Page 4 of The Lies We Conjure
This close, Marsyas smells of layers of expensive makeup and roses, and like us is dressed head-to-toe in black. Along with her own dead bunny bracelets, she accessorizes with an elaborate cascade of natural black pearls cloaking her considerable décolletage like a mass of tiny beetles. Her earrings have the unsettling swing of a spider weaving webs through the too-still air, stark against her pale powdered skin.
Marsyas doesn’t lead us toward the gravestone steps rising to the ornately carved doors of Hegemony Manor. Instead, we walk entwined down a strand of star-shaped stone tiles leading around the side to a massive manicured garden that hugs the rear of the house like a cape, its hem disappearing into the Rocky Mountain wilds.
Voices hum under the melodic whisper of stringed instruments, though the way the hedges bracket the space, no guests can be seen from where Marsyas’s steps have halted.
The old woman seems to be gathering herself, straightening her thoughts like she did Wren’s dress with a deep breath and an upturned tip of her heart-shaped face.
“Girls,” Marsyas whispers as her grip on my hand tightens impossibly, “two final rules, and it is imperative that you follow them.”
Her dark eyes are no longer mischievous as she finds each of us before continuing. They’re sharp with seriousness. My heart churns back up to racing speed as if a gun has gone off. I swallow and stare at her, focusing on every word.
“First, we need to stay together. Second, we must do whatever Ursula Hegemony says. Do you understand?”
My speeding heart skips and my stomach drops. Yet I match Wren as she answers, so that we’re in near unison. “Yes, Nona.”
Marsyas tosses back her shoulders, points her chin toward the garden, spiderweb earrings swinging, the pins in her hair glinting like the clustered eyes of a housefly. Her grimace curves upward with a heave and a new proclamation. “Smile, girls. Blackgates always smile.”
Grins in place, we enter under the bough of baby pink roses arcing above the privacy hedges. Though it’s still bright enough, small lights bound the garden like so many fireflies strung into position.
A clever trick.
In fact, floating, enchanted light seems to be a theme, as at the center of the garden is a line of seemingly hovering chandeliers, gold with taper candles illuminating a long table. Apparently, gravity doesn’t exist if you’re rich enough.
It’s so perfect it’s disconcerting. There’s not a single flaw.
The party is small—fewer than ten guests. And, as they all turn to assess our arrival, I catch Wren’s attention over the top of Marsyas’s intricate chignon, and soundlessly mouth,Promise me.
Wren’s response is yet another eye roll and a flash of pale lipstick and white teeth as she mouths back,Live a little.
CHAPTER3
AUDEN
All rumors are assumed to be lies until proven true.
They’re created on assumptions, fed by a lack of knowledge, spiked with jealousy, boredom, and unease. Or, made for a purpose.
The Hegemony family lives by this understanding. We’ve used it to our advantage for nearly five hundred years. For our protection. As a weapon.
And yet, tonight it slips my cousin’s mind.
“I’d heard they weren’t coming.”
Evander tracks his prey from the solarium windows high above the garden. His shark’s smirk distorts behind the icy remains of a finger of scotch on the rocks. I don’t need to guess what “they” to which he’s referring. I also don’t need to move closer to catch the procession of two girls, tall and raven-headed, locking arms with a shorter, silver-haired matriarch.
“Don’t believe everything you hear.” Undoing a button at the throat of my dress shirt, I return to my reread ofLeaves of Grass—the deathbed edition of 1892. Like almost everything else I own, this rare Whitman and the rest of my poetry collection were my father’s.
I’d known the Blackgates would come. I’d seen our grandmother’s request before she’d sent it—not an invitation this time, an order. And no one, not even the Blackgates, refuses an order from Ursula Hegemony.
“They’ve never come before.”
“No,” I correct, “they haven’t comesince.”
Winter enters the room and our conversation with a frown and a waft of perfume as perfectly floral as the briar rose pattern abstractly beaded into the rich fabric of her low-cut kelly-green dress.We’ve been waiting for her—getting ready always takes her twice as long when we’re home as when we’re away at Walton-Bridge.
This, exactly this, is what we do on nights when we must be Hegemonys.
We gather, assess the situation, prepare in our own ways. Evander drinking; Winter preening; me reading until the very last moment; and, when our armor is firmly in place, we act as Ursula Hegemony’s generals.
