The Faceless Thing We Adore, page 13
Larissa cannot be blushing. “It sucked, doing that, but it was the best way to see how far you’d go. Still, we thought it would be more work to get you to go inside the cave. We had plans to help you break out and lay a trail in there. Didn’t expect you to kick your way out and run straight in. That was badass.”
My beam goes less crooked. I impressed her.
“And yeah”—she shuffles her feet—“that thing about you making it easy. I was trying to scare you, but … I meant it. You did everything right. I never brought any offerings before, and I was scared I’d fuck it up, but I should have known you were born for this. The moment I saw you spying on us at the temple, I felt. …” Her voice falters. Unimaginable. “And now we know what we’re here for. Because of you.”
I sip my coffee, the taste of it so loud, and dare to slip my hand into hers. I have a thousand questions, but they’re not the right size for words.
“You know none of that would have hurt you, right?” She’s eyeing me, seeking the anger I should feel.
“Apart from the bit where a god ate me?” I ask drily.
She grins. “Nobody goes into the cave without coming out. It loves us. So much. It only wants to liberate us.”
“What about the rot?” At least I can just about find words for this. “There was rot in the cabin. In my bedroom, too, and the woods. It was there, and then it wasn’t …”
Larissa stares. “That doesn’t … I don’t know what that was.” She’s unsettled, then relaxes. “Don’t worry. Weird shit happens around here, that’s part of the fun.” She breathes into my ear like it’s a revelation just for me. “Just flow with it.” Her fingers slide along my wrist, finding my pulse. “We’re inside the Unseen now and it’s inside us. And soon we’ll release it, and ascend in it, together. And before that, we will kiss and taste a god in each other’s mouths.”
Her lips brush my ear and I think I might just die again, but then she’s gone with a sidelong smile. These pounding heartbeats are offerings, aren’t they? I feel the Unseen take them in. My body is altar and sacrifice all at once, and all I can think is that I want to give more, everything.
The day’s a golden summer one, and most work’s suspended today. Clouds scud and swirl. This is what it feels like, being reborn.
When the energy’s bubbled down, it’s just me and Kiera, in hammocks under vines. The breeze dances shadows on our skin. I’m quiet. Even now, it’s scary talking to Kiera; I might drop my guard and fuck up. With Larissa, it’s like she’s guiding me to somewhere enticing. With Kiera, I’m running on uneasy ground, waiting for something to give way.
Finally, she props herself up on her elbows, setting her hammock swinging; she makes a little “eek” face, which is offensively cute. “So. Mindfuck, huh?”
I pause, then say, “Yeah. Mindfuck,” and we giggle, and neither of us wants to stop so we keep going long after we’ve forgotten what started it.
Maybe those worries about messing up belong to the old Aoife. Not the Aoife who was reborn from a god and led its followers into a revelation. “I can’t figure out if I’m terrified or deliriously happy or both.”
“Ah!” The shadow is Oscar’s; he carries three earthen mugs. “The Farmstead mood.”
Kiera shuffles up. Oscar puts the teas down then tickles her, almost overturning the hammock. She shrieks, a happily fragmenting scream.
Oscar hands me a mug. “Teresa special. Mellows you out.”
I pause. I hate taking anything wilder than a few beers; I’d only do it to avoid looking pathetic around Craig’s friends. But this is new Aoife. I swig; lazy warmth floods me.
We lie there for minutes or hours. Oscar’s full of stories. He talks about how they all plotted to lure Zina into the cave with poetry, how Maisie tried to run during her initiation then begged to be allowed back in. When he tells us about Larissa kicking Sage in the balls when she woke after dying in the cave, we cackle. In every telling, he underlines the layers of force and trickery it took to get people into the cave, promises that there’s something uniquely brave in how boldly I ran inside.
Oscar moves on to his own story, how he and Jonah were friends and business partners in the outside world, what he calls the dying world. How Jonah invited him here for a holiday, tricked him into the cave with a story about treasure. How, as he dissolved, he’d understood that all the profit and strategizing and prestige had been a profound waste of his existence. How he’d woken, sold his company, and invested his wealth in building the commune.
