The Sisters of Straygarden Place

by Hayley Chewins

  Instead, she turned to Quiverity Edevane, her sister through all of this, and she said, “Maybe we should go.”

  Go where, she didn’t know, but this clearing was for the Ballastians. They had righted their wrong, and they could not stay.

  Quiverity only looked at Mayhap, but her eyes said, I am afraid, but I will come with you.

  Mayhap stood. She picked Seekatrix up. “Goodbye,” she said.

  But Pavonine whined. “Tell her,” she said to Mayhap. “Tell Winnow what happened.”

  Winnow frowned at Pavonine, one arm around her, then glanced at Mayhap.

  Other-Mayhap looked as though she were about to hear the greatest bedtime story ever told.

  Mayhap cleared her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes from the soil. “I didn’t know,” she said as loudly as she could muster. “I didn’t know who — what — I was. I didn’t know that Quiverity — the Mysteriessa — made me seven years ago. She made me to steal her place.” Mayhap motioned at other-Mayhap. “When I found out how she had made you sick, I tried to help. Anyway, I am glad you are well now, Winnow.” The wind whistled around them. “She did it because she was afraid, because she knew you’d found out that I wasn’t — that I wasn’t your sister.”

  “I was afraid, too. I was afraid for Pavonine,” said Winnow, bursting into tears. “I came back to get her. I was going to tell her once you were asleep. I was going to take her away. To Mamma and Pappa. To the second house. The grass wouldn’t let them through, but it would let me. It let me come back to the first Straygarden Place. But then it all went wrong.”

  “I understand,” said Mayhap. “It wasn’t right, what the Mysteriessa did. And now I think we must go. So that you can start over.”

  Winnow fiddled with her cuff.

  Pavonine ran to Mayhap and hugged her.

  Mayhap took her time, looking at their faces. She did not know where she would go or what she would find when she arrived elsewhere, but she knew that she would always remember them.

  Pavonine let go of Mayhap’s waist and squeezed her hand. Cygnet and Bellwether were huddled together, turning their faces away, and other-Mayhap was watching all of this with wide eyes, holding her droomhund like a baby.

  Mayhap freed her hand from Pavonine’s. She walked to the edge of the clearing, the Mysteriessa at her side.

  The grass hissed, as though waking up.

  “Where are you going?” it said.

  And it curled around Mayhap’s wrists.

  The grass wound Mayhap up in silver. It wrapped itself around Winnow, Pavonine, and other-Mayhap. It held Cygnet and Bellwether still as they struggled against its tangling. Mayhap could hear them shouting, but she couldn’t make out the words. The droomhunds were trapped, too, whining and barking.

  The only one the grass had left alone was Quiverity Edevane.

  The earth at Mayhap’s feet grew soggy, and she was sucked into it. Her sisters and other-Mayhap were slurped down, too.

  “What’s happening?” she heard Winnow say. “Is it the Mysteriessa again?”

  “No,” said Mayhap. “It’s the grass.”

  The Mysteriessa couldn’t help them. The grass had given her magic, but it was far more powerful than she was.

  The sisters and almost-sisters were pulled down into the earth. Into the darkness of the mud. Into the glut of soil.

  Mayhap tried to cry out and tasted the saltiness of clay, the squirm of worms, the grit of crushed, chalky stone. She tasted centuries.

  Strands of grass cut into her wrists, her middle, her ankles. Her nose and mouth and ears were clogged, and she thrashed and twisted, needing to breathe.

  Just when she thought she could not live without air for another second, she began to fall.

  She could breathe — a gasp, only one — before she landed on the ground below her with a thud. Her hands went to her ears and nose and throat, but her skin was dry and dirtless. Her ears rang like bells. She moved, loosed from her silver bonds.

  Her sisters fell, too.

  “Pav?” she called. “Winnow?” In the dark, her mouth was scoured by their names.

  “I’m here,” said Pavonine.

  “Me, too,” said Winnow.

  “I think the grass left Mamma and Pappa — and the droomhunds — up there,” said other-Mayhap.

