Chapter 16 Just Like Rainbow Ruby

16

Just Like Rainbow Ruby

Before I left The Bitters, still off-kilter from the harrowing encounter with the Dread Lady, Elena had forbidden me from doing any investigating on my own. Moving forward, she'd said, this was a matter for the quorum to pursue. I was also strictly prohibited from traversing the veil until we got to the bottom of the trespass, in case the dark god was still lurking on the other side. Should they need me, I'd be notified, but I wasn't—in Elena's words—to take it upon myself to add "Daria Avramov, Devil-Eating Detective" to my résumé.

In the meantime, my houseguest was still spending most of her time napping, waking only to eat ravenously and sit out on the porch with me for some fresh air before the drowsiness overcame her again. I'd have worried more about the excessive sleep and hunger, but she seemed perfectly lucid and healthy while awake—consistent with Ivy's theory that the spell itself was sapping her of strength, using her own energy to maintain itself. Whenever I left the cottage for work at the Emporium, I reminded her how crucial it was to never leave without me, emphasizing the dangers of venturing into the Witch Woods alone (though I gave it more of a "sinister prowlers and teenage daredevils" slant). She remained adamant that she didn't want to be taken to a hospital or police station under any circumstances, and though I checked the Thistle Grove PD website and searched NamUS.gov each day in case a missing person report popped up, there was never anything new, no one matching her description.

Eventually, I'd have to press the issue. But the truth was, I liked having her there. Even when she was sleeping, it was if I could feel her, her mere presence in the cottage like the serenity hovering in the eye of the storm. As far as I was concerned, she could stay as long as she wanted, or at least until we got to the bottom of whatever was afflicting her.

After work that Wednesday, Ivy had come over for drinks and a tête-à-tête about how to best handle things with her. We'd agreed that it was both unfair and unkind to keep the existence of magic from our stranger; she had a right to know what might have stolen her memory, Ivy argued. Once it returned, we'd always be able to glamour her into forgetting what we'd told her, though the idea already sat poorly with both of us.

When Ivy grew a tiny primrose for her between cupped hands, and I conjured a billow of ectoplasm that swirled like an icy charcoal mist around the three of us, she hadn't balked even for a moment.

"Magic," she'd breathed instead. She gazed down at her own small beringed hands, flipping them over to examine both palms and backs, as if she might discern some proof of the paranormal shimmering under her own skin. "How completely fucking wonderful. I guess I…back when I was me, maybe I always figured it had to be real, somewhere out there? Because, I don't know. It just doesn't feel like that much of a surprise."

We had also decided that she needed a provisional name, something she felt comfortable using until we rediscovered her real one. So Ivy and I tossed out options, one after another, until we narrowed it down to three contenders: Elise (me), Amanda (Ivy), and Maya (Ivy).

"Maya," she'd decided, with a slow, satisfied nod. "That's the one. I mean, it's not the one. But it's close, somehow. Feels good to me."

"So this is Dash's new friend!" Amrita announced as she ushered us in to Saanvi's foyer, where the commingled aromas of Indian and Mexican were already simmering in the air. Since we weren't likely to find any answers to Maya's amnesia in books, I'd decided to pull a few more accomplices into the circle of trust. Once I'd filled my sister in on how I found Maya and what had happened since, she'd immediately offered her expertise in oblivion glamours, along with the obligatory dinner invite. "Maya, right?"

"For now," Maya agreed. "Subject to change. Damn, it smells amazing in here. Thank you for having me. And I have no guest gift for you, I'm sorry. I should have thought to bring something. That Dasha would've had to spring for, ha. Slightly defeating the purpose."

"Oh, that's alright. Believe me, we have too much of absolutely everything already."

We shucked our shoes, lining them up under the coatrack before hooking our coats. Something about the way Maya had phrased that last bit niggled at me, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was.

"I have to say, from what Dash has told me, you seem to be taking all this remarkably in stride," my sister remarked. "I'd have expected several more shades of shock and trauma."

"They're probably in there, somewhere," Maya said, straightening up. She was in more of my borrowed clothes, a black V-neck she'd knotted into a crop top so she wasn't swimming in it, over a pair of leggings that were hilariously high-waisted on her. "But I've been too busy either eating or sleeping to really delve into it, you know? Maybe I'll cry some later."

"Fair enough," my sister said equably. "We have a nice weeping couch for that. Mid-century modern, very absorbent upholstery. In the meantime, quick tour before dinner?"