“That’s what all that money-chasing was for. To do its work.” He barely pauses before saying, “Kiera, you have to share yours.”
“Oh god,” Kiera moans. “She doesn’t want to hear this.”
“I absolutely want to hear this.”
Kiera looks shaky and it hits me. I make her nervous. I’m the intriguing stranger she wants to impress. Yesterday I could never have conceived of that possibility, or how good it would feel.
She pushes back her hair and lets it out in a babble. An archaeology degree she was failing, an unsettling dream, a summer school dig in the city that she scraped funding for.
“Except I wasn’t … much use.” Kiera makes a face. “Kept passing out on-site. Doing weird stuff, causing scenes. And there was this wicked hot day, and I didn’t go to the site, downed half a bottle of whisky, wandered into an antique shop, and saw this old bronze knife and … pocketed it. Real going back to your bad old days stuff. Staggered to the beach and hid in some rocks and passed out or something, all just white heat in my memory.”
“And then?” Oscar waves, and she grins. I flash back to Oscar shoving her into the water, her surge of betrayal. It’s nice to see that forgiven. Makes me think whatever I saw through the colored glass was an illusion. Oscar loves Kiera, Kiera loves Oscar.
“I woke up and this weird fucker in a Hawaiian shirt was offering me an ice cream,” Kiera concludes, “asking me why I’d nicked that knife with that particular symbol and telling me where I might find answers.”
“And like an idiot”—Oscar gives Kiera the finger affectionately—“she followed that weird fucker home.”
“Didn’t bother to tell anyone. Left that night.” Kiera’s grin goes unhinged, and she makes jazz hands. “I’m a missing person!”
I laugh and raise my teacup. I’m missing, too. I was right, it feels like freedom. The thought overwhelms me, and I get happy teary and it’s probably a good thing I’m interrupted.
“It was Pietro for me.”
Giulia emerges between the trees. Soft steps, bare feet, breeze on her cotton dress.
I stiffen. She hasn’t spoken to me aside from occasional hostile whispers. But now her lips, her snub nose, are crumpled in obvious apology.
“Hi,” she says.
I say, “Hi.” It’s like we’ve tested waters and have no idea what to do next.
“Join us.” Oscar shunts up, and Giulia sits, eyes shifting between me and Oscar like she’s not sure whose permission she needs. “Giulia’s story’s beautiful, Aoife.”
I say, “I’d like to hear it,” cautious. Mistrust tingles, like Giulia’s going to hiss an insult, but there’s only softness there. This is the Giulia who took my hand in the café.
Oscar yawns and leans against the tree, eyes closing. Kiera sinks deeper into the hammock, snuggled around a sun-bleached pillow. “Pietro was sick,” Giulia says. “Months left, not years sick.” She eyes me, probably knowing this isn’t the story I was expecting. “He wanted to travel while he still could. He was drawn to these islands; maybe he felt the call. When we got to this island the visions started, saying you can save him. Then, in the harbor café, I saw Sage. It was like lightning out of a sunny sky. I knew he was the answer.”
“Like I felt about you and Larissa,” I say carefully. She smiles.
“Like something was saying, This person will change everything. He waved like he knew me, and I was … terrified. Like something terrible and lovely was coming, you know? We took the boat back with him that night.
“After we arrived, they tricked Pietro into the cave for his test, and made me think they’d sacrificed him in there, and I ran in, and we dissolved in each other’s arms. When we woke up, he was healed. This place saved him, and it saved me too. I never knew. …”
“I know.” I sigh out the joy.
“None of us could be the same, after this.” Giulia’s smile is another peace offering. I take it, and it seems to make her a little bolder. She still glances around. Oscar’s slumped; Kiera’s snoring softly, face screwed up in worry, adorably vulnerable. Still, Giulia keeps her voice low as she speaks the name, the one people pause before speaking. “Elise came here a little after us. I invited her after I met her on a supply run to the mainland. She was … adrift, like you. In a much worse way, actually.” She makes a little face I can’t quite read. “I was so happy that I’d managed to find her somewhere she could settle.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” I say. “When she comes back.”
“When she comes back.” Giulia’s quiet for a second, then stands up. “Come with me? I want to show you something.”
