“Inoubliable,” murmur the veiled ones delightedly. “A most happy turn of events.” They applaud lightly.
A mother and daughter Rose, I think. “Well that is an interesting story. Very intéressante, isn’t it, Lake? But what is this about the Roses being repressed? Full of our favorites, they said. What are the favorites, I wonder. What makes them so délicieux?”
But Lake isn’t here anymore. She must have left or something? Which is a shame since we seem finally just about to eat. Feeling a little nervous now, can’t say why exactly. Maybe it’s the thorns around my waist. Also when I think the question What? What are we about to eat?
“A very interesting story,” I say to the very white woman beside me, to cover the nerves. “About two Roses and one Vessel, the mother and daughter. Did you happen to hear?” But she, like all the moonbright ones, is still looking deep into her mirror tray with her old eyes. Smiling at her sin.
Two Statues of Cold are now walking toward me.
The flowers around my waist unfasten like a belt and go wriggling back into the wall when the Statues approach. Their faces are so extraordinarily beautiful up close that I can do nothing but stare. My breath is gone from my throat. My heart has stopped. I can only look upon these faces, smoother and more moonbright than mine or Lake’s could ever dream of being. Than any face could ever dream of being. Everything I look at for the rest of my life will pale in comparison to these faces. Their eyes have universes in them, complete with forests and mountains and seas and starry skies and beyond, to the outer black. On either side of me, they lean in close. I smell what I know is heaven, stardust. The cold burning of the outer black.
“You have been Selected, Daughter,” they say with their perfect shining lips. They have the voices of angels. I hear their words like a chorus not only in my ears but deep in my heart, making it Brighten.
“I have been Selected?”
“You,” says one with their angel voice. Making me shiver.
“You,” says the other.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “I.”
They take my arms, one takes one and one the other, and it is the most perfect touch, the softest caress. The touch of these hands knows everything I have ever wanted. It’s promising it to me as they lead me now, gently, slowly, to the water garden they call the Depths, full of red jellies or Roses floating. The most beautiful garden I’ve ever seen in my life, I realize, now that I’m really here. Now that I’m seeing it up close, standing right by the glass pool, my arms in their hands on either side of me. Under the moon still full and beaming its silver light down on us from the sky above.
“How beautiful,” I whisper.
“Isn’t it?” says one.
“Here,” says the other. She releases one of my hands from the tray I’m gripping, and tips into my palm a handful of rose petals.
“Drop those into the water. Go ahead, Daughter.”
I drop the red petals into the open throat of the tank, where they fall upon the blue-green water. For a moment we watch them float prettily on its very still surface.
“It’s pretty,” I say, turning to the Statues of Cold. But they won’t turn their faces to me. They’re still watching the water, waiting. For what?
I feel the waiting behind me too. A table of veiled ones waiting. The Queen of Snow waiting. Seth waiting. The waiting like a held breath. And then it happens. A red jelly swims up to the surface. Begins to nibble on the petals. It is a giant jelly. My jelly. The one Lake mocked, calling it my prince, my fairy godfish. The one that followed me along the corridor of water. How ugly it is, Lake said. But Lake was wrong. I would tell her, wherever she is. It is not ugly. It’s not beautiful like the Statues of Cold either. What is it?
Mine is the word that comes.
“Mine,” I say to the Statues, who just stare at the water. They still look like they are waiting.
And then a second, slightly smaller jelly swims up and begins to nibble the petals too. It swims right up beside the bigger jelly, the two now side by side. The big and the little. Like they know each other well. Maybe the big one is the parent of the little one. The mother and the daughter? That is sweet.
Behind me, I hear applause from the veiled ones at the table. “Excellent. Very good. Ah, a triumph.”
And then a Statue is touching my hand. Handing me her big net. “To catch both your Roses with, Daughter,” she says.
“My Roses?”
“Or if you like, your soul.” They smile at each other. “However you like.”