Season of the Dragonflies (36 page)

She should be dead, or so said the emergency team that came to the scene.

Mya remembered only one thing before the crash: that last paranoid look into the rearview mirror to make sure the SUV was still parked at the overlook, and of course it was, of course. All it took were those few seconds, and the other car approached around the bend and Mya was in the wrong lane. She remembered little else: white sunlight, perhaps, her plea and the floating cloud, and then waking up in a gurney. She still had her body, but she had to live with no sense of smell for the rest of her life.

Lucia waited for Mya to speak for the first time in days, while their mother sat in a chair with a vacant look on her face, like a porcelain doll. Lucia sniffled for Mya, and Mya wanted to cry for Luke. Loving her was his only mistake. The other driver had to live, Luke had to walk again; she couldn't accept any other result. They had to come out of this alive and strong. Mya loved Luke, and she hadn't had the chance to tell him when he could hear her. She was frightened of love and commitment, and that was her excuse. She regretted very few things in her life more than this.

Lucia knelt by the side of the bed and rested her head on Mya's arm. Each time Mya tried to talk, her throat began to burn, a result of the injury or her pride, she couldn't quite tell. She would now depend on Lucia to mix the oils in her workshop, and she'd have to muster the humility to ask Lucia to do this for her. Lucia hadn't committed to the study of the family trade, but now she had no other choice. Mya needed her sister. Her mother had long since lost her touch or interest or both. But still Mya couldn't make her voice come. The idea that Mya would need someone else to smell for her—it was a grief she hadn't yet fathomed.

“What is it?” Lucia put her cheek next to Mya's face.

“A favor.”

“Anything,” Lucia said.

“Is it there?” Mya said, her voice raspy, her jaw aching.

Lucia stood and leaned closer to Mya's mouth, and Mya repeated herself. At first Lucia tilted her head, but then she followed Mya's gaze and said, “Oh—no, it's gone. I haven't seen it since you've been here.”

Mya took a deep breath. “I watched it go.”

“That's good news, right?”

“Don't trust it,” Mya managed to say. “Wasn't Peter.”

Lucia grabbed Mya's hands. “It's fine now, it can't get worse.” The heat in Lucia's hands pulsated into Mya's.

Mya squeezed Lucia's hands. “It'll kill me next.”

Lucia bit her lip.

“I need you,” Mya said, and Lucia's false optimism fell from her face, her cheeks no longer high and round. “A spell.”

Lucia laughed in disbelief. “I can't do that stuff,” she said.

“Now,” Mya said.

Willow stood from her chair and walked over to the bed. Mya was relieved to see her mother in motion. Her silence since she'd arrived unnerved Mya more than anything else. Willow said, “What're you asking her to do?” Willow petted Mya's head. When was the last time she'd done that?

Mya said, “Protect me.”

Lucia pushed away from the bed and put one hand on her forehead. She said, “I can be president, I think. I can try at least, but not this. This is sort of ridiculous. I was never good at it then, even in make-believe on the playground, and I just wanted away from it all. And now you're telling me I need to do it or else you'll die?”

Mya looked to their mother.

“Let me help you,” Willow said.

“Oh no,” Lucia said. “You agree with her? Really? With all that pain medication? You know under normal circumstances she'd never let me into her workshop. She used to tackle me to the ground to get me out.”

This was true, unfortunately. Mya had tried locking the door, but Lucia could pick it. She tried shouting, but Lucia wouldn't budge, impervious to her anger. Mya couldn't concentrate with Lucia in the room studying her every move, and a few times she'd tackled her to the floor in order to remove her. “Sorry,” Mya said, even though she knew it was twenty-five years too late.

“I can't,” Lucia said, her hands on her hips. “I come home, the business is going bust, you want me in as president, and I said yes. To help the family and try to save this big mess Mya and you made.” Mya looked over at her mother, whose face was as alert as an owl's. But Lucia continued. “And the damn flowers could die. Really die. Like not come back, ever, die.”

Willow put her hand up like a stop sign.

