Swallowtail in the Lily Garden

“Stand clear of the closing doors.”

I took a step back. The train doors slid shut inches from my face, sealing me off from the girl inside. I dropped my eyes to the warning painted along the platform edge: “Mind the gap between the platform and the train.” But the image I’d just seen refused to leave me. Vanessa stood with one hand around the rail and a dark-covered book open in the other. I couldn’t make out the title. Her light-brown eyes - I still remembered their exact color - lifted from the page and met mine. She recognized me too. Her fingers tightened around the soft spine of the book, and she narrowed her eyes, expecting me to step into the same car. I stayed on the platform instead. To the relief of both of us.

We’d had little chance of running into each other after school. We’d both moved away: me because of my parents’ work; Vanessa... I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she’d gone abroad to study. Knowing there was enough distance between us had always been a comfort whenever senior year came back to me. And some small, spiteful part of me warmed at the thought that Vanessa’s personal life had ended after graduation too. Just like mine.

I boarded the next train without a second thought. Nothing but strangers around me. What were the odds of all four of us ending up in the same place again, here and now? Zero. And I wasn’t going to see Vanessa again anytime soon either.

I was already opening my office door when a mocking voice stopped me.

“You’re late.”

Of course. My car had refused to start that morning, and then a ghost from the past had made me miss a train. There was no point making excuses. I turned to my boss and gave him a slight, polite smile.

“My apologies.”

“Not that it matters to me anymore.” Ignas Kalvis looked unusually polished. His shirt, normally half untucked, had been tucked in with almost pedantic care, and his jacket was fastened neatly with a single button. His hair had been combed smooth and slicked back, as if he’d just stepped out of a salon. “Soon all the nepotism hires will stop being my problem. Haven’t you heard the news, Miss Banning?”

“You’re quitting?” I swallowed yet another jab about having gotten my job through my mother rather than on my own merits. It was partly true, which did nothing to make the remark less irritating.

“Don’t jinx it, Lilian.” He adjusted his tie with theatrical precision. “I’m getting promoted tonight.”

“And how would you know?”

Ignas raised an eyebrow. A flicker of irritation crossed his face, though his voice remained exaggeratedly cheerful.

“You always want to know everything, Lilian.” He clapped me on the shoulder with false familiarity. “Go on. You missed the morning briefing. Ask Anna for the notes.”

I’d never been late before. The experience was proving every bit as awkward and unpleasant as I’d imagined. For one irrational second I wanted to blame Vanessa, then remembered that the car had broken down before I’d ever seen her. My former classmate had nothing to do with it.

“All right.”

The moment I pushed open the office door, I saw Anna at her computer. She rose as soon as she noticed me and greeted me with a smile.

“Miss Banning, I left the briefing papers on your desk.”

I nodded and sat down at my workstation. There was still some time before my first consultation, so I skimmed the documents and set them aside.

“Any calls for me?”

“Yes. The chief legal counsel called. I told her you’d been held up at the briefing.”

I winced. Of course Mother had chosen the one morning in my entire life when I was late to call my office.

“Thank you.”

I unlocked my phone and typed a short message: “Should I come up?”

A reply arrived a few minutes later. “No. But if this is how you work, I’m beginning to understand why your reputation is so terrible. I’m promoting Kalvis. I doubt anyone will back you if you put yourself forward for his position. The managers will keep changing until you finally get yourself together.”

There was nothing I could say to that. Not unless I wanted to remind her that she’d been the one to insist I work at her firm instead of somewhere my surname wasn’t already on everyone’s lips. That would turn into a spectacular argument, so I darkened the screen and got back to work. I wanted to finish my consultations before lunch. I had no court appearances or active cases that day, which meant I might be able to leave a little early once I’d prepared for the upcoming hearings.

I worked to the steady tapping of keys, reading, thinking, crossing out one line and highlighting the next.

At lunch, my colleagues were talking about the evening. Ignas Kalvis was treating everyone to drinks in honor of his promotion. I, naturally, hadn’t been invited. A prosecutor from the neighboring department - I couldn’t remember his name - kept glancing at me as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to do it. It felt as though everyone in the cafeteria was either looking at me or talking about me. About the promotion that had once again gone to someone other than the chief legal counsel’s daughter.

I stood too quickly. My chair scraped backward and toppled over with a crash. Without looking around, I righted it as calmly as I could, gathered up my tray, and left the cafeteria with what remained of my dignity. I had no idea whether anyone actually watched me go or whether I only imagined myself at the center of everyone’s attention.

