Her cheeks flushed when she raised her eyes to mine. “Have you noticed that he’s grown lately? He used to be just a little taller than us. Now I have to crane my neck to look at him.”
I pounded the grain into the mortar with a wooden pestle. The coarse flour would be used to make bread in our clay oven. The bread always turned out hard and flavorless, but it helped fill our bellies when we dipped it in stew, especially now that we had less fish to eat. “Yes, I suppose he has grown. We all have.”
“And his voice. I know it’s been deeper for a while, but now—”
“Don’t do this.” The words slipped out before I had time to call them back.
“Do what?”
I chewed my lip, treading mental water. Perhaps it was selfish, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell her about my betrothal. “Don’t allow yourself to think about him that way. You have to leave in six days. It will only make things harder for you.”
She planted herself in front of me, forcing me to look at her. “Nothing could make this harder,” she hissed. “I love him, and I have to leave him and marry some other young man I’ve never met, while he marries Alys or one of the other village girls, and it makes me want to die!”
I stared at her breathlessly, my sweet sister who had never uttered a harsh word against anyone. “Zadie.”
“Don’t tell me what to do or think or feel,” she choked out, tears filling her eyes. “You get to stay here with Mother and Father and marry whomever you choose. You have no idea what I’m going through.”
She spun away from me, but I was faster. I caught her slender wrist in my hand. We were the same size, but her smallness always surprised me. Would I feel this fragile in the arms of my future husband, whether he was Sami or someone else?
“Do you think this is easy for me?” I asked. “Do you think I want to stay behind while you go off and see the world? I don’t want to stay here. And I certainly don’t want to live here without you. I would give anything for you to be able to stay and marry Sami. If I could trade places with you, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But they didn’t choose me, Zadie.”
I’m the perfect seashell you pick up from the ocean floor, only to turn it over in your hand and see the crack. I’m the fabric with the tear in the seam that you give back to the trader and demand first quality. As far as everyone in Varenia is concerned, I’m you, only ruined. So don’t tell me I have no idea what you’re going through.
My blood pounded in my head so hard I had to sit down. I could never say any of those things to my sister. They were old insecurities, ideas I’d gotten from Mother and spent years overcoming. Zadie couldn’t help the way things were any more than I could. I yearned to tell her about Sami, that I was being forced into a marriage just as much as she was. But I knew she wouldn’t see it that way. It would just be another reason for her to be jealous, and I didn’t want to fight with my sister now.
I pulled her into my arms, clutching her tight. She resisted for a moment, but her body finally went limp, and she sobbed against me until we heard the creak of the pillars below our house and the deep murmur of Father’s voice mingled with the higher trill of Mother’s. We took turns straightening each other’s hair and wiping the tears from our cheeks.
Few people in Varenia owned a mirror, but we had never needed one.
“Well?” Father asked as he came up through the trapdoor in our floor. “Any luck today?”
“Just look what Zadie found,” I said, pointing to the oyster with the five pearls. The other two had yielded three between them, but their color couldn’t match the others.
Father’s dark eyebrows rose. “Zadie found these?”
“Of course she did,” Mother said, coming up behind us and resting a hand on Zadie’s shoulder. She was in an unnervingly good mood. “She’s our lucky pearl.”
I could feel Zadie’s eyes on me, but I didn’t turn my head.
“We’ll use them for Nor’s dowry,” Mother added.
Ah, yes, my dowry. Mother had been speaking of it for years, since shortly after the incident, the implication always clear that she’d never be able to marry me off without the promise of a good dowry.
“Calliope,” Father chided her gently.
She ignored him and plucked the pearls from their shell. “Absolutely stunning. Where did you find the oyster?”
“Near the reef,” Zadie answered.
“These must have been close to a blood coral to have such strong coloration. You didn’t get close to it, did you, Zadie?”
“No, Mother. We are always careful.”
“Good. Now hurry up and bathe. We’re eating with the governor and his family tonight.”
“Why?” I asked. It wasn’t unusual for them to visit our home, but we never went to the governor’s house for meals. That was an honor reserved only for family.
Family. Which I would soon be. “Oh,” I breathed.
“What?” Zadie asked, her eyes darting from mine to Mother’s. “Did something happen?”
“Governor Kristos has an announcement to make,” Father said. “Wear the dresses you wore for the ceremony.”
I tried to meet Mother’s eye, to silently plead that this not happen now, but she ignored me and went to her room, humming as the curtain fell behind her. Zadie raised an eyebrow at me before heading out to the sunny side of the balcony, where the bucket of fresh water for bathing had been placed to warm.
“Father,” I said in a low voice. “We can’t do this to Zadie now. It will destroy her.”
He glanced at me. “You know?”
“Samiel told me, after the ceremony.”
“Zadie has a right to know before she leaves.” He raised the bowl of oysters to his mouth and swallowed all three at once. “Besides, she should be happy that her sister is going to be the future governor’s wife. It is a great honor for the entire family.”
I placed a hand on his arm. “Father, she loves him.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “I know, Nor.”
“Then let’s wait to announce it. It’s only six more days. There can be no harm in waiting.”
“Your Mother doesn’t want to wait,” he said quietly.
So this was her idea. Zadie had given her everything she wanted. Why was she punishing her now? Was she trying to create some kind of wedge between us? I wouldn’t put it past our mother to try to separate us, maybe even believing she was doing us some kind of a favor by severing Zadie’s life in Varenia completely, giving her no reason to stay, but without ever asking anyone else how they felt about it.
Sami. Maybe if I talked to him, he could convince his parents to wait. I couldn’t imagine he wanted this any more than I did. He loved Zadie. The last thing he’d want to do would be to see her hurt.
I was halfway through the trapdoor when Mother poked her head around the bedroom curtain.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Dinner is soon.”
“There’s something I have to do. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“You’d better be. We need the boat.” The communal buildings were connected to the governor’s house with wooden docks, but many houses, like ours, were separated for privacy, something hard to come by in Varenia.
“I’ll swim.” I tied my skirts in a knot between my legs and dropped into the water with a splash. The sun was just setting, casting an orange glow over the water. I wouldn’t get to watch it go down with Zadie tonight, but this was more important.
The governor’s porch was lit with hanging lanterns, making it easy to find in the gloom of twilight. I hauled myself up the ladder and wrung out my skirts and hair before knocking lightly on the door. I wouldn’t normally show up at the governor’s house like this, but I knew if I stopped to consider my appearance too long, I’d lose my nerve.
The door swung open, revealing Sami’s bewildered face. “Nor—”
“We need to talk,” I said, walking past him into the house. I’d only been inside a few times, and its size, at least compared to our house, never failed to amaze me. It should be Zadie’s future home, not mine. “It’s about Zadie.”
He pulled on my arm. “Now isn’t the time.”
“And you think tonight at dinner is? Ask your father to wait until after she leaves.”
“He’s not just my father, Nor. He’s the governor.”
I broke away from him. “Then I’ll ask him myself.”
“Are they here already?” Sami’s mother, Elidi, called from the kitchen. Theirs was the only house in the village that had multiple rooms separated by permanent walls instead of curtains. Even Sami had his own room, though what a seventeen-year-old boy needed a private room for was a mystery to me.
Elidi and Governor Kristos appeared together, and for a moment they stared at me, bewildered by my presence. Or perhaps it was my clothes. I plucked at my skirts, which clung wetly to my legs, and suddenly wished I had taken the boat. But their gazes drifted past me toward the door.
Behind me, someone else cleared his throat.