The Sisters of Straygarden Place

by Hayley Chewins

  “What’s that, May?” said Pavonine, who had come to stand beside the chair, holding Peffiandra under one arm.

  “It’s a — photograph,” said Mayhap breathlessly, sitting down on the armchair.

  Pavonine leaned over her. “A photograph? Of what?”

  Mayhap held the photograph up for Pavonine to see. “It’s — me,” she said. “Me — with a droomhund.”

  The picture showed Mayhap’s form, a brightness against a backdrop of shadows. The droomhund almost faded into the gray background.

  “Is that Seekatrix?” said Pavonine, looking closer.

  The photograph trembled in Mayhap’s hand. “No, this dog is different. Its eyes — it’s a different dog. A completely different dog.”

  “Oh,” said Pavonine. The word sounded like a breath. “That must be your other droomhund, May.”

  “My other droomhund?”

  Pavonine took the photograph out of Mayhap’s hand. “Winnow told me. She remembers it. It was before Mamma and Pappa left — just before. When you were five, your droomhund died. And then you got a new one. Seeka. He just — arrived. They found him in your bed, curled up on the pillow. Winnow said she shouldn’t have told me. Mamma and Pappa told her not to tell us, because we would only be upset and worried. She asked me never to tell you.” Pavonine looked at Mayhap guiltily.

  Mayhap snatched the photograph back and stared at it, as though doing so would explain everything. But the more she stared at it, the less she felt she knew.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “How did my droomhund — this droomhund — die?” Seekatrix and Peffiandra had fallen conspicuously silent.

  Pavonine squinted. “Winnow said the grass took it. A window was open, and . . .”

  Mayhap’s head was a pan of rising dough. Here was the smell-of-coffee feeling again. The feeling she’d had when Tutto gave her the catalog card with The Collected Diaries of Quiverity Edevane printed on it. She was being buried. She was swallowing too much soil. She couldn’t breathe.

  Silver grass coming for her —

  She remembered its tightness around her wrists, its softness against her cheeks.

  Pavonine was looking at her with frightened eyes. “Mayhap? Winnow said it was only an accident —”

  “No,” said Mayhap. “I don’t think any of this is an accident.” She stuffed the photograph up her sleeve. “Pav, go check on Winnow, please. Brush Peffiandra and get some rest. I need to do something.”

  “Mysteriessa?” said Mayhap, stepping into the conservatory with Seekatrix.

  Daylight shone through the grass outside, making the glass walls look like mother-of-pearl, and bats hung from branches overhead like ornaments on dainty chains. Mayhap thought of the bones in her father’s study. A tickle crept up her spine.

  She untied the ribbon around her wrist and carefully removed the photograph, the last page of the contract, and the scraps of her parents’ note. She held them against her chest like playing cards, moving through the conservatory until she came face-to-face with the white-eyed girl.

  “You found me,” said the Mysteriessa. In the pale light, her eyes looked waxy, as though they’d been carved from marble.

  “What happened to my first droomhund?” Mayhap said, holding out the photograph.

  The Mysteriessa squinted. “Where did you get that?” she said.

  “Never mind where I found it,” said Mayhap. “Tell me what happened. Tell me the truth.”

  The girl took the photograph from her and stared at it. “Lovely thing, he was,” she said wistfully.

  “My sister says the grass took him,” said Mayhap. “Winnow told her. Why don’t I remember that?”

  The Mysteriessa smoothed the front of her dress. She was still wearing the same glistening garment, and the silver thread caught the sun’s light. It hurt to look at it. Her hair was so white that it appeared translucent. “You need to sleep, Mayhap. You’re panicking because you’re tired. Sleep is so important for the mind.”

  “Is that why you gave our family droomhunds? After you took our sleep away?” said Mayhap. She spoke as though she wore armor, not a flimsy dressing gown and slippers.

  The Mysteriessa’s face turned pink as cooked ham.

  “I went to the Office of Residents’ Concerns,” said Mayhap. “You said it was the grass who took things from the families. But it was you. Pavonine said the grass took my first droomhund. But that’s not true, either, is it? Tell me what happened.”