I trailed after them as she led a wonder-struck Maya around a house that, unassuming as it was from the outside, felt like a carnival of antique treasures tucked in every corner. I'd gotten used to it over the years, but Maya's sheer delight at the massive Hermle grandfather clock looming in one corner, with its intricately carved and polished veneer, was contagious. She ran her hands over everything with a child's unabashed enthusiasm, marveling over the clean lines of the walnut Shaker dining table, the carvings of the three storybook bears on the rocking chair in the living room. At some point, Kira slipped loose of Saanvi, who was still in the kitchen, and slunk around our feet like a kitten, pointing out her favorites to a rapt Maya—the cabinet of Lalique crystal figurines and blown-glass flowers, an authentic Ming dynasty vase that I still had no idea how my father had procured. A mirror of unknown provenance with a frame of lily pads and lotuses surrounding green-tinted glass that made it look like a pond set into the wall.

"This is incredible," Maya kept saying, smiling so wide her little face could barely contain it. "Like a wonderland of precious things. How did your parents afford all this?"

"My mother is a ruthless negotiator," Amrita informed her. "And it was my parents' favorite thing to do together, for years."

As they moved ahead of us, toward the dining room, Kira tugged hard on my hand. I dropped into a squat in front of her, tucking a gossamer strand of hair behind her ear as she gazed at me with her mother's dark eyes, heavily lashed pools of black in her sweet face.

"Auntie, your friend," she whispered, biting her lip. "She's really shiny."

"What do you mean, lovey?" I asked, glancing up at Maya's retreating back, the milk glass pendants in the hallway bringing out the cinnamon and gold in her curls. "Do you mean all her rings and earrings? She does have a lot of pretty ones. And really bright hair."

Kira shook her head, making a frustrated little moue. "No, it's…" She fluttered her hands in a broad, enthusiastic circle. "It's just all over. Like a unicorn, or Rainbow Ruby? Or Butterbean's Café? Do you know, Auntie Dash? Do you remember the sparkles?"

"Sure I do, cookie," I said hastily, not wanting to get her worked up right before dinner. Kira wasn't prone to tantrums, but when one did arrive, it usually hit somewhere on whatever scale they used to measure monsoons. "Sure! Sparkly just like Rainbow Ruby, I'll tell her you said that. She'll love it."

Kira relaxed into a pearly milk-toothed smile. "Yeah, she will. She's really nice, Auntie Dash. I want her to read to me after dinner. Not you, okay?"

I studied her for another moment, puzzled and just the tiniest bit miffed. As boundlessly affectionate as she was with her little family, Kira had a decent stranger-danger radar and was standoffish with new people. Becoming enamored with a guest wasn't like her. But Maya did have a quality of grace to her, a lightness of being at striking odds with her circumstances. How did that play into things, I wondered?

By the time we convened in the dining room, Saanvi had finished ferrying out the night's offerings—dal makhani, butter chicken, garlic naan, guacamole, and pico de gallo. At some point, my dad and Saanvi had started these fusion dinners as a gag, but like many of their longer-running jokes, Mexi-Punjabi Thursdays had become a tradition, even funnier for the fact that neither logic nor alliteration was involved. (I'd invited Ivy to come, given how much she'd once loved them, but she'd declined. Whatever was happening between us, she wasn't ready yet to extend it to spending time with my family.)

"Dasha love," Saanvi said, sweeping over to envelop me in a tight hug. She was still in her meticulous workday makeup, but had changed out of her suit into sweatpants and house slippers, the way she always did as soon as she got home. On her, even velour managed to look regal. She smelled like an entire bouquet of cooking spices, along with the light plumeria perfume that always clung to her long hair. "How are you doing, my girl? Amrita filled me in on all of it, but I wanted to hear it from you."

"I'm okay," I assured her, giving her a squeeze. "Really. It was a little touch and go Friday night. But I got through it, with Ivy's help. I can tell you a little more about it over dinner, if you want."

Saanvi pulled back, her liquid gaze shifting between my eyes, appraising. "No," she decided. "Let's all relax instead. The lost girl…poor thing, she must be so overwhelmed. Maybe a little bit of normal—or what passes for it with us—would be good for her. As well as you."

"Yeah. I think so, too."

She cupped my face between her hands, brushing the pads of her thumbs over my cheekbones. "And you're sure you won't come back and stay with us a few nights? We have room for her, too, of course. I wouldn't want either of you to be alone."

I nuzzled my cheek into her palm, thinking of all the nights she'd found me on the weeping couch instead of asleep, then taken my head onto her nightgowned lap and stroked my hair while I sobbed myself raw, yearning for the other side, my mother, my father. The terrible abundance of everything I'd lost.

"I'm fine," I murmured. "I promise. If I wasn't, I wouldn't keep it from you again. Okay?"

She hesitated for a moment longer, then gave a stout little nod. "Okay, my girl. But we're here anytime, whenever you need us. Day or night."

