But Mayhap knew, behind a locked door in her heart, that whatever had gone wrong with Winnow went beyond a missing droomhund.
Their parents had told them not to leave the house, and Winnow had, and now she was hurting and her eyes were silver, like the grass.
Winnow stirred, and Pavonine said, “May, look —”
Mayhap watched the silver of Winnow’s irises seep out of her closed eyes. The color spread both upward and downward, staining her cheekbones and eyelashes.
Pavonine tucked Peffiandra under one arm and rubbed beneath Winnow’s eye with her thumb. “What is it?” she asked breathlessly.
Winnow’s eyes shot open. She screamed.
Mayhap took a step back. “I don’t know, Pav. I don’t know,” she said.
“What are we going to do?” asked Pavonine. “There has to be something we can do.”
Mayhap chewed on a nail. “We need to make her better,” she said. “Of course that’s what we have to do. We have to make her better.”
“But how?” asked Pavonine. “How are we going to do that?”
She had put Peffiandra on the bed and was pressing a palm to Winnow’s forehead now. Winnow was groaning. Peffiandra pawed at her.
Mayhap tried to remember what the grass had said to her the day before, but all she could remember was the feeling of being surrounded. And the word liar.
Pavonine spoke to the house. “Please make Winnow better,” she said. “Please.”
The girls waited.
Nothing happened.
A clank sounded behind them — then the squeak of a hinge.
Mayhap and Pavonine turned to see that one of the miniature windows was open, swinging back and forth. For a moment, the grass hovered beyond it. Then it began to snake its tendrils into the room, curling and susurrating, sighing and raveling. It was as if it was taunting Mayhap.
Little liar. Little liar. Little liar.
“May —” said Pavonine.
Mayhap barred her sister with her arm. “Don’t go close to it. Watch that Peffiandra stays on the bed.” She looked at her droomhund. “Seekatrix: stay.” He obeyed.
Mayhap walked to the window and pushed the grass out of it with one hand. It clung to her, but she wrestled it back, slamming the window shut. She rubbed her skin where the grass had touched it.
“What’s happening, May?” asked Pavonine again.
Mayhap could see that she was petrified.
She thought for a moment about telling her sister the truth. About Winnow going out into the grass. About opening the door. But she didn’t want to frighten Pavonine. She had to keep that all to herself; she had to deal with it on her own.
The only thing she could think to do was to return to the entrance hall, to ask the grass what it had done, and to hope it would answer plainly.
“I’m not sure, Pav,” she said, “but we have to start somewhere. Let’s look for Evenflee, all right? You can look up here and I’ll go downstairs.”
Pavonine nodded gravely.
Winnow moaned.
Mayhap’s throat tightened, and she had to concentrate hard in order to speak. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve searched the downstairs rooms,” she said.
But Pavonine was bending over Winnow, whispering, “Shhh, Winn, we’re going to find Evenflee, and we’re going to make you better,” and she didn’t hear her.
As Mayhap wound down the carpeted stairs, someone called her name.
She jumped and looked behind her, up the curving steps, toward the room where she’d left her sisters. But the sound wasn’t coming from there.
Mayhap.
Mayhap.
She gripped the marble banister. It didn’t sound like the grass — cold and windy and many-throated. It didn’t have Tutto’s echo-metallic tone, either. It sounded like a person. But not Winnow, and not Pavonine. The voice made Mayhap’s bones ache, like growing pains. It sounded like — she hoped it was, she desperately hoped it was —
It sounded like Mamma.
Mayhap galloped down the stairs. Maybe she would find it was nothing or maybe — maybe she would find her mother in the soft-lit drawing room, holding her arms open so that Mayhap could crawl into them. Maybe she would rest her head on her mother’s shoulder. Maybe her mother would stroke her hair. Mayhap would tell her all about Winnow, and Mamma would know what to do.
She followed the voice to the conservatory. The door that separated it from the eastern wing of Straygarden Place was made of pale-blue glass. And the voice was coming from behind its warps and blurs. Seekatrix wagged his tail slowly — uncertainly — beside her.
Of course, thought Mayhap. Of course. It makes every bit of sense.
