Page 32 of Salt in the Wound
ten
On the first of May, I came home from campus to find my bedroom filled with greenery. Flowers licked delicately between the leaves, yellow and white and pink, and the room was filled with their scent—faint vanilla, soft fruit. That lovely, greensomethingthat came with fresh leaves.
Breathing it in felt like breathing in something important that I’d forgotten.
There was a handwritten note on my bed.
Isolde,
I regret that I cannot be in Manhattan today. Happy birthday, and I’m looking forward to our scene at Lyonesse very much.
Yours faithfully,
Mark
p.s. I thought I’d hedge our bets with the honeysuckle.
I looked around the room, green and fresh and lovely, and didn’t bother to fight the smile pulling at my mouth. Honeysuckle portended a good marriage, he’d told me at our dinner, and now he’d filled an entire room with it.
He wants us to have a good marriage.
That could mean anything, and I absolutely should not decide what it meant while surrounded with fresh flowers that he’d somehow magicked into my room.
Next to the note, there was a gold box, long and flat, tied with a wide black ribbon. I untied it and opened the box, my lips parting as I beheld the knife nestled in gold velvet inside. A fixed blade, maybe five inches long, and slender. The steel was dark and rippled, and the handle looked like it was made of bone. It was inlaid with gold and rubies, both of which twisted their way up from the guard to the narrow butt of the handle. The same pattern was etched onto both sides of the blade, ornate and lush and unmistakable.
Honeysuckle. Branches, flowers, fruit.
I held it in my hand, switching my grip back and forth, testing its weight. It was light and skinny, and even in a sheath, would fit easily inside a boot or up a sleeve. Everything about its shape and dimensions was utilitarian and meant for use…but it was so decorated, so lovely a thing, that the idea of using it was absurd. Like using a Ming vase to collect rainwater under a leak in the ceiling.
But…
But I loved it. It felt perfect in my hand, the size, the weight. Even the bone felt right, slightly warmer than the gold and rubies against my palm.
There was a note inside the box too, inked in a neat, precise hand.
Remember, reverse grip is for when you mean it.
- m
Some people hadmen woo them with jewelry, with roses and orchids and champagne. I had a man who sent me knives and parasitic flowers.
I was smiling the rest of the day.
eleven
SIX WEEKS LATER
“Everything is ready for your visit,” Mortimer was saying on the phone. “Do you have everything you need on your end?”
I thought of the suitcase currently sitting in the middle of my DC hotel room. Neatly packed with clothes for a hot Roman summer, along with toiletries and one very beautiful knife. “Yes,” I said. “And more.”
“Marvelous.” My uncle sounded delighted. “We’ll talk more when you arrive. I’m so excited to see you, my child.”
We said our goodbyes, and I ended the call, pacing a little around the sumptuous waiting room I’d been put in when I’d arrived at Lyonesse thirty minutes ago. Tonight was Lyonesse’s anniversary celebration, and then tomorrow I’d fly from DC to Rome. I would finally get to join my uncle and help him with his work for the first time, even if it was only for a few weeks, and I couldn’t wait. A taste of the life I could have had without Mark, maybe, serving God in the heart of his earthly kingdom.
The door clicked open, and I turned to see the woman who’d sat next to Mark on New Year’s Eve. She was wearing a black pencil skirt made of something shiny—latex, maybe, or PVC—and a white blouse. She had a narrow jaw, high cheekbones, and eyes that tilted up at the corners. Her mouth—wide and full—was painted a red that brought out the jeweled hue in her deep brown skin. Something about her reminded me of Mark and the man who’d sat behind him, and it took me a minute to realize what it was.
Her expression. Lifted brow, neutral mouth.
