The Violet Hour (7 page)

His voice had an air of entitlement that frightened me.

“Enjoy our humble home, but do not wander,” his wife admonished. “Behave in a manner befitting of your station.”

Roll out the red carpet, why don’t you?

Sacristan Wang turned on his heel and clicked out of the room, his wife gliding behind him. Their tiny daughter shuffled in their wake, navigating the room just as easily as if she could see its every detail.

Thus dismissed, Brother Howard split us into two groups, boys and girls. His hands trembled as he motioned us to opposite sides of the staircase. We were politely led in divided lines up the split staircase by house servants.

Dora poked a sharp elbow into my side. “Why do I feel like I’m on a death march?” she snarked.

It might have been funny if I wasn’t afraid it might be true. The feeling that I was marching toward something terrible had only grown stronger. I was certain that something wasn’t right.

We were parceled out into rooms based on gender and station. The Wangs’ home seemed to be bigger than the Imperial Palace. For a Sacristan, he certainly had done well for himself—this type of extravagance was normally reserved for Prelates and above. During the van ride, I’d overheard Brother Howard saying that Sacristan Wang was a virologist and the head of VisionCrest’s biolabs, which were located here in China. That would explain the excessive wealth above his station—he was a powerful asset. Ostensibly the labs were doing benevolent things like searching for the cure to cancer, but looking at Sacristan Wang, I suspected there might also be a dark side to that effort.

Not surprisingly, Dora and I were placed with Mercy—it would be unseemly for the daughters of the Patriarch and his two highest-ranking Prelates to stay with lesser mortals. Our room looked like the aftermath of an explosion at the Hostess Sno Ball factory. Madam Wang appeared to have a nauseating affection for the color pink.

“Worst slumber party ever,” Mercy complained, heaving her luggage onto one of the frilly twin beds.

Dora looked at me and mimed a gag behind Mercy’s back. Mercy spun around with a carefully honed glare. The indignity of bunking with us was scribbled all over her face, and the feeling was mutual.

“We’re pretty excited about staying with you too, princess,” Dora said.

Mercy rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, “Losers.”

The stress of the last few days, the thought of Adam kissing her, overcame me. I stepped up close.
“
Shut up,” I said through gritted teeth.

Dora looked at me, shocked but delighted. Mercy froze in the act of unzipping her suitcase. It took every ounce of my self-restraint to not continue further.

Inwardly, I cringed. The last thing I wanted was her reporting back to Adam that I was being mean. It just made me seem jealous. Like I was. Like he obviously wanted me to be, for some reason I couldn’t understand.

Dora jabbed her finger in the direction of Mercy. “You know, I don’t know what it is, but she’s really starting to grow on me.”

Mercy twirled around and jumped toward Dora. “Screw you—”

An ominously official knock at the door interrupted what was about to be a full-on girlfight. We all paused, mid-hackle-raise, and stared at each other.

None of us wanted to answer it.

Madam Wang flung open the door, her calculating cat-eyes staring us into submission. Her reflection gleamed from every mirrored surface in the hallway behind her, giving the impression that she was leading an army. She zeroed in on me with laserlike precision.

“Sister Wintergreen. The honor of your company is required in the tea room.”

I shook all the way down to my toes. Was this the part where they carted me away and I never came back?

Then, for some unknown reason, Madam Wang turned her stare on Mercy. “Not long for you,” she said, her eyes skewering a trembling Mercy.

Then she turned, clicking a retreat across the smooth marble. The three of us stood frozen like wax sculptures of ourselves.

“Crap sandw
ich,” Dora whispered.

I had no choice but to follow Madam Wang. As the daughter of the Patriarch, it was my responsibility to represent the Fellowship. Maybe meeting with Madam Wang would help me find out why we were here, and where my father had gone so suddenly. I took a deep breath and hurried after her retreating footsteps, which were fast fading into the recesses of the labyrinth.

A wind whispered at my back.

Purity.

Oh no. Not now.

CREEPY TEA

Madam Wang dropped a sluggish green ball the size of her fist into a crystal decanter of steaming water. She stubbed out the glowing end of a miniature cigar in a jade ashtray and leveled her feline stare right between my eyes.

I was seated in a lacquered chair directly across from her and her whisper of a daughter, the sharp edge of the chair biting its way into the back of my thighs. A bone china teacup balanced precariously on my knees. Between us, on the table, the mossy bulb dropped like a stone to the bottom of the decanter. It began to writhe as if in pain, spike-tipped green spindles slowly unfurling from its core. Next to it was a tray of blood-red fruits of various shapes and sizes, and a razor-sharp paring knife.

Purity. Promise.

