* * *
I woke that night to the sound of Zadie crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting upright and reaching for my sister. My fingers found only empty space where her body should be. “Where are you?”
“I’m here,” she said. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw her crouched at the foot of the bed. Tears glistened on her cheeks.
“What’s the matter? Did something happen? Are you hurt?”
“No. I need—I need your help.”
“Of course,” I told her, but she remained where she was, twisting her hair over one shoulder. “Surely it can wait until morning.”
Zadie rose without speaking and left our bedroom. Confused and still half-asleep, I followed her to the balcony.
“What is it?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“You’ll hate me if I tell you. But that won’t stop me. I can’t go to Ilara. And I need your help.”
She jumped off the balcony before I could stop her, and I dived in after her, terrified she was going to drown herself. Instead, she swam away from the house. I wanted to scream for her to stop, but I was afraid I’d wake half the village in the process, so I followed her.
When we’d been swimming for what felt like ages, we reached our boat, anchored far from our house. “What are you doing?” I said between gasps for air. I hadn’t known Zadie could swim that fast. I started to reach for the boat to haul myself in when Zadie thrust her hand out.
“Don’t get too close, Nor.”
“What? Why?” I followed her gaze to a rope going over the side of the boat. “What is that?”
She bit her lip. “I caught it, last night.”
So she hadn’t been with Sami after all. “Caught what?”
“A maiden’s hair jelly.”
I gasped and swam a few feet farther from the boat. “Zadie, no! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Did it sting you?”
“I used a large net. I haven’t touched it. I haven’t even looked at it since I caught it. I kept it out here all day, weighted down with an anchor. It’s dead, for all I know.”
I ducked down under the water, sure she was mistaken. Zadie couldn’t catch a maiden’s hair. She wouldn’t even know how. But sure enough, the jelly was there, glowing faintly in the net.
I came back up and pushed my hair away from my face. “And just what exactly are you planning to do with it?”
“I’m going to scar myself with it. On my legs. Like Dido.”
Dido was a girl we’d known since childhood. She’d been scarred horribly when she was only eight, when a dead maiden’s hair had floated into the village. Varenians healed remarkably well, but her legs still bore the scars. She was one of the only girls our age who hadn’t participated in the ceremony, the girl our mother held up as an example anytime we did something she considered risky or dangerous.
You wouldn’t want to end up like poor Dido, would you?
“Why?” I breathed.
“If the only way to stay in Varenia is to stop being beautiful, then that’s what I’ll do.”
I closed my eyes, remembering what I’d said to her the previous day, and inwardly cursed my own foolishness. “Is this all because of that stupid comment I made? This might get you out of leaving Varenia, but Sami would never be permitted to marry you. And you could die!” A sting from a maiden’s hair jellyfish was rarely fatal, mostly because they were avoidable, and anytime someone was stung, they got away from it as quickly as possible. Dido had been small and a poor swimmer, and the jelly she’d encountered had been enormous, making it difficult to get away.
This jelly was smaller than the one we’d seen the other day, and juveniles were known to be less venomous than adults. But to expose yourself to a sting deliberately? Who knew what the consequences could be?
“If you can think of another way for me to stay in Varenia, I will happily listen to it. But if you can’t, I don’t want to hear anything other than whether or not you’ll help me,” Zadie said.
This isn’t you! I wanted to scream. She sounded cold and unfeeling, like Mother. “I would do anything for you, Zadie. You know that. But I won’t help you harm yourself.” I started to swim away, but her hand gripped my arm fiercely.
She pulled me to her, until our foreheads were so close they nearly touched. After a moment, her face crumpled and she began to weep. “Please, Nor. I’m scared.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to imagine wanting something so badly I was willing to injure myself permanently for it. Zadie hadn’t known pain like I had; she couldn’t possibly understand what she was asking.
But she had seen me suffer. She knew what I’d been through. And just watching it had to have been excruciating for her, as I knew watching her suffer would be for me. If she was asking me to do this, she had to be desperate beyond measure.
My eyes burned with tears as I began to understand that Zadie was already in pain. Leaving Sami might not cause her physical injury, but I felt like I was being stabbed in the heart every time I imagined Zadie leaving Varenia. She would be feeling that about both me and Sami. I looked down at her hand gripping mine, at the unblemished skin of her arm. She had made it all these years without so much as a splinter, and she wanted me to help her undo all that in one instant?
“I can’t!” I cried, the tears springing free of my eyes. “I won’t do that to you, Zadie. I’m sorry.”
I was already several lengths from her when she shouted after me.
“Then I’ll do it myself!”
I turned to see her pull a knife from the boat and dive under the water.
“Zadie, no!” I plowed through the water toward her, reaching her just in time. I pulled on her shoulder, whirling her toward me, and for a moment we hung there in stillness, her face a mirror of the anguish I felt.
“Please, Nor,” she cried the moment we surfaced. “If you won’t do it for me, at least stay with me. I can’t do it alone.”
I hated myself for nodding. But I knew I would hate myself more if I left and she seriously injured herself trying to do this by herself. “How were you planning to do it?” I asked shakily.
Some of the worry drained from her face, but I felt like I had absorbed all of it. “I’ll cut off one of the tentacles and lay it on my legs. It will need to stay on my skin for a little while to ensure permanent scarring.”
I stared at her in horror. “How do you know this?”
She started for the other side of the boat, away from the jellyfish. “Mother told me once. She said if a jellyfish ever stung me, the most important thing to do would be to remove the tentacles right away, and to use something flat and rigid to brush out the stingers. Otherwise I’d have permanent scars. It’s a small maiden’s hair. I don’t think it has enough venom to kill me.”