The Sisters of Straygarden Place

by Hayley Chewins

  “You want to prove something,” the Mysteriessa said, as though the fact were written plainly on Cygnet’s forehead.

  Cygnet stared right back. “Yes,” she said, “I do.”

  Mayhap shuddered. The Mysteriessa had a talent for knowing what other people wanted, deep down. But what did she want herself? Mayhap couldn’t tell.

  The contract showed the wind ringing through the grass’s stiff strands.

  Mayhap’s mother said, “My husband studies bats. He’s a chiropterologist. A zoologist, really, but he specializes in bats.” Her words were questions, rising notes. A crescendo was coming. “When we learned of this place, it sounded as though it had been . . . made for us.”

  Mayhap’s father now stepped forward. “The Academy hasn’t taken kindly to our hypotheses about magic and the natural world. If we could work from here, if we could conduct experiments —” Desperation pinched his vocal cords.

  “Yes,” said the Mysteriessa, “I understand.” She looked from Cygnet to Bellwether to Pavonine, then let her eyes fall to where Mayhap and Winnow were standing in their white shoes and stockings, a little way behind their parents.

  And with that, she opened the gate, and she let the family in.

  The images began to move more quickly: Cygnet, stepping through the gate with Bellwether behind her, Mayhap and Winnow following. The Mysteriessa leading them to the house, the grass moving out of the way. The door closing behind all of them. Her family inside the considerate house, the silver grass pressing against the windows in the enormous entrance hall.

  Then the piece of paper blurred like running watercolors, and the picture dissolved.

  Another scene formed: the Office of Residents’ Concerns. It looked exactly like it did now. Mayhap’s mother sat in one chair, and her father sat in the other. Mayhap and Winnow played a clapping game on the rug, chanting softly. Pavonine was still in Bellwether’s arms. The Mysteriessa pointed to a pile of papers that appeared on the desk, the words upon the pages scrawled in black swooping ink. Bellwether riffled through the contract, balancing Pavonine, who was tucked into the crook of his elbow.

  “What will we have to give up?” asked Cygnet.

  “You don’t get to choose,” said the Mysteriessa. “It’s not like going into a sweet shop. Once you’ve signed the contract, something will be taken from you. I will choose.”

  Mayhap’s mother looked wistfully out the windows as a wanderroot tree drifted past. “We’ve come this far,” she said. “We have to stay. We have to sign it. Bell?”

  Mayhap’s father smiled, but he was frowning at the same time.

  Cygnet touched his hand. “Everything is going to be fine, Bell.” She looked over at Mayhap and Winnow. “We’re doing this for them,” she whispered. “Right?”

  The Mysteriessa said, “Have you made up your minds?”

  Hope filled Cygnet’s and Bellwether’s eyes. Hope that she wouldn’t take too much from them.

  A pen appeared on the desk, and Mayhap’s mother took it in her hand. She printed her name, signed the contract, and slid it over to Mayhap’s father, who did the same. Cygnet cooed at Pavonine.

  And then the Mysteriessa said, “Congratulations. You are now the proud owners of Straygarden Place. The house will look after your every material need.” A pause sounded through the office. “And,” she added, “you will never sleep again.”

  The paper in front of Mayhap became littered with unreadable, rain-soaked images.

  Mayhap sat in the chair, shaking, stroking Seekatrix’s back. “Seeka,” she whispered. “The grass isn’t the one who takes things from the families who live here. It’s the Mysteriessa.” Seekatrix pushed his nose under her elbow, as though wanting to hide. “If the grass isn’t the one who took sleep from us, Seeka, then maybe the grass isn’t the one making Winnow sick. Maybe it’s her.”

  Mayhap dragged the chair closer to the desk. “I want to ask a question,” she said.

  A pen and a fresh piece of paper appeared before her.

  She scribbled seven words: Why did the Mysteriessa give us droomhunds?

  The pages of the contract swirled.

