“You’ll wear red soon enough, Aunt Jessica.”
“Thank you, Mother,” I said.
She sank back into the pillows, her smile fading by degrees, as if controlled by a dial. “On the dresser.”
By the attic door was an old oak dresser, full of the clothes my mother no longer wore. On top lay a folded silk jacket, very black, very formal.
I picked it up. The lining was deep blood red.
When I slipped the jacket on, it fit perfectly.
“Yes,” I said. “This will do very well.”
8
The Great Hall was almost full, more Mortons than I’d ever seen together in one place.
As intended, Peter’s death was a public tragedy. Even the tabloids down in the city had run stories: “Death by Misadventure” and “Ivy Fall,” neither headline technically correct. At least now I understood why Grandmother had ordered such a dramatic end.
I sat between Sebastian and Faraday, near the front. Faraday wore the little black dress she’d packed, more cocktail than funeral except for her birdcage veil. Sebastian was elegant in his black three-piece and dark silver tie, but his lack of blood seemed boyish now.
It was everywhere: scarlet leather gloves, an agate brooch, tourmaline in a pierced ear. Aunt Iris’s ruby ring, the spray of greenhouse amaranth on Aunt Beatrice’s wrist. A delegation from the Wolvaardt family in red socks, the Seths with henna on their palms.
And me, shirtless inside my mother’s jacket, the silk lining against bare skin.
“How come nobody’s in heels?” Faraday asked, looking down at her spiky-toed stilettos.
“We always dress to move,” Sebastian said—in case a funeral turned truly red, as one had in 1880.
It was the wake of a Morton matriarch, and a drunken Lindqvistaunt started a fateful fight. Fists became knives, my mother’s many-great-grandfather was killed, and the perpetrator absconded. The feud embroiled both families for forty years.
Since then, we and the Lindqvists attend one anothers’ weddings, feasts, and competitions, but never funerals. Neither side has forgotten—especially not my mother’s line.
“Oooh! Will there be dancing later?”
“Obviously,” Sebastian said.
“Who’s that? She’s fabulous.”
“Grandmother,” Sebastian and I said together.
“To both of you? I thought you weren’t first cousins.”
“Third,” Sebastian said. “We’re lax with family terms around here.”
“So she’s everybody’s grandma,” Faraday said. “The patronne de la famille. I mean, thatdress.”
My other relatives wore mere dashes of red; Grandmother was wrapped in oxblood velvet—the same shade as my silk lining. She looked very much the boss.
“And matching lipstick!” Faraday said, then frowned. “Huh. I know that guy.”
Sitting behind Grandmother was Aldridge Brinley, an ordinary of long association. His Boston Brahmin family had been incorporated by the Mortons more than a century ago.
“He’s from Boston,” I said.
“Methinks I banged his son.”
Sebastian chuckled. “Small world.”
