Not this time.
But the woman has stopped laughing. In fact, I’ve lost her completely and I realize why. Two by two, the Dogio procession snakes right through Nico’s front door—into Denali Manor—with an endless round of Blessed be the lights.
I stop behind a nearby copse of trees, stealing glances when it’s safe. The inside of Nico’s home—which I’ve only ever seen through the windows from the pond out back—is ablaze with the golden brilliance of a hundred candles. Guest after guest leaves their gifts of offering, blessings for the Ever-Sol Feast, on a long table near the front door. Some gifts are immaculately wrapped, tied up in gilded ribbon; others are on display: sugared fruit and fresh breads and cheeses piled high in baskets. It’s then I realize my mouth is watering from the aromas alone.
And I hear it, the woman’s laughter. It’s so distinct, airy and light and jingly like cheery bells. Before I can spot her, the door slams shut.
Glancing to the Sun, then the hourglass round my neck, I realize that if I’m quick about it I’ve got just enough time to go around the back to steal one more peek.
And I get more than a glimpse.
The back of Nico’s home is all windows. The place spreads up and out like a table-topped hill. The roof is rich red clay tiles, and the grounds are protected by a black iron fence. Glass extends floor to ceiling, the Sun invited to shine directly in to greet the Denalis each morning. Many Dogio houses are built this way, with the Sun in mind.
Our cottage is surrounded by forest, the Sun only finding its way to our roof midday, nothing to warm but a thick slab of cracked stucco.
As I make my way closer to the fence, boots crunching over fallen leaves, hidden by the shadows of trees overhead, the chatter grows louder despite the windows being closed.
Then a chiming—metal fork against a glass—and all goes silent.
Tiptoeing closer, I’m only one short step away from the fence, barely concealed by the trunk of a tree, when the low murmur of a man’s voice cuts through the quiet of late afternoon. Inch by inch, I move out from behind the tree until, if I squint, I’ve got a perfect view of Nico’s family at the head table and the beginning of the feast.
Lord Denali welcomes the crowd who sits before him at round tables adorned with gold linens and even more candles, centerpieces a cascading of fresh sunrise flowers, crystal flutes filled to the brim with the same sunny, candied lemon slices I just spent a small savings on (for six pieces).
After a short speech, Nico’s father bows his head in thanks, but he continues speaking. Nico sits to Lord Denali’s right, and when his father motions to him, he stands. Taller than his father by a good three inches, Nico squares his shoulders and nods, agreeing with whatever Lord Denali’s saying. And I find myself dying to know what that is. So much so that I’ve moved out from behind the tree, completely exposed, my head nearly shoved right through two bars of the gate.
Still, I can only make out every few words, and without any context, they’re nonsense. And I know it’s getting late … And I know Poppy’ll wring my neck … And I know I’m being reckless and stupid by sneaking and eavesdropping and staying out long past when my grandfather expected me home.
Yet, I don’t move.
I’m frozen.
Because Nico’s caught my eyes.
Across the countless Dogio focused on him, his father’s announcements, blessings, and sunrise flowers, his backyard with the garden and trellises, and out to the tall iron fence that closes it all off, I swear, Nico sees me.
A bit of shame mixed with a deep blush creeps up into my face, and I scramble to leave, but not before I spot the woman in the gold dress. She’s seated, her back to me, right before the closest window, and when she turns her head, showing a wide, genuinely gleeful smile, it hits me as if it’s been there all along. It’s not a punch line I’ve missed. There’s no riddle to crack. She’s simply happy. Content on this very same night Poppy and I will board up our home and hide for our lives from the Night.
And it’s all wrong.
I run the whole way home, not once looking back.
Vesper bells ring mere minutes after I slam our back door shut. They sound three rounds on the Night of Reckoning.
Three.
Two.
One.
CHAPTER 5
Once I close and lock the door behind me, Poppy’s right there with the boards to reinforce it. As he hastily hammers nails into the wall, almost catching his thumb more than once, my conscience pangs with the guilt of how stupid it was for me to waste time spying on Nico, on the Dogio feast. How Poppy must have been watching each grain of sand drop through the hourglass waiting for me to return.
Worse, right beneath the guilt of worrying him so is a sickening humiliation over being caught by Nico, which only makes me more ashamed.
And all of this on the most dangerous night of the year.
The Night have lived in opposition of the Imperi, hidden underground in what’s believed to be a complex series of tunnels, for as long as the Imperi have been in power. Since before the Great Flood that overtook our island on this day centuries ago.
Dogio celebrate with candles and sweets and sunrise flowers.
Basso huddle in their boarded-up homes.
The Night have their Night of Reckoning.
And the Imperi guard their weapons cache, the High Regent, and powerful Dogio citizens and villages like Nico’s.
Honestly, who knows what came first—the Imperi, the flood, the Night, the Sun himself? I just want Poppy and me to live through to first light. To have food on the table. To not have to work all hours in order to afford six measly pieces of candied fruit to stick in the middle of a yearly loaf of sunrise bread.
A final series of bells echoes over the island the moment the Sun fully sets each night—vesper bells. Tonight is no different.
“Downstairs. Now—” are Poppy’s first and only words after he shoves the hammer through his belt loop. He then crams a chair under the door handle and checks to be sure I’m carrying the lamp oil I was sent for what feels like forever ago.
His expression alone—tired, concern lining his forehead—is punishment enough for my sneaking. When this is over, I’m going to catch him a fish twice as big as the pantera this morning and then cook his favorite stew to go with the sunrise bread.
I pull the rug that covers the basement door aside, as a series of windows breaks from somewhere down the street.
It’s begun.
And it was a night similar to this that my parents were taken. It was the attack that spurred the first war. The Night surfaced, revolted.
Somewhere during those hours of terror, they snatched my mother and father up in the dead of dark. Dragged them away and tortured and killed them in Sun knows how many horrible ways.
Poppy blows out the lamp on the kitchen table, the sudden blackness sending a visceral shiver down my back. I force my fear, my nightmarish memories conjured from Poppy’s stories of the last time he saw my mother—his daughter—aside. He’s only once spoken of my father. And in an expletive-laced rant under his breath, no less. Poppy didn’t know I was listening outside his door when he lost his temper. There was mention of my father, that my parents died before they could marry, and that if it wasn’t for him maybe things would have been different. Not too long after, I worked up the nerve to ask him about it. He apologized that I’d overheard, that he’d used such language. There was truth to his words, he admitted, but also explained he’d been angry and missing my mother. My grandfather completely buried the subject from that moment on.