Last Day of Love(5)

I reach into my coat pocket and feel something stiff, remembering the sting of Albion’s palm across my cheek as I tear open the envelope.

It’s not one card—it’s three.

Each is twice the size of a playing card and several times as sturdy. The cards are hand-painted and brightly colored. They look old and well made. On the back they share the same design: against a metallic silver background a blue figure holds a spear pointed downward. It’s the original Seedbearer insignia, symbolic of my family’s most important pledge: Keep the enemy below the sea.

I lay the cards faceup in a row on my sleeping bag. On the first card, two triangles back to back—one a deep ocean blue, one the pastel mix of an early-morning sky—form a single triangle. In the center of that triangle, the number six is painted in dark, glittery blue.

Things you know but do not think you know, Albion said.

Chora begins her cooking every night by sprinkling six grains of salt into a pan. Albion meditates six times a day. Without knowing why, I’ve always thought of the number six as my lucky number. It has an unarticulated power in my family, like an open secret that determines everything.

The next card features a black crown at the top and a black tombstone at the bottom. In the center, thick, curving lines resemble an ocean wave. One line curls upward on the right side; another dips down on the left, connecting the crown to the tombstone. Tombstones usually stand for death, but what about the crown?

My gaze drifts to the remains of the fire. I realize that the wavelike image on the card symbolizes wind—Seedbearer wind created from breath.

Wind is the source of the Seedbearers’ power—that’s the connection to the crown. But I don’t know about the tombstone. The need to understand grips me, and for the first time, I know for certain that I will meet my family tonight. I won’t simply run away. I will ask them these questions then. That’s why Albion gave me the envelope. He knew I’d need to know the truth.

On to the last card: the point of a red, twin-lobed heart shape pricks an anatomically accurate depiction of a human heart. Half of the human heart is red; the other half is the sickly gray of rancid meat. Blood drips from the human heart.

My family has always made it clear that love drains life. It’s a mantra muttered often in my home. I’ve heard Starling say it to a sunset, Albion say it about a tragic story he overheard. Once, Critias said it under his breath while looking straight at me. It’s a warning, a weaning. I’ll be expected now to say it to myself, like an adult.

“Love drains life,” I whisper, wondering how much life there is left to drain.

Without love, I’ll be strong and supple, eighteen forever. Every time I let love or passion creep into my soul, I will age a little more. Acts of extreme detachment—such as abandoning Shiloh—reverse the aging process. This explains why my aunts and uncles range from hundreds to thousands of years old. They failed at completely shutting off emotion at eighteen, but they’ve learned to temper and offset it so that none of them looks older than fifty.

I test myself. I think of Eureka’s laughter in the restaurant window. The thought brings me to my knees. I touch my face, certain I’ll find wrinkles. Am I older? I don’t feel anything but the desire to see her, touch her—

They’re going to know. They’ll smell weakness on me. They’ll see the signs of aging. I must do something, take control.

Shiloh. I love everything about him. He’ll expose my failure unless I get rid of him now. He rises when I stand, puts his front paws on my chest.

“You’re easy to love,” I tell him. “Someone else will do a better job than me.”

He barks and I don’t scratch his head the way I want to. I slip the cards into the envelope and back into my pocket. I pace the clearing and remember something I’ve seen my aunts do with stray cats.

I have a strength that I’m forgetting. I can use it to help Shiloh. I study his face, memorizing every inch.

When I inhale, I aim my breath at Shiloh’s heart. Instantly, he rises off the ground. He whines but doesn’t struggle. His eyes are locked on mine as he wobbles, unbalanced and clumsy, in the air. I’m not sure what to do with him. My breath feels the weight of him and my lungs strain under the effort. If I send him straight in one direction, no matter how far away, he’ll find me again. I have to disorient him first.

I focus my breath and spin him like a top. He whimpers, his tail tucked between his legs. He makes the sounds he makes when he’s sick.

I empty my lungs into a long curving line. Shiloh tumbles over the barren treetops, a strange angel, his paws paddling the air. I send him west, toward the edge of the woods and a girl I saw yesterday playing with a hula hoop in a yard just off the street.