Her new place was a penthouse loft in a converted warehouse next to a small park. It had large windows and original hardwood floors, soaring ceilings and pipes that creaked a bit when she ran the hot water, and Galiloved it. She loved that it was all hers, no cousins barging into her room and rifling through her closets; yet in the soft afternoons, she sometimes found herself wishing that Celestial at least was there, that they were watching a movie together and taking turns oiling each other’s scalps. But Celestial didn’t like the city—hell, Nana Darling couldn’t even get her to wear shoes at home—so if Gali wanted to see her cousin-sister, she would have to leave Salvation and return to the creeks, the watching trees, and the house full of extremely inquisitive and blessedly vulgar aunties and cousins. The Kincaid women were coarse and sexual, sharp and sweet—women who had taught Gali how important pleasure was, how to walk with power coiling deep in her hips. It was also Kincaid money that funded Gali’s life, so the aunts and cousins believed that gave them every right to pry into her business. Zélie would’ve asked who she was fucking these days, and Leah would be demanding details that made even Gali blush. They all wanted to come see her apartment, come meet her friends, come make sure their little Gali was doing okay living by herself, all on her own, so far away from the land she belonged to. Gali had begged them for time to settle in, and Nana Darling had made them give it to her, but it was only a matter of time before the Kincaids descended on the city to see her.
In truth, Gali had settled in faster than she let on to her family. She’d even made friends, real friends, from a local yoga class: Bonbon, a writer who published horror novels under a pseudonym, and Oriak?, thesocialite daughter of a very wealthy Nigerian family, who was forever unable to explainexactlywhere her father’s money came from. Their money made the Kincaid money look like loose change, and after a while, Gali stopped her questions because the answers seemed like they were going to be more trouble than the questions were worth. Bonbon, however, had kept asking, poking and prying until Oriak? had sighed one day and fixed her with a serious stare.
“Remember who my father is,” she’d warned. “If I told you, someone might have to take care of you.”
Oriak? was halfway joking, but there was something about her voice that time that made Bonbon go pale under her deep brown skin. Oriak? had smiled a little sadly and patted Bonbon’s hand.
“I know,” she’d said kindly. “Now imagine what it’s like for me.”
It was one of the first shadows. Before that conversation, Gali had always thought Oriak? lived a charmed life, untouched by the dark. Oriak? was supermodel tall, with devastating bone structure and skin as dark as a scraped vanilla pod. She was the baby of the family, with five older brothers, and when she’d told her parents she was trans in her early teens, they’d both been ecstatic at having a daughter, proceeding to spoil her rotten. Her brothers adored her. She was neither the heir nor the spare, so her father didn’t care if she got involved in the family business. Her mother had wept for days with joy at having another woman in their family, and Oriak?’s social media was often filled with pictures of their mother-daughter holidays and shopping sprees.
Oriak? had told them enough about her father for Gali to understand that he moved in a world very far away from and much more violent than the bubble they all lived in with their picturesque little lives in Salvation. Gali felt she could understand a little of it, being a Kincaid herself, but the stakes were different. As much as she wanted to believe that Oriak? was exaggerating about the danger of telling them who her father really was, Gali had looked into Oriak?’s eyes as she warned off Bonbon. There had been old pain and real fear there, and Gali couldn’t help but wonder if Oriak? had lost a friend before because she talked too much. Her father was certainly rich and powerful enough to make people disappear. He might love his daughter, but the loyalty was a gag shoved between Oriak?’s teeth. It wasn’t quite the same for Gali—she would keep her family’s secrets, of course, but even if she shouted them in the middle of the street, people simply wouldn’t believe any of it. The Kincaids had their own world, a world of sideways realities where they hunted down dangers in the thick of the trees.
Bonbon had grown up quite on the other end of the spectrum, withincredibly wholesome parents who owned and ran a flower shop in a small town on the West Coast. She looked like an athlete, with broad shoulders and defined arms, but she claimed she’d never trained for anything a day in her life. Bonbon wore her hair in intricate floral cornrows, loved bright makeup, and called her parents every week. They sent her care packages twice a month, parcels filled with baked treats and pressed blossoms, and Bonbon cried every time she opened one. In contrast, the horror novels she wrote for a living were dark and terrifying stories, but they’d accumulated a bit of a cult readership. Oriak? had been appalled when she discovered Bonbon used a pseudonym instead of claiming the glory herself, but Bonbon had just rolled her eyes (“Wouldyoubuy horror novels from someone namedBonbon?”) and said she didn’t need to celebrate herself like that.
It was entirely the wrong thing to say to someone like Oriak?.
Gali had watched in delight over the next few weeks as Oriak? came up with a thorough plan to retroactively celebrate every single milestone in Bonbon’s career. They had spa days. They went to the beach and then to a carnival that was passing through Salvation. They did a cake tasting and a wine crawl. When Bonbon tried to protest, the other two shut her down immediately.
