The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,209

What else can I say?’

Mima took a drink, hardened enough to its unique bouquet not to wince. ‘OK,’ she said softly, in a measured tone, ‘but if this is to work, there’s something you should know.’

Don’t, Lileem thought. Please don’t, Mima. She had stared at the steaming pans for so long, her eyes were watering.

‘Sure,’ Terez said cautiously.

‘It was me who took you from the Uigenna,’ Mima said, then drained her cup noisily. Lileem glanced round quickly and saw tears in Mima’s eyes, but Lileem could tell they were only an effect of the tart wine.

Terez just stared at his sister.

‘Did you hear me?’ Mima said, refilling her goblet. ‘I aborted your inception. It was me. I thought I was doing the right thing.’

Terez looked away from her and stared down at the table. Silence was absolute, but for the inappropriately cheerful bubble of the pans. For long seconds, no one moved or spoke. Then Lileem saw that Terez was shaking. She glanced at Mima, who caught her eye. Mima’s expression was cold, somehow accusatory, but also slightly puzzled. The sound Terez made was a dreadful thing, like the whines and howls when he’d been ill. It was low at first, a hideous continuous moan.

Lileem dropped whatever she was holding, and she would never remember what that was, and began to move across the kitchen towards Terez.

But Mima said, ‘No! Get out of here.’ She went to her brother and wrapped her arms around him.

Lileem left the room without looking back, heart pounding. She stood outside the door in the main hallway of the house and saw Ulaume sitting on the stairs. Together they listened to Terez sob in a choked strangled way for about fifteen minutes, and by then, the vegetables had begun to burn.

Mima opened the kitchen door and surprised Lileem and Ulaume who virtually had their ears pressed against it. ‘You’d better come in and salvage what you can,’ she said.

When Flick eventually came home, Ulaume and Lileem were engaged in cooking with rather more industry than it required and Terez was sitting stunned at the table, with Mima holding one of his hands. How this evening would progress, Lileem could not foresee.

She and Ulaume set the table and dished up the food, which was partly peppered with charred fragments. A paralysing atmosphere gripped the room. Flick looked mortified, and none of them had yet told him exactly what had happened. He was sensitive and must have guessed for himself.

Terez roused himself to eat. He behaved like a polite child, which Lileem found really confusing. She wished he’d get back to normal. She wished Mima had kept her mouth shut. What was the point of telling him that? To absolve her own guilt: that was the point, she decided. But maybe Mima was right, and the only way she and Terez could ever be friends was if he knew the truth. That lie gnawed away at the foundations of their relationship and only by gouging it out could the situation between them improve.

Lileem conspired with Ulaume in an attempt to bring some kind of normalcy to the occasion. They tried to crack jokes and conduct their usual banter, but it was difficult. Lileem wondered what was wrong with Flick. Was he worried that if Terez became more of a regular fixture in their lives, he’d rekindle his relationship with Ulaume? It had seemed so intense between them after Terez’s recovery. Now, perhaps remembering that time also, Flick was sombre and appeared to be only half in the room with them.

Before the meal was finished, Terez pushed his plate away from him. ‘Mima, can we talk?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

He stood up and she led him into the yard at the back of the house.

‘She told him,’ Lileem hissed at Flick, the moment the door was closed. ‘He knows what she did.’

‘Oh,’ Flick said. ‘That’s… bad.’

‘It’s not going to change anything,’ Ulaume said.

Flick smiled weakly. He took one of Ulaume’s hands in his own and kissed it. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’

Ulaume laughed. ‘What? Has everyhar gone mad tonight?’

Flick said nothing.

‘I know,’ Ulaume said. ‘Relax. I love you too.’

The evening was cold now and the stars looked hard and sharp in the clear sky. Terez stared up at them and Mima stood behind him, hugging herself. She wished she’d put her coat on.

‘You should have told me before,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘I really didn’t know what to do for the best. You