Bring Me Your Midnight(47)
When I get downstairs, my dad is fixing breakfast and my mom is nursing a cup of tea. “Morning, baby,” she says.
“Late night last night?” Dad asks, and for one awful moment, I think they know. I’m silent, my mind racing, trying to figure out what to say, how to apologize, what to admit to, but then he speaks again. “It isn’t like you to sleep in this late.”
His voice is casual, teasing, and my whole body relaxes as I realize my secret is safe. Wolfe’s secret is safe.
“I was just thinking,” I say, making myself a cup of tea, then sitting next to my mother on the couch. She tosses half of her blanket my way, and I curl up under it with her.
“What’s on your mind?” she asks. I’m about to say something about my Covenant Ball or the perfumery when Wolfe’s words jump into my mind unbidden.
You were ignorant.
You should demand to know the truth.
My heart begins to race as I work over his words, wondering if I can actually summon the courage I need to ask the question that’s been plaguing my mind. Why didn’t it hurt?
My palms are sweaty, and I rest my mug on my thigh so it doesn’t shake.
“Have you ever seen a moonflower?” I ask, trying to keep my tone casual. Curious.
“A moonflower? What ever made you think of that?” Mom asks, but she doesn’t sound upset or suspicious, so I keep going.
“I thought I saw one on the island,” I say. “I was wrong, of course, but that’s what made me think of it.” I hate lying to her, but I want to have this conversation, need to have it, and the only way is for my mother to believe it’s innocent.
Mom leans back on the couch and looks past me. “Once, when I was a young girl. The flowers had been eradicated by that time, but every once in a while, a stray seed would survive in the earth and bloom. That’s why we’re so adamant about teaching the risks of the flower. It’s extremely difficult to get rid of a plant once it’s made a home somewhere, and while we’ve done a very thorough job, it’s never a guarantee that they’re completely gone.”
“What did you do when you saw it?”
“I was with your grandmother, and she noticed it at the same time I did. She roped off the area until an official from the mainland came over and uprooted it. They’re beautiful. I wish I could have seen it at night, when it was blooming.”
“What if another one appears on the island?”
“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t worry about that. The one I saw as a girl was one of the very last sightings. And if you did see one, you would know how to react. You wouldn’t touch it, and you’d come to me.”
“But what if I did touch it?”
A heavy silence settles in the room. The noise of my dad preparing breakfast has stopped, and my mother looks at me with interest.
“Why would you ask such a thing?” she says as my father slowly steps out of the kitchen, waiting to hear how I’ll respond.
“I just want to know what would happen.”
“You know what would happen. It would cause you unimaginable pain, and you’d die within the hour. Those flowers are extraordinarily dangerous, and that’s why we went to such great lengths to get them off the island.”
There is nothing in her tone that sounds off, nothing that makes me think she’s being anything but honest, and I realize she doesn’t know the truth. She has been told the same thing I have since she was a child, the same lie, and she knows nothing different.
I grasp for some kind of explanation, something to make sense of a falsehood this far-reaching, but I come up short. My mother has always been a steady foundation for me, has always had the answers, but she doesn’t have this one, and it feels like the ground I stand on is beginning to shake.
I blink and bring myself back the present, realizing both my parents are still watching me. “Well, I certainly hope I never come into contact with one, then,” I say. I try to make the words sound light, but I don’t succeed.
“Your mother’s right, sweetheart,” Dad says. “You don’t have to worry about that. It’s a very recognizable flower, so even if one did appear, which is highly unlikely, you’d know it before you ever risked touching it.”
My dad believes in me, and it makes my heart break that he’s trying to comfort me, trying to assure me that the flower is nothing to worry about. My mother nods in agreement and rests her hand on my knee.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, giving him a small smile.
“Are my girls ready for breakfast?” he asks, moving back into the kitchen.
“Absolutely.” I stand up and follow him, grabbing silverware and setting the table. We sit down and talk about the shop and my next date with Landon, and the flower doesn’t come up again.
But I still need the truth, need to understand how my mother, the most powerful person on this island, doesn’t know about moonflowers. I don’t want to be ignorant anymore, and I don’t care if the knowledge shatters my foundation, because it’s shattering anyway. I feel it as I clear the table and do the dishes and walk with my mother to the perfumery. I feel it the entire day, each step a little less stable than the last.
Ivy walks through the door of the perfumery moments before we close, handing me a leftover scone from the tea shop. It grounds me, this routine of ours, and I breathe just a little deeper.