The cocoa is cooled by ice, garnished2 with fruit from Anna’s garden, set beside biscuits and cream and a porcelain4 bowl that holds more sugar. Lucy’s stomach revolts to see it. Her teeth hurt. Sam heaps spoonful after spoonful.
Charles draws a flask5 from his pocket. “This is as good as gold,” he says, tipping the whiskey toward Anna. “Like my fiancée.”
Sam’s neck swivels, hawklike6.
Only Lucy declines a pour, though Charles presses till Anna tells him to quit being a bully7. Liquor signals ruination to Lucy. She watches Sam for slurred8 words or a quicker fury. Sam grows only more dazzling. Sam tugs9 at the bandana, blazes golden down the long brown column of neck, tells a story about tracking a wily silver fox. Anna, flushed from drink, gasps11 as Sam recounts tumbling into a hidden cave.
“And inside,” Sam says, reaching into a pocket, “I found this.”
A tiny skull sits on Sam’s finger, bone polished to a luster12 like pearl. Anna leans closer.
“Dragon,” Sam says, sliding the skull to Anna’s palm. She protests: too small, too round, and where are the teeth? “Babydragon. The runt of the litter.”
Why, it’s a lizard13 skull. Any child raised on the wagon14 trail could see it, but Anna is fooled. Her awed15 exclamations16 fill the room, setting Lucy’s teeth on edge. Sam winks17 at Lucy over Anna’s shoulder.
“Do you really trust him?” Charles says, coming to perch18 by Lucy’s chair. His liquored breath coats her ear, followed by his damp lips. She jerks away. Drink makes him sloppy19. Ordinarily she knows how to evade20 him, but the day has left her off-kilter too. “You know how Anna’s father is about strangers.”
“I do,” Lucy says.
“The two of you are awfully21 familiar for having just met.”
Sam’s telling another tall tale. Anna laughs so hard she chokes, and Sam thumps22 her. The parlor24 feels cramped25 with four, as it didn’t with three. Lucy stands. She asks Charles to join her for a walk.
—
For his daughter’s sake, Anna’s father ripped plants from their native soils. Vast territories were plundered26 to fill the garden. Some plants came with their own names, now discarded. Anna renamed them according to her fancies. Tiger lily, serpent’s tail, lion’s mane, dragon’s eye—a menagerie of creatures with thorns trimmed and roots safe-buried. The garden is praised as a triumph by those who don’t see the plants that fail to take.
Last week the grounds rang with blossoms. This week they’re fading. Lucy and Charles crush petals27 underfoot until they reach the garden’s center. Plants teem28, thick enough to soak up sound.
“You’re acting29 foolish,” Lucy says. “It’s not what you think, anyhow.” Here there’s space to step back, to look at Charles and judge how best to handle him.
Drink puffs30 his face, shines his cheeks, brings out the spoiled child in him, the one who pursues Lucy like a new toy he’ll discard the next day. Once he’s married and Anna in his bed, his restlessness will settle. It must. Till then, he’s Anna’s fiancé while she’s looking—and Lucy’s burden while Anna isn’t.
“Don’t instruct me.” Charles is in a mood. Sometimes Lucy can freeze him out, or deflate him with a well-aimed tease. Today his face is petulant31. He won’t quit till he’s extracted something from her—a favor, a compliment, a peek32 of her ankle. Easier to concede a favor than to watch him skulk33 for days, face a thundercloud and Lucy dreading34 the burst. And so, since he’s bound to keep her secrets as she keeps his, she gives him a truth.
“I’m Sam’s sister.”
“So you admit you were lying about him.” Charles punches a fist into his hand, triumphant35. “I suspected you were up to something.”
Lucy sighs. “You were right, Charles.”
“So you and I can still be friends?”
“We can.”
“Give me a kiss, then.” Lucy pecks quickly at his offered cheek. His head snaps up, mouth seeking, but she expected this. She’s stepped out of range.
