Facet

AN: I kind of wanted to emphasize the "quiet" of summer in this, so that's why I didn't include quotation marks for some stupid reason. There's not really a deep meaning to this story, except maybe in a slice of life kind of way. Written for Accidentally The Whole Fanfic's Bikini Solstice prompt!

Today, Mira wakes up with the first light of dawn. The cicadas are already chirring outside when she smooths the quilt on her bed and goes to sit at her vanity table by the window. She brushes her hair until it falls in a silken curtain over one eye, listening absently to the weather report on the television as she dabs perfume behind her ears and on her wrists. Another scorcher today. Humidity in the triple digits. Thunderstorms in the late afternoon, weakening to a light rain shower by the time the Firefly Festival is scheduled to start.

Mira gazes through the window with sleepy eyes. Garmon Mountain is as stark and earthy as ever, but the forests crowding its skirt look practically tropical from a season's worth of drinking both sunlight and rain in equal measures. Castanet has spent its summer days basking in the sun and its summer evenings rocking with thunder. Flute Fields glitter emerald and all the farmers have been saying they've never seen their crops grow so quickly. The beaches are littered with driftwood pushed in on the tide, which make perfect places for the fishermen to sit and cast. All of Mira's neighbors glow with sunburn and sparkle with sweat—save Julius, who wouldn't be caught dead outside in this weather for any extended period of time.

Mira holds her wrist to her nose and breathes in the perfume. Bluemist. The smell of autumn, sweet and subdued. She should be wearing hibiscus or lily, something bright and cheerful, something to be amplified by the heat. If she goes outside, she'll sweat the bluemist right off. The weather report comes on again, promising heat and rain. The front door opens. She hears Julius hang his bag up by the door and come into the kitchen. He knocks on her door, calls her darling, asks if she's had breakfast yet, if he can make her some tea. It's like the devil's house outside, he says, you simply have to stay hydrated.

She tells him thank you for coming in on his off day, she'll be out in a minute, and that a cup of tea would be lovely.

She meets her own gaze in the mirror. Her face is narrow, as is her nose, and her expression is so still it is almost a mask: quiet, introspective, a little sad. She hates mirrors. She prefers to see her face reflected in the ores that people bring her to be refined. Each newly polished ruby, sapphire, and lapis lazuli reflects someone she barely recognizes—bright eyes, flushed cheeks, the self-assured look of someone with purpose and drive. Gems give her clarity. She is familiar with their beauty, their weight in her hands.

She slips the bottle of bluemist perfume into her skirt pocket.

Mira stands behind the counter, her elbows resting on it, her chin propped on folded hands. The silk curtains are drawn back from the front windows, and hot squares of light burn onto the wooden floor. The world withers outside, with visible heat waves rising from the dark rocks. Distantly, she can hear Ramsey hammering away on his anvil, and she wonders how he can stand the heat of his forge on a day like this. Everyone else would be in the cool darkness of the mine. Maybe someone would bring her something interesting to refine, although it was more likely that they were all foregoing the hard task of hammering rocks and just taking it easy until the festival tonight.

Behind her, Julius sits in a cushioned chair by the display case, a microfiber cloth in one gloved hand and a topaz ring in the other. A small fan on the floor blows his lavender hair into his eyes and makes the silk fringe on his sleeves dance over his wrists. He has already polished the amethyst and sapphire cases, and the rings and bracelets, the brooches and the pins all gleam like the sunlit ocean. The red case is on fire with garnet necklaces and the green case looks like Flute Fields itself, with jade and peridot and emerald pieces of jewelry. A rainbow of priceless pieces gleams at Mira's back.

Sometimes at night, when she's turned the display lights on, she stares for hours at all the faces staring back at her—a million reflections of herself in a million different colors and designs. A rose-shaped pin with garnet and spinel petals and emerald leaves. A pearl necklace with alternating black and white pearls, ending in a seashell-shaped clasp. A wedding band with a row of tiny diamonds marching between the edges.

She remembers those diamonds. Flawed, everyone one of them, cloudy and dull in her hand even after she'd polished them. There was no way she'd have been able to sell them, so she'd taken them to her husband and begged him to help. He sat up with her for three nights designing the ring, and when he'd set them into the band and cleaned the ring and put it on display, she thought it so lovely that she'd refused to part with it.

Her husband had a way with making things beautiful.

Mira, darling, Julius says.

Mira says hmm.

Does this look good to you?

He hands out the topaz ring. She slips a silk glove onto her hand and takes it from him, holding it up to the light. Yellow topaz set in a yellow gold band looping with floral designs. A fine piece. Another one of her husband's designs.

