw myself in front of Kuran. The flat of Halna’s outstretched hand pauses two fingers from my ear, and she shrieks with frustration. She curls back as though singed, even though she doesn’t touch a hair on my head. I almost wish she would try it, but she wouldn’t dare. She already wears red to counter any ill luck I might bring, even though it makes her skin look sallow.

“Please, Manay Halna. It’s been hard being back in Bato-Ko.” I lower my chin deferentially and try to make myself small, even though I want to scream back instead. We don’t need more trouble.

“What do you know about hard?” Halna caws. “What’s hard is taking care of two ungrateful brats—”

I grab Kuran’s sleeve and drag her out of the tent before she can say any more, because for now we still need Halna. Seeing Tanu waiting for her doesn’t cool the flush of anger in her cheeks. She rips her arm from my grip and strides up to him.

“Tanu, marry me and take us away from here,” she commands. No one can deny her anything. It is her power, and she knows how to wield it.

“Kuran, no.” Tanu blinks his blue eyes like an owl.

I wait for the other half of the sentence: “not today” but “next year” or “in a few years,” because they are both too young.

“I may only be nineteen, but I’ve been working since I was old enough to talk, and I can sing with you. You know I wouldn’t be a burden.”

“I’ve come to tell you that I am joining the Baylan. I can’t—we can’t…”

I stand there motionless and pray that this is a joke. I would have bet my life savings on Tanu and Kuran getting married one day. It’s always been the three of us together on the road, and I never imagined anything different, because I know in my bones that they love each other. I feel my heart cracking, and I can only imagine what Kuran might be feeling.

Kuran asks him to repeat his words twice and goes so still that I worry she might never blink again. I writhe where I stand, unable to look away from the wreckage sure to follow. She rarely shows what she feels, but I know she feels even more than I do.

“I’m sorry, Kuran.” His cheeks are ruddy with shame as he turns around and walks away at a clip, no doubt unsure he could deny her twice.

Freezing Hells, what just happened? I gasp for air. I brace for our pot to go flying toward him, but Kuran sinks to the ground. I slide down beside her, careful to leave a hand’s width of space between us. For all the world, I wish I could throw my arms around her or offer my shoulder to lean on, but our lives are so upside down that I don’t know if I’m making things better or worse by being here. All I know is I want the hurt to stop. First our mother, and now Tanu. Our world keeps getting smaller.

“I can’t keep living like this. This isn’t a life,” she says.

Tanu has been with us longer than anyone. Our families traveled the same festival circuits for years. So many nights, the three of us sat around the fire swapping tales. We would challenge one another to see who could tell the funniest thing that happened all day. He always lost, because humor was never his gift, but he never complained. I can’t imagine a future on the road without him. Kuran is not the only one who is losing him. I will miss him, too.

Kuran takes my bare hand, and I snatch it away from her, though I want desperately to hold on.

Her jaw clamps tight at the unspoken rebuke. I know what she will say next, even though I disagree.

“The curse is an ignorant superstition, just like whistling to call the wind.” She whistles boldly, and I cringe. “Or not sweeping the floor at night. Or eating round fruit on New Year’s Day. Tanu never found any mention of birthmarks in those boring books of his.” Her voice cracks, but her expression remains fierce. “Whatever happened in your past life to earn those marks, they mean you have been given another chance in this one. I know you, Narra. You’re not a monster. You are my sister. Manay Halna is just too superstitious.”

But I’m the one who wakes screaming in the early hours of dawn, choking for air; the one who hears voices in dead languages—not Kuran. I know this curse is real, just not what it means, just as I don’t understand the strange vision I had when that curly-haired Guardian looked my way. Perhaps the curse is all just my imagination, but I do not move closer to her.

“I’m going to the party. Please come with me.” Her shoulders quiver as if she’s a bee about to take flight, and I might have flown with her if shame and guilt did not weigh me down. “Let’s do something daring. Let’s be young and foolish. We have the rest of our lives to be sensible.”

I fight the urge to smooth her pain away. I know she can’t speak about Tanu yet. Her eyes fill with water, and I crack. For all her fiery words, Tanu was her first love. And he was my friend. She’s not the only one he walked away from.

But we are in Bato-Ko during the Sundo, I remind myself. The streets echo with music. The air is thick with promise and the heady scent of scattered flowers. Here, I could believe that humans might grow wings and fly or that curses might be broken.

I smile for her, even though she can see through it. My plans slip a little further from my grasp and threaten to come undone, but she’s my sister, and I would do anything to make her smile.

“We’ll need to find something better to wear,” I say.

“I love you,” she says. She only tells me this when she’s trying to get her way.

“You’re a pain in my side,” I grumble as she hugs me in plain sight of Halna, utterly unafraid of my curse and whatever it might bring. Sometimes I wish Kuran hated me like everyone else, because leaving her will feel like a knife to my heart.

But there is one more day before the competition begins, so I can give one night to her. I search for the glass fortress in the distance. Its transparent walls reflect the red light of the setting sun, and beyond it snakes a dark smudge. I wonder if those are storm clouds gathering, called forth by Kuran’s whistling, and I shiver in the cold breeze.