The Turnaway Girls

by Hayley Chewins

  It’s Mr. Crowwith who signals one of the othergirls, flicking his chin at her. She approaches the throne, bending to kiss the Childer-Queen’s gold-ringed hand. But the Childer-Queen’s eyes skim over the top of her head, studying our faces.

  The sea inches its way closer to me.

  “Without us,” I whisper. “Without us.” It’s an odd chant, but it keeps my mind on one thing: Mother Nine told us we were nothing, but we are important. I am important, even if I can’t make shimmer. I remember the weight of the golden bird in my hand. I can make life.

  Mr. Crowwith points his spear of a chin at me.

  I walk toward the Childer-Queen. She extends her left hand. I bend my head, touch fingers to lips, then I kiss her scarless knuckles, my nose brushing the gold-and-stone rings that decorate her fingers.

  Her whisper is so quick, so delicate — like a flickermoth shifting under my clothes — that I nearly do not hear it.

  But I do hear it.

  I smell it, too.

  Her breath smells of ripe tongue-fruit.

  “What’s your name?”

  I look up. The roots of her eyelashes are golden. My tongue stops working, and it’s a long stomp of seconds until I stammer out the syllables and stagger back under the cloud-blackened sky.

  The Childer-Queen straightens her pale gold-stitched sleeves, readies herself to receive the next othergirl.

  I watch her.

  She seems always to be glancing somewhere behind me — at the tangled garden that looms there, all twisted branch and unrustling leaf.

  No one is supposed to ask the name of a turnaway girl — let alone a monarch.

  She knows something. I try to keep a grip on my chant, to remember that without us Blightsend would be nothing, but it comes out warped and the wind steals it.

  Far away, I can hear crying — sobs and lullabies. It sounds like a woman singing. It sounds like she’s singing a mourning song. But no one would do that. Not since the Sea-Singer was taken into the ocean’s mouth for disobeying.

  “Without us,” I say, my tongue going numb. “Without us. Without us.” But the words don’t work anymore. My thumb is pulsing again, as if to remind me of pain.

  This is what you’re in for, Delphernia.

  Bly might be a poem-speaking prince, but I am a worse animal. I am a shimmerless turnaway girl with a brain as crowded as a cloisterwing cage.

  Don’t tell.

  I shush my thoughts.

  There — that sound again.

  A howl on the howling wind.

  After the kisses, the Childer-Queen motions to the garden behind us, every dangling leaf and arched branch glinting in the light that filters through the gathering clouds.

  “You may wander about the First King’s golden garden,” she says. The sea raises its head. “But remember: it’s a silent place. No sound allowed. Not even whispers.”

  Silent or singing, I don’t want to walk among the dead-gold flowers. But I also don’t want to stand out any more than I already do.

  As the othergirls move toward the shine of curlicued leaves, I get to my feet, closing my eyes. I stumble, reach for branches when I get to the garden’s border. The glare’s pounding my head.

  I could not wander about even if my feet would let me. I’m too worried to walk — worried that the Childer-Queen knows my name, knows my list of sins. Worried that the sea will know them soon, too.

  The sky’s resting on my eyelids, clouds pressing down on my brow. I peer back to see the cliff’s edge, trying to avoid looking up at the glowering heavens. It’s like not being able to look away from a nest-fallen egg. My stomach shrinks and my lungs shrivel and I try to close my eyes —

  But I can’t.

  The rocks below, the sea sweeping around them.

  A whoosh of wind pulls all the air out of my chest. I clutch at a tree, lean against it, faltering into the webbing of branches. Into the garden. And then I’m surrounded by the soundless glistening of gold.

  “Afraid of heights?”

  I turn, startled.

  The Childer-Queen herself said we shouldn’t speak in the garden. But it’s her. Speaking to me.

  “It’s all right,” she says, holding a finger to her lips. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I whisper, barely audible even to myself. I would never tell anyone what frightened me. Especially not a foe.

  “I didn’t know Bly was going to take a turnaway girl until I saw him talking to you today.” She glances about to check that no one’s spying her lips. Her eyes flicker. “It’s all perfectly lawful, of course, insofar as the Prince of Blightsend can do what he likes — as long as the Custodian isn’t bothered, which he rarely is when it comes to Bly. He doesn’t think much of my brother.”