  They showed the Mysteriessa standing in the silver grass at night. She whistled a tune, a song of four notes, and five droomhunds came bounding toward her. They were small as kittens. The Mysteriessa gathered the bundles of fur into her arms — black as night and squirmy as earthworms. She carried them to the girls’ nursery, where baby Pavonine was bawling, red-faced, and toddler Mayhap was lying in bed, rubbing her scratchy eyes, and small Winnow was curled up, feverish. Their parents were stooped over Pavonine’s cot, their skin as ashy as cold fireplaces. They obviously hadn’t slept since they’d arrived at the house, and neither had Mayhap and her sisters. The Mysteriessa placed a little black ball of furry darkness — a droomhund — into each of the girls’ beds and then gave one to Cygnet and one to Bellwether.

  “But why?” breathed Mayhap. “I want to know why.”

  The contract shivered as though bristling. Be patient, it seemed to say.

  It showed the Mysteriessa watching from the door as the droomhunds found their way into their new owners’ minds. She watched as each Ballastian slowly closed their eyes. She watched as each fell into a heavy, heavy sleep.

  “I love you,” she said, so softly that Mayhap barely heard the words scraping past her lips.

  Mayhap looked at Seekatrix as the images disappeared. “She gave us droomhunds because she loved us?”

  Seekatrix whimpered, still tucked against her with his face hidden.

  And then the door to the Office of Residents’ Concerns began to rattle.

  The pages of the contract fluttered like frightened bats. As they spread apart, Mayhap grabbed the last page — the one her parents had written on. Their note was torn, ruined, but this was also something from them, something they had touched. She folded it up and tucked it into her sleeve. She tied the ribbon around her wrist so that nothing would fall out. Then she stood, holding Seekatrix.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  The door only jangled more. Seekatrix was trembling, his heart pounding beside her heart.

  The door’s juddering grew louder and more insistent.

  “This is ridiculous,” said Mayhap. “It’s a door, for sleep’s sake.” She pulled it open — fast — expecting to see the Mysteriessa.

  But on the other side of the door was Pavonine, her face stricken and splotchy, Peffiandra shivering beside her.

  “I followed the crinkles in the carpet,” whimpered Pavonine. “Except the door was locked, and I was so worried. I’m sorry for fighting with you, May —” She looked behind Mayhap into the Office of Residents’ Concerns. “What — is this place?” she asked.

  “Remember I told you about The Book of Records?” said Mayhap. “The book about the families who lived here before? Well, this is where they made their agreement with the house official, signed the papers. Once they’d signed, they found out what had been taken from them.”

  Pavonine stepped past Mayhap, Peffiandra at her heels.

  “I’m sorry,” said Pavonine again, bursting into tears. She covered her face with her hands. Peffiandra licked her ankle as if to comfort her. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  Mayhap put her arms around her sister as Seekatrix curled his body around Peffiandra in a sort of droomhund hug. “Pav, is Winnow sleeping now?”

  “She’s not sleeping exactly. But she is lying still. She keeps saying your name. She’s trying to tell me something, but she can’t get it out.”

  Mayhap looked into Pavonine’s tired eyes. She couldn’t help but think of the contract’s memory, of how they had all been so desperate to sleep. They had to look after themselves if they were going to figure this out. “Are you hungry, Pav?” she said.

  “I am hungry.”

  “I thought you might be. Why don’t we go to our bedroom and ask the house for a nice breakfast. Anything you like. And I’ll tell you about all the thing
s I’ve found out. And then afterward, we can have a nap with Winnow, all right? And maybe, when we wake up, we can find a solution together.”

  It seemed wrong to eat and sleep when Winnow was still so ill. But even people fighting to keep their sisters alive had to eat and sleep. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to help. Pavonine nodded in a determined, stubborn way that made Mayhap want to kiss her cheeks.

  She decided then that she really would tell Pavonine everything — Mysteriessa and all. The Mysteriessa had lied to her. The Mysteriessa could not be trusted. Mayhap was not going to leave Pavonine out of anything from now on. From now on, they had to work together.

  Winnow was lying in the sisters’ crescent-shaped bed. Her eyes flicked open and closed, and her lips moved soundlessly. Her face and neck were completely silver. When Mayhap looked at her, a numb cold took over her body, and she couldn’t feel her fingertips.

