Ledi stared out the window of her room, which was three times the size of her apartment, sipping a cup of the tea Alehk had gifted her and wishing it had more caffeine. She’d already had two cups but felt more muddled instead of less. Jet lag was no joke.
She’d awoken in the middle of the night and, unable to sleep, finally opened Likotsi’s email about her parents. It had been embarrassing, the way people had spoken to her about them at the celebration and she’d nodded along because she knew nothing at all.
There were the basics: the towns they’d been born in. Libiko, Libi, had one brother while Kembe was an only child. They’d met in high school and married as soon as they graduated. At the University of Thesolo, Libi had studied laboratory technology and Kembe mathematics. That was where Naledi sat up in bed, gripping her phone hard.
She had to have known. She thought she’d erased every trace of her parents, but perhaps her desire to be a scientist hadn’t been driven by a National Geographic cover at all, but by the memory of her mother, who had been one as well.
She’d closed her eyes against the hot pressure of tears until it abated, then scrolled down to an attachment: a short video clip. Thirty seconds of tiny versions of her and Thabiso on a bed of pillows in the middle of a gazebo-like structure, chubby-cheeked toddlers playing with the flower petals surrounding them. A woman dressed in a yellow and green robe was speaking blessings over them as their parents stood and watched. Just before the clip ended, her mother leaned over and whispered something to Queen Ramatla, who laughed and clasped her mother’s hand. Her heart had ached at the way they looked at each other; it had made her miss Portia with a fierceness she hadn’t imagined.
Ledi had put her phone away then and pulled out the book she’d picked up about Twentieth Century African epidemics, mostly because it was lighter reading than her parents’ biography.
Now she watched as morning sunlight spread over the winter garden below her room; she’d been told it was called the lesser garden. She couldn’t imagine what the greater garden looked like. Hardy cold-resistant shrubs and trees lined snow-dusted pathways, and small animals darted here and there. A burst of color caught her eye. For a moment she thought the jet lag and fatigue were really getting to her, but that was, in fact, a peacock walking proudly down one of the paths. Thabiso hadn’t been lying when he described his childhood park, though he’d omitted some vital information, such as the fact that the park was part of the palace grounds. He’d been describing the place that might have been her home already if she had stayed.
She was too overwhelmed to parse that. And way too confused by her reaction to Thabiso after the celebration; she’d been exhausted when she stumbled into her ridiculously large suite, but also so annoyed and so horny that she hadn’t been able to sleep until she slid her hands between her legs and massaged away the ache that Thabiso had started in her. And just as she had that first night he arrived in apartment 7 N, as she’d eaten the dinner they’d made together, she wondered if he was doing the same. Could the way her body had arched and trembled at the thought of him stroking himself be blamed on jet lag, too?
Probably.
She moved away from the window, put down her lukewarm tea, and sat down on her bed just as a knock sounded at the door.
“Come in!” She stood, twisted her hands together nervously, then tightened the drawstring of her robe.
The door swung open and a rack of clothes wheeled itself in—or so it seemed at first. Another magical aspect of the palace? Then Naledi spotted the feet underneath and realized there was a woman on the other side.
“Mmoro! O fela jang?” the woman called out from behind the rack stuffed with clothing.
“Oh, um.” Ledi scrambled to the desk to grab the index card with basic Thesoloian phrases she’d copied down. “Lanthe fela, anwo fela jang?”
A hoot of laughter rang out, and then a short, middle-aged woman stepped out from behind the rack clad in her purple shirt and black pants.
“Oh, they were not joking when they said you’d been Americanized!” she tsked, but she was still smiling. “Your accent is very cute, but I can speak in English, okay? We all speak English here, too, so there is no problem for you.”
The woman gave her a thumbs-up and Ledi returned it, both annoyed and appreciative. It was frustrating to know that Thesoloo had been her native language, and now she stumbled over the words with the clumsiness of a stranger. She was a stranger—her parents had made her one.