We should show this to Selena, she says, handing it back to him. She would love it.

Julius sets the ring back in its case. He looks at her as she turns away from him again. He says, The store's not open today, darling. You're standing there like you're expecting someone to come running through the door. Why don't you take a seat?

She should be at the festival tonight, is Mira's answer. Slip that ring into a box and show her, if you see her.

The sky begins to cloud over a little after noon. Mira takes the opportunity to step outside onto the wooden porch that connects her shop to the forge. The air is clammy against her skin and plasters her silk skirt and blouse against her as if she'd already been rained on. Mount Garmon rises, dark as a storm cloud itself, to her left, its peak already shrouded. The front is rolling in off the sea, and the wind is heavy with rain. She waits until she catches a flash of lightning out of the corner of her eye. The roll of thunder echoes off the mountain and makes her teeth buzz. She goes back inside.

Julius is in the kitchen, sipping a cup of cold tea and flipping through the television channels for the weather report. Mira leans on the wall and looks out the window. It's starting to rain, softly at first, quickly becoming a deluge. The drumming on the tin roof is deafening and water spews from the gutters. Rivers run down the window. The view outside becomes a gray haze. She closes the window and goes to the kitchen.

They're still saying it's going to clear up by tonight, Julius tells her as she sits down. I wouldn't worry.

Mira inhales the perfume at her wrists again. Her husband adored the scent of bluemist flowers. They went crazy with them at the church at his funeral, to the point that the church smelled like the flowers for weeks afterwards.

I'm not worried, she says.

Julius walks down to the river with her. They leave a little late because Julius wants to make sure the ground is dry enough to not spoil his best pair of bellbottoms with mud, but in the end it can't be helped. They walk slowly down the path, picking their way over the sopping puddles and around small mudslides. The heat is out of the air but the humidity is not. They breathe in the scent of the grass and wildflowers gone crazy with growth. Julius walks on tiptoe with his pants hiked up, and he groans at the damage he's doing to his best pair of bedazzled cowboy boots. Mira exchanged her sensible flats for a pair of rain boots before they left and can only smile. She carries a paper boat shaped like a lotus flower. A moonstone glows faintly from within the half-unfolded petals.

The festival is already underway when they turn the corner along the path that leads to Flute Fields. Paper lanterns light their way over the bridge and down to the river's mouth. Their other Castanet neighbors mill about by the water's edge. Julius leaves her side almost immediately to go find Candace. Mira spends a few moments chatting with Mayor Hamilton and then approaches the river herself.

She nods her greetings to Colleen and Jake, Hanna and Cain, Ruth and Craig. She smiles gently at Hayden, Shelley, and Dr. Jin, who are still holding their lanterns. The air is full of soft murmuring voices. Some are praying. Some are catching up with neighbors. Mira turns her head at Selena's gasp of surprise as Julius shows her the topaz ring, his arm looped through Candace's.

I have to have that, Selena gushes. Her eyes are as golden as the jewel she's coveting. Can you guys accept monthly payments or do I have to empty my savings?

Julius tells her to come to the shop tomorrow if she really wants it. He's sure they can work something out. Candace breathes something about the gem being warm and friendly. Mira looks down at her paper lantern, at the soft glow of the moonstone within.

He was, she thinks. She looks out at the water. She thinks, There's Angela. She's got two lanterns. I wonder who for. Kathy and Owen are sending theirs off now, for Kathy's mother. Hayden's wife. There's one for Candace and Luna's mother. Dr. Jin's mother.

And my husband.

It still doesn't seem real. But here she is, holding a lantern instead of his hand. Here she is, selling his jewelry and sleeping in his house. Here she is, staring at the door to his shop, waiting for him to walk through the door again and relieve her of the vigil she'd been keeping for the past year.

She closes her eyes and thinks about him for a moment. When she opens them again, the air is full of fireflies and the night is full of stars and the river is full of light.

She wipes her eyes and smiles down at the lantern in her hand. She kneels by the waterside and lets the current carry it out of her gentle grasp. When she stands, she senses someone by her side, and turns to see Julius and Candace and Hayden and Kathy and all the others behind her. She reaches out for Julius, but everyone suddenly crowds around her despite the heat. She's jostled a little, but she doesn't care. Somebody's arm slips through hers but she doesn't look at who it is. She pretends.

Together, they all watch their lanterns sail out into the ocean.

Mira gets home after midnight. After being in the clammy air for so long, the air conditioner makes her house feel frigid. She switches it off and opens her bedroom window to let the breeze in. It stirs the curtain of her hair and is filled with the sound of crickets. She keeps the light off as she dresses for bed, and then sits by the window, looking at fireflies.