the temple with Ori, who wanted to ask the oracle—Mom—about something. So Ori dropped her off here like she was a kid that needed to be watched, even though she knew we didn’t like each other much.
Isae had a full cup of tea in front of her. As far as I could tell she hadn’t even touched it since I had made it an hour before.
“So,” she said, after I had folded the dough over itself and slammed it down again. “Do you come home often?”
“No,” I said, and I was surprised by how sharp the answer came out. Normally my gift didn’t let me talk that way to people.
“Any particular reason?”
I paused. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to answer her question. Most people didn’t really want to hear about my troubles, even if they asked, which meant I literally couldn’t talk about them. Grief had a way of doing that, making people uncomfortable.
“Too many shadows in this house,” I said, inching toward the subject slowly.
“Ah,” Isae said. And then—to my surprise—she said, “Want to tell me about them?”
I laughed. “You want to hear about them?”
She shrugged. “We don’t seem to be good at talking about the more casual stuff, and I don’t have the time for that anyway. So. Yeah. I want to hear about them.”
I nodded, and slapped the dough ball down on the counter. I licked some of the raw dough off my fingers before washing them in the sink and wiping them dry on a cloth. Then I led her to the living room. The whole house smelled yeasty and spiced from the bread. My pants were still marked with flour fingerprints.
I pointed to a part of the living room floor that looked just like every other part of the floor, worn and wooden.
“There,” I said. “That’s where his body fell.”
Isae didn’t ask me who I was talking about. She knew the story—everyone in Thuvhe knew the story. Instead, she crouched next to the spot where my father died, and ran her fingers over the rough grain.
I just stood there, frozen. And then I started to talk.
“I sat with his body for hours before I cleaned it up,” I said. “Part of me expected . . . I don’t know. For him to wake up, maybe. Or for me to wake up from the nightmare.” I let out a little sound. Something small and pained. “Then I had to deal with it. Wrap up his body. Find a bucket and fill it with warm water. Get a bunch of old rags. Imagine standing there at the linen closet trying to figure out how many rags you need to clean up your father’s blood.”
I choked, but not from my currentgift this time—on tears. I hadn’t cried around another person since my currentgift developed. I had thought it was just out of the question for me now, like asking people rude questions or laughing when someone took a spill on an icy road.
Isae began to mouth a prayer. Only it wasn’t one of comfort or even the one a person said when someone died. It was a blessing, for a sacred place.
Isae thought the place where my father died was sacred.
I knelt next to her, wanting to hear her voice as it shaped the words. Her hand wrapped around mine, and it was more than strange, touching someone who I didn’t even know, didn’t even like. But she squeezed tight, so I wouldn’t let go, and finished up the prayer quietly.
I still didn’t let go.
“I’ve never been able to tell someone that before,” I said. “It makes people too uncomfortable.”
“Takes more than that to make me uncomfortable,” she said.
Her cool fingers sweep over my cheekbone, catching tears. She tucks a curl behind my ear.
“Your definition of a good memory needs work,” she says, softly, the very gentlest of jokes.
“I hadn’t cried in seasons, unless I was alone,” I say. “No one was ever there to comfort me, not even my mother. All the tragedies of my life, they’re too hard for most people to handle. But you could handle it. You could handle whatever I told you.”
Her hand is still behind my ear.
Then it’s in my hair, twisting the curls around her fingers.
And I kiss her. Once: soft, brief.
Again, harder, with her kissing me back.
Again, like we can’t stand to be apart.
My rough hands find the back of her neck, and we’re pressed together, fitted together, tangled together.
We bury ourselves as deep in this little pocket of