The Mistress of Spices

Tilo:
Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon.

Tilo:
Each day has a color, a smell.

Tilo:
I closed my eyes and willed my breath to slow, my conscious mind to fold itself inward. I could feel heat pulsing from my daughter's head, her frantic thoughts whirling like broken glass. I loosened my hold on my body and dropped into that whirlpool.

Tilo:
Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck.

Tilo:
Chili, spice of red Thursday, which is the day of reckoning. Day which invites us to pick up the sack of our existence and shake it inside out. Day of suicide, day of murder.

Tilo:
Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.

Tilo:
Fennel, which is the spice for Wednesdays, the day of averages, of middle-aged people... Fennel... smelling of changes to come.

Tilo:
She lifts a bowl of kheer and her thoughts, flittering like dusty sparrows in a brown back alley, turn a sudden kingfisher blue.