“None of that.” At his sulk, she teases, trying to shift back to lighter36 ground. “Behave, now. Don’t take Anna to any more gambling37 dens38.”
Charles grabs the bush at the garden’s center. A tall thing with fleshy, five-fingered leaves. Mother dearest, Anna named her favorite and thirstiest plant. She tends it herself despite the army of gardeners. Lucy couldn’t believe the first time she saw Anna coo into the leaves. Only a girl so rich could lavish39 affection on a plant that drinks in one week what a whole family uses in the dry season. And only a man so rich could shred40 that plant like scrap41 paper.
“I was settling an old debt,” Charles says, stiffly. “I meant to go alone, but you know how Anna can be. I told her it was on behalf of a friend. I trust you’ll say the same if she asks.”
“Of course. I only want the best for you two.” The next words stick, but Lucy gets them out. “I’m looking forward to the wedding.”
She thought the flattery would placate42 him, but Charles says, with a viciousness that stops her, “Don’t pretend you care about my feelings now. We saw the two of you holding hands. Tell me the truth. You owe me at least that much.”
A gathering43 thickness in Charles’s voice, in the humid garden with plants crammed44 close. Lucy tries to pierce it by laughing. “I don’t believe I owe you anything.”
He grabs her. Not his flirtatious45 touch, the one that evaporates when Anna looks over. Charles digs into the meat of Lucy’s arm. Splotches spread under his fingers. “Don’t be coy. Haven’t I sent you nice gifts? Haven’t I been sweet to you? You play at demureness46, but now? Why him? Why not me?” Charles’s voice thins to a child’s whine47. He drops his face into Lucy’s chest. Says, groaning48, “I’ve never met a girl like you. Please, Lucinda, you don’t know what you do to me.”
But she knows. She’s heard men say similar things, always followed or preceded by, Where did you come from?Spoken with marvel49 or spoken with rage, it’s all the same to her. She unpeels Charles’s fingers, pushes his face away last. She lets him linger. She doesn’t like it, and a small part of her does. What she does to him is the only thing she has, and she won’t give it away. Anna has everything else.
“He doesn’t care for you,” Charles yells as Lucy leaves. She keeps walking. “He’s only using you to get to her. Just like the rest of them, your tailors and bakers50 and hobnobbers—they pay you heed51 because of Anna.”
There is, if you dig through the muck, a steel-toothed envy at the bottom of her.
Lucy turns. She lets despair show, and shame. Lowers her eyes so Charles can’t see them narrow. “You’re right, Charles. How did I not see it before?”
—
Alone Lucy reenters the mansion52. The hurt radiates, sharp, as she presses her arm where Charles pressed. Once, a mine door bit her in the same place. Now she pinches the skin redder. For the first time since Anna’s father came to chase her out, Lucy sees a future open again.
Possibilities.
Charles, arrogant53, imagines only a petty Lucy, a jealous Lucy, a cowed Lucy chasing Sam out with a story in Anna’s ear.
What Lucy sees:
Anna sending Charles away once Lucy shows her arm as proof of his attack. Charles tumbling down, his footing lost—Charles the discarded one. Lucy sees, with a twinge, how Anna will despair. For a while. Soon enough Anna’s head will lift at a joke Lucy makes. Anna will laugh that rippling54 laugh. Anna and Lucy will take the train far, far from here. Long after Charles and Sam have left, Anna and Lucy will have their own adventure. And if the tamed land along the railroad tracks is softer, its beauty declawed—well, it’s good enough.
Oddly, the parlor doors are shut. Lucy pulls them open.
Two bodies twist against the wall. Anna whimpers as if in pain, her right hand still holding that lizard skull. Sam grips Anna’s other arm as Charles gripped Lucy’s. A flush down Anna’s arm, and her chest, and her throat—all the way to her lips, under Sam’s lips.
Lucy makes a sound.
