The faceless thing we ad.., p.2
The Faceless Thing We Adore, page 2
The air grows thin. Everything’s oversaturated, lines sharp, colors dazzling. I taste ozone, my skin prickling like lightning’s about to strike.
She’s lost in something ecstatic, aglow with it; no colors are naturally that bright. The light seems to split into rainbows around her, and she smiles so impossibly wide, like she sees it even through her closed eyelids.
Adore. That’s one of the words of the chant. Adore, something, surrender—
Existence flickers like a signal lost in a storm. My senses overflow with lemon and salt and sweetness, the rhythm of waves in my ears.
And then she laughs, and something breaks, and she flops back onto the rock beside her friend. And I have no idea what I just saw or felt, but my heart is jackrabbit-fast and my mouth is dry as all this dusty earth, and the tugging in my skin has become a happy thrumming.
Craig sneers in my head. You bloody perv. See one girl naked and you think you’re having a religious experience or something.
I was meant to be here. I know it suddenly. I was meant to see that.
I can’t exactly step out and say, “Hi, naked lady I’ve just been spying on,” can I?
I know what I can do, though.
When I was little, my mother had a vase. I thought it was the prettiest thing in the world with its roses and gilded mouth. And there was a day, one of many days when I wanted my mother to play with me and she didn’t even have time for a “Not now, Aoife.”
So I dropped the vase and watched the pieces scatter across the kitchen tiles.
I stared. I did that. I made the world different.
I liked when mum was angry. She noticed me. But I got scared, too; I cried and said it was an accident. When she’d finished shouting, we tried to fix it. And after it was full of cracks, but it had a story, and I’d had hours with my mum, all to myself.
That was when I learned that sometimes you have to make the world different, even if things end up broken. To show people that you exist, and that existence has consequences.
When I was fifteen, there was a boy, my friend’s older brother. He was beautiful, with messy hair and playful eyes. He played guitar; his songs sounded like something outside our narrow town.
So I snuck into his bedroom and stole one of his books of chords.
I scrawled all over it, drawing his face, his hands plucking strings, illustrations of the lyrics. I slipped back into his room and left it there.
Later, he cornered me and asked if I’d done it. I blushed, but he said, “You’re a good artist.” The world swirled; doors opened; he forgave me. He wrote a song: “Aoife Made a World on Paper.” Two weeks later, he kissed me. Two years later, we ran away. And then I never needed to show the world that I existed. My world was Craig. He knew.
But I remember that instinct.
I don’t know how to approach these impossible girls. So I just go back to the bags, snatch the sketchbook, and take off.
CHAPTER THREE
BEAUTIFUL SECRETS
MY MIND’S TURNING CIRCLES. AS I MANGLE ATTEMPTS TO ASK DIRECTIONS, I replay memories of the girls, of the uncanny sensations that filled my body. As I walk through the growing heat to the bus stop, I feel the enticing weight of the sketchbook. As I sit on the bus and watch the hills thicken into a chaotic urban stew, I’m remembering the bliss on her face. Was it longing for that bliss that captured me, or was it something more? Anything feels possible.
Why else this pull, that taste of lemon? Something is here for me, and I’m twitching in the bus seat, every instant drawing me closer.
The city punches into my awareness, cement suburbs giving way to alleyways, shutters, palm trees. I join the crush of bodies spilling off the bus and walk for hours, passing souvenir shops, pigeons, streetside cafés.
I slip into one and order a coffee. Even something so mundane feels adventurous in this newly shaped world. The coffee’s thick and zinging. I breathe the scent of jasmine sprawling across a whitewashed wall. Sun on my face. Free.
I take out the sketchbook, another wrapped gift to tear into. The handwriting’s squirmy, Spanish or Italian. Little symbols: a closed circle inside an open circle, closed eyes above an open mouth. Sketches: faces, flowers, a house overgrown with vines, a beach—
A cave, stretching open—
I blink away vertigo. These little coffees are strong.
