The Olive Conspiracy by Shira Glassman Page B

in
the pleasing autumn nighttime air.
    Hadar set her own lantern down on the floor
beside the bed. She kept turning her head from side to side as if
planning. “Halleli—how do you feel about moving the bed there,
under that other window?”
    “ Oh, I’m fine with whatever.”
Halleli traced her fingers over the walls. “It’s very
clean.”
    “ I’m sure you two will keep it that
way.” Rivka smiled behind her mask, then swatted idly at something
fluttering near her shoulder. Her smile faded. That better not be
one of those bugs from the mountains. She’d checked all the luggage
when the trees were burning, twice, and then once on the way back
to Home City.
    Hopefully it was just a moth. The wings seemed
rounder than the grove bugs’, at any rate. “Will you be okay if
Isaac and I go off duty now?”
    Hadar nodded, adding, “Yes. Thank you for the
room. And the job.”
    “ Yes, thank you,” Halleli
agreed.
    Rivka sensed the moth again, this time tickling
her ear on the other side. She tossed her head like a horse, hoping
her wild hair would send it fleeing.
    “ I may come take you on an
adventure in the morning, Hadar, so be ready.”
    Hadar grinned at her. “Sure!” She and Halleli
were already taking up positions on opposite ends of the bed so
they could lift it and move it.
    Rivka closed their door and turned to face
Isaac, who greeted her with a smirk. “What?”
    Then she saw the rose petals. Two of them,
dancing in the air as if blown on the wind—of which there wasn’t
any. She watched them as they circled each other, then rose up
again to frolic teasingly around her head. A third joined them,
caressing a bare patch of her neck, then her ear, before joining
the other two.
    Soon, a wreath of flower petals was revolving
around her face. Isaac’s left hand delicately tickled the air, each
finger moving independently, as he watched her from half-closed
eyes.
    Rivka grinned. “Where are you getting
these?”
    “ Bush by the fountain,” he replied
nonchalantly. “I picked them up while you were showing those two
around.”
    “ Oh, so you planned ahead.” She
wiped away sweat from underneath her mask. “You trying to tell me
you’re all better now?”
    Isaac thumped his chest with his right hand.
“Try me.”
    “ You know, I think I will. C’mon.”
Rivka turned and walked away from the barracks, toward the stream
behind the palace.
    “ I like the sound of this.” She
heard his voice and step, and didn’t need to turn around to know he
was following her.
    The rose petals followed her too, swarming
around her head and sometimes darting down to tap her face. She
snatched at them, catching a few. They felt soft and sweet in her
fingers.
    Behind the palace’s back wall there was a patch
of grass leading up to a stream. Lush foliage here and there
blocked it partially from view, and here was where she led him.
Here, banana trees leaned over the water, and the air was filled
with the songs of chirping frogs. They were tiny, but insistent
that the night belonged not only to sleep, but also those who were
awake.
    The moon was only three days old, but Isaac was
clearly visible in the starlight when Rivka turned to face him.
“Headache’s all gone?”
    “ I feel great.” His voice was
confident and booming. “I’m sure Aviva’s cooking
helped.”
    “ Well,” said Rivka, limbering up
her body, “prove it!” She leapt to one side, hoping he’d get the
idea.
    Isaac’s creek of a smirk became a wide,
grinning river, and he raised his eyebrows. With one great motion
he hurled his great mass at his wife.
    Rivka, however, trained every day in one or
more of the various fighting styles she’d learned, and it was easy
for her to feint away from him. Hopping around with a limberness
that would have surprised someone who’d seen her muscular,
five-foot-eleven frame at rest, she chuckled ribaldly as she
avoided his grasp.
    “ You know, I could just start
unlacing your trousers with my mind.”