  “What’s happening?” said Winnow.

  “I don’t know,” said Mayhap.

  “Shhh,” said Pavonine. “Can you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” said Winnow.

  “That,” said other-Mayhap.

  “It’s — it sounds like grass,” said Pavonine.

  It did sound like grass. Rustling.

  “Who’s there?” said Mayhap, her voice in the key of fear.

  “Shhh,” said Pavonine, loudly now, for the grass’s sound had risen around them like a wave, and it seemed about to respond.

  Then something else happened. Light happened. Bright, white light, as though the earth had been opened like a pomegranate. The ground they had fallen through was now turning itself inside out — turning itself so that its silver grass hung low over them, a canopy of shining threads, sharp as needles. The earth above them flipped over and shut itself like the lid of a pot, and light shone through fissures above.

  “Please,” said Mayhap, choking on the smell of the soil. “Don’t hurt us.”

  “Friends of Quiverity Edevane, are you?” said the grass.

  Mayhap squirmed as the silver brushed her skin. “Y-yes,” she stuttered. “We are.”

  “That’s not exactly —” began Winnow.

  “Hush,” said Pavonine.

  Other-Mayhap stayed quiet.

  The grass laughed. Its laugh was like paper cuts against Mayhap’s skin — the sharp edge of something delicate. “Quiverity Edevane,” it mused. “But she has not a friend in the world. She has told us herself. Why else would she steal one Mayhap away and replace her with another? A girl like a trap. A hole in her heart big enough for a rat.”

  Mayhap struggled to breathe, the air around her warm and thick, the grass chiming at her cheeks. “She was lonely,” she said. “But now she has us.”

  “Not us,” came Winnow’s voice.

  Pavonine cleared her throat.

  Other-Mayhap didn’t make a sound.

  “Fine,” said Mayhap. “Now she has me.”

  “You think you can be sisters after this. After all of this. That is wishful, little wishful one,” said the grass.

  All the while, as the grass was speaking, Mayhap was trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

  Think of an animal, think of a place. Think of a person, think of a face.

  Straygarden Place. Quiverity Edevane. The silver grass.

  Think of an animal, think of a place. Think of a person, think of a face.

  “Wishful one?” she said. “But you are the one who is wishful.”

  “We do not wish!” said the grass. “We have the most magic in all of this barren place. We do not wish. We do. We make. We — are.”

  Mayhap knew that she had touched on something true, because the grass’s words thrummed with anger, with hurt, with — longing.

  She thought about the wanderroot trees, the silver grass pressing itself against glass — looking in, always looking in. She thought about the windows, opened and squealing on their hinges like out-of-tune violins. She thought about the bats in the conservatory, quivering among branches. She thought about the dead plants, too, and her parents’ work — trying to determine why nothing grew at Straygarden Place except silver grass and floating trees.

  “There is one thing you cannot do,” said Mayhap, folding her arms and planting her feet.

  “Mayhap,” said Winnow, “don’t anger it.”

  “Shhh,” said Pavonine.

  Other-Mayhap held her tongue.

  “We too would like to hear what we cannot do,” laughed the grass, its strands parting.

  Mayhap steeled herself, digging her he
els into the bedrock below her. She thought of Quiverity Edevane losing her family. It hadn’t made sense to Mayhap before, but now it did. Now all of it did. It all clicked like keys in locks, turning with the thrill of metal unhooking metal.

  “Quiverity told me that you can’t give your magic away,” she said, louder than her heart cared for, “unless someone has a crack in them.”

  “We can do anything we want!” shrieked the grass. It wound its silver around her again, hugging her tighter and tighter.

  “That’s why you killed Quiverity’s family,” said Mayhap. “She needed a crack in her, didn’t she? And you had to make it.”

  “And why would we, great as we are, want to give away our magic — our power?” The grass’s many voices were angry now, multiplying like bats in a night sky, bright as stars and sharp as diamonds.

  But it didn’t tighten further around Mayhap. It wanted her to answer. It wanted her to speak.