I flick through further, new pages, new vistas; new handwriting, which I’m pretty sure is English, just illegible. A rough scrawl, like the person couldn’t contain their excitement. Lists bullet-pointed with stars, occasional words in all caps: TEMPLE, BRONZE AGE, BREAKAWAY CULT, ORIGINS. There are far more exclamation marks than is normal or acceptable.
I flip back and my chest seizes with relief: There’s a note in English inside the cover. IF FOUND, PLEASE CONTACT GIULIA ROSSI. A smiley face and an email address.
Giulia. Is she the bird-of-paradise girl, or her friend with that sweet, inscrutable smile? I whisper the name like an incantation, then attempt to tap out an email on my phone:
Hi, I’m Aoife—Delete.
You don’t know me, but—Delete.
I saw you chanting and dancing naked and the whole universe went swirly. I’m not sorry that I stole from you so I could see you again. Definitely delete.
Hi, I found your notebook in the car park at the standing stones?
A flimsy lie, but safest. I look up at shop windows glittering and pastel paint peeling and tourists posing. I’m newborn into a new world. I shouldn’t be afraid of anything.
I hover my finger over the SEND icon, but find myself paralyzed with nerves. I blink before the nerves do, and pocket my phone. Later. I’ll be brave later.
It’s hours before I find a hostel because I’m busy wrapping myself up in the chaotic streets. The hostel has wrought-iron balconies and a terrace draped with vines. I adore it. The receptionist, a young local, grins sidelong at me like we’re old friends; a couple of travelers playing backgammon wave.
Am I made to be in this world? This feels right.
I ask for two nights and hand over my card, then watch a tabby cat licking its paws until the receptionist says, “Sorry, that’s been declined.”
That can’t be right. I just got paid, I’d worked extra shifts; we had savings.
We.
Reality pops and drenches me in cold.
I make him try it again, and again, and then drop into an armchair and shake as I open my banking app. The brightness is falling away, and I’m tumbling into this horrible pit of suspicion that’s widening in my belly.
We share the account. We agreed. We’re a unit. And there it is: Three days ago, my pay; then yesterday evening, Craig Bauer transferred the entire contents of this account into the private one he uses for his band.
I know he was scared for me, going off alone. He’d have emptied the account to stop me from getting on the plane, to protect me from myself, not realizing I’d be too silly to check my balance. Desperate measures, except he forgot what a mess I am.
The pixels blur and wobble. It’s Saturday night, his band has a gig, he’ll be drunk; if I message him, he won’t see it even if he hasn’t blocked me and why would he reply after how I treated him and oh god what have I done—
Fucked it up, haven’t you? Aoife’s fairy-tale fantasies, meet the real world.
The receptionist brings me tea when he sees I’m crying, which makes me cry more, and oh god, I’m a wreck. I must be having a breakdown. I was spying on a naked person. I’ve barely slept. I cut off my hair.
I wipe my eyes and try. “Do you have any jobs going?”
The guy’s sympathetic look is almost believable. “In this economy?”
I try to imagine my parents’ reaction if I called them for the first time in five years, asking for a loan. “Thank you. All right. Thanks.”
I try to think. There aren’t options. Help. A few minutes ago, I was blessed and called and drunk on it. Now—
Now I have to be brave.
I open my email again, open the draft message to Giulia Rossi, and without taking a second to think about it, press SEND.
The reply is almost instantaneous.
I arrive at the restaurant early; I don’t have anywhere else to go. I have ten pounds left. I turn two into a lemonade. Everything’s hopeless anyway.
I threw my life away for this: a harbor lined with terracotta-roofed buildings, an orange sunset soaking yachts and spindly palms. A lemonade. A sketchbook.
Still, when I touch the pages, my heartbeat ratchets up. It’s like the universe is whispering: Just trust. I’m keeping my promise. I still feel that. I won’t let it slip away.
But if this doesn’t lead to anything—and what could it?—where will I go?
I squeeze my eyes shut. I won’t cry again. I’m on an adventure.
When I open my eyes, I see them.
They’re laughing, lit up by strung-up café bulbs. The bird-of-paradise girl touches her friend’s wrist, a gesture so intimate that my breath catches. There’s the closeness there of two souls that have happily swallowed parts of each other. A little gesture that just says love.
