19.
 Silence.
The audience chamber was an antechamber of death. Moonlight brooded in lacquer surfaces. The room smelled of wax and flowers.
Ramy-baba's mind was awhirl with horror. She had betrayed her lover and sister, and condemned herself and Ramy to death. She had brought mockery and war upon Ramyon. Had it been worth this to hurt her sibling over a romantic jealousy? Ramy-baba was deeply ashamed, and sat waiting for her sister's sharp words.
Both sighed.
"Forgive me, sister," Ramy-baba at last said.
"What have you done?"
"I wish I could undo it, but now I can't."
After a long silence, Ramy said: "We must prepare for death." She rose. "I have to go to my room and tidy things up."
Ramy-baba shifted her bulk erect. "Will I see you again?"
"I will come to your chamber when I have composed myself."
"I pray that you do."
She watched as Ramy walked with small steps.
Ramy-baba said brokenly: “I do not have the courage to die alone, my love.”
Ramy’s steps slowed briefly. She did not look back. “You should have thought of this before your evil tongue wagged, sister.”
“I will go last,” Ramy-baba said. “It is the least I can do.”
“It is as if we had never lived,” Ramy said as she reached the door.
“You loved,” Ramy-baba said. “Therefore, you have lived. I can only say that I loved you, my sister.”
Ramy stood gripping the doorway, prepared to collapse if her sister said the cruel words: But you loved a monkey.
Before the baba could speak, Ramy said: “He is of a different species, but much like we are, or greater. They once ruled the galaxy. Now they are our floor mats and night buckets. But he is more a man than Dumonhi will ever be.”
“We have nothing to fear,” Ramy-baba said, “so we may speak freely. Whomever you love, I love. I love your man with you, even though he and I may never touch or speak.”
Ramy nodded curtly. She wanted to thank her baba, but words could not cross her lips. So wrenched was her soul.
Ramy slid the door open, let herself out, and slid the door almost closed, leaving Ramy-baba the option to leave the room if she chose. What did anything really matter now?
She gathered her strength and rushed through the dark hallway toward her rooms, to prepare for the end.
20.
Ramy-baba suffered similar thoughts and sentiments.
What would anything matter in a few hours when they were in the Celestial Hall?
Ramy-baba felt so weak, she might just sit here the rest of her time.
Then, ashamed in the face of her sister's courage and determination, she walked down dark corridors, over the creaking wooden bridge-floor, and into the babas' tower.
There, the doors were closed as the other babas slept.
She went to her room, which was large and had a window view, since she was an important baba despite her youth.
Sobbing, she straightened her possessions—her amulets; small clay figurines including some cute ones and some frightening ones for warding off evil spirits; jewelry, perfumes, fungi preparations for her skin and her egg-pipette.
When there was nothing left to do, she lay down on the bed and pondered the incredible reversal of her fate. She thought about the other babas.
There were terrible jealousies among the wasps. Many hated Ramy-baba because she domineered them as was her right by caste order.
They would deal with her harshly if she lived into the coming days; better to go now, quietly, to have been without saying goodbye, just to have been and then not to be.
Long before the first milky green fingers of dawn rose over the horizon, there was a rustle of silk.
Ramy-baba turned in joyful anticipation as Ramy hurried into the room.
Ramy wore her best gown meant for the wedding ceremonies, and Ramy-baba assumed Ramy would want her husband to see her for the last time like this before they buried her.
Ramy-baba turned away and hung her head. "Will you forgive me?"
She felt Ramy's arms steal around her from behind.
"Who else can I turn to, foolish baba?"
Ramy-baba turned and gave back an embrace, so that they were entwined, the one sister much larger than the other. "We have so little time.
"By dawn, the others will be awake. We will be at their mercy," Ramy said.
"We will be quick and merciful," Ramy-baba said. With longing, she ran her pudgy fingers and droopy arms up and down Ramy's slender back.
Ramy waited passively, her hands on her sister's shoulders, her breathing coming quicker.
Ramy-baba groaned with desire as her palms burned on the smooth waist and oval buttocks, the sharp hip bones and long shapely thighs of her sister.
"Go make the bed," Ramy-baba whispered, sending her sister off with a lingering palm on one buttock.
She watched as Ramy walked away loosening her wedding dress with two hands on a button behind her back. She left the ceremonial belt knotted, however. Watching her, the baba salivated and her heart pounded.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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