  I stare at the words dripping out of her mouth.

  “All I’m saying is,” she says, “we’re family now.” She steps closer to me, lifting my chin with her knuckle. One of her rings digs into my gullet. “Is he taking good care of you in the Old Sorrows?” she asks. “Can you breathe for all the dust?”

  I nod. Bly might have my golden bird in a cage, but I’m more free than I’ve ever been. He may have heard me singing, but I don’t think he’s going to tell anyone about that. At least — I hope he won’t. I hope he won’t. I hope he won’t.

  All at once, the sky empties itself of rain. Drops clatter like little stones. I’m still holding on to the tree beside me, leafy fruits dangling from its branches in the wind.

  But the Childer-Queen throws her head back and stretches out her tongue. She fills her mouth with rain. If you took away her rings and crown, she could be a girl like me.

  Don’t tell, Delphernia.

  The rain falls heavier and heavier.

  The othergirls flock to stand beneath a tall tree, bark-patterns etched into the gold, branches spread out like a vaulted ceiling. I follow them reluctantly, not wanting to draw attention to myself. Up close, I can see that each of the huge tree’s leaves is a glinting key. A host of secrets chimes the air. The rain stops. Droplets sit on every surface, mirroring — and shattering — the sky.

  Then the Childer-Queen joins us beneath the thick gold branches. She’s drenched. Strands of sopping hair cling to her cheeks.

  I’m beginning to think that she might laugh — that we might all end up rolling on the lungmossy ground, tearing in gasps between roared guffaws — when Mr. Crowwith appears behind her. As if his silence has scolded her, she straightens her sleeves.

  She must feel the fever of my staring, because she turns to stare right back, watches as I shift uncomfortably in my bruised skin, my blister-giving shoes.

  The cliffs hum my name. The ocean steams.

  I want to tear my eyes away, but there’s too much space outside the cage of the Childer-Queen’s gazing. Everything’s buzzing like a trapped flickermoth — except the Childer-Queen. If I blink, I will turn to dust.

  She walks up to me, eyes unyielding, and takes my hand. Her fingers are cold with rain.

  She smiles as though she has a secret.

  Or as though she knows one.

  I can taste the sea all the time.

  The wind leaves a layer of salt on my lips, and my eyelashes are flecked with little crystals. They’re like old tears, reminding me how close I am to drowning. Reminding me what happens to girls like me.

  Girls with singing throats.

  It’s been five days since I left the cloister, and Bly hasn’t asked me to make shimmer. And he hasn’t mentioned the golden bird since he took me to his cave.

  The sea still spins me into dizziness if I don’t plant my feet. But I mustn’t dread the sky. I mustn’t let Mother Nine win. She said it would be worse for me out here, but nothing can be worse than being trapped in the cloister — not even being dragged into jaw-jagged waves. I do not want to believe her words and so I will make them untrue. I will keep the laws of Blightsend. I won’t even think about singing.

  Especially not on
the Festival of the Sea-Singer.

  I am standing on the black, black beach, surrounded by lanterns — gold cages paneled with glass and filled with pieces of hushingstone. The crowds of Masters sound like building storms, their bells a resounding chorus. You can hear them from afar — not like Mr. Crowwith. It could be a spoonful of useful, that bell sound, if you wanted to escape this place, keep an ear out for following feet. If there were somewhere to escape to, that is.

  “I will keep the laws of Blightsend,” I whisper. “And they will keep me.”

  At least I have the festival to distract me.

  In Blightsend, each day wears a different dress. The Festival of Bells, the Festival of Kisses.

  Yesterday was the Festival of Fingers. All day, Masters gathered at the Featherrut to trill scales and see who could play the longest songs without breathing. They feasted on thumb-shaped biscuits dipped in sweet tongue-leaf tea.

  The day before was the Festival of Skies, which didn’t mean anything, really, except that you were meant to look up and be grateful. The beach was filled with Masters, lying on their backs, staring up as if trying to decipher the language of clouds.

  The Childer-Queen arrives at the Festival of the Sea-Singer with Mr. Crowwith at her side, the train of her mist-wafting dress collecting small, sea-smoothed pebbles of hushingstone. She releases red ribbons of silk, obviously dyed with tongue-fruit juice, into the churning wind. They look like bloodied bandages.