She let her hand hover over the doorknob.
Mayhap, said the voice again. Mayhap, Mayhap.
Mayhap stepped inside. The room had three walls of glass and one of brick, and crescent-shaped windows were cut into its high, transparent ceiling. The silver grass that towered all around it made the moon-windows look like real moons — vivid and distant. Through the glass, Mayhap could see wanderroot trees outside, floating through the night sky. Six wanderroot trees floated inside the conservatory, too — slow as breathing. On wrought iron tables sat pots of soil, and in the pots were dead plants. Mayhap’s mother, a botanist, had been trying to figure out why nothing grew at Straygarden Place except silver grass and wanderroot trees.
The room shrieked. Or rather the bats in the room — the bats that lived in the branches of the wanderroot trees, the bats her father had been studying — shrieked.
They were white as milk, flying in all directions, swarming her. Mayhap drew her hands over her head.
“Mamma?” she called. “Mamma?”
“So the grass has finally got one of you,” came the voice.
Mayhap’s heart skipped like a stone in her chest. What an odd thing for her mother to say. The bats were flying as fast as shooting stars around her, and she couldn’t see through the cloud of them.
Then the little creatures shot back up into the trees, roosting like awful, ivory-skinned fruits, and Mayhap saw Seekatrix a little way away, sitting on someone’s lap, and the lap did not belong to her mother.
It belonged instead to a girl in a glistening dress.
A girl with death-white skin and streaks of silver in her blond hair.
Even her eyes were white, like boiled eggs without their shells.
Mayhap stopped.
“Mayhap,” said the girl. Her voice was a misty forest. “That is your name, is it not? The house has told me all about you. The middle daughter.” Her egg-eyes shifted in their sockets as she stroked Seekatrix’s back and whispered into his ear. He arched his neck to lick her face and she let him, rubbing his fluffy head.
“Y-yes,” said Mayhap. “I am the middle sister.”
The girl stood and took a step toward Mayhap, holding Seekatrix. “And I am the Mysteriessa of Straygarden Place,” she said.
The silver in her hair was giving Mayhap a headache.
“The —” said Mayhap, trying not to step away. “The — who?”
The girl smiled knowingly, the way Tutto sometimes smiled at the Ballastian sisters when they asked him a question. “I use my magic to take care of the house,” she sang in a creaky voice. “I take care of you and your sisters.” She kissed Seekatrix’s head, and he closed his eyes with pleasure. He was so calm in her presence, not nervous at all.
“Why have I never seen you before?” asked Mayhap.
“There are things about this house you don’t understand,” said the Mysteriessa. She allowed Seekatrix to slip to the floor, and he ran to sit beside Mayhap. Mayhap resisted the urge to pick him up. She didn’t want to be distracted.
“You called my name,” said Mayhap.
“I did,” said the Mysteriessa. “I hope you did not find that impertinent.”
“It wasn’t rude,” said Mayhap. “I am only . . . confused, that’s all. And worried. I’m terribly worried. It’s my sister, she’s �
�” She didn’t want to cry, but she was afraid that she soon would whether she liked it or not.
The Mysteriessa approached and put a hand on Mayhap’s shoulder. Mayhap felt an ache in her chest, like something missing. A keyhole without a key to put in it. “Everything is going to be all right, May,” said the Mysteriessa. “I am going to help you. Do not worry about Winnow.”
“You know what happened to my sister?” said Mayhap, feeling dizzy.
The Mysteriessa laughed sweetly. “Of course I do, silly. I know everything about you girls.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mayhap.
“There, there,” said the Mysteriessa. “You do not have to understand. Not everything, anyway. You only need to listen to me, and everything will be fine. Your sister will be fine.” She reached out to touch Mayhap’s hair.
Mayhap closed her eyes ever so briefly and shook her head. “How did Winnow get sick?” she asked.
“You know the answer to that,” said the Mysteriessa.
“She went walking in the grass.”
The Mysteriessa gave a solemn nod.
“Then why haven’t I fallen ill, too?” asked Mayhap. “I went looking for her.”
“Winnow was out in the grass for almost an entire day. You were there for minutes.”