I feel hollow. Did I ever have friends like that? It’s been so long; I’ve been busy.
The bird-of-paradise girl strides toward me like she knows me. She’s read my awkwardness, or she spotted me this morning. An image of her naked body flashes behind my eyes, and I think I turn a bit purple.
“Yes, you’re here!” She claps, making her bangles ring. “It’s Aiofe, right?”
“Ee-fa,” I correct her, then I feel stupid. What am I doing, the first thing I say being to tell her she’s wrong? Now I’m stuck. “Like if in a really bad fake accent.”
She actually laughs, but my blush deepens anyway, like by giving her my name I’ve exposed myself, messed up somehow.
“Aoife, sweet.” The bird-of-paradise girl sits down, right there, opposite me. “I’m Larissa, this one’s Giulia.”
Larissa. A new invocation. I nearly say, “I’m Aoife” again, but I swallow it just in time. “Hi.”
“You rescued my book!” Giulia focuses that warm beam of a smile on me. “Thank you! If I don’t bring the sketches from the temple, Kiera will kill me.”
Larissa’s laugh is bubbly. “Behead you with a ballpoint pen.”
I smile. I have no idea who they’re talking about, although I want to, desperately, wishing suddenly that I’d read the signs at the site, that I could tie it to all the hints in the sketchbook, draw a clear map to find my way. Temple.
My fingers tighten on the sketchbook, the fierceness of my grip surprising me. I surprise myself again by blurting, “What were you doing there?”
Larissa narrows her eyes, glances around, then leans forward. “Sneaky stuff.”
“Sneaking badly,” Giulia sighs.
“Well”—Larissa’s lip tweaks—“if someone saw us, we were sneaking terribly.”
Our eyes meet; hers are amused, mine must be horrified. She knows I saw her, and she’s probably added it up about the notebook and sure, if I leave I have nowhere to go, but I’m considering walking off into the wilderness until I become a tree or something.
Giulia meets my eyes. Hers resonate with a curiosity about me that matches mine about her; there’s sympathy, too. “Are you hungry? You look hungry.”
I stammer. “H-how can I look hungry? I’m not, like, coming across as a starving orphan or something, am I?”
My god. Literally everything I say is wrong.
Giulia rattles off a list to the waiter, then turns back to me. The amusement in her smile is conspiratorial. “You’ve been staring at everyone else’s food since we got here.”
My own laugh is brighter and higher than I’m used to. “You got me.”
“It’s on us.” Larissa must have noticed the tension in my shoulders; it starts to ease.
Giulia nods. “We owe you a thank-you for our book.” She holds out a hand.
I grip the sketchbook. I’ll give it to them, we’ll eat, then they’ll take it away and this door will close like all the others.
My hand won’t open.
“What is all this? In the sketchbook. At the temple. I want …” I want to know what I felt, when the colors got bright and the air hummed and I tasted lemon like I do in my dreams. “I want to know, if I’m going to give this back.”
I wait for fallout.
“Why do you care why two weirdos are getting naked in an archaeological site?” Larissa’s tone’s casual, but alertness glints. I try not to quail.
Giulia pours wine from the zigzag-painted jug deposited on our table. Through the golden liquid, the tables mutate, and the boats and buildings twist into new shapes.
“It sounds like a cool story?” Okay, good. That was a good thing to say.
“Legitimate reason to hold something hostage.” Larissa raises her glass. Chunky turquoise and coral rings clink. “But you go first. Pray tell, why were you stumbling across us in the first place?”
We touch glasses. I shouldn’t drink alone in a strange city with no idea where I’m sleeping. The wine is sweet and crisp. I like it. I will have more.
“I broke up with my boyfriend.” The words squeeze my throat. It’s the first time I’ve said them. “We were having problems, and I saw a postcard from this country, and—”
And I felt this call, but I can’t say that. I’ll go with the easier story, the one I was telling myself. That Craig had fallen for this impulsive, free spirit that had guttered out once we hit the reality of a cold home and bills and late shifts. And I tried to be that girl again, so he’d remember why he wanted me.