Why did we leave? The question lingered around every palatial corner now, and just as in her lab research, there was no guarantee she’d ever find the answer.
“Here is your wardrobe. The prince picked all of this out for you, personally. He said, of course, that you should let me know what you’d like made specifically.”
Ledi would have no idea where to even begin with ordering specially made clothing. Most of her wardrobe had been plucked off of a sales rack. Besides, Thabiso seemed to have ordered enough to last a lifetime.
“I’ve known that boy since he was in short robes and he never cared this much for fashion!” The woman gave her a sly look.
“But Thabiso is always well dressed,” Ledi said.
The woman laughed. “That is all Likotsi. He simply wears what she suggests, and she is never wrong. Well, there was that one time with the genie pants.”
The woman screwed up her face and Ledi laughed.
“Last week was the first time he came to me with specific interest. Make of that what you will. Okay, here are some warm wool pants, and you will need this sweater.” It was a little strange disrobing in front of the woman, but the woman urged her on. Ledi pulled on the thick, legging-like black pants and the soft black cashmere turtleneck she’d been handed. In the mirror, she could see that they had been perfectly tailored, hugging her curves and falling just right at her wrists and waist.
“Ah. I thought sizing you by photograph would be hard, but I’ve still got it. Now try this.” She handed her a cloak similar to the one Thabiso had wrapped around her the day before, and what many people had been wearing at the airport.
“This is a blanket of Thesolo. They are a very important part of our culture,” the woman explained as she showed Naledi how to wrap and fold the blanket so it fit snugly. “We use them for many purposes. You can get similar ones from the tourist shops, but some people prefer having a distinctive pattern, made just for them. The prince chose this for you. The design was difficult, but my weavers did their best.”
Ledi stared down at the pink coffee-bean-like shapes floating in a field of purple and suddenly realized what the pattern had been based on. She gasped, and then burst into laughter as she stroked her fingers over the thick material.
“If you don’t like it, I can make another.” The woman looked down at the ground. “I am sorry if I’ve displeased you, my lady.”
Ledi clasped the woman’s arm. “No! I love it! It’s just . . .” How did she explain that the design was based on the shape of a gonorrhea bacillus? That Thabiso had remembered the humiliating story she’d told him the first day she’d met him? “It’s a private joke between the prince and I. This blanket is beautiful.”
The hurt look dropped away from the woman’s face, replaced by a bright smile.
“Very good. I hope everything else is to your liking, my lady. There are a variety of shoes and warm socks for you so you don’t get frostbite on your toes.”
She bowed to Ledi and left the room. Just as the door was closing, a familiar face peeped in.
“May we enter, my lady?” Likotsi asked politely.
“Yes, you may.” The formal words seemed bizarre, but it was hard to speak normally when everyone was talking like they’d escaped from a period film.
Likotsi entered, dapper as usual in a slim-fitting green suit, followed by Thabiso.
“Mmoro,” Ledi said, trying not to cringe at the sound of the beautiful language being destroyed by her pronunciation. How could two syllables be so difficult? Still, her attempt was greeted by bright smiles from both Thabiso and his assistant.
“And good morning to you,” Likotsi said. She pulled out her tablet and started swiping. “We were thinking we could take a short tour on the way to see Annie and Makalele. Your grandparents. They are at the Royal Hospital, here on the palace grounds.”
Ledi tugged at her cloak.
“I see. Thank you for telling me more about them, by the way. In the emails. Your writing is beautiful.” She’d discovered the source of the persistent emails, and now that she knew the truth behind them she realized what a kindness Likotsi had done her, even if she had been complicit in Thabiso’s lies. As she’d read through the emails in the aftermath of the truth, they’d changed from demands for response to informal histories of the people Ledi had never known, more intimate than the Wikipedia pages and tourism websites she’d found could provide. She’d learned of the highest point in Thesolo from a website, but it was Likotsi who had described what the annual solstice festival held at the summit of the mountain looked, tasted, and smelled like. She’d learned her parents’ names, but it was Likotsi who had shared stories of how they met, their hopes and dreams.