"I know," I whispered back, tears igniting in the back of my eyes. "That's exactly why I'll be okay."

I'd had my reservations about how well we'd be able to skirt sensitive topics, given the maelstrom swirling around us, but we somehow managed it. Saanvi, Amrita, and I took turns giving Maya our complicated origin story—"We're like blended family superheroes!" being Amrita's take—everyone dove back in for seconds, and then we listened to the various dramas that had transpired at Saanvi's office, the Emporium, and Kira's daycare. Next to me, Maya grinned unabashedly through it all, her honey-hazel gaze sliding over all of us with an emotion I couldn't pinpoint, an almost proprietary pride—as if, out of all the families who might have found her, she couldn't imagine a better one than ours.

Watching the joy she took in us gave me a rolling, painful pang, a reminder of everything we were missing. How uproarious these dinners had once been, back when my mother and father were here, too.

"I know, Dash," Amrita said, her voice just a little hoarse as she reached beneath the table to squeeze my hand. "I can feel how much they're not here, too."

At some point, talking about the daycare bully got Kira so riled up that little plumes of ectoplasm emanated from the crown of her head, like some vengeful goddess's crown. Maya watched her in awestruck wonder, her lips parted, rapt. "A baby witch!" she whispered to me, laughter in her voice. "Does that ever happen in her daycare ?"

I chuckled, shrugging. "Happens to all of us when we're little. Mini manifestations. And she goes to our witches-only daycare, for obvious reasons."

A back rub from her mother quickly soothed Kira; it usually only took physical contact with an adult witch to wind down the kind of minor, emotionally driven spells children manifested by accident. After an ice-cream dessert, the three of us cleared the table, companionably rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher while Saanvi whisked a very reluctant Kira off for a bath.

"So, would you mind me taking a look?" Amrita asked Maya, once we'd settled in the living room with wine. "I know Ivy already examined you. But as Dasha probably told you, we—the Thistle Grove witch families—have different talents. Oblivion glamours, the kind of spell that might have messed with your mind, are one of ours. And I happen to be quite proficient at them."

" Show-off ," I sneezed into my elbow.

"What? It's just true."

"I don't mind at all," Maya offered. And she did look comfortable, sitting cross-legged on one side of the weeping couch, which clearly wasn't going to get put to its intended use tonight. "What do you want me to do?"

"You're good where you are. I'll just need your hands."

Amrita scooted forward a little closer, wrapping Maya's proffered hands in hers. Curled up in my armchair, I waited with bated breath as my sister closed her eyes, took the long, centering breaths we all used to ground ourselves before casting. I could see the moment her face stilled with concentration as she began searching Maya for any lingering trace of oblivion. I'd have tried this myself, but I was trash at glamours; something about my own talents countervailed the kind of energy it took to cast or even sense one.

After a moment, Amrita hissed in pain, loud enough to make both me and Maya jump. She yanked herself away and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, grinding them hard into her sockets.

"What?" I said, leaping straight up out of my chair. "Amrita, what is it? What did you see?"

My sister lowered her hands and gingerly opened her eyes a tiny slit, giving a few experimental blinks.

"Motherfucking ow ," she said, petulantly enough that the frantic knocking of my heart subsided a little. "Yeah, no. Whatever that is, it's not the residue of any kind of glamour. Not one I think we'd ever be able to cast, anyway."

"Why not?" I pressed. "What did it look like?"

"Like light turned solid," she said, only the faint tremble of her lips betraying how shaken she was. "Like staring into the sun. I'm still seeing a superimposed afterimage, as if I'd actually been looking at it with open eyes instead of just sensing for magic."

"What does that mean?" Maya asked shakily, her distraught gaze flitting like a trapped sparrow between the two of us. "There's, what—bricks of light in my head?"

"More like a barricade of it," Amrita clarified. "Blinding. No wonder you can't remember who you are. How could you possibly see anything past that?"

"Sparkles," I muttered to myself, just loud enough that both of them turned quizzical looks on me. "Like Rainbow Ruby."

"Pardon?" Amrita said, at almost the same time as Maya said, "I'm sorry, but what the hell?"

"Kira told me she thought Maya was shiny," I replied, brow furrowed, as a cold suspicion began gathering inside me. "Asked me if I could see the sparkles, which obviously I can't. But you've seen them now, sort of. And who do we know who specializes in all things flashy and obnoxious and elemental—whose blood Kira happens to share? Whose bullshit does this seem like to you, Ree?"

"I don't understand," Maya said, fiddling nervously with her rings, her eyes still flickering between us. Through her confusion, Amrita and I met each other's gimlet gazes.

"Blackmoore bullshit," we said in unison, my hands clenching into fists in my lap.