What the cat dragged in

[Lalitha Vero]

She could feel Ceija’s pity in the brief glance of her eyes, and then her cousin bowed her head a little deeper and renewed her attention on the art until there was only the buzzing of the needle between them. Litha didn’t know if that silence meant a no or a yes, but she did know it meant Ceija would not share either way. They were united by blood and Dominik was just her friend, which seemed unfair, but truthfully Lalitha wasn’t that interested in the answer. She’d just wanted the excuse to talk about him for a bit.

After the work was done and Ceija packing away her tools, Litha stood and stretched out her limbs on the wagon’s steps. Darkness pooled and the bite of cold was hard and unforgiving. The carnival’s lights were like dying embers. Winter was not a great time for them. Any other year they would have packed up for warmer climes long ago, but things had changed after the Sickness began picking off the young people. Why they didn’t move again now Lalitha didn’t know. Something Renáta foretold, most likely. The thought made her inwardly roll her eyes.

Ceija declined the invitation to find out what the night offered. Litha could hardly blame her, it was cold and grey out, but the idea of curling up to sleep in the tiny room she shared with the twins felt like a waiting tomb. She had always been a night owl. If the carnival was too quiet perhaps she’d wander beyond the boundaries to explore the city, though the burn of this afternoon’s rejection still tasted a little sour. Foremost she searched for something to warm herself.

The alcohol always unlocked something inside her, the key to some mystical kingdom which seemed duller without it. The power had the same otherworldly essence but never the same promises of freedom. Her desire to escape the carnival warred endlessly with the comforts of home, a future denied but still not fully relinquished. She was still waiting for Dominik to change his mind, uncertain she’d ever actually accept being second choice even if he did. Perhaps she only loved a memory and not a man now, but no one else compared either. Maybe she’d wait forever.

She’d been about to join one of the fires when she stumbled on Sámi in the shadows. The scent of weed clung like a halo around him, and his gaze was dark as the moonless night. Lalitha didn’t have to wonder what he’d been looking at; she spent enough time of her own glancing out mournfully at the Vas wagons to know exactly where they lay across the blanket of darkness. She’d never presumed he was actually close with either Roza or Esper, but then Sámiel was a walking mystery and rife with contradictions. Litha suspected he preferred it that way. Maybe he was just wondering how they’d managed to cut the cord. Privately she thought they had not. Even her own mother disappeared once, but the carnival drumbeat still drew her back even years later.

Her eyes were already luminous from the bottle wrapped in her hand, though she was more merry than drunk. She read well enough that he would prefer to be alone, but she didn’t care. If he bit she would only bite back. The alcohol swished as she tipped the bottle in offering, a little on the ground like a sublimation, and then held out for him to take. She was grinning, and it was quite clear she wasn’t sober, but that was entirely normal for her, especially at this hour. Her other hand grabbed at one of his to pull him forward. Not into the fire and merrymaking behind, just out into the tableau of darkness he had chosen for himself. There was always a chorus in her head and she moved to that private beat, uncaring that he couldn’t hear the music.