I could swear the hissing voice came from the drowning mass, snaking up from the steam. I’d taken enough Subdueral to sedate an angry rhinoceros, but still Her voice was back and stronger than ever—almost as if Madam Wang herself was amplifying it. The crazy train was officially off the tracks.

Madam Wang’s glare did not waver.

I wasn’t sure where to look: at my hostess, who appeared to be staring through me; at her daughter, whose head was tilted toward me despite the blindfold across her eyes; or at the creepy talking plant, expanding in the decanter. Pass the crumpets, please.

Vengeance.

I sat up straighter and pinched my teacup tight. The voice was saying things it hadn’t before. The squirming mass looked alive, sprouting an appendage from its center that struggled toward the water’s surface.

Death.

The stalk exploded into two luminous blossoms—one red and one white—which broke through the liquid’s surface. The teacup rattled on my knee.

“It’s chrysanthemum.” Madam Wang pointed one opalescent nail in my direction. “You have an abundance of yang.”

If yang was some kind of mental defect, then yes. I most definitely had too much of it. This was feeling less like tea and more like some multicultural version of
The Stepford Wives
.

A lithe girl in a long red robe tied with an elaborately embroidered swathe of silk padded into the room on velvet slippers. Her silky black hair was coiled on top of her head in two hollow rolls and she was carrying some kind of chime. I slipped a tablet of Subdueral under my tongue. The girl struck the chime with a tiny metal wand, and another identically robed girl appeared to pour the tea.

This new girl picked up the decanter and poured Madam Wang first, then walked around the table to pour me. I lifted my saucer off my lap to make it easier for her.

“Steady her hand,” Madam Wang commanded, leaning forward in her chair.

The girl reached out to steady my hand. Squiggly white worms danced their way across my vision as her skin met mine.

An overwhelming urge to cause her suffering reared up inside me. It did not belong to me, it belonged to Her—the voice that owned me from the inside out and was more present in this room than She had ever been before.

Purity. Price. Promise.

My teacup dropped and shattered against the floor. I stood, facing the girl as if to dance. Madam Wang clutched Mei Mei’s hand in hers. Mei Mei was shaking like voltage was running through her, and her lips moved as she whispered something over and over.

Was this really happening?

My hands lifted in front of me and clamped around the serving girl’s swanlike neck. Boils rose up to meet my touch. My fingers bit into the softness of her flesh, my nails ripping their way across her skin. Tender, blistered flesh ribboned away like tissue paper.

No. Stop,
I screamed inside. But my movements were not my own.

The girl twitched and blood spilled across her lips. Dribbled down her chin.

My hand squeezed around her throat, not listening to my desperate command to release. The girl’s lips tinted purple.

Kill. Maim. Suffer.

The girl’s eyes went wide. I snatched the paring knife off of the fruit plate. It slid across the padded flesh of my thumb with a
shink.
It was perfect.

Purity. Price.

Every inch of my consciousness fought my hand as it moved toward the soft white of her eye. The blade met juicy white flesh, carving into it. The wound gaped. Blood sluiced across her pitch-black iris.

Vengeance mine.

Wedging the blade into the wound, I dug into the spongy tissue like a grapefruit.

Outer blindness, inner sight. Betrayal in the violet light.

The vision raged. I was outside my body and trapped inside it, all at once.

My arm levered down hard, forced by something other than myself, softness giving way to steel. The crystal decanter fell from the girl’s hands and exploded in a fantastic array of shards that went skittering across the polished marble, the chrysanthemum blossoms plopping roundly to the floor.

From somewhere beyond the vision, Madam Wang whispered, “Isiris, is it you?”

“It is.”

I heard myself say the words, but the voice was not mine. Every molecule within me rebelled.

“No!” I yelled.

Abruptly, everything reversed itself. The decanter reversed its fall, the girl’s eye came back together, the blossoms floated menacingly on the water. All was as it had been moments before. I sat, the empty teacup shaking on my knee. The serving girl poured my tea and shuffled silently out of the room.

It had all been in my head, as usual. But I was certain I’d spoken those words, and although Madam Wang’s demeanor remained unchanged, I knew she’d seen what happened when the girl touched my hand. It was almost as if she’d invited the voice into the room. Fear uncoiled like a snake and slithered up my back. Madam Wang was looking at me with half-
lidded eyes.

“Who’s Isiris?” I croaked.

“I don’t understand the question.” She sipped her tea matter-of-factly.

“You just said, ‘Isiris, is it you?’ ” I insisted.

“No, I did not. Your tea is getting cold,” she replied. “The chrysanthemum will bring your
yin
in balance.”