“It was my pleasure,” Likotsi said.
“Also, I apologize for the rude email response. Before.” Ledi cleared her throat.
“Already forgotten, my lady. Please let me know if you need anything. I am Thabiso’s assistant, but I am also yours until other arrangements can be made.”
She’d be gone before she needed an assistant, but Ledi didn’t say that.
“This is for you,” Likotsi said. She handed Ledi the envelope she was holding.
Ledi expected it to be light, but it was slightly heavier than a stack of papers that thickness should be, and firmer. She opened the envelope and slipped out a sleek, thin tablet, the kind she had seen everyone over at GirlsWithGlasses freaking out about a couple of weeks ago. The one Brian had been scrolling the internet and shouting the specs for on the day it was announced as she’d filled out his grant papers. The one she hadn’t even bothered to look at the price for because it was way out of her league.
“This is too expensive. I can’t.” She meant to hand it back, but strangely she was still clutching the cool glass and plastic, imagining all the ways it could be helpful to her in her research.
“You can and you will. I had important papers, such as your birth records, a selection of your parents’ papers from university, and family photos uploaded. It’s already been personalized.”
“I guess I’ll keep it then.” She placed the tablet down on her pillow. She would peruse the photos later when she was alone. She walked over to the rack of clothing and chose a pair of socks and pink leather ankle boots, and sat on a chair.
“May I suggest these instead?” Likotsi held out a pair of knee-high black boots with thick, rugged soles. Her expression intimated that it wasn’t actually a suggestion.
Ledi took the boots.
“Now you see what I live with every day,” Thabiso said with a smile. He’d been surprisingly quiet, but Ledi had never forgotten he was there. Keeping her gaze from drifting to him was difficult, even when she was giving her full attention to Likotsi.
Likotsi sucked her teeth. “Trying to act like you don’t ask me which shoes to wear every morning isn’t becoming, sire.”
Thabiso feigned shock. “That’s not true. I haven’t asked your opinion in days. Maybe even a week. Ignore her, Naledi.”
Ledi smiled, even though the interaction made her chest hurt. This was the man she had known in Manhattan: playful, open, eager to make her laugh. She didn’t know how she was supposed to react, couldn’t even suss out how she actually felt, really.
Why was it so natural to sit and chat with Thabiso and Likotsi? Why was she eager to see her cousin Nya, and hear how the rest of her night had gone? Was she supposed to care about Annie and Makelele, people she didn’t know at all but who were responsible in part for her existence? Would it make her a terrible human if she met them and she didn’t feel anything at all?
She glanced up to find Thabiso staring at her feet as she slid on her socks.
She wiggled her toes, showing the pink polish. “It matches my cape,” she said. “Do you give all the girls venereal diseases?”
“Your Highness!” Likotsi narrowed her eyes at Thabiso, who was attempting to keep a straight face.
“Only the ones I really like,” he said. “It fits you well.”
She finished zipping up the boots and sighed, spitting out the question that she really needed to ask. “Annie and Makalele. Are they going to die?”
“We don’t know,” Thabiso said, his expression solemn. “Dr. Bata, the woman you’ll be working with, is out collecting data. You can speak to her more about the symptoms and the potential outcomes when she returns.”
Naledi nodded. “I think I need some coffee before we head there.”
“Your coffee awaits. Along with your chariot.” Likotsi swung the door open to reveal three Segways parked outside her door. One had a cup holder already stocked with a travel coffee mug with a beautiful watercolor floral design.
Ledi was sure this was some kind of practical joke. She grabbed the coffee and took a sip, noting how expensive it tasted, then eyed the Segway with trepidation. “Are you serious with this?”