  So she looked at Pavonine instead.

  Pavonine sat on her chaise longue, and Mayhap followed suit. Their droomhunds lay at their feet.

  The wallpaper in their bedroom had always shown figures against a backdrop of silver, but now Mayhap found herself peering at its details. The figures were girls, and the silver bent around them.

  Every image in the house seemed like a symbol — or a threat.

  Mayhap was shaken out of her thoughts by Pavonine’s soft voice: “May? What are you going to have to eat?”

  “Oh,” said Mayhap. “You go ahead. I don’t know what I feel like yet.”

  Pavonine requested a cup of hot chocolate and a cheese sandwich.

  Mayhap squinted at her. “Hot chocolate and cheese? How is it possible that you can have those two things together?”

  Pavonine only shrugged. She thought chocolate went with everything. It made Mayhap laugh — but only a little, because she was suddenly very aware of Winnow again, half asleep and just outside her vision, groaning faintly.

  The food appeared on a little rose gold tray, which Pavonine placed on her lap. She looked cheerful for the first time in twelve hours. She lifted the sandwich with both hands and bit into it, then slurped her hot chocolate loudly. “May?” she asked.

  “Yes, Pav?”

  “Why is some magic good and other magic — not good?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this sandwich” — she held the sandwich aloft — “is a kind of magic. The house gave it to me. It appeared out of nowhere.”

  “Right,” said Mayhap.

  “But the grass’s magic is different.”

  Mayhap thought instantly of the Mysteriessa. Her magic was different, too.

  “So why is the one good and the other bad?” asked Pavonine.

  Mayhap ached for her parents to be sitting with them. She wanted them to answer the question.

  But as she thought about Pavonine’s question, she realized she had an answer. It wasn’t something she knew with her mind; it was something she knew with the parts of her that were wordless. She knew it with her toes, with her fingertips.

  “It’s not that the magic is bad or good in itself,” she said to Pavonine. “The magic itself is like any other tool — like a knife, or a hammer, or electricity. It’s what the magic is used for that makes it good or bad. The house’s magic is a helping magic. It looks after us. But the grass’s magic”— or the Mysteriessa’s magic, thought Mayhap — “is a taking magic. It is used to steal from us, and from others.”

  Winnow moaned, as though in agreement.

  “That makes sense,” said Pavonine, and Mayhap was satisfied with her answer for a moment.

  But the more she pondered the Mysteriessa, the more that satisfaction evaporated. Because the Mysteriessa’s magic was not only a taking magic. She did take from every resident of Straygarden Place, but she also gave them the house to live in, and she had given the Ballastians droomhunds when they couldn’t sleep. Mayhap didn’t know if she was good or bad. Maybe she was both.

  Pavonine took a big sip of hot chocolate. “Are you going to ask the house for your food, May? Then you can tell me what you’ve found while we eat.”

  “Of course. I completely forgot,” said Mayhap. Feeling lazy, she said, “I’ll have my favorite breakfast. And a cup of Earl Grey tea.”

  The food appeared on a wooden tray, carved with birds’ nests and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It hovered in front of Mayhap before she placed it carefully on her lap.

  But the house had made a mistake.

  It had not given her a single pain au chocolat — her favorite breakfast. Instead, a bowl of steaming cinnamon porridge sat on the tray.

  The house had never made an error like this before.

  And even though it was only food — food that smelled perfectly fine — panic crept across Mayhap’s scalp as though her hair were full of ants.

  Pavonine hadn’t noticed — she was too busy cooing at Peffiandra. When she finally looked up, she said, “What?”

  “The house gave me the wrong breakfast,” said Mayhap. “I asked for my favorite, and it . . .” She gestured at her bowl.

  “What is it? Porridge? You don’t mind porridge. I rather like it, too. It smells nice.”

  “Pavonine, that’s not the point.” Mayhap shoved the tray off her lap, and it landed on the floor, and Seekatrix jumped with fright. The porridge seeped into the carpet.

  “May!” said Pavonine. “Why don’t you ask the house for your favorite again? I’m sure it was only . . .”