Lucia continued on: “And I never asked much about the flowers growing up I guess, but they're the weirdest damn flowers in the entire world. You know that, right? They're totally voyeuristic. Ben and I figured that out. Alone. On our own. Get what I'm saying?”

Willow said, “Not really,” but Lucia kept rolling, her gaze fixed on the floor. “And I had really amazing news for you guys and couldn't wait to see you.”

Willow said, “What?”

“I wanted to explain the day Ben and I figured it out and I wanted to tell you both in person. But then I got the phone call and Mya was in the hospital.” She stretched her arms out to the ceiling like she was praising God and said, “Who gives a damn if I know how to save them? Who gives a damn if I'm having a baby and that it's the only way to save the flowers? Already—go out to the field and see for yourself—the scent's back, I swear it. That's how I know I'm pregnant. No test required. But on top of all that, I need to go home and make a protection spell for Mya? It's too much for one visit home.” And with that Lucia left the room and slammed the door, and Mya watched as two ICU nurses followed after her with shushing fingers held to their lips.

Willow sat back down and rested her hands in her lap. “I don't remember hormones working that fast,” she said.

Mya's little sister would have a baby before her. Lucia was the one the flowers had chosen; the business and everything else belonged to her.

“And how did the flowers . . . ?” Willow asked, talking to herself, “Oh,” she answered. “Oh. How strange.”

“Mom,” Mya tried to say, but her mother drowned her out with a long hum.

“A granddaughter.” Willow's face brightened. “That Bennie, I knew it.”

Mya grabbed an empty plastic cup from her tray and tossed it at her mother. Willow gave a little shout. Tears streamed down Mya's face, and Willow stood up and embraced her.

“Oh, honey,” she said.

Only one sister had an heir. Only one daughter could become president. After all these years of Mya's tending to the flowers and the business, the flowers wanted Lucia—this was the final blow. Mya wanted some love to call her own. She'd concentrated on herself so long that all she had expected to come to her had passed her by, and she had nothing now. Unless Luke still loved her. And why would he? She had almost killed him, and he might never be able to work the farm again.

Mya let her mother hold her hand for a long time, both of them quiet with understanding. Lucia returned to the room ten minutes later. Mya couldn't look at her, but she could feel her standing there.

Lucia finally said, “I shouldn't have told you like that.”

Willow held out an arm for Lucia, inviting her in for a hug. Lucia came to her and Willow said, “We're happy for you, make no mistake about that.”

Mya wished she could be happy for Lucia and the flowers and the family business, but she just wasn't ready.

“I'll try, Mya,” Lucia said. “If you want me to.”

What
did
Mya want now? She'd been stripped of her power, just like she'd asked for prior to blacking out, but what was she left with? Luke was on another floor, knocked out in surgery for the third time. And no one would tell her what this one was for. Mya might make it through all of this with him and he might love her still. That small possibility was all she had left.

“Should I do it?” Lucia said.

Mya turned her face away from her mother and sister and nodded. For the first time in her life she could imagine having a child, but now she'd never have the chance to smell the scent of a newborn. Mya had never tried to make anything from pure love before, and she was certain she was too broken to try. She couldn't have made a protection spell even if she were well.

L
UCIA'S HOPE OF
having a child had died during her marriage. Jonah had made it clear he was more concerned with art than creating a family. And she'd accepted his answer as her own: she too was trying to be an artist and had no time for motherhood. Plus, babies were thieves. They stole dinners out and hours of sleep. Lucia had no time for it, just like Jonah. She pushed those feelings away and down so deep that the idea of a celebration had never occurred to her. But now she wanted a party. Yellow balloons and flower-printed paper cups. Cake. Presents. Congratulations, at the very least. So far, none of that had happened.

Just four days after Lucia made love to Ben, she and Willow stood at the edge of a healthy mid-June crop of
Gardenia potentiae
flowers, their lovely white petals reaching upward to the exposed sun, their scent ready for harvest.

Willow said, “You're certain?”

