multiple sets of closed doors between us and them guaranteed they never heard us either.
No, wait. The walls came down when a new girl was brought in too. Or when one died.
We didn’t like it when the walls came down. Wishing they would was kind of extraordinary.
We stayed with Lyonette the entire night, long after she’d wept herself into an exhausted sleep and had woken only to weep again. Around four, she roused enough to stumble into the shower, and we helped her wash her hair, brushed it out and arranged it in a regal braided crown. There was a new dress in her closet, an amber silk fancy with glimmering gold threads that was bright as a flame against all the black. The color made her wings glow against her light brown skin, brilliant pumpkin-orange flecked with gold and yellow closest to the black spots and the white fringed bands of black on the very tips. The open wings of a Lustrous Copper.
The Gardener came for her just before daylight.
He was an elegant figure of a man, maybe a little above average height, well built. The type of man who always looked at least ten to fifteen years younger than he really was. Dark blond hair, always perfectly in place and well-trimmed, pale green eyes like the sea. He was handsome, that couldn’t be argued, even if my stomach still turned at the sight of him. I’d never seen him dressed all in black before. He stood in the doorway, thumbs hooked in his pockets, and just looked at us.
Taking a deep breath, Lyonette hugged Bliss tightly, whispered something in her ear, before kissing her goodbye. Then she turned to me, her arms painfully tight around my ribs. “My name is Cassidy Lawrence,” she whispered, so quietly I could barely hear it. “Please don’t forget me. Don’t let him be the only one to remember me.” She kissed me, closed her eyes, and allowed the Gardener to lead her away.
Bliss and I spent the rest of the morning in Lyonette’s room going through the small personal items she’d managed to accumulate over the past five years. Five years she’d been there. We took down the privacy curtains, folded them together with the bedding into a neat stack on the edge of the naked mattress. The book she kept under her pillows turned out to be the Bible, with five years of rage and despair and hope scrawled around the verses. There were enough origami animals for all the girls in the Garden and then some, so we spent the afternoon giving them away, along with the black clothing. When we sat down to dinner, there was nothing left of Lyonette in the room.
That night, the walls came down. Bliss and I curled together in my bed, which actually had more bedding than a sewn-on sheet now. Personal touches were things we earned by not being troublesome, by not trying to kill ourselves, so I had sheets and blankets now, the same rich rose and purple as the lower wings on my back. Bliss cried and swore when the walls came down and trapped us in the room. They rose after a few hours, and before they’d come higher than a foot off the floor, she grabbed my hand and squeezed us through so we could search the hallways.
But we only had to go a few feet.
The Gardener stood there, leaning back against the garden-side wall as he studied the girl in the glass. Her head was bowed nearly against her chest, small stirrups under her armpits keeping her upright. Clear resin filled the rest of the space, the gown caught in the liquid like she was underwater. We could see almost every detail of the bright wings on her back, nearly pressed against the glass. Everything that was Lyonette—her fierce smile, her eyes—was hidden away, so the wings were the only focus.
He turned to us and ran a hand through my sleep-tangled hair, gently tugging through the knots he encountered. “You forgot to put your hair up, Maya. I can’t see your wings.”
I started to gather it to twist into a rough knot but he caught my wrist and pulled me after him.
Into my room.
Bliss swore and ran down the
No, wait. The walls came down when a new girl was brought in too. Or when one died.
We didn’t like it when the walls came down. Wishing they would was kind of extraordinary.
We stayed with Lyonette the entire night, long after she’d wept herself into an exhausted sleep and had woken only to weep again. Around four, she roused enough to stumble into the shower, and we helped her wash her hair, brushed it out and arranged it in a regal braided crown. There was a new dress in her closet, an amber silk fancy with glimmering gold threads that was bright as a flame against all the black. The color made her wings glow against her light brown skin, brilliant pumpkin-orange flecked with gold and yellow closest to the black spots and the white fringed bands of black on the very tips. The open wings of a Lustrous Copper.
The Gardener came for her just before daylight.
He was an elegant figure of a man, maybe a little above average height, well built. The type of man who always looked at least ten to fifteen years younger than he really was. Dark blond hair, always perfectly in place and well-trimmed, pale green eyes like the sea. He was handsome, that couldn’t be argued, even if my stomach still turned at the sight of him. I’d never seen him dressed all in black before. He stood in the doorway, thumbs hooked in his pockets, and just looked at us.
Taking a deep breath, Lyonette hugged Bliss tightly, whispered something in her ear, before kissing her goodbye. Then she turned to me, her arms painfully tight around my ribs. “My name is Cassidy Lawrence,” she whispered, so quietly I could barely hear it. “Please don’t forget me. Don’t let him be the only one to remember me.” She kissed me, closed her eyes, and allowed the Gardener to lead her away.
Bliss and I spent the rest of the morning in Lyonette’s room going through the small personal items she’d managed to accumulate over the past five years. Five years she’d been there. We took down the privacy curtains, folded them together with the bedding into a neat stack on the edge of the naked mattress. The book she kept under her pillows turned out to be the Bible, with five years of rage and despair and hope scrawled around the verses. There were enough origami animals for all the girls in the Garden and then some, so we spent the afternoon giving them away, along with the black clothing. When we sat down to dinner, there was nothing left of Lyonette in the room.
That night, the walls came down. Bliss and I curled together in my bed, which actually had more bedding than a sewn-on sheet now. Personal touches were things we earned by not being troublesome, by not trying to kill ourselves, so I had sheets and blankets now, the same rich rose and purple as the lower wings on my back. Bliss cried and swore when the walls came down and trapped us in the room. They rose after a few hours, and before they’d come higher than a foot off the floor, she grabbed my hand and squeezed us through so we could search the hallways.
But we only had to go a few feet.
The Gardener stood there, leaning back against the garden-side wall as he studied the girl in the glass. Her head was bowed nearly against her chest, small stirrups under her armpits keeping her upright. Clear resin filled the rest of the space, the gown caught in the liquid like she was underwater. We could see almost every detail of the bright wings on her back, nearly pressed against the glass. Everything that was Lyonette—her fierce smile, her eyes—was hidden away, so the wings were the only focus.
He turned to us and ran a hand through my sleep-tangled hair, gently tugging through the knots he encountered. “You forgot to put your hair up, Maya. I can’t see your wings.”
I started to gather it to twist into a rough knot but he caught my wrist and pulled me after him.
Into my room.
Bliss swore and ran down the
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