“The palace grounds are quite large, my lady.” Likotsi stepped onto her Segway and turned it on. “In older times, royalty was conveyed about on rickshaw-type means of transportation. We upgraded to these babies from golf carts a few years ago. Much more fun, if I do say so.”
“I don’t know how to use it,” Ledi said, stepping on. She put her coffee cup in the cup holder and pressed the on button, as she’d seen Likotsi do. “How do I make it move?”
“It’s simple.” Thabiso’s familiar bulk stepped behind her, and his arms reached around her. “Just lean, like this. It moves in the direction you push it toward.” He moved so that his whole body was pressed against hers and even through the thick cape she could feel the outlines of his muscles, the flex of them.
“That sounds too easy,” she said, hating the tremor she heard in her voice.
Thabiso’s voice dropped, husky and low. “It is simple, Ledi. It will do what you tell it to do. You decide what path to follow. You are in control.”
Fuck. She wondered if Likotsi had provided Thabiso with a docket on her, or if he innately knew the right thing to say to make her want to turn around and wrap her legs around him.
“Ahem. Forward, my lady. You are currently leaning back.” Likotsi didn’t bother to hide the amusement in her tone.
“Oh! Right.” Ledi leaned forward and felt the wheels kick into action, moving her away from Thabiso’s heat. “This isn’t so bad.”
She got the Segway moving at a steady pace through the hall, fast enough that her hair fluttered around her face and she felt a burst of excitement at the sensation of freedom. She was driving! Kind of! She glanced back triumphantly, just in time to see Thabiso’s smile turn to a frown and Likotsi reach a hand out. Then there was the thump of her vehicle coming to an abrupt stop that flopped her back onto her ass. The sound of two sets of footsteps running toward her echoed in the vast hallway.
“My lady. You have to lean forward, and look forward, too.” Likotsi wiped at the indentation in the giant wooden carving—the very well-endowed wooden carving—that Ledi had crashed into.
Thabiso took her by the hand and helped her up. “Perhaps we should walk?”
“So much for creating my own path,” Ledi said.
His hand flexed around hers. “Choosing a path straight through a likeness of the god of lust was an interesting choice. I like where you go when you decide to take control.”
“Can you not?” She pulled her hand away and retrieved her coffee. The cup was warm against her skin, too, but it didn’t make her body tighten like Thabiso’s touch had.
It took them about fifteen minutes to get to the hospital. On the way, Ledi lost track of the priceless artwork, random wild animals, friendly palace staff, and the running commentary Likotsi gave about all of them. Her head buzzed and she started to lose the thread of the conversation as more and more information was thrown at her. She’d been training to be an information processing machine for the last five years, so it felt strange not to be able to keep up with simple conversation.
It’s the jet lag.
She took one of the pills Nya had given her, downed it with the last of her coffee, and handed off her empty cup to a passing staffer who stopped and asked if she’d finished.
“Isn’t it weird having people wait on you all the time?” she asked Thabiso as she watched the woman walk away. “Do you really need people roaming around, seeing if you need something done at any given moment?”
“Weird is relative,” Thabiso said with a shrug. “I think living in a shoe box with vermin is a bit strange, but I don’t judge you for it. And in case you’re wondering, palace staff receive high pay, excellent benefits, and can retire at the age of forty-five with a lifetime pension and a home in the place of their choosing. The positions are highly competitive.”
“I’m sure there’s something comparable to this in the States?” Likotsi asked with a wide smile. “Since I’m one of the weird people you’re referring to, I need to keep my options open. Tell me all about the wonderful work environments, salaries, and retirement funds in your country.”
“Oh no, I didn’t mean you! Or anyone, really. I’m just rambling,” Ledi said as they passed through the doors to the hospital. Thabiso snickered like a schoolboy laughing at a chastised classmate. She glared at him.
“Of course,” Likotsi said.
Nurses dressed in crisp lilac uniforms bustled about, making their rounds. One of them, a tall, sturdy woman with braided hair, came over to greet them.