  The Mysteriessa of Straygarden Place pursed her dry lips.

  The silence was like oxygen, feeding the fire within Mayhap. “The contract showed me,” she said. “You let my parents in here — you let all of us in here — and you made them sign away their sleep.” She tried to unfold the last page of the contract, to hold it up for the Mysteriessa to see. As she did, the pieces of her parents’ shredded note fluttered to the floor.

  She crouched to pick them up, smoothing the contract before arranging the fragments of the note to make sure she hadn’t lost one. It was then that she noticed the handwriting. On the contract, Cygnet’s script was rectangular and resolute, Bellwether’s swooping and melodramatic. In the note, however, the letters were curled tightly, and slanted to the left.

  Mayhap looked up at the Mysteriessa. “The grass has nothing to do with anything, does it? You took my parents, didn’t you? You took my first droomhund. And now you’re going to take Winnow.”

  “That’s not true,” said the Mysteriessa. “Your parents chose to leave you.”

  “According to the note they left, yes,” said Mayhap, standing up and leaving the pieces of paper on the floor like scattered autumn leaves. “But they didn’t write it, did they?”

  “They —”

  “The handwriting in the note doesn’t match either script in the contract.” Mayhap spat the words out. “So either they didn’t write on the contract or they didn’t write the note. And since I saw them in the contract’s vision — I saw them sign it — I’m more inclined to believe the latter.”

  The Mysteriessa only stared at Mayhap, her eyes like two distant moons.

  “You wrote it, didn’t you? They never wanted to leave. You made them leave.”

  “Mayhap, I —”

  “What happened?” said Mayhap, snatching the photograph out of the Mysteriessa’s hand and shoving it in her face. She whispered through gritted teeth, “What — did — you — do?”

  The Mysteriessa stood up straighter and clasped her hands. “Mayhap Ballastian,” she said, “you would do well to respect me.”

  The words shook Mayhap’s heart like a rattle. “Respect you?” A laugh like a cough left her mouth.

  “Seekatrix,” called the Mysteriessa.

  The droomhund walked over to her, his tail wagging.

  “Leave him alone!” cried Mayhap.

  “Seeka,” the Mysteriessa sang. She picked him up and held him in her arms, stroking his head. “You know I called the droomhunds, don’t you? I called them out of the night, and they came to me.”

  Mayhap lowered the photograph in her hand.

  “Did it occur to you that I can make them do anything I like?” said the Mysteriessa.

  “Please,” Mayhap said. “I’m sorry for getting angry. Please leave him alone.”

  “You need to get some rest, Mayhap,” said the Mysteriessa. “Trust me. I know you. I’ve known you your whole life.” She took a step toward Mayhap, Seekatrix balanced in her arms.

  Sweet Seeka, who was trying to lick the Mysteriessa’s cheek. Sweet, sweet Seeka.

  “No,” said Mayhap. “Whatever you’re going to do, don’t —”

  The Mysteriessa put her mouth close to Seekatrix’s ear. “Time to sleep darkly, Seeka. Now.”

  She threw him into the air, toward Mayhap, and he leaped at her, leaped into her mind, burrowing into her head frantically, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t stand. Her head filled with a fuzzy darkness, and she was falling.

  The marble floor rose ben
eath her. The sleepy chirps of bats swept over her.

  And then everything went black, as though someone had drawn a curtain over the world.

  Seekatrix’s unbrushed fur prickled the edges of Mayhap’s mind. Color, image, sound, and smell — all of them hurried through her like trains through tunnels.

  In her dreams, she held white bats in her hands, their pink and open mouths like the fragile insides of flowers.

  In her dreams, she dug deep holes in a quiet garden and placed the bats into them. She covered them with soil as moist as pudding.

  The bats’ clawed feet needled the earth. They threw the dirt off their backs, spread their fleshy wings, multiplied.

  No matter how many of them she buried, they always came back up, screeching, until the whole sky was full of them.

  She closed her hands, and when she opened them again, her palms were silver.

  Mayhap woke in the conservatory, Seekatrix tumbling out of her mind like a stream of black smoke. The bats were swooping back and forth above her. She sat up and rubbed her temples.