“I’m havingwaytoo much fun with this” was Gali’s reason.
“You know your parents would do the most if they were here right now,” Oriak? had pointed out, which Bonbon could never argue with. “Besides, you’re the only one out of us who actually works for a living,” Oriak? added. “We might as well celebrate that!”
It had stung, even if it was the truth. Gali sometimes felt guilty about how smooth being a Kincaid had made her life, but she pushed the feeling aside. Like Nana Darling had said, it was okay to take some time to figure things out, and Gali had a lot to figure out, like how to live away from the Kincaid house, what to do with the ache stinging away inside her, and why the foreboding kept following her. She ignored the lightand the heat that churned out of her. This was a gap year, she figured. Plenty of people did that.
Oriak?, on the other hand, didn’t share Gali’s guilt or awkwardness around being born into obscene wealth, and she was committed to her plan of drowning Bonbon with indulgence. When they got the news that Bonbon’s latest book was an indie bestseller, Gali had expected a fancy dinner (because that’s what Oriak? hadsaidthey’d be doing), but then Oriak? had themhelicopteredup to a private rooftop with an even more private chef, and that’s when Gali learned they had very different definitions of the word “fancy.” Bonbon had cursed up a blue streak, and Gali had laughed until her sides hurt the next day, but the night had been something special the three of them could hold together, and Oriak? had been so pleased.
Nothing was ever boring with those two. It was a far cry from having only her cousins to hang out with back at the family home—the Kincaids could take loyalty a little too far, shutting out anyone who wasn’t part of their sprawling clan and not really understanding why anyone would want to leave. In that, Gali’s cousin Celestial was the perfect Kincaid, and Gali most decidedly was not. Her mother had tried for months to stop her from leaving, but in the end, Nana Darling had simply overruled her.
“The girl’s life belongs to her, Collette. She can spend it wherever she sees fit.”
“Thank you, Nana Darling,” Gali had said, and even though she meant to sound grateful, her voice still came out irritated. “I thought that was obvious.”
Collette had glared at her. “Other people ain’t like us, Galilee Kincaid,” she’d warned. “Don’t be too strange, now.”
“Be careful of your wanting,” Nana Darling had added thoughtfully. “It could eat up a world.”
Gali had nodded, but her mother’s words were the ones that stuckto her skin. She knew all too well what “strange” meant. Strange was asking the weather to do as she pleased, simply because shewantedit. Strange was coaxing half-dead things back to life, taking away little aches and pains—things her family knew about her and never blinked at, not when her cousins could see the future and sometimes the hidden past, when they knew words and roots to do many strange things themselves, when the Kincaid dead walked easily through their citrus orchards on the right night with the right work.
Nana Darling could tell you stories that’d grow legs and walk right around you, scenes playing out in the air like you’d been eaten up by a movie made of her memories. Even Celestial had secrets Gali wasn’t allowed to know, something about creek beds and dirt. But Gali also knew she was a hair past strange, tipping over into something else. It was there in that burst of blistering light spilling from her palms when she woke from a nightmare, or that terrible brief moment when the ache in her stung too deep and she’d had to scream and scream until a force she didn’t recognize burst out of her mouth and cracked the screen of her television. It was in the great weight of her wantings, buried deep and heavy inside her. She didn’t know what she wanted or how to run to it, so Gali ran in the other direction.
With Bonbon and Oriak?, she felt blessedly normal. One weekend, they sat picnicking in the park by her building, and Gali whispered to the sky to hold off because it looked to rain. It was a small magic, something she’d been doing her whole life, and sure enough, the clouds rolled gently back so everything was blue again. A few bees hung in the air around them, and the sunlight was so pretty, piercing through their glasses as the three of them toasted to Bonbon’snewest book deal with sparkling wine Gali had picked up.
“We have to celebrate!” Oriak? said, clapping her outrageously manicured hands together. Small pearls shone off her stiletto nails, and diamond bracelets encircled her wrists.She looked entirely too expensive to be sitting on a blanket spread on the grass.
“I thought thiswasus celebrating,” Bonbon countered dryly.
Gali gave her a look. “Like she’d let you get away with just a toast, Bon. You know good and damn well she can’t help herself.”
Bonbon glared even as Oriak? beamed with delight. “Thank you! It is not a celebration unless we have bubbles—”
“We are literally drinking champagne in broad daylight,” Bonbon interrupted.
Oriak? turned limpid and disappointed eyes to her friend. “First of all, the fact that you would call this champagne wounds me deeply.” Gali snorted with laughter, and Oriak? threw a wink at her. “Second of all, as I was saying, it doesn’t count unless we have bubbles, bad bitches,bachelors, and—”
Bonbon raised a hand. “Alliterate one more timeand I will throw myself into the street.”
“I think,” Gali cut in, fighting a smile, “Oriak?’s tryna tell us about a party.”