“Your Highness. My lady.” She executed a slight bow, then looked at Likotsi with a much less formal expression. “Kotsi.”
“Hi, Sesi,” Likotsi said. She straightened her bow tie. “Long time no see.”
“I assume it’s because some lucky woman has snatched you up,” Sesi said, grabbing a chart.
“Not yet. I’m still enjoying the bachelorette life.” Likotsi smiled mischievously, but even Ledi could see it didn’t reach her eyes.
Sesi seemed pleased with that information, but her flirting stopped as soon as she flipped open the chart. Her expression went from playful to sober. “Annie, Makelele, and the others are the same. They are not doing worse, but they aren’t doing better either. People from their village come to sit and talk with them every day and bring them healing brews, but there are no visitors at the moment.” She looked at Ledi. “You are their granddaughter, no?”
Ledi nodded, and Sesi smiled gently. “They spoke of your mother often, when they were well. They are not awake, but perhaps your presence will help.”
Ledi knew the woman was trying to be comforting, but instead, the low-level nervousness she’d been feeling kicked it up a notch. She tried to smile back, but if it looked as forced as it felt, she wasn’t fooling anyone. Then a familiar warmth slid over her fingers. Thabiso gripped her hand lightly as they followed Sesi, leaving her room to pull away again if she wished.
She didn’t.
He leaned down and said in a low voice, “Do not pressure yourself, Naledi. You know how I feel about fairy tales, but no one is expecting them to hop out of bed and start dancing as soon as you walk into the room. If that does happen, I’ll have to fight our priestesses from taking you into their order.”
“Being a priestess sounds kind of cool,” Ledi said, happy to talk about something apart from her sick grandparents. Her stomach lurched as they passed through a door into the intensive care wing.
Thabiso gave her a faux-serious look. “Yes. I forget you have experience with ritual sacrifice. I’m not sure if you’d appreciate the celibacy, though.”
“I’ve been considering it, actually, given my last few experiences with men,” she said, tugging her hand from his at the reminder of what had passed between them. She wanted his comfort, but last time she’d opened herself up to it, it had come at the price of her trust.
He took it in stride. “In the old days, the king got to wed the priestess of his choosing.”
Ledi ignored him. He was trying to distract her, but Sesi was handing out masks for them to place over their mouths and paper robes and gloves, then pushing open a door.
“Here we are,” she said. “My lady? Would you like to go in alone?”
Ledi didn’t want to go in at all. She wanted to turn and run down the brightly lit white hallway. She wanted to throw up. Maybe she would do both at the same time. The thought of going into the room alone sent a surge of panic through her.
She turned and looked behind her. “Can you come with me?”
Thabiso stepped forward, but Likotsi brushed a touch over his arm. “I believe she was speaking to me, sire.”
“Oh. Of course.” Ledi ignored the disappointment that passed over his face and the corresponding pang she felt that it wasn’t him accompanying her. Not that she cared if she’d hurt him—she’d be leaving Thesolo soon enough, anyway. His feelings weren’t her priority. Whether she had made a difference for her grandparents and the other people who were sick was what mattered in the end.
She walked into the room and Likotsi followed, closing the door with a click.
The two standard hospital beds were pushed together, covered with green and brown traditional blankets bearing a circular pattern that seemed to be the same until you looked closer and saw that they were variations of each other. A teapot sat on the side table, and two mugs that had to have been brought from their home, given their well-used appearance.
Ledi allowed herself to take in their faces. Both dark brown, like hers, and aged, but not crowded with wrinkles. The raised bumps and splotchy red of a rash covered their cheeks and necks, down to below the neckline of their hospital gowns, but it didn’t hide the obvious resemblances to what Ledi saw in the mirror every day. She felt an odd disconnect, as if she was watching some other orphan meet their grandparents for the first time.
“Hi.” What did you say to someone in a coma? “I’m Naledi. Your granddaughter. Umm . . . nice to meet you? Not ‘nice’ nice with the whole coma thing, I guess.”