  “I’m sorry, Seeka,” she said, holding him tightly. “I don’t know how she did that. But we’re all right. We’re all right now.”

  The silver grass was tinted with a distinctly crepuscular mauve. It was evening. She had been asleep for an entire day. While Winnow was sick and in danger. She had to go to her sisters. She had to do something.

  She stood up on trembling legs. Her ears slowly adjusted to the world of waking.

  And then screams echoed through the house like thrums of discordant music.

  Mayhap moved toward the conservatory’s door, her vision smeared like a misty window, and Seekatrix followed her.

  She found Winnow and Pavonine near their bedroom, around a few bends of carpet.

  “May!” called Pavonine. “She was fine, I promise. Sleeping and everything. And then something happened, and she got upset again. I couldn’t stop her —”

  Winnow was slumped against the wall. There were fallen mirrors all around her, shards of glass glittering like sequins. She was covering her eyes. She was sobbing. She bent forward as though she were in agony. Her hands were cut. Her blood was as red as the lipstick their mother used to wear.

  “W-Winnow?” said Pavonine. She stepped toward her, holding a hand up to show Mayhap that she should stay back.

  Mayhap didn’t need to be told not to go near Winnow. But it still stung that Winnow could not be near her without becoming frightened and violent.

  Pavonine approached Winnow and crouched beside her, stroking her cheek, and Winnow grew calmer.

  It’ll be fine, thought Mayhap. Pavonine will calm her down, and I’ll — I’ll —

  Mayhap had no idea what to do next. Maybe she would talk to Tutto again. Maybe she would find the Mysteriessa and apologize, try to get more details out of her —

  But Winnow did not calm down, not like last time.

  She bared her teeth at Pavonine and pushed her away — a flat hand against each of Pavonine’s shoulders. Pavonine fell back, winded. Red dribbled from her finger. She’d cut it on the glass-littered floor. Peffiandra ran to her and licked her face.

  Winnow’s wet eyes leaked silver-tinted tears as she stepped — slowly, deliberately — toward Mayhap, holding out one hand as if she wanted her sister to take it.

  Mayhap held her breath as the distance between them shrank.

  “May —” whimpered Pavonine.

  “Shhh, Pav,” said Mayhap. Winnow took her hand. And for a brief lemon-drop moment, Mayhap had come home again. Her sister loved her again. “Winn,” she said. “Winnow. Let me help you.”

  Winnow’s bottom lip wobbled. Up close, Mayhap could see that she was entirely silver, from the tips of her eyelashes and ears right down to her bare toes and the slips of her fingers.

  “Winnow,” said Mayhap. “It’s all right. You’re going to be all right.”

  Little liar.

  Winnow pulled Mayhap toward her, hugging her, and Mayhap wrapped her arms around her sister. Her hair smelled of wanderroot blossoms. Everything Mayhap had been feeling up until this point — fear, rage, confusion — flooded out of her in the form of tears. The tears soaked into her sister’s hair.

  Distantly, Mayhap could hear Pavonine. “May — she’s got —”

  But it was too late.

  Winnow caught hold of Mayhap’s forearm — her fingers pinching so tightly that Mayhap couldn’t pull away. In her other hand, Winnow held a shard of mirror. In a moment she had made a clean cut through Mayhap’s skin.

  Mayhap hissed and brought her arm to her lips. She tasted earth. And, when she lowered her arm again, her blood wasn’t red — not like Pavonine’s, and not like Winnow’s. No — hers was silver.

  I told you not to meddle, came a voice — the voice of the Mysteriessa. Mayhap looked around, but she couldn’t see her.

  She clamped her hand over the wound, but it was no use — the blood, the silver, was seeping between her fingers.

  “Pav,” said Mayhap, her voice shaky.

  “May?” said Pavonine. “May, why is your blood — silver?” Each word was a splinter. Fear made her cheeks white.

  “I don’t know,” said Mayhap. But she did know, deep in the root of her being, that she wasn’t sick.

  This was something else. There was something wrong.

  “But — silver is bad. Silver is the grass. Are you sick, too? May? Answer me.”

