She opens the jar of black ooze and scoots across the grass to sit behind Clara, gathering long, purple hair into her hands and separating it into four smaller sections before she begins to rub the jelly mixture into it, starting at the scalp and working her way down.
An aggressive musk permeates the air as she goes. The dye does smell like a barnyard—one that hasn’t been mucked out in a while—but I can tell it’s going to work. Already, half of Clara’s hair is as black as it was on my island.
Which begs the question…
“How did you manage to—” I break off, cursing my addled brain.
I can’t ask Clara why her hair wasn’t purple before. That might suggest witchcraft, and I don’t want to do anything to make Adrina second-guess her decision to help us. I’ll have to wait until Clara and I are alone.
Then I’m sure she’ll be able to explain everything.
“How did I manage what?” Adrina asks, blinking wide eyes my way.
“How did you…find the dye so quickly?” I improvise. “I’ve never seen a pot of dye in my life. Not that I can remember, anyway.”
Adrina laughs. “Ah, well, that’s because women don’t want you to see. We have to keep our beauty secrets,” she says with a wink that makes me smile in spite of my pulsing head and jangled nerves. “This is my mother’s. She uses it to cover the gray hairs my little brother gives her with his troublemaking. There is another jar, too,” she says, nodding at the bundle. “And a mirror. You can start on your own hair if you don’t mind. That way we will be done faster. I truly can’t be gone long, or Mother will worry. Just be careful not to get it on your skin. It will stain that, too.”
“All right. Sure,” I say, still not certain why I have to color my hair. It’s nearly the same color as Adrina’s, but to keep Clara safe, I’m happy to do what I’m told.
I fish out another jar of dye and a hand mirror with a carved bone handle. It’s lovely, a thing of beauty for the sake of beauty, a nicety that’s foreign to my spartan, son-of-a-priest life. It’s something I picture on a lady’s dressing table, and I suddenly find myself thinking how nice it must be to have a mother, to have a house that is a home and not just a place to store your few belongings and lay your head at night.
To have someone worry about where you are…
Da worries, of course, and he’ll be shattered when he realizes I’m missing, but I’ve always sensed that mothers feel things differently than fathers. I have never doubted Da’s love and never will. It just isn’t the vicious, tender, unbreakable mother-love you read about in fairy stories. The kind that seems to float in the air around Adrina.
Shaking off my melancholy thoughts, I lift the glass, bracing myself for the horror I must look after being storm-tossed and adrift.
But nothing can prepare me for the bright blue shock of hair flopping over my forehead.
“What the holy—”
“Mouse. There’s a mouse! Right there!” Clara leaps to her feet, pointing to the olive tree, eliciting a squeal of surprise from Adrina that immediately transforms to a laugh.
“Saints above, you scared me,” she says, still laughing. “I thought we were being attacked by bandits. Don’t worry, silly. It’s just a mouse. It won’t pester us, we won’t pester it, and we’ll all go home in one piece.”
“She’s right, Clara. It’s fine.” I meet her blue eyes—as blue as my suddenly turquoise hair. I can’t say I’m over my surprise, but I nod to reassure her I won’t give myself away.
We have a story. The best way to keep Adrina from abandoning us to our strange-haired fate is to stick to it.
“I saw it earlier,” I add. “I think it might be sick, or it would have run away by now.”
Adrina tsks kind-heartedly. “Poor, sad little thing.”
“Right. Of course. Sorry to frighten everyone.” Clara, her hair almost entirely covered in gunk now, settles again in front of Adrina.
Her eyes meet mine as she does, and I see the questions there, but I don’t have answers. Not for either of us.
So I pick up the mirror, scoop up a handful of dye and go at my hair. The sooner I’m done, the sooner I can pretend the sight of myself doesn’t chill me to the marrow.
Chapter Nine
Foxglove
We sit with the dye on our hair for nearly an hour—watching the wind blow the grass like waves and passing the flask of orange juice back and forth between the three of us until my mouth stings from the sweetness. Finally, Adrina announces it’s time to go wash in the creek below the amphitheater, and Declan and I follow her down the hill, cutting through the ruins.