As the bodies part, the skull drops between. Unharmed till Anna steps back, blushing, unaware55 of the bone she grinds to powder. Sam doesn’t blush. Sam grins.Plum
Anna has always taken Lucy for sweet. Sweetheart, sweet pea, sweet friend.Last week Anna gifted Lucy with a crate56 of the year’s first plums. Nausea57 brushed Lucy at the sight of the fruit, so ripe the skin was splitting.
Those colors like bruise58.
Turned out, Anna had recalled a story Lucy told about gathering plums as a child. But the story was Sam’s, the love for sweetness Sam’s. Too late that day to explain how Lucy preferred the fruit dried and salted. She forced down one cloying59 bite after another.
Lucy thinks of the sickly plums she vomited60 as she holds back Anna’s hair. The other girl spills her stomach into a cut-glass bowl. Sam is gone, sent to the garden with Charles.
“Shhh,” Lucy says.
“You must think terribly of me,” Anna sobs61, turning her head up to be stroked. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. Sam was in the wrong.” Sam she’ll deal with later.
Anna’s sobs falter62, then double. “I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have taken so much whiskey. It’s just that . . . it’s just . . . Lucinda? Do you ever wish you could be someone else?”
Lucy’s hand halts. The metal teeth graze her heart. She resumes stroking. She says, “No.”
“Sometimes I wish I were you.”
Lucy bites her tongue. Tastes salt.
“I’d give half my fortune to go around without Papa looking over my shoulder. You can go anywhere and no one cares. You could leave town tomorrow with Sam, if you wanted. You’re lucky.”
If Sam weren’t going alone. If Lucy didn’t know Sam would refuse her. She thinks of saying so, but the envy that Charles dug up in the garden is still snapping. Lucy says, “Let’s trade, then. I’ll stay in your rooms and you can run off.”
Anna smiles weakly. Blows her nose. “Your jokes are such a comfort to me. I know I’m being silly. I’m sure it’s only wedding jitters63. Where is Charles, by the way?”
Lucy says, “I have something to tell you.”
She tells. About the gambling den3 three years back, Charles’s hands and his offers. She shows the mark on her arm. She speaks gentle and hides certain facts—like the one time Charles kissed her off guard and for a moment she kissed back, the pulse in her throat a pounding power. She doesn’t want to wound her friend. Maybe just scratch her. Maybe draw just enough blood to prove that Anna has something in her veins64 besides gold.
Anna doesn’t wail65 or gasp10 as she does when she hears of the tiger. A single line forms on her brow, then smooths.
“I forgive you,” Anna says.
Lucy stares.
“Papa’s warned me that jealousy66 makes people act strangely. There’s no need to tell lies about Charles. Sweetheart, we’ll still have plenty of room in our life for you once we’re married.”
Lucy’s voice is so clotted67 she can hardly speak. “I don’t—I don’t want—”
“Besides,” Anna says, laughing her rippling, carefree laugh. “What would Charles want with you?”
Lucy tastes metal. Her teeth haven’t let go her tongue.
Anna smiles at her.
Lucy could speak and she could scream and she could spit her bloody68 tongue to the rug and still Anna would see what Anna wants to see. Anna who thinks tigers are pets, or decorations to mount beautiful and glassy-eyed on her walls beside a deed that diminishes the land even as it claims it. Anna wants Lucy docile69 beside her, the third seat in their train car, wearing their clothes, lapping their cocoa, sleeping near their bed and maybe even allowing the scratch of Charles’s fingers at night. Anna wants a domestic thing, a harmless thing—Anna’s tigers as different from Lucy’s tigers as Anna’s Charles is different from Lucy’s Charles.
Anna is right to dismiss Lucy’s story. She has nothing to fear from Charles. She’s untouchable, protected by her hired man, her father’s gold.
Lucy steps back till the parlor door is at her shoulders. She puts her hand to the knob.
“Come now, dear,” Anna says. “There’s nothing to be angry over.”