There was no response. She walked closer and rested her hand on the safety railing.
“I like your blankets. That’s a cool pattern. Mine is designed with gonorrhea because Thabiso thinks he’s funny.”
Their heart monitors beeped in sync, but her grandparents didn’t move. The whole situation was a bit awkward, but if she could talk to her mice without expecting a response, her grandparents certainly merited it.
“I’m a grad student. I study infectious diseases. The workload is awful and it’s super expensive and I spend half my time wondering if I’ve made terrible life choices. But I love it. And I just found out that love of science runs in the family. Funny, huh?”
More silence.
She sighed and glanced at the middle of the beds, and that was when emotion hit her like a rogue wave. Someone had placed a pillow between her grandparents, half on one bed, half on the other. Their hands rested atop each other there, their fingers lightly entwined. Even in this deep sleep, they held on to each other.
She took a sharp breath and looked at the two frail people who had helped create her. Who she had forgotten, and might never have the opportunity to know again.
She cleared her throat. The dry air in the room must have been giving it that scratchy feeling. “I wish I could have met you before. You guys look like you would’ve been great grandparents. Like, you would have snuck me candy even when my parents said no, and given really good hugs. Maybe you’re assholes though, since my parents did run off, but you look nice. Really nice.”
Ledi stopped talking because suddenly she couldn’t. She had filled in her parents’ faces on her mental family tree, and now her grandparents were there. Her imagination had this information, and while she didn’t consider herself particularly creative, there was one area in which it had always excelled before she’d forced it to stop: imagining what might have been.
Birthdays, shared meals, teen hormone-driven arguments followed by forgiveness . . . Ledi now had the base factors to imagine them all. The feeling of unfairness she hadn’t ever allowed to take hold began to get its hooks into her. In that moment, what she wanted more than anything was everything she’d missed out on, good and bad.
How could my parents take this from me?
Her grandmother’s face twitched a few times, and then her eyes fluttered open, focusing on Ledi’s face. A beatific smile lit up her features.
“Libiko.” Her voice was thick, her accent almost masking her single word, but the shock of her mother’s newly learned name went through Ledi like lightning. Her grandmother sighed and said something in Thesoloian that Ledi didn’t understand.
“What?”
Annie smiled and closed her eyes again.
“She said, ‘I knew you would return to us, my heart,’” Likotsi translated, her voice rough.
The beep of the machines keeping the elders alive filled the silence that followed her words, until the sound of Ledi’s sniffles joined in. What was going on? If she didn’t know these people, then why was her hand at her chest to stop the pain? Why were rivulets of tears coursing their way toward her chin? Why did it hurt to see them like this when she didn’t even know what they had been like before?
The tears began to wet through the edges of her face mask, and then a handkerchief was pressed into her palm and she felt Likotsi’s hand on her shoulder. She wiped at her eyes and cleared her throat before speaking. Emotions were a distraction, and she’d come to Thesolo on a mission.
“You said that you’ll assist me with anything I need, right?”
“Of course, my lady.” Likotsi drew herself up straighter, and Ledi thought she might salute. Instead, she pulled out her tablet from what had to be a custom-made pocket in the interior lining of her suit jacket. Her latex-gloved fingers hovered above the screen, ready to do Ledi’s bidding.
“I need to speak with their doctors immediately. I’d also like copies of all of Dr. Bata’s latest findings, and full access to the hospital records and a briefing on past epidemics, illnesses, and abnormalities over the last fifty years—to start.”
Likotsi nodded and looked up at her, and Ledi was surprised to see what looked like pride in the assistant’s eyes. “I will make it so, my lady.”
“Please. Call me Ledi,” she said. She turned and briefly placed her own gloved hand over her grandparents. She didn’t know what compelled her, but when she felt the cool skin of her grandfather’s hand she closed her eyes and made a pact with them.
I’m going to help find out what’s going on here.