Everything unfolds; every discovery widens the world. I jump down, noticing how stiff my salty clothes are; I never bothered changing, too wrapped up in everything.
I follow her.
We walk in silence. It’s that time of evening when the groves turn peachy pink. I try to concentrate on the beauty, and not my uneasiness around Giulia.
She’s the first to speak. “I’m sorry I was cruel.”
“Part of the test?” My tongue trips over itself.
Giulia looks at the ground, picking over a stony patch, or refusing to meet my eye. “Yes. If you’d stay if someone didn’t want you.”
“You”—second attempt at a sentence—“um. Convincing. Good job.”
Her smile’s crooked. “Yes. I did my absolute best.”
There’s layers here I can’t read. “But are we … okay now?”
Giulia wraps her arms around my shoulders. Her sun-warmed skin against mine, more of the intimacy that suffuses this place. I relax into her.
“Come on.” She leads me past the solar panels and beehives, toward the fields. It’s where the goats live when they’re not wandering the mountainside, bells on their collars ringing eerie messages.
The field’s empty, wildflowers blowing in the wind. I look at Giulia sideways for an explanation, just before Sage steps out from the trees.
Accusing fury grips my gut; I believe Giulia was faking it, but Sage’s hate was real. I start to say what, but Sage staggers back, screeching, as a jet of water hits his face.
“Aargh,” Sage yells, fake-angry, “that’s it. I am coming for you!”
He darts between the trees then bursts back out, chasing a smaller figure, her red hair flaring in the low sunlight like a flag.
The girl’s laughing wildly, gripping a hose. She screeches as Sage chucks a water balloon, soaking her jeans and t-shirt. She spins, spreading droplets like a dog shaking itself. “You are the worst!”
I see it instantly: Myri looks just like the rest of her family.
She has Jonah’s pale skin and cheekbones, Teresa’s full lips and sharp chin, Sage’s red hair. Higher and younger, her laugh has the cadence of Teresa’s dry chuckle. And even playing with her brother, she carries the same weight Jonah buckles under.
I stare. I can’t get my head around her. She’s too slippery, too many facets.
“Not many of us see her like this,” Giulia says quietly. “Jonah likes to keep her a mystery. And it’s not safe for her to be out of the cabin for long; she has too much of the Unseen in her. She killed one of the goats once, with her bare hands. Another time they found her dancing on the edge of the cliff, with her eyes closed.”
I wince, picturing it. “When she was screaming—”
Giulia nods. “She sees things. Glimpses. It’s more than her human self can handle. Whatever’s in the ocean, it’s in her too. We try to help, but. …”
Those screams. Like she was being torn apart. Like the world was. I can’t square that with this bright day, the enfolding wonder of the Unseen. But there’s terror in the depths of what I’ve seen, for sure; I understand why a girl drowning in it might scream into the night.
“But she’s still just a kid,” Giulia continues. “Some of us get to know her that way. Me, Sage. She was close to Elise.” Her face tightens a little. “Maybe you, too. She told me she trusts you.”
Something cracks inside me. The relief that she wasn’t fully a mirage redoubles the relief of seeing her laugh. She didn’t need saving. I didn’t fail her.
“Did Jonah tell you what the miracle was? What the Unseen did?”
Teresa clutching a corpse. We understood the depth of our debt. “I have an idea.”
“I’m showing you this so you’ll remember. Nothing here is ever what you think. Okay? There’s always another layer.” She seems hesitant, like she wants to say something more, turn it into a warning, but it slips away.
I nod. As soon as I have a grip on something, it transforms. I felt it in the cavern, how the heart of everything can mutate that way. It gives me vertigo, like the soil under my feet might send me tumbling into a clear sky.
“So, what are you?”
Giulia’s laugh is shy and surprised. “Your friend. I hope.”
“Sounds good.”
I thread my arm through Giulia’s, and she hugs it. The confusion turns exhilarating again. Perhaps that’s what Larissa meant: The only way to survive this uncertainty is to fall into it. I close my eyes and enjoy the rush of tumbling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WHERE I LIVE NOW
THE DAYS THAT FOLLOW ARE HEADY, A SPIRAL OF WORK AND LAUGHTER AND parties and food and sun, full of tiny wonders. The warmth of eggs collected fresh. Light on the ocean. The width of the sky. Fire spinning.