  Mayhap looked at the palms of her hands. “I don’t know,” she said again. But she knew that Winnow, sick as she was, still had blood that was raspberry red.

  “Let me see,” said Pavonine.

  Mayhap pushed her sister away. “I have to — I have to go — I’m sorry —”

  Winnow stared at her with flat, unyielding eyes. With smug victory.

  “Where do you have to go?” asked Pavonine. She began to cry. “You can’t get sick, too, May. Please — let me see —”

  “You can’t help me!” Mayhap screamed.

  She hadn’t wanted to treat Pavonine badly. But the shame in her, prickly as winter trees, made her want to bite. It made her want to hide.

  She had to get away from her sisters.

  She had to get away from their eyes.

  Mayhap stumbled along in the dark, clutching her wounded arm. Somehow, she had lost her slippers, and the carpets were soft beneath her feet. She could have asked the house to light its lamps, but she didn’t. She did not want to catch a glimpse of her face in any mirror.

  She walked and walked, and the hallways seemed to sway and twist. Seekatrix skipped at her side, nipping at her dressing gown, but Mayhap ignored him and kept moving. She didn’t know where she was going. She only knew that if she stood still, she would have to think about the silver patch of blood on her arm.

  She asked the house if it could help her with the cut. More than anything, she wanted to stop the bleeding. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she could feel a bandage wrapped tightly around her arm.

  The thought of the silver staining the sleeve of her dressing gown made her nauseous, and she took it off, leaving it on the floor. And even though she wore only a thin nightgown underneath, she was warm — from the blood pulsing through her, from her pounding heart. Her silver heart.

  She pressed the thought to the back of her mind and she walked. But that word kept coming back to her: silver, silver, silver.

  The passages seemed to widen and shrink. She walked until she stepped on something — something small and sharp, digging into the arch of her foot.

  “Ouch,” she said in the dark.

  But she didn’t want to look. If she looked, there might be more silver.

  She kept walking until she stepped on another object, this one smoother. She halted, and Seekatrix copied her. His body brushed her leg.

  “Please,” she said to the house, still whispering, “some light. A little.”

  The house lit the lamps along the walls dimly, and their strange, colorful shapes c
ame into view — and so did the thing at her feet.

  It was a small compact mirror, all gold on the outside. Mayhap opened it and felt something shift within her, like wind blowing through an open window. She snapped it closed.

  Then she saw that there were more objects, set in a line all down the hallway, like joints in a long, long finger.

  She stumbled back onto a tiny jewelry box studded with sapphires.

  “What is this?” she whispered.

  Seekatrix was glued against her leg, wagging his tail nervously.

  Mayhap began to walk slowly again, picking up the little trinkets as she went. Pocket watches, snuffboxes, little jars emptied of jam.

  She picked up a half-empty perfume bottle and lifted it to her nose. And found that the bottle did not contain only eau de toilette. The bottle contained — what was it?

  It was . . .

  It was . . .

  Mayhap was sure that it was quiet.

  The sort of quiet that settled into you when you were tucked somewhere warm, listening to the pattering of rain. Peace. Peace from the inside out — that’s what the bottle held. Mayhap placed it back where she had found it.

  Then it occurred to her: these must be the things the Mysteriessa had stolen from families. Odd things, like memory, and music, and solitude.

  She followed the pathway of treasures until she came to a twisting staircase.

  It was narrow. It had boxes and jars and little tins on each of its high, steep steps.

  “They mean for me to follow them,” said Mayhap, dazed and exhausted.

  Seekatrix seemed nervous, but he scuttled up the stairs.

  Mayhap followed him to the third floor of the house.

  The floor the girls never went up to.

  The old servants’ quarters.

  Seekatrix stopped at one of the doors. Mayhap opened it.

  Tutto had told Pavonine about the servants — about how Straygarden Place had once had a staff of sixty. Pavonine had shown Mayhap the stairs that led up to the third floor. Winnow, Mayhap, and Pavonine had stood at the foot of those stairs, staring at the wrought iron balustrade that curled its way up alongside them. But Mayhap had never wanted to put her hand on the balustrade, had never wanted to hear her shoes clicking on the rising marble.