Mayhap looked at the Mysteriessa’s silver-streaked hair. “Did it hurt you, too?” she asked.
“Yes, once,” said the Mysteriessa. “But I overcame it. Your sister can overcome it, too. But only if you listen to me. Otherwise —” She paused and blinked her white, white eyes. “Too much silver,” she said, “and she won’t survive it.”
Mayhap swallowed. She was feeling increasingly exasperated with the tone of the Mysteriessa’s words, the way she looked at Mayhap as though she were supposed to have answers instead of questions. “I need her to get better.”
“Then you’ll have to listen to me. You’ll have to follow my every instruction. The first is this: do not tell Pavonine about me. It will only complicate things.”
Pavonine probably wouldn’t appreciate Mayhap keeping something like this from her. But she couldn’t risk disobeying the Mysteriessa. Her little sister would have to understand. It was for Winnow’s sake.
Mayhap swallowed hard, then answered, “All right.”
“The second is this, Mayhap: you must leave Winnow to sleep. The silver will pass through her eventually. If you let her rest.”
“Pass through her?”
“It is like any other fever,” said the Mysteriessa. “It can abate.”
The girls had had fevers before, and coughs, and runny noses. The house had always taken care of them, giving them broth and covering them with blankets and running steaming baths for them when they got the shivers. But the house was not doing any of that for Winnow now. It seemed as though it didn’t know what to do. This was different.
“But she’s not asleep,” said Mayhap. “She’s in pain. She’s screaming, sobbing. I can’t just leave her like that.”
The Mysteriessa looked worried, but her voice sounded certain. “Do not let the grass touch her again. The more she is exposed, the worse she will get.”
Mayhap thought about the grass opening the window, curling through it. She shuddered. “Fine,” she said.
The bats were swaying, making the branches of the wanderroot trees creak. The silver grass hugged the glass from outside, as though it were listening closely.
“Is she . . .” said Mayhap. “Are you sure she’s going to be all right?”
“We can only hope and wait,” said the Mysteriessa. Then she turned and began to walk away.
“Wait!” cried Mayhap. “Come back, please! I want —”
Mayhap didn’t even know how to finish the sentence. She wanted to know everything. She wanted answers. She wanted the truth.
But the bats swarmed her again, and by the time she’d fended them off, the Mysteriessa of Straygarden Place was gone.
A rusty scrape sounded from above.
Mayhap looked up.
One of the crescent-shaped windows in the glass ceiling was open.
The bats flew, screeching, to hide among the branches of the wanderroot trees that hovered inside the room.
And Mayhap watched, horrified, as a tangle of silver grass threaded its way into the room and around one of the bats. She gaped as the grass stole it, as it struggled and squealed, as the others cowered.
Fear leaped through her like a thousand crickets, and she ran out of the conservatory, Seekatrix grazing her calf. The grass could be doing the same upstairs — grabbing at Winnow, making her sicker.
Please be all right, she thought. Please.
But when she arrived at the room she had left Winnow and Pavonine in, it was empty.
The window — the one the grass had opened before, the one Mayhap knew she had closed tightly — was squeaking on its hinge again. The sound made Mayhap nauseous.
She ran up the hallway. “Pavonine!” she called.
Pavonine stepped out of one of the house’s many bedrooms. Peffiandra stood beside her. “Did you find Evenflee?” Her voice was full of hope.
Mayhap tried to speak, but her tongue was so dry she couldn’t form the words. “Water, please,” she whispered hoarsely. A delicate glass appeared in her hand. She sipped the cold, clear liquid. “Pav,” she said once she had swallowed. “Where’s Winnow?”
“I left her in bed,” said Pavonine.
“She’s gone,” said Mayhap. “She’s not there anymore.” She held out her empty water glass, and the house disappeared it. “I found the door open, and the window —”
“What?” Pavonine ran, and Peffiandra sprinted after her.
The room was as empty as Mayhap had left it. The window sang a mournful tune. Seekatrix whined along with it.
“Pav, what happened?” said Mayhap.
Pavonine was close to tears. “She was just lying there. I thought she’d rest for a bit, and I could look around for Evenflee.”
