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.
Mayhap collected the shreds of her parents’ letter and read the torn words, blinking tears away. She untied the ribbon at her left wrist and slipped the pieces into her sleeve, tightening it so they wouldn’t fall out. When all of this was over, she would ask the house to glue the letter together. She would ask it for a new frame.
What she really wanted to ask the house to do was turn back time — to make it so that Winnow never went walking in the grass. She wanted to ask the house to get rid of the silver grass altogether, in fact. She wanted to ask it to bring their parents back.
In the days following their parents’ disappearance, Mayhap and Winnow must have asked the house a thousand times to return them. But it never did. They had realized soon enough that there were things the house could do and things that were beyond its power.
Later, when Pavonine was older and had begun to spend most of her time in the library, she explained to her sisters: “Even magic is limited. There are different types, and the type of magic determines what it can do.”
And the girls had understood: The house could feed them, could clothe them, could keep its carpets clean and its mirrors shining. It could draw their baths and make their bed. It could pour them tea and serve them dinner. It could even fluff its carpets when they tripped so they wouldn’t bruise their knees too badly.
But it could never give them what they wanted most in the world.
Mayhap sat in the hallway, picking little stars of glass out of the bottoms of her slippers. Seekatrix lay on the carpet beside her.
A few doors down, she could hear Pavonine speaking to Winnow in their bedroom, whispering comforting lies.
“You have kept the grass from her,” another voice said, and Mayhap looked up to see the Mysteriessa standing before her. Seekatrix sat up and wagged his tail.
“She’s not getting better,” said Mayhap.
“You don’t know that,” said the Mysteriessa.
“I do. I can see. She’s my sister. I know when something’s wrong.”
“Even our sisters can surprise us,” said the girl.
“But isn’t there anything else I can do?” asked Mayhap. “To help her?”
“No. You have done all you can. You will keep doing all you can. You will leave her to rest. You will not agitate her any longer.”
This reminded Mayhap of Winnow’s words to her. Leave me alone. Leave. Me. Alone.
Mayhap laughed bitterly. “Why should I trust you?” she said. “I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are. I don’t care if there are things I don’t understand about the house; you need to explain it to me if I’m going to —”
“Can I sit beside you?” asked the Mysteriessa. The words had cracks in them, like dropped and mended vases.
Mayhap didn’t exactly want the Mysteriessa to sit beside her, but she didn’t see how she could say no, either. So she nodded silently — and couldn’t help but squirm when the Mysteriessa’s arm brushed against hers. Her skin was cold, like a china doll’s.
The Mysteriessa leaned toward Mayhap and whispered, “I’ve been here a long, long time.” She looked down the hallway and back at Mayhap. “I’m the one who made this place what it is. Before, it was only an ordinary house.”
Mayhap sat up straighter. “You made the grass?” she said.
The Mysteriessa shook her head. “No, no. Not the grass. The grass was here before everything.”
Mayhap looked down at her folded arms. “How many years have you been the Mysteriessa?”
“One hundred and twelve.”
“So you’ve looked after many families before us.”
“I’ve taken care of all of them.” The Mysteriessa smiled. “I told you. I understand how things work around here. That is why you must trust me, Mayhap.”
Mayhap didn’t want to rely on the Mysteriessa. But she needed help. She had so many questions. “The other families who lived here before us,” she said. “Their portraits are in the gallery. Did the grass ever make them sick?”
“Sometimes. But most of them didn’t stay long enough. Most of them couldn’t last.”
“Why not?” asked Mayhap. “Please,” she implored. “Tell me.”
The Mysteriessa blew out a sigh. “Fine,” she said. “But only if you promise not to tell Pavonine. We don’t have to make this any more complicated than it already is.”