I sipped the perfumed concoction. We were apparently playing chess and it was my move. If Madam Wang had just spoken to the voice I’d been fighting—and failing—to control, then she was the only person who might be able to help me. Mei Mei sat silently at her mother’s side, unmoving.

I was used to playing the part of dutiful daughter, and could fake self-assurance in even the tensest of situations. The General had friends in high places—high, strange places—but there was something ominous afoot here. I could feel it.

“Why are we staying here and not with the Patriarch?” I asked.

“The Ministry has its reasons, I presume.” Madam
Wang’s lips pinched together like two carefully botoxed slashes of Chinese calligraphy. If I had to guess, I would say they spelled out “creepy.”

Her daughter hadn’t moved an inch. If I didn’t know better, I might think she was a life-size doll. There was something unsettling about not being able to see her eyes.

“When is your birthday, Sister Wintergreen?” Madam Wang asked.

The little girl broke in, her voice tinkling like wind chimes. “On the ninth. It just passed.”

“How did you know that?” I asked her.

Madam Wang clamped a hand around her daughter’s knee. The girl didn’t flinch, but fell silent.

“The ninth day,” Madam Wang said. “Like I said, you have too much yang.”

“Where is my father?” I countered.

She kept her cat-eyes fixed squarely on me but didn’t say anything.

“You want to know why you’re here?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She ran a finger absently around the rim of her teacup. “It is an honor to have the daughter of the Patriarch in our home. One he would want you to respect, since he himself cannot be here with us.”

The subtext was unmistakable. She knew where he was.

“Where is he?” I whispered.

Madam Wang’s thin-painted eyebrows rode up a millimeter. “You won’t be seeing him for a while. Now let me have your leaves.” She thrust her hand across the table.

My stomach dropped.

“Excuse me?”

“Your tea leaves.” Mei Mei’s voice was like wind whistling through a cave. “She wishes to read them. Summon your spirit.”

My spirit? Now we were having a seance? My father would be livid—VisionCrest doctrine expressly forbid the idea of worshipping spiritual beings of any kind. He always said God was inside each of us and there were no such things as spirits; the way he said it always made me think he believed the opposite but desperately wanted not to.

“I don’t think the Patriarch would approve of—”

“Give them to me. What the Patriarch would approve of is not my concern, nor is it yours. You have bigger things to worry about.” Madam Wang flicked her wrist in impatience.

Now I was sure that something very bad was going on. If there was a spirit to be summoned, it would be the one inhabiting my head. She’d already shown up once at this tea party, and I wasn’t eager to have Her back. But maybe this was my way through to Her. To find out what She wanted.

I handed my cup over.

Madam Wang bent over the dregs of my creepy tea, her eyes narrowing.

“Hmm.”

I waited for her to elaborate, but for several long minutes she just continued to stare at the cup.

“I see the mirror image of your soul. In it lies your greatest source of power. The voice you hear is your own. She plagues you because she wants you to return.” She looked at me expectantly, as if anticipating my reaction to this.

My stomach flipped. “Return where?” I asked.

She snorted. “To the beginning, where bones will turn to blood and ashes.”

The words spooked me. Bones, blood, ashes—even if Madam Wang was nothing more than a crazy old zealot, it sounded eerily like a description of my visions.

I stood. “I’d like to go back to my room now.”

“There are people you value. It would be unwise to discuss this with them. The girls will show you back.”

The fear that rose within me at her threat to Dora and the others was so powerful I thought I might throw up.

Madam Wang stood across from me and tugged on her daughter’s hand. Just before they evaporated through the square black doorframe, she turned her cat-eyes back on me one last time.

“Every broken promise exacts a price,” she said.

A chill ran down my back. Madam Wang had most certainly heard the voice, and now she’d disappeared, the clicks of her shoes fading into some obscure inner sanctum. I set my saucer down, trembling. Madam Wang also knew where my father was, of that I was certain.

I wanted to get us all the hell out of China, but it wasn’t that simple. Even if it was possible for me to leave, I couldn’t leave without finding out where the General had gone.

Another servant girl, dressed identically to the first two, materialized and struck the chime. She motioned with her arm for me to follow her out.

“Sister Wintergreen.” Mei Mei’s voice startled me. She was standing in the doorway. Had she heard me?

“Yes?” I turned back to see her head cocked ever-so-slightly in my direction. Her miniature hand rose to her blindfold and slid it up from her face.

There were empty sockets where her eyes should be. Just like in my dream.

I recoiled.

“May your Inner Eye reveal your Inner Truth.”

My stomach churned. The requisite response froze in my throat. I scurried after the servant girl, desperate to see Dora and Adam and even Mercy, to know that they were okay.

The weight of Mei Mei’s empty sockets chased me down the hall.