And Lena was one of the very few people in the Garden I genuinely feared for, because most of us understood that if the Gardener kept the twins as a pair in all other things, he would in death as well.
They’d been there for six months when I got there, with Lyonette running careful interference between Maggie and the rest of our little world, and fortunately the Gardener seemed more amused than anything else with Maggie’s need for special attention.
At least until he wasn’t.
I was there when that change began, and there was no more Lyonette to run interference.
Every so often, the Gardener felt the urge to dine with us en masse, like a king with his court. Or, as Bliss put it, the Sultan with his harem. He had Lorraine inform all of us during breakfast that he’d be there for dinner that night, I suppose so we could take extra effort with our appearances.
That afternoon found me in Danelle’s room with a bowl of water in my lap so I could carefully rewet her hair each time I needed to run the brush through it. She sat in front of me on the bed twining ribbons through sections of Evita’s hair before she twisted them up into a mass on the back of her blonde head. For Danelle, I braided small sections of hair to drape between two high buns, and others to fall down her back. They were too thin to obscure the wings, but they were her small defiance. Hailee sat behind me doing something with brush and pins, while Simone stood behind her with ribbons and twists and oil.
I’d never gone to a school dance, but it might have looked like we were preparing for something like that, something fun and wonderful, something to look forward to, and at the end of the evening you’d have a whole set of memories to cherish. Not so much here in the Garden. With the presence of the water and the chance for spilling, none of us were wearing more than underwear, and no one was giggling or chattering like girls off to a dance probably would be.
Lena walked in, still dripping from a shower—or a dip in the pond, knowing her—and dropped onto the floor. “She says she’s not going.”
“She’s going,” sighed Danelle. I finished the last braid and let it drop against her back.
“She says she’s not.”
“We’ll take care of it.” She patted the back of Evita’s head and slid off the bed with the brush. “Sit up.” She sank to her knees behind Lena, who promptly obeyed.
It should have been the end of it, especially once Danelle got to Maggie’s room, but as the rest of us dressed and gathered in the hallway, we could hear them arguing. Something shattered against a wall, and a minute later a pink-cheeked Danelle stalked out. Only parts of the handprint showed through the red and purple wings. “She’s getting dressed. Let’s go.”
The Gardener wasn’t yet in the dining room when we arrived, two by two like Madeline and her classmates. Danelle and I hung back to let the others enter, twitching dresses to hang correctly, fixing a pin here or there. When they were all in and seated, I leaned against the wall.
“Is she actually getting dressed?”
She rolled her eyes. “God I hope so.”
“I think I’ll go make sure of that.”
“Maya . . .” She stopped, then shook her head. “Never mind, go ahead. You do you.” Danelle had shaken off her post-suck-up apathy in order to help me after Lyonette went into glass. I hadn’t figured out how to tell her how grateful I was.
Maggie wasn’t getting dressed. As a matter of fact she was quite busy trying to stuff all of her clothing—which she shared with her twin—down the toilet. She flinched when I cleared my throat from the doorway, then panted with exertion as she defiantly met my eye. She had the same dark blonde hair as the Gardener and Avery, currently in a mess about her face. With her hazel eyes and strong nose, she could easily have passed for his daughter.
Which, you know, ew.
“I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are, because you are endangering your sister.”
“And she doesn’t endanger me every time she waltzes in with things that could kill me clinging all over her?” she demanded.
“Allergies are not the same as pissing off the Gardener, and you know it.”
“I’m not going! I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!”
I slapped her.
It made a ringing sound in the small room, the skin immediately pinking up around the impact. She stared at me, tears filling her eyes as she clutched her cheek with one hand. Avery wasn’t allowed to touch her because of the allergies, so I doubt she’d ever been slapped before, however quick she was to do it to others. As long as she was shocked into stillness anyway, I grabbed her hair and pulled it into a knot high on her head, securing it with a few spiral pins.
I got a good grip on her upper arm and hauled her into the hallway. “Come on.”
“I’m not going,” she sobbed, and scratched at my hand and arm. “I’m not!”
“If you could have been the least bit mature, you could have been dressed and calm and this would have all been over in an hour or so, but no, you had to be a spoiled little princess about it, so now you get to be naked and worked up and you get to explain to the Gardener why you would disrespect him in such a way.”
“Just tell him I’m sick!”
“He already knows you aren’t,” I growled. “Lorraine would have told him, or didn’t you think it was strange that she checked in on everyone through the afternoon?”
“That was hours ago!”
“You got all the allergies and Lena got all the brains,” I muttered, and blew a stray hair out of my mouth. “Magdalene, please try not to be a complete idiot. It’s one meal. Your food will still be prepared separately, and we’ll still sit you down at the far end of the table away from everyone else’s plates.”
“Why don’t any of you understand?” She tried to kick at me, and when that didn’t work, she tried to drop to the ground. I just kept dragging her after me until the friction on her side made her struggle back to her feet. “I could get really sick! I could die!”
That was it.
I turned and slammed her against one of the glass display cases, her head between the open wings of ink. The girl had been there before Lyonette, before the one who welcomed Lyonette, and none of us knew her name, only that she was a Gulf Fritillary, and what a fucked-up thing to know. “If you don’t join us for dinner, you will die, and so will your sister. Get a fucking clue.”
She started crying harder, great big heaving sobs and gobs of snot. Disgusted, I renewed my grip on her arm and got around the corner.
The Gardener stood in the doorway to the dining room, his arms crossed over his chest and a faint frown on his face.
Fuck.
“Is there a problem, ladies?” he asked.
I glanced at the naked, sobbing Maggie and the bright-pink handprint on her cheek, as well as the beginnings of what would probably be a charming bruise on her arm where I gripped it. “No?”
“I see.”
Unfortunately, he did. He watched all through dinner, sitting at the end of a table between me and Danelle, as Maggie picked at her specially prepared plate without eating a single bite. He watched as she refused to enter the conversation, or even answer things put directly to her. He watched her roll her glass of ice water across her cheek—while Danelle simply pretended her own swollen cheek didn’t bother her—watched how she curled into herself as far as the table would allow to hide her nakedness.
As we sat a little awkwardly over cheesecake and coffee, he cleared his throat and leaned close to me. “Was the slap really necessary?”
“Yes, to calm her down.”
“That was calm?”
I considered the best way to answer. I didn’t want to screw Maggie—Lena, really—over, but I didn’t want to get screwed myself, either. “Calmer.”
All he did was nod, and when I looked at Danelle and saw the grim resignation in her eyes, my stomach sank.
“How long?” Eddison asks.