  But Mayhap felt as though she were walking in the dark without a lamp. She looked past Pavonine’s shoulder. She couldn’t possibly make Pavonine understand how terrible this entirely insignificant thing had made her feel.

  Winnow woke up, crying again, speaking in garbled and hurried fragments.

  The house began to clean the mess Mayhap had made.

  Mayhap watched as Seekatrix and Peffiandra played, wrestling and growling. She couldn’t eat anything now. She could hardly think. “Let’s go to sleep, Pav,” she said. “We’ll feel better if we do. And then I can tell you everything.” She stood and moved toward the bed, her head full of frantic fog.

  “May?”

  “Hmmm?” said Mayhap.

  “We have to brush the droomhunds first.”

  Mayhap stopped beside the bed. “Oh, yes,” she said, sniffing and wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  She looked at her feet to meet eyes with Seekatrix, but he and Peffiandra were still playing, and then they were speeding off, out of the bedroom, running abreast and barking, and there was nothing left to do but to fetch them back.

  Mayhap and Pavonine found the droomhunds in their father’s old study, wrestling on the moss-green rug. The walls were covered in dark-blue silk, little silver stars stitched into it. The curtains were drawn, making the room feel like a cave. Lamps glowed dimly on the walls. Their father’s desk was untouched, his collection of bat skeletons arranged on shadowed shelves behind it.

  The tiny bones made Mayhap’s skin tingle. She was still shaken from the porridge incident, and she didn’t feel like being inside the dark shell of her father’s once-favorite place. Her thoughts were loose in her head.

  She grabbed at Seekatrix, who was wriggling about on the carpet with Peffiandra, but he scrambled away, his clipped nails skittering on the polished marble floor. Peffiandra darted off, too, hiding underneath the armchair behind the desk.

  Pavonine sat on the floor, cross-legged, and called to her droomhund, and Peffiandra ran to her immediately. Mayhap wished Seekatrix would do the same, but something had come over him. He was running in zigzags so that she couldn’t pick him up. Just as she thought she’d cornered him, he ran past her so quickly that her fingers only brushed his fluffy back, grasping at air.

  Frustration burned in her throat. “Seeka,” she moaned, standing straight with her hands on her hips. “Please. We don’t have time for this.”

  She followed him behind the desk, where he sat panting. He barked twice and looked up.

&nb
sp; “Seekatrix,” said Mayhap, “stop!” She stamped her foot.

  He wouldn’t. He carried on growling, barking, growling some more. These were not warning sounds or sounds of fright. They were sounds that said, I have had enough of you being upset. I want to play.

  “May,” said Pavonine. “Tell him to stop.”

  Peffiandra was huddled in her arms.

  “I’m trying,” said Mayhap. She kneeled beside her droomhund. “What is it, Seeka?” she said.

  He looked up and whined.

  Mayhap followed his gaze to the bat skeletons. “I think he wants the bones,” she said.

  Pavonine only yawned.

  Mayhap sighed. Perhaps if she gave him one of the skeletons, he would stop barking.

  “All right, boy,” she said, dragging the armchair over to the shelves.

  She stood on it and peered into the uppermost shelf. The bat bones were connected by wire as thin as strands of spiders’ silk. It made her shudder, touching them. Something churned within her. “Hmmm,” she said. “Which shall I choose?”

  Seekatrix wagged his tail.

  She looked into the second-highest shelf.

  The bones were the color of piano keys, as delicate as twigs. They made her think of her own bones, and Seekatrix’s bones, too. Do droomhunds have bones? she wondered.

  She put her hand over one of the little skeletons, saying a silent apology to her father.

  And that’s when she saw the secret drawer at the back of the shelf: a square that sat apart from the rest, a little handle. She tugged at it, releasing a held breath when it opened easily.

  Seekatrix whined again. Mayhap held the bat skeleton in her hand, and the droomhund hopped up onto the chair and took it into his mouth gently. He lay down on the rug and began to chew it.

  Mayhap reached into the secret drawer. Her fingers found something glossy. She took hold of it and pulled.