Lucy looks down at herself. The white linen70 dress reaches high, up and around her throat as is the fashion. Laces bind71 tight her ribs72. Thirty buttons down the back, requiring a good quarter hour to undo73 unassisted. Unless. She reaches a hand behind and tugs as hard as she can.
The pearl buttons, ripping free, ping sweetly against the door.
Lucy steps out of the ruined dress. Out of the high boots. She stands in the doorway74 in her shift, three inches shorter. She feels cooler already, the air less heavy, inviting75 Anna to look and see: no longer the same, no longer Anna’s poorer reflection. Lucy herself, barefoot as the day she came to Sweetwater.
—
Down the stairs and out to the garden. Lucy’s feet thump23 to match her heart. Flowers strike at her cheeks, pollen76 chokes her, the five-fingered leaves of the bush pull her hair limp. She’ll never curl it again. Lai, she calls into the stinking77 greenery as she hunts for Sam. She wishes all the plants razed78 by drought. She wishes for the honesty of dry grass.
The face coming through the dark is savage79. And then Sam blinks, taking in Lucy’s bedraggled state.
“Did you change your hair?” Sam asks, squinting80. “It suits you. You look like your old self.”
Earlier, Lucy bristled81. Now she hears the words as Sam means them: a compliment. Something rustles82, and she shudders83. “Did you see Charles?”
“We chatted. He ran off. I’m tired of this place. Can we go?”
With effort, Lucy says, “Don’t you want to—to say goodbye to Anna?”
“Not especially.” Sam walks off, voice spreading through the leaves. “I thought she’d be more interesting, being so rich. She’s awful dull.”
Lucy laughs so hard she stumbles against Sam’s arm. She presses into that arm, that sturdy back, her laughter condensing to hiccups84 against Sam’s red shirt. Once they rode Nellie pressed together this way and saw half the world. Warily85, Sam says, “What’s so funny?”
“Did you know,” Lucy says, muffled86, “she wants to declaw a tiger.”
“Idiot,” Sam snorts. “I hope she enjoys being cursed for seven generations. What kind of a place is this? Don’t they know—”
“—the stories? Not a one. Let’s go back—to my boardinghouse.”
She almost said, home
Charles draws a flask5 from his pocket. “This is as good as gold,” he says, tipping the whiskey toward Anna. “Like my fiancée.”
Sam’s neck swivels, hawklike6.
Only Lucy declines a pour, though Charles presses till Anna tells him to quit being a bully7. Liquor signals ruination to Lucy. She watches Sam for slurred8 words or a quicker fury. Sam grows only more dazzling. Sam tugs9 at the bandana, blazes golden down the long brown column of neck, tells a story about tracking a wily silver fox. Anna, flushed from drink, gasps11 as Sam recounts tumbling into a hidden cave.
“And inside,” Sam says, reaching into a pocket, “I found this.”
A tiny skull sits on Sam’s finger, bone polished to a luster12 like pearl. Anna leans closer.
“Dragon,” Sam says, sliding the skull to Anna’s palm. She protests: too small, too round, and where are the teeth? “Babydragon. The runt of the litter.”
Why, it’s a lizard13 skull. Any child raised on the wagon14 trail could see it, but Anna is fooled. Her awed15 exclamations16 fill the room, setting Lucy’s teeth on edge. Sam winks17 at Lucy over Anna’s shoulder.
“Do you really trust him?” Charles says, coming to perch18 by Lucy’s chair. His liquored breath coats her ear, followed by his damp lips. She jerks away. Drink makes him sloppy19. Ordinarily she knows how to evade20 him, but the day has left her off-kilter too. “You know how Anna’s father is about strangers.”
“I do,” Lucy says.
“The two of you are awfully21 familiar for having just met.”
Sam’s telling another tall tale. Anna laughs so hard she chokes, and Sam thumps22 her. The parlor24 feels cramped25 with four, as it didn’t with three. Lucy stands. She asks Charles to join her for a walk.