By one o’clock, any desire to work had vanished. The day had gone wrong from the moment I woke up, and all I wanted was for it to end. There was nothing urgent left to do, and even the shock of seeing Vanessa had begun to fade, yet the hours dragged on endlessly.

When Anna asked if she could leave early, I nearly groaned aloud. My first impulse was to say no, simply so her plans would be ruined too, so she would have to sit here and suffer through the rest of the day with me. Then I despised myself for being petty. I was planning to leave early myself.

I gave her a restrained nod and waved her off, refusing to watch while she happily packed her things. Only after she darted into the hallway did I slip out behind her. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see. From the break-room window, I watched Anna leave the building. A smile spread across her face the moment she stepped outside.

My phone chimed in my jacket pocket. A message from Father: “We’re waiting for you at home. Your brother wants to make some kind of announcement.”

Another followed almost at once: “Now.”

Be careful what you wish for. Though this wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted my workday to end.

Either way, I had no choice.

My parents’ place wasn’t far from the office, which at least spared me another trip on the subway. I decided to walk and break in the shoes I’d bought recently. They suited my work clothes, but they still pinched in all the wrong places. I took my time through the maze of city streets. The city always looked autumnal, no matter what the calendar said: red brick everywhere, enormous windows like mirrors, tall buildings vanishing into the sky. Among them, I felt free. Freer than I did behind an attorney’s desk, and certainly freer than I did in my parents’ house.

I tipped my face toward the sky with a faint smile. William had some important news, something that would pull our scattered family back around the same table yet again. We’d eat whatever the cook had made and listen to Father talk about the latest political news involving his party. No one would criticize my lackluster career, because we had William, our golden boy. Our parents adored him.

And I... I did too.

My beloved brother. Brilliant at everything. The most talented of us. Always on my side.

The farther I walked into the residential district, the lower the buildings became. Dark webs of fire escapes clung to their facades.

The doorman nodded politely when I entered. My phone chimed again.

“Lily, I want to tell you before I tell our parents. We’re waiting in the hall outside the apartment.”

We?

An OUT OF ORDER sign hung across the elevator doors. I grimaced; my ankles already ached from the heels. I pushed open the stairwell door and started climbing toward the fifth and highest floor of the townhouse.

Other people’s voices multiplied in the echoing shaft. Someone was speaking above me, high up - nervous, frantic, almost screaming. I trailed one hand along the railing as I climbed and tried to listen.

I couldn’t make out the words.

Heels clicked overhead. Not mine, though the sound was just as sharp: stilettos, light and precise.

Then a woman’s cry.

A crash.

Something heavy and soft struck the stairs and tumbled downward, each impact amplified by the walls. The noise rushed closer. I stopped on the landing between the fourth and fifth floors. I couldn’t see whoever stood above me.

I could only look down.

William lay sprawled at my feet. He looked up at me, his face twisted with pain.

“Lily... I...”

He stopped in the middle of the sentence. I crouched beside him, having no idea what to do. William clutched his head, squeezing so hard he must have made the pain worse. When I tried to take him by the shoulders, he shoved my hands away. Then he folded onto the floor and vomited.

The sharp, acrid smell filled the stairwell. My eyes watered, but I couldn’t force myself to move back.

“William! Can you hear me?”

I reached for my phone to call an ambulance, but William knocked it from my hand. His limbs jerked uncontrollably, seizing in violent spasms. I didn’t know what I was seeing. I couldn’t understand it. Before my eyes, my brother’s face drained of color; his skin turned cold and clammy.

Everything happened faster than I could process.

My phone lay in the vomit. William collapsed beside it. I couldn’t lift him. All I could do was claw uselessly at the fabric of his jacket and beg him to wake up. Whether I was saying the words aloud or only thinking them, I don’t know.

The next thing I remember clearly is the ringing tone echoing through the stairwell. Someone had put a call on speaker.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“A man, thirty to thirty-five. He fell down the stairs. I think he’s dead.”

No. No.

I seized William’s jacket and dragged the fabric toward me. He wasn’t dead.

“What’s the address?”

A pause.

I looked up through tears I hadn’t noticed beginning to fall. On the landing above, a girl stood staring down at me with something like grief.

“Lilian, please give them the exact address,” Vanessa said, holding the phone out to me.