“That’s all I ask,” he said, reaching across the space between us to give my shoulder a squeeze. “You’re going to do great, Iris.”
We’ve met every week since then, sitting alone in his room. He has taught me so much already. He has teased out my insecurities, my fears, my regrets, and helped me to face them so that I can let them go.
Gradually,I’ve grown to look at Sol the way Lily does. With that same love and admiration. He has saved me. Saved all the girls here. He has given us shelter and faith when no one else would.
So I’m Iris now.
It’s been nearly a year since that day, and next week, Sol will give me my final tests. That’s when I’ll get to bloom.
IRIS
Iam drifting in that place between wakefulness and sleep when Rose returns to the attic. I think I’m still awake, in the way you often do just before the world fades to black. But the sound of the door’s creaking hinges makes my muscles tense, my body jumping an inch off the mattress as that thin veil is ripped away.
“Sorry,” Rose whispers as she creeps across the small room, past the bed.
There had been a battle earlier in the night, the sisters bickering over blankets and who got which side of the bed as they adjusted to sharing the space. Now, though, Poppy and Zinnia are sleeping, their breathing steady and slow.
There are no curtains on the attic’s only window, and the full moon is hovering just above the mountains, its pale, silvery light shining off Rose’s round alabaster face and legs as she slips off hersneakers and jeans. The oversized hoodie she is wearing falls halfway to her knees, doubling as a nightgown.
“It’s all right.” I prop myself up on my elbow, careful not to dislodge too much of the blanket and expose myself to the chilly air. “How was your first Growth Session?”
I can hear Rose’s teeth chattering as she comes closer, lowering herself onto the other mattress and burrowing beneath the blankets. “It was nice. Different from anything I’ve experienced, but good.” The rasp of her voice is even more pronounced when she whispers. It makes the back of my skull and neck tingle. “Does he mean all those things he says? Sol?”
“Yeah. He really does. He’s a good guy. He’s helped us all a lot. If it wasn’t for him and the others, I … I don’t like to think about where I might be.”
“A good guy, huh? Can’t say I’ve met many of those.”
Rose is on her back, staring at the ceiling. My eyes trace the profile of her face. The slight upturn of her nose. The soft curve of her jaw. Her lipstick has been washed away, but a pale red stain remains.
I’m reminded again of the girl in the fairy tale who doesn’t know she’ll be a princess one day.
Idon’t realize I’m staring at her until she speaks again. The quiet ripple of her voice causes the tingle to move from the back of my neck to the top of my spine. It’s the same sort of pleasant sensation I used to get from having a school nurse check my scalp for lice as a kid, or from watching someone carefully paint tiny details on a piece of art.
“I can’t remember the last time someone talked to me like that,” she says. “Like the past doesn’t matter. Like …”
“Like you have a future?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
I roll to face away from her and tuck my knees up to my chest. Now that I’m aware of my staring, my cheeks have begun to burn, even in this cold. The last thing I want is to make her uncomfortable on her first night in a new place. I remember the first couple of weeks I spent in the hollow, second-guessing every word I said, fearing the others would see me for the mess I thought I was and, despite Sol’s promises, insist that I needed to leave. That I was a weed in their garden.
If Rose is feeling anything like I did in those first several days, then my staring is sure to add to her unease.
“It feels good, right?”
“Yeah …” She hesitates for a moment. Then her voice is evenquieter. Like she doesn’t want the cabin’s walls to hear us. “I’m scared it’s too good to be true.”
“It’s not, though,” I say, my voice slightly muffled by the blanket. “I was scared of that at first, too. That I didn’t deserve to be welcomed here. But I’ve been here almost a year now, and Sol and the girls really have made this my home.”
“Did all of you have to give up your phones, too?”
“Yeah. My service was already shut off by the time I got here. I think he sold it at the pawn shop in town.”
“You don’t miss it?”
“Not anymore. Sol said it was just an unnecessary tether to my past. Full of old pictures and texts from a life I needed to leave behind. Plus, he says social media is toxic. That it warps our sense of reality. The longer I’m away from it, the more right I think he is. It’s kind of a relief not to have it anymore.”
“I cannot fathom feeling that way.”