—
For his daughter’s sake, Anna’s father ripped plants from their native soils. Vast territories were plundered26 to fill the garden. Some plants came with their own names, now discarded. Anna renamed them according to her fancies. Tiger lily, serpent’s tail, lion’s mane, dragon’s eye—a menagerie of creatures with thorns trimmed and roots safe-buried. The garden is praised as a triumph by those who don’t see the plants that fail to take.
Last week the grounds rang with blossoms. This week they’re fading. Lucy and Charles crush petals27 underfoot until they reach the garden’s center. Plants teem28, thick enough to soak up sound.
“You’re acting29 foolish,” Lucy says. “It’s not what you think, anyhow.” Here there’s space to step back, to look at Charles and judge how best to handle him.
Drink puffs30 his face, shines his cheeks, brings out the spoiled child in him, the one who pursues Lucy like a new toy he’ll discard the next day. Once he’s married and Anna in his bed, his restlessness will settle. It must. Till then, he’s Anna’s fiancé while she’s looking—and Lucy’s burden while Anna isn’t.
“Don’t instruct me.” Charles is in a mood. Sometimes Lucy can freeze him out, or deflate him with a well-aimed tease. Today his face is petulant31. He won’t quit till he’s extracted something from her—a favor, a compliment, a peek32 of her ankle. Easier to concede a favor than to watch him skulk33 for days, face a thundercloud and Lucy dreading34 the burst. And so, since he’s bound to keep her secrets as she keeps his, she gives him a truth.
“I’m Sam’s sister.”
“So you admit you were lying about him.” Charles punches a fist into his hand, triumphant35. “I suspected you were up to something.”
Lucy sighs. “You were right, Charles.”
“So you and I can still be friends?”
“We can.”
“Give me a kiss, then.” Lucy pecks quickly at his offered cheek. His head snaps up, mouth seeking, but she expected this. She’s stepped out of range.
“None of that.” At his sulk, she teases, trying to shift back to lighter36 ground. “Behave, now. Don’t take Anna to any more gambling37 dens38.”
Charles grabs the bush at the garden’s center. A tall thing with fleshy, five-fingered leaves. Mother dearest, Anna named her favorite and thirstiest plant. She tends it herself despite the army of gardeners. Lucy couldn’t believe the first time she saw Anna coo into the leaves. Only a girl so rich could lavish39 affection on a plant that drinks in one week what a whole family uses in the dry season. And only a man so rich could shred40 that plant like scrap41 paper.
“I was settling an old debt,” Charles says, stiffly. “I meant to go alone, but you know how Anna can be. I told her it was on behalf of a friend. I trust you’ll say the same if she asks.”
“Of course. I only want the best for you two.” The next words stick, but Lucy gets them out. “I’m looking forward to the wedding.”
She thought the flattery would placate42 him, but Charles says, with a viciousness that stops her, “Don’t pretend you care about my feelings now. We saw the two of you holding hands. Tell me the truth. You owe me at least that much.”
A gathering43 thickness in Charles’s voice, in the humid garden with plants crammed44 close. Lucy tries to pierce it by laughing. “I don’t believe I owe you anything.”
He grabs her. Not his flirtatious45 touch, the one that evaporates when Anna looks over. Charles digs into the meat of Lucy’s arm. Splotches spread under his fingers. “Don’t be coy. Haven’t I sent you nice gifts? Haven’t I been sweet to you? You play at demureness46, but now? Why him? Why not me?” Charles’s voice thins to a child’s whine47. He drops his face into Lucy’s chest. Says, groaning48, “I’ve never met a girl like you. Please, Lucinda, you don’t know what you do to me.”
But she knows. She’s heard men say similar things, always followed or preceded by, Where did you come from?Spoken with marvel49 or spoken with rage, it’s all the same to her. She unpeels Charles’s fingers, pushes his face away last. She lets him linger. She doesn’t like it, and a small part of her does. What she does to him is the only thing she has, and she won’t give it away. Anna has everything else.
“He doesn’t care for you,” Charles yells as Lucy leaves. She keeps walking. “He’s only using you to get to her. Just like the rest of them, your tailors and bakers50 and hobnobbers—they pay you heed51 because of Anna.”
There is, if you dig through the muck, a steel-toothed envy at the bottom of her.
Lucy turns. She lets despair show, and shame. Lowers her eyes so Charles can’t see them narrow. “You’re right, Charles. How did I not see it before?”
—
Alone Lucy reenters the mansion52. The hurt radiates, sharp, as she presses her arm where Charles pressed. Once, a mine door bit her in the same place. Now she pinches the skin redder. For the first time since Anna’s father came to chase her out, Lucy sees a future open again.
Possibilities.
Charles, arrogant53, imagines only a petty Lucy, a jealous Lucy, a cowed Lucy chasing Sam out with a story in Anna’s ear.
What Lucy sees:
Anna sending Charles away once Lucy shows her arm as proof of his attack. Charles tumbling down, his footing lost—Charles the discarded one. Lucy sees, with a twinge, how Anna will despair. For a while. Soon enough Anna’s head will lift at a joke Lucy makes. Anna will laugh that rippling54 laugh. Anna and Lucy will take the train far, far from here. Long after Charles and Sam have left, Anna and Lucy will have their own adventure. And if the tamed land along the railroad tracks is softer, its beauty declawed—well, it’s good enough.
Oddly, the parlor doors are shut. Lucy pulls them open.
Two bodies twist against the wall. Anna whimpers as if in pain, her right hand still holding that lizard skull. Sam grips Anna’s other arm as Charles gripped Lucy’s. A flush down Anna’s arm, and her chest, and her throat—all the way to her lips, under Sam’s lips.
Lucy makes a sound.
As the bodies part, the skull drops between. Unharmed till Anna steps back, blushing, unaware55 of the bone she grinds to powder. Sam doesn’t blush. Sam grins.Plum
Anna has always taken Lucy for sweet. Sweetheart, sweet pea, sweet friend.Last week Anna gifted Lucy with a crate56 of the year’s first plums. Nausea57 brushed Lucy at the sight of the fruit, so ripe the skin was splitting.
Those colors like bruise58.
Turned out, Anna had recalled a story Lucy told about gathering plums as a child. But the story was Sam’s, the love for sweetness Sam’s. Too late that day to explain how Lucy preferred the fruit dried and salted. She forced down one cloying59 bite after another.
Lucy thinks of the sickly plums she vomited60 as she holds back Anna’s hair. The other girl spills her stomach into a cut-glass bowl. Sam is gone, sent to the garden with Charles.
“Shhh,” Lucy says.
“You must think terribly of me,” Anna sobs61, turning her head up to be stroked. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. Sam was in the wrong.” Sam she’ll deal with later.
Anna’s sobs falter62, then double. “I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have taken so much whiskey. It’s just that . . . it’s just . . . Lucinda? Do you ever wish you could be someone else?”
Lucy’s hand halts. The metal teeth graze her heart. She resumes stroking. She says, “No.”
“Sometimes I wish I were you.”
Lucy bites her tongue. Tastes salt.
“I’d give half my fortune to go around without Papa looking over my shoulder. You can go anywhere and no one cares. You could leave town tomorrow with Sam, if you wanted. You’re lucky.”
If Sam weren’t going alone. If Lucy didn’t know Sam would refuse her. She thinks of saying so, but the envy that Charles dug up in the garden is still snapping. Lucy says, “Let’s trade, then. I’ll stay in your rooms and you can run off.”
Anna smiles weakly. Blows her nose. “Your jokes are such a comfort to me. I know I’m being silly. I’m sure it’s only wedding jitters63. Where is Charles, by the way?”
Lucy says, “I have something to tell you.”