There’s work, of course. My name’s always scrawled beside a new one, a new person to sweep me up to collect firewood or to fish off the rocks. Never alone; no time to think. They share food, rub sunscreen into my skin, teach me card games, sing me their favorite songs. Friendships are weird. I don’t know how to hold them or make them grow, but these people seem to understand. Ana helps me plant seedlings, cradling her hands around mine, fragile roots in my palms. It feels like that.
I learn everyone gradually, half from gossip. I only discover after my day in the fields with Ana that she was an environmental activist and has a past full of jail terms. I slice vegetables with Frida, dancing and bumping hips, and hear afterward that she was a drug addict living on the street, and also that she was a wealthy architect. I help João carry his drums, then hear a debate about whether he’s really an army deserter.
Did Kai’s band break up after he had visions of the cave onstage? Was Maisie really acquitted of poisoning her husband? Did Darya actually learn to fire-spin when she ran away with a circus?
“That’s the cool thing,” Larissa says. Sunset, lying on cushions. She’s asked me to plait her hair, and under my fingers it’s the silkiest thing. “You dump your past when you arrive. Let everyone reinvent you.”
“What do they say about you?” The buzz of insects is soporific.
Her body softens. “I was a criminal boss, or a street artist, or an oil heiress. Or I was raised in another cult and rescued when the FBI raided their compound and discovered a plot to poison Denver.”
I part her hair again. I can’t get it right; her scent is intoxicating. Warm grass, sweat, herbs. “How did you get the coolest rumors?”
Her grin widens. “Spread them myself.”
I let my fingertip linger on her skin, then panic and look for a safe subject. As usual, I find a dangerous one. “Another cult?”
“Oh, sure, this must be a cult. Look at us, living in isolation with our secretive ways, doing our eldritch rites for our eldritch-er god.” She wiggles her fingers. She’s drawn spirals under her eyes in blue eyeliner because she can. “Brainwashed zombies.”
I make a zombie face, say, “Braaaiiins,” and we giggle and go off on one another about whether zombies prefer brainwashed people or not—do they prefer their food clean?
“Brainwashed, whatever,” Larissa says. “They can call us what they like. I’m an astrophysics graduate, did I mention that?”
“Is that a rumor you want me to spread?”
Larissa sticks her tongue out, then turns serious. “As if anything’s better out there. Where you’re just expected to keep taking, and needing people is weak but being alone is shameful, because people are accessories, or tools, and nothing’s deeper than the skin. I choose to know there’s something better. I don’t believe. I know.”
I know, too. It thrums under everything.
A sensation of reality bubbling softly, coming to a boil, is woven through our everyday life. A life that sweeps me up with ease.
Larissa joked, but I can’t call this a cult. I always thought cults were all scriptures and strictures, rules and rites without gods. We have a god, but only two rules: Never swim in the sea. And never disturb the oracle.
Beyond that, it’s all rigged together. We make decisions in messy meetings, although Teresa has the final call. She cradles her authority in her arms, gentle. Jonah is distant, wrapped in murkier questions, wearing authority not like a crown but like a yoke.
Dawns are smeared in pinks and blues; we meet them with meditation on the beach, then busy, clattering breakfasts. And then there’s work.
The power here seeps into the soil; fruits grow abundant, crops sprout out of season. Plants luxuriate in an alien climate: mangoes, avocados. Teresa asks me to grind her home-grown nutmeg, a twist of sadness in her smile as she says its Latin name, Myristica. The land’s eager to feed us, to make us strong.
“Fatten us up,” Larissa jokes, and snaps at my finger. “Mm. Nearly ripe.”
Because something’s coming, and it wants us ready.
More and more, instead of farming or cooking and cleaning, I find myself assigned to help Kiera in the library. After a few days (or weeks? Time’s swimmy), Jonah calls me up to the solarium, officially declares me Kiera’s assistant and asks me to keep him posted on how her work is going. I babble, thanking him for trusting me; he presses my hand to his chest, our touches automatic because we’re extensions of the same thing, and tells me that he wishes more people had. I glow.