  “Because,” she said, “you have so much magic that nothing can grow around you. You have so much magic that you are alone. No one wants to be alone. Not me, not Quiverity. Not even you. The cost of light is darkness. And the cost of magic is loneliness. You press your silver against the windows because you are lonely. You steal bats because you are lonely. You watch us because you want to be like us. You want what we have. You want what Quiverity wanted. A family.”

  The grass stopped rustling. It loosened its grip on Mayhap, and in the dim light she could see the whip-like twines around her, spitting and sparking. “It is the truth the girl speaks,” said the grass. “It is our one defeat.”

  Relief like a storm-flooded river.

  Until the grass spoke again.

  “But you, Mayhap, will help us.”

  Mayhap’s breath was punched out of her lungs. “What?” She fumbled for words. “But I — I won’t accept it. I won’t accept your magic.”

  “It’s not you we want to offer it to,” said the grass. “It is Quiverity Edevane. It is time we gave her more magic. Last time, the rift we opened in her could have swallowed a minor sea, and she took only some. But if we take you from her — a girl she made, a girl who loves her unconditionally despite what she did, despite who she is — she will split wide enough for all of it. For all of our magic. That is why we need you. That is why we whispered to Winnow. That is why we set her roaming, led her to the other Straygarden Place. So that Quiverity could lose you. So that we could kill you, now that you have known her and loved her.”

  Pavonine began to sob loudly.

  “Please,” Mayhap said. She had no more plans and no more schemes. “Please, don’t do this. You don’t want to give away all your magic, do you?”

  The grass seemed to really think about the prospect. “We do,” it said at long last. “The cost of magic is too grave. We were an ordinary field of grass until a golden feather fell from the sky and made us what we are. But then there was too much magic in us and nothing green could grow beside us. Our magic overwhelmed even the sturdiest plant. We made the floating trees — the ones your mother named wanderroot. We watched their flowers blooming above us. But we want roots beside us. We want a tree, a thorny flower. We want a bird singing on a branch.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mayhap. “Loneliness is as bad as any other sickness.”

  The grass only laughed. “We won’t be lonely anymore — not after this.”

  And it began to tighten around Mayhap again.

  Tighter and tighter.

  “Goodbye, Mayhap,” it said.

  “No!” screamed Pavonine.

  “No,” whimpered Winnow.

  The world sputtered out of view.

  Then other-Mayhap spoke: “Wait! You don’t have to do this! Give it to us!”

  The grass loosened — just enough for Mayhap’s vision to clear.

  “Give it to the four of us,” said other-Mayhap. “We will accept it gladly. The Mysteriessa already has so much of your power — she might not survive receiving the rest. But we could take it. We’ve never had magic before, so we could take plenty. We could divide it between us. Please.”

  The grass was silent for a long time. Then it said, “But you must have a rift in you. A crack where the magic can slip in, like moonlight through a slightly open window.”

  “Yes,” said other-Mayhap. “But we have already lost so much. You wouldn’t even have to make the crack. Take a look.”

  Winnow and Pavonine exchanged a glance.

  The grass was silent again, as though perplexed. But it let go of Mayhap, and then she could feel cold sifting through her, and she knew that the grass was searching her for the cracks that other-Mayhap had spoken of. Her sisters were doubled over. The grass was searching through them, too.

  “Ah,” said the grass. “The girl is right.” Its tendrils rushed and rustled like a contented sigh. “These four are like dolls fallen from a shelf. One Mayhap, who knows she was made for evil — made with a hole in her heart for a lonely girl to creep into. And another Mayhap, who was separated from her sisters at the age of only five. And Pavonine, who lost her parents when she was a baby. And Winnow — why, Winnow was attacked, her droomhund made into a weapon, her sister into an enemy. They all have cracks in them, cracks our magic can seep into.”

  The sisters of Straygarden Place — all four of them — held their breath.

  The grass wavered. It seemed to be thinking things over. Then, finally, it said, “Four girls to tuck the magic into — that’s better than one.”

  “Do we have a deal?” asked other-Mayhap. “We agree to take your magic. But you must promise not to hurt this Mayhap or the white-eyed girl. Or anyone.”