  The ribbons are gathered by Masters and wives, soapstresses, even turnaway girls. They’re wound around fingers, tied around necks. Fished out of the sea, dripping. They are supposed to be tongues. It was the Sea-Singer’s tongue that got her swallowed, after all — sent the waves to pull her from her bed.

  I know the festival is supposed to be a celebration of her death, but I will not celebrate that. I will celebrate the fight I saw in her eyes, in the cloister and in the Old Sorrows.

  Capes of cloud sweep the horizon, and the sea spits and shivers with the spines of waves. I try not to look at the ribbons, try not to imagine them bloody. Try not to think about those clouds reaching down with frayed fingers to snatch me from my feet —

  “There you are!”

  I jump, turn. It’s Linna, wearing a silent soapstress’s dress. Her cheeks are pink, as if she’s been running.

  “Good evening,” I say.

  I watch her taking in the festival: the sour smell of tongue-fruit wine, the drenched ribbons rippling on the surface of the sea. The music spinning from stone-flutes like unraveling spools of fire-lit thread. Masters are sticking out their tongues, miming drowning, laughing themselves sick, while soapstresses fill their palms with sea foam. Wives are dressed in layers of silk dyed with seaflower petals, their sleeves stitched with gold, their eyes eclipses of boredom. Turnaway girls drift between them, staring at the horizon as though it’s another stone wall. I wonder if anyone ever thinks about who the Sea-Singer really was. She isn’t only a story to worry children with at night.

  “Aren’t you afraid Mr. Crowwith will see you?” I say to Linna. But I am smiling. Because you can’t look at this girl and not smile — and not have hope.

  “I’m dressed the part,” she says, taking a small tongue-fruit out of her skirt’s pocket and handing it to me. “And I’ll keep my distance from him.” She hesitates, peering over my shoulder. Then she whispers, “You know you’re being watched, though, right?”

  I glance behind me to see the Childer-Queen staring. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here alone,” I say. “But my Master doesn’t exactly like Festivals.”

  The truth is, Sorrowhall twists me into knots. I don’t want to sit in my dust-gold sleeping-room, waiting for Bly to ask for my company. He’s gone most days — in that cave of his. Carving eyes and hands, teeth and claws and hooked beaks. And keeping a little golden bird behind glass.

  “Your Master isn’t here?” says Linna.

  “No.” A wave swells with ribbon-tongues at my side. My stomach fills with the wings of frightened birds. I still don’t know why he hasn’t asked me to make shimmer. I still don’t know why he has my golden bird — or if he’s ever going to tell me outright that he knows it’s mine. “He hardly leaves the Old Sorrows.”

  Linna narrows her eyes. “Wait. You’re the Prince’s turnaway girl?”

  My face turns hot.

  “You have to tell me about him,” she says, smiling and grasping my shoulders. “Is he really as odd as they say? Odd people are the best.”

  I can’t help it — I look at her and a laugh escapes me. Mother Nine’s eyes always made me feel as though my hands were the size of dinner plates. I felt clunky under her gaze, like I was cobbled together out of found things. Like my own teeth didn’t fit inside my mouth. But not with Linna.

  “I mean, I suppose he’s a little odd,” I say. “He’s always quoting poems.”

  Linna’s expression crumples like a squashed seaflower. “That’s not that odd,” she says, clearly disappointed.

  I laugh again. I’ve never laughed so much in my life. Twice. In one evening. I wonder if the sky’s heard me. I try to look up, but a rushing of nausea surges up from my toes. I stare at the ground, suck my tongue until it passes.

  Linna’s still looking at me expectantly.

  “Fine — I can say this,” I whisper. “He has a cave. And he’s carved all these enormous beasts out of the walls, and they almost look — they almost look alive.”

  “Alive!” Linna cries. “Now, that’s something I can work with.” She grabs the fruit from my hand, shrugs, and takes a bite. “If you’re not going to eat it,” she says, mouth full.

  “But really, he’s quite ordinary.” I roll a pebble over with my toe. “He’s just a person who likes to stay indoors.”