Lucia nodded. Of course she was certain: Wasn't the field evidence? Lucia wouldn't need a pregnancy test to know it was true. It had been sealed with her intent.

Willow bent over, placed her palms on the ground, and said, “Best news in months.”

A party wasn't necessary, but why did it feel so much like a transaction? Fertilize an egg, business as usual.

James approached them from farther down the field. Willow stood to watch him come near and said, “He's handsome, isn't he?”

Lucia always preferred men her own age. Also, she didn't know how to comment on her mother's boyfriend's good looks, so she opted to say nothing.

Willow said, “Will you two get married?”

“Me and Ben?”

“Who else?” Willow said, and wrapped one arm around Lucia's shoulders. She patted Lucia's belly with her other hand.

With Mya's accident and Zoe's death, no one, not even Lucia, was prepared for this kind of news. She wanted to feel happy about it, but marriage hadn't occurred to her, not once. “I don't think so,” Lucia said.

“How come?” Willow held her hand out to the flowers. One section of the hedge moved to her without hesitation, and she plucked one flower from the bush and inserted it behind her ear.

Lucia had a million reasons, but the most obvious one was Ben hadn't suggested it and neither had Lucia. “I've done married before. Didn't turn out so well.”

Willow pulled her close. “Don't judge your future by your past.”

“That's wise and all,” Lucia agreed. “But the flowers are thriving. What more is necessary? Maybe you never needed to get married, maybe Grandmother Lily didn't need to either, if love was the only requirement.”

“That wasn't an option for me, I guess.” Willow dropped her arm from around Lucia's waist and walked forward to the edge of the flowers. She bent down once more and the flowers lifted to meet her delicate nose. In that moment Lucia found the little girl her mother once was, a girl Lucia would never meet, except, perhaps, in her own daughter. Willow said, “They smell like they always have. Maybe better.” She snapped off another flower at the top of the stem and turned to face Lucia. Willow fastened the flower in her silver bun, but her smile faded, and right then Lucia understood how lonely she must've been all these years. Working hard and without a lover, yet never talking about it, never complaining, never having time to share her burden.

James came to them and said, “That's lovely,” and leaned over to smell the flower in Willow's hair.

“Thanks.”

“Ben's coming by later to sample the flowers once more,” Lucia said. “Just so you know.”

James smiled. “I like that kid.”

Lucia smiled back at James. “Me too.” She continued to stare at him, wondering who he would become in her mother's life. A husband? It was so hard to imagine her mother married after all this time. Lucia appreciated his calm, steady presence. More than anything, he seemed to love her mother and make her happy, and it was about time. She'd always hoped for a James for Willow.

Lucia looked out to the fields once more; the rolling hedges of white were stable and unmoving. “Should we go?”

“The sooner, the better,” Willow answered.

MYA'S WORKSHOP FELT SO DESERTED
, as if the vials of oil and the spiders suspended in the corners knew it was not Mya who entered this space. Very little sunlight filtered through the slats of the bamboo blinds. Lucia walked to the windows. Willow and James followed.

Willow sealed the door behind her and then lit the candles. She gathered droppers and cloths and large glass bottles of essential oils from Mya's cabinets. Lucia and James watched as Willow fluttered around Mya's room, so frantic that she knocked over a bottle of geranium oil. It shattered on the ground and filled the room with the scent of a second-rate rose. She quickly grabbed the broom and began sweeping the oily glass into the dust pan. James tried to go to her, but Lucia grabbed the back of his shirt and he stood still. Willow stood and braced herself on Mya's table.

“Mom?” Lucia said softly.

“What's wrong with your sister?” Finally Willow looked up and over at Lucia like she might have an answer.

“Calm down.” Lucia wasn't sure why her mother was acting so strange. She'd seemed fine when they were in the fields.

Willow said, “There's always something more with Mya. She knew what she was doing when she made that scent for Zoe. Let's just admit that it was no accident. How could my own daughter be capable of a thing like that?”

“You have to believe her. She didn't mean to.”