  The grass hummed. “We have already forgotten about killing now that we do not need to anymore.”

  “All right,” said other-Mayhap.

  She took Pavonine’s hand, and Pavonine reached for Mayhap’s. Winnow took other-Mayhap’s hand, too, and together they filled their lungs, ready to receive the magic that the grass so desperately wanted to give away.

  “We will take it,” said other-Mayhap. “We will take it together.”

  “We will take it together,” said Pavonine.

  “We will take it together,” said Winnow.

  “We will take it together,” said Mayhap.

  The magic felt like someone singing, very loudly, in Mayhap’s ears. It felt like being drenched in something teeth-clatteringly cold.

  She was sugar dissolving in tea.

  She was sunlight through a window.

  She was a still, clear pond.

  She was sky, star-shatters, a hungry darkness.

  All her broken places closed up, scabs over wounds. But as the magic pushed its way into her brain — her heart, her gut — they opened again.

  And she understood: you needed a crack in you because the magic required space to slip inside, but also because it had to have a way to slip out — to touch the world.

  The grass was right way up again.

  The silver grass, which had once been so tall — taller than mansions — had lost its shine. It was simply gray now, gray as a rainy day’s sky, and short, too — only as high as a girl’s ankle.

  Mayhap stretched out her arm to run her fingers through it, grabbing a tuft. She squeezed it, tore the blades out of the ground. They lay limp in her fist.

  Winnow’s dark hair resolved before her, a silver streak among the curls like a river in a mountainside. Then Mayhap saw Pavonine’s pout, and the sleeve of other-Mayhap’s coat. The droomhunds were little mounds of blackest fur. The whole world had separated itself into shifting blocks, and now it all shifted back, slowly, into proper position. A finished puzzle.

  There was Winnow — whole. And Pavonine, too. And other-Mayhap. They were lying on their sides in the grass. And there were Seekatrix, and Peffiandra, and Evenflee, and other-Mayhap’s droomhund. They were wagging their tails.

  There they were. There they all were.

  And it was morning, somehow.

  Mayhap held
Seekatrix and closed her eyes.

  She did not know what it meant to have magic. But there was one person who could tell her.

  “Quiverity?” she called out. She walked over the gray grass, crunching it beneath her feet.

  She walked until she could see the first Straygarden Place. It was so far away that it looked only about the size of a hand. The wanderroot trees were sprawled across the now-ordinary field, unfloating, lying in heaps, their branches broken, their flowers crushed. The white bats that had been shaken from their branches dove through the sky in confused patterns. Seekatrix whimpered.

  “Quiverity!” Mayhap called.

  And found the girl standing right behind her.

  “You don’t need me anymore,” Quiverity said.

  “Of course I do,” said Mayhap. “We’re family. We are. You are my sister.”

  “I’m not your sister,” said Quiverity sadly.

  “You were a part of me for all my life. You are still.”

  Quiverity’s mouth crumpled. “I’m sorry I let the grass get you.”

  “The grass killed your family. It took everything from you.” Mayhap looked around her. “Are you still afraid of it?” she asked.

  Quiverity didn’t answer, only shuffled her feet on the ground.

  Mayhap held Quiverity’s fears in her hands as carefully as she would’ve held a newborn bat pup, and Quiverity did the same for Mayhap. And there, between them, all was forgiven.

  In the distance, Cygnet hugged other-Mayhap and Pavonine. Bellwether crouched beside Winnow. They were checking to see if they were all right — their real daughters. Mayhap ached, but the feeling was more like love than loss.

  She wiped her tears away. “We still have a house,” she said to Quiverity. “We could return there. To the first Straygarden Place.”

  Quiverity fixed her gaze on the mansion. “I think it is time for me to leave this place,” she said. “I think — I think I would like to leave.”

  “Then I will come with you,” said Mayhap.

  When they looked at the horizon, it seemed like a path to a new place.

  The Ballastians could stay here, could continue living at Straygarden Place, but Mayhap and Quiverity couldn’t. It wasn’t theirs anymore.