I can’t lie to those eyes, those playful dark ones, those warm hazel ones. I’m going to hold out the truth like a hand they might take.
“So I bought tickets. For the next day. So we could have an adventure. Anyway, he …” This isn’t coming out flippant. Try harder. “He wasn’t happy about me spending our rent and risking my job. Fair play. He said some things that I guess needed to be said, and—” He kicked me out, he kicked me out, don’t cry, don’t cry. “I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I had this ticket, so I … went.”
Larissa mouths, “Hell yes.” Giulia touches my hand, surprising me.
I shouldn’t still be talking, so I talk fast. “I’m on my own and I’m excited and scared and I have no money and I don’t know what to do.”
This is going so wrong. At least I didn’t say the thing that will tip me over from pathetic to deranged. About the pull. The pull that—I see it now—intensified when I saw them.
“You’re brave.” Giulia squeezes my hand.
“What’s your plan?” Larissa asks.
I shrug. I try to remember what I was imagining. I wasn’t. It was all light, unformed.
The immediate future is that food appears, and we forget everything because food. Shrimps, cheeses, crispy leaves in tangy sauces. Sharpness and richness and chili burn. My throat’s too busy gulping food to choke on tears. Sometimes it’s worth throwing away your life for a mouthful of spiced soup in a fairy-lit café. Sometimes there’s just now.
Larissa says something about “food silence” and how this food is nearly as good as at home. I nibble cheese and walnuts and wonder where their home is. They seem happy. Bold, wrapped up in life, relaxed together. There are things I miss; I can’t place what they are.
Giulia stands, gesturing at the bathroom. Larissa continues mopping up sauce. “I’m saying. The food’s even better on the islands. Wait until you get there, you’ll see.”
I put down my fork and sigh, looking up into the fairy lights. “I don’t think I’m going to get to see them.”
“Of course you are!” Larissa finishes her bread, a big bite; she eats with so much relish, lives with so much relish. I wish I had her optimism. “You’re coming with us, right?”
The lights go swimmy. I’m blindsided, giddy, fireworks. “I—”
“Listen.” She leans forward over the table, like she’s going to reach for my hand, but she doesn’t, just looks in my eyes, intent. “There’s an island. A half day from here by ferry. It’s where we live now, and it’s …” A flash of that transcendence she showed this morning. “It’s not like anywhere else in the world. Not like all this. It’s pure and it’s strange and it’s gorgeous, and there’s secrets there.” Her eyes narrow, just slightly, like she’s reading me. Or like she already recognizes the pull in me, the mystic madness that would allow me to tear apart my life and run off into the unknown. “Beautiful secrets.”
My breath’s half-held. I nod, although there wasn’t a question. The taste of oil and lemon, the harbor lights, they’re backdrop; it’s all her, the whole world is those sparking, dark eyes.
She breaks her gaze away and begins to eat again. “And like I said. Food’s like this, but like times fifty. We’re heading back tomorrow, and I cannot wait.”
“And you’re inviting me?” I misunderstood. I misunderstood, of course I did, people don’t make offers like that. I brace for the embarrassment.
“I’m asking you to come, actually. I’d like you to be there with us.”
I can’t think of any time ever that someone told me that.
There’s a quiet while it becomes real.
“What do you think?” Curls spill around big eyes. I’d follow her anywhere; it’s like she’s that voice of the universe. Like the call is coming from those lips. “Fancy another impulsive adventure?”
What other option do I have? If I did, would I take it? Of course not. I came to find this. It found me.
“I’d love to,” I whisper.
CHAPTER FOUR
MISSING
I CRASH IN THEIR HOTEL ROOM; THEY GIVE ME AN ENTIRE BED, CURL UP together in the other. Giulia warns that where we’re going is remote: patchy internet and phone reception on the way, none once we reach our destination. I don’t bother to message anyone. I’m ready to vanish.
I lie awake listening to their breathing, to the breeze tapping vines against the window, until exhaustion takes me. My dreams are indistinct shafts of light and shadow, and smell of earth and lemon, saltwater and honey.