She tells. About the gambling den3 three years back, Charles’s hands and his offers. She shows the mark on her arm. She speaks gentle and hides certain facts—like the one time Charles kissed her off guard and for a moment she kissed back, the pulse in her throat a pounding power. She doesn’t want to wound her friend. Maybe just scratch her. Maybe draw just enough blood to prove that Anna has something in her veins64 besides gold.
Anna doesn’t wail65 or gasp10 as she does when she hears of the tiger. A single line forms on her brow, then smooths.
“I forgive you,” Anna says.
Lucy stares.
“Papa’s warned me that jealousy66 makes people act strangely. There’s no need to tell lies about Charles. Sweetheart, we’ll still have plenty of room in our life for you once we’re married.”
Lucy’s voice is so clotted67 she can hardly speak. “I don’t—I don’t want—”
“Besides,” Anna says, laughing her rippling, carefree laugh. “What would Charles want with you?”
Lucy tastes metal. Her teeth haven’t let go her tongue.
Anna smiles at her.
Lucy could speak and she could scream and she could spit her bloody68 tongue to the rug and still Anna would see what Anna wants to see. Anna who thinks tigers are pets, or decorations to mount beautiful and glassy-eyed on her walls beside a deed that diminishes the land even as it claims it. Anna wants Lucy docile69 beside her, the third seat in their train car, wearing their clothes, lapping their cocoa, sleeping near their bed and maybe even allowing the scratch of Charles’s fingers at night. Anna wants a domestic thing, a harmless thing—Anna’s tigers as different from Lucy’s tigers as Anna’s Charles is different from Lucy’s Charles.
Anna is right to dismiss Lucy’s story. She has nothing to fear from Charles. She’s untouchable, protected by her hired man, her father’s gold.
Lucy steps back till the parlor door is at her shoulders. She puts her hand to the knob.
“Come now, dear,” Anna says. “There’s nothing to be angry over.”
Lucy looks down at herself. The white linen70 dress reaches high, up and around her throat as is the fashion. Laces bind71 tight her ribs72. Thirty buttons down the back, requiring a good quarter hour to undo73 unassisted. Unless. She reaches a hand behind and tugs as hard as she can.
The pearl buttons, ripping free, ping sweetly against the door.
Lucy steps out of the ruined dress. Out of the high boots. She stands in the doorway74 in her shift, three inches shorter. She feels cooler already, the air less heavy, inviting75 Anna to look and see: no longer the same, no longer Anna’s poorer reflection. Lucy herself, barefoot as the day she came to Sweetwater.
—
Down the stairs and out to the garden. Lucy’s feet thump23 to match her heart. Flowers strike at her cheeks, pollen76 chokes her, the five-fingered leaves of the bush pull her hair limp. She’ll never curl it again. Lai, she calls into the stinking77 greenery as she hunts for Sam. She wishes all the plants razed78 by drought. She wishes for the honesty of dry grass.
The face coming through the dark is savage79. And then Sam blinks, taking in Lucy’s bedraggled state.
“Did you change your hair?” Sam asks, squinting80. “It suits you. You look like your old self.”
Earlier, Lucy bristled81. Now she hears the words as Sam means them: a compliment. Something rustles82, and she shudders83. “Did you see Charles?”
“We chatted. He ran off. I’m tired of this place. Can we go?”
With effort, Lucy says, “Don’t you want to—to say goodbye to Anna?”
“Not especially.” Sam walks off, voice spreading through the leaves. “I thought she’d be more interesting, being so rich. She’s awful dull.”
Lucy laughs so hard she stumbles against Sam’s arm. She presses into that arm, that sturdy back, her laughter condensing to hiccups84 against Sam’s red shirt. Once they rode Nellie pressed together this way and saw half the world. Warily85, Sam says, “What’s so funny?”
“Did you know,” Lucy says, muffled86, “she wants to declaw a tiger.”
“Idiot,” Sam snorts. “I hope she enjoys being cursed for seven generations. What kind of a place is this? Don’t they know—”
“—the stories? Not a one. Let’s go back—to my boardinghouse.”
She almost said, home