“Well, now we’ve lost Winnow, too,” said Mayhap.
Pavonine was about to reply when there was an earsplitting scream. It was so loud that it curled the wallpaper, as though the house were cringing and covering its ears.
Pavonine and Mayhap followed the sound of their sister’s voice, their droomhunds scampering beside them. They followed it to their parents’ old bedroom.
Winnow, now silent, stood on the far side of the room, at the windows, looking out at the grass with her back to the door. She didn’t even notice Mayhap and Pavonine. She was holding something in her hands. In the feeble light of the lamps, Mayhap couldn’t quite make out what it was.
“Winnow?” said Mayhap. “Are you feeling better? We were worried.” She tried to go to her sister, but Winnow moved away, pinning herself against the wall. Mayhap held out a hand. “Winnow, did the grass come for you again? Did it touch you?”
Winnow only bared her teeth, hissing at Mayhap. Up close, Mayhap could see what she was holding: their parents’ letter, taken down from their bedroom wall, still in its frame, tucked safely under glass.
Pavonine touched Mayhap’s shoulder.
“Let me,” she said. She turned her attention to Winnow. “Winn,” she said, “what are you doing with Mamma and Pappa’s letter? Did you want to read it again for comfort? I always do that when I’m not well —”
Winnow threw the frame onto the floor and stomped on it with a bare foot. The glass shattered. Blood dripped from her heel.
“Winnow!” said Pavonine. “What are you doing?”
The frame had been bent. The glass was in shards.
Mayhap crouched to pick away the broken glass, to rescue her parents’ words. The note was the only thing they had left of them, not counting a few bat skeletons and some pots of lifeless soil.
Then Winnow kicked Mayhap — hard — her heel connecting with Mayhap’s ribs. Now it was Pavonine who screamed.
Mayhap rolled onto her back, holding her side. She couldn’t breathe. She could
feel Seekatrix licking her face. She turned her head to see Peffiandra trembling in the corner near the door.
Pavonine dropped to her knees. “Are you all right, May?” she asked. “You’re not bleeding, are you?”
Mayhap checked for blood. There was none. A little shiver went through her.
“What’s happening to her?” said Pavonine in a low voice. She was looking at Winnow.
Mayhap struggled to get air into her lungs. “I don’t think she knows what she’s doing. It’s as though she’s not even here.”
Winnow stooped to pick up the note. She held it between her index finger and thumb as though it were a used handkerchief. She screamed again — a loud, meaningless, cutting sound, her body curving with the effort — and tore the letter up.
“No!” said Mayhap. She lurched to her feet, hunched, her side aching, and lunged toward Winnow.
Winnow only smiled at her. Her smile was sad. No — her smile was contemptuous. Maybe it was both. She turned her back on Mayhap.
It was too late. The note was in pieces. They fell like rose petals to the carpet.
“Pavonine, take Winnow to our bedroom,” rasped Mayhap.
Pavonine’s eyes spilled out worry.
“Now, Pav,” said Mayhap. “And listen to me — you need to stay with her. You can’t leave her alone again. We don’t know what she’ll do.” The sound of the stolen bat’s squealing was still echoing in her ears. “And keep the windows closed. So she doesn’t get cold.”
“And you’ll keep looking for Evenflee?” said Pavonine.
“I’ll keep looking for Evenflee.”
Pavonine nodded gravely and walked up to Winnow, and Winnow’s shoulders sank. “Let’s get you back to bed, Winn,” she said, leading her sister out of the room. “We’re going to make this all better — don’t you worry.”
Peffiandra followed, giving Winnow a generous berth.
For a moment, Mayhap worried that perhaps Pavonine wouldn’t be safe with Winnow. But Winnow had not lashed out at Pavonine. She had turned her wrath only toward Mayhap.
She tried to comfort herself by thinking that it wasn’t really her sister acting this way. It was the sickness. It was the silver. It was the grass. It was just as the Mysteriessa had said. But her side ached, and so did her heart. Regardless of whether she was well or not, Winnow had wanted to do her harm.
The Sisters of Straygarden Place Page 3