  “Right,” says Linna, her tongue stained dark red. “Well, if I lived at Sorrowhall, I’d stay indoors, too, to be honest.”

  I don’t mention that the Old Sorrows is falling apart. I don’t mention that it has more flickermoths than servants. I don’t mention that I am always alone there, trying to unhear the faint singing that comes from the Garden of All Silences when the wind is pitched right.

  As if she can hear that haunting sound herself, Linna says, “I need to go.” She must catch the don’t-leave look in my eye, because she adds, “But if you’d like to see my cloister — meet me at the statue of Rullun Harpermall later?”

  “All right,” I say, wanting to go but knowing I shouldn’t. Especially if Bly suspects me for singing. Especially if the Childer-Queen’s watching me.

  Linna takes my arm and plants a fat kiss on my cheek, and then she swings away like a shoot of hushingstone held in the palm of a dancing Master. In seconds, she’s gone — night-swallowed. The half-eaten tongue-fruit is in my hand.

  I can still feel the Childer-Queen’s eyes on me, like cold drops of rain on my neck. I pull my jacket around me. Her gazing’s like a fork in my shoe. I can’t walk away, can’t move anywhere without hobbling.

  Ribbon-tongues cling to black rocks, drift on the water’s surface. A crying wind circles me. I hear the Childer-Queen laugh and feel her eyes leave me. I turn to see her at the center of a huddle of Masters. They’re tying a red ribbon around her neck as she pretends to protest. Mr. Crowwith is quiet, staring at the Childer-Queen’s back as though she’s a caged bird that’s about to be set loose.

  Silence, when you start listening for it, is louder than anything else.

  I look out to sea: always lapping and lifting and sinking into calm, always and always and always. I do believe that anything is better than a life behind stone. I do, I do. But I ache for my hollow tree. For the safety of the cloister. I ache, too, for Mother Nine’s hurtings. My scabs tingle. At least I knew when they were coming, her lessons of switch and sting.

  Don’t tell, Delphernia —

  I understood the rules inside the cloister.

  Out here, the rules don’t understand me.

  It’s the Childer-Queen’s gold-fir
e gawking that pushes me to do it — to meet Linna at the statue of Rullun Harpermall. It’s the Festival of the Sea-Singer, too. I have to get away from picturing all those ribbons as slashed tongues, the sea swirling redder and redder. And Sorrowhall means facing Bly and all the questions he raises in my gut.

  But there’s another reason, if I’m honest with myself. And it’s frightening, the reason, because —

  I want to see Linna.

  I want to feel as though I am made for my skin again. I want my soul to hum along with a song only Linna’s soul sings.

  It feels as though the empty streets are getting narrower and narrower, pinching at my elbows. The sky lowers its clouds to catch me in a mist.

  I take a seat on Rullun Harpermall’s golden boot, resting my head on my folded arms. Rain falls, filling the stone-gouged Featherrut, but I stay still. I don’t want to miss Linna.

  Finally, I hear footsteps.

  Linna is limned in starlight. She’s carrying a bunch of tongue-fruit. She looks impressed with herself. Impressed with her loot.

  She looks impressed with me, too.

  “You came,” she says, giving me the tongue-fruit and pulling me up. Her fingers are warm, as though she’s touched gold. Her pockets are full of fried and leaf-wrapped seaflowers.

  Then her mouth opens like the Childer-Queen’s did — opens to the raindrops that glimmer around us, up to the heavens, as if she’s worthy of having the sky touch her tongue. As if she’s not afraid of it. As if she could swallow lightning. I sway, remembering the tree with keys for leaves, that look the Childer-Queen handed me, my belly so full of unspoken secrets that I couldn’t avert my eyes.

  Don’t tell.

  The Featherrut is filling up with rainwater.

  “Does it always flood?” I ask.

  “Always,” says Linna, rolling her eyes. “The water’s taken to the Childer for her morning bath — but if you rise early, you can slurp a handful from one of the buckets. It’s meant to be good luck.”

  “Good luck?” Nothing to do with the Childer-Queen seems like good luck.

  “It’s worked for me so far,” Linna says, winking. She looks around, then turns to golden Rullun Harpermall and pushes her finger into his right eye. The statue rises a little off the ground, then slides to the right, revealing a deep black hole.