The White Rose - Sil's Story

Forty-four years before the start of The Jewel.


SIL, age 16

            My head pounds as I shove everything I own—everything I’ve stolen—onto the flat threadbare piece of canvas.
            The wind rattles the corrugated roof over my latest refuge, a shed behind a tool-and-seed store in a tiny village in the Farm. I hold my breath and shut my eyes, begging the wind to leave me alone.
            In the darkness behind my lids, all I can see is the shutter, pulling loose from the green and yellow house. Plummeting down the street. The little boy lifted into the air when it hit him in the chest.
            My fault, my fault, my fault. . . .
            His mother screaming. Townspeople running for shelter as the wind grew out of control—stronger, meaner, biting through cloaks and stealing hats, making everyone run for cover in fear.
            Except me.
            My fault.
            My eyes grow hot and the roof shakes again.
            I’m leaving! I want to scream at it. Will that make you happy?
            But I know it won’t. Leaving the Bank didn’t work. The wind, the rainstorms, the fires, the earth groaning and shaking . . . it all followed me here.
            I shake my head to clear it and tie the four corners of the canvas together. As I loop my arm through the hole, I take a last look at what has been my home for the past two days—the shovels, the bags of seed, the lone dirty window. Then I pull up the hood of my cloak and slip away into the autumn night.
            The wind chases me through the empty streets. Every house is shuttered tight. As soon as I reach the edge of town, the wind begins to die down. Whatever this thing inside me is, it isn’t anything like the Auguries. Those hurt, but they never frightened me. Not like this.
            “You’re not frightened,” I growl at myself, trying to be convincing. But I haven’t slept in two days. Bad things happen when I sleep. And alone, at night, on a road to nowhere, there’s no one to be brave in front of.
            I look up at the night sky. The stars look bigger tonight, brighter. They seem to buzz and hum for me, but of course, I know they don’t really. They can’t, because stars don’t buzz and hum for anyone. They’re just stupid balls of light millions of miles away and they don’t care about a girl who almost died giving birth but didn’t and can’t explain why.
            I feel something brush against my ankle and look down. The flowers are back, the ones that grew when I finally made it out of the sewers into the Bank. The ones that follow me like the wind and the rain. They’re pretty, but I don’t understand them, don’t trust them. They’re crawling over my feet, they’re spreading out all around me.
            “Go away!” I yell at them. “Leave me alone!”
            But more blood red petals bloom and die, bloom and die, reminding me that I’ll never fit anywhere—a girl who makes flowers grow out of nothing, who makes windstorms that hurt little boys and starts fires that destroy stores.
            I am a freak.
            It’s even worse than being a surrogate. At least as a surrogate, I had friends. At Northgate I was part of a group, part of something bigger. I never thought I’d hate anything more than the Jewel, but now . . . I think I do.
            I hate myself. I want to tear out whatever piece of me is doing this, I want to rip it from my chest and stomp on it until there’s nothing left.
            But that piece of you saved your life, a little voice in the back of my head whispers. I flex the fingers of my burned hand instinctively, remembering the cold halls of the morgue as I searched desperately for a way out, and then the heat of the incinerator. I was able to put out the flames as I slid down the shaft to the sewer. But they returned so quickly. . . .
            The flowers crawl toward me, and it’s as though they are herding me, pushing me toward the forest that lines the road.
            I turn on my heel and run as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast what with the lack of sleep and the fact that I haven’t eaten anything substantial in five days. Not since I stole three pear tarts out of the batch cooling on the baker’s windowsill. My pathetic little canvas sack bumps against my back, a stale loaf of bread I’ve been saving, a few tomatoes I swiped this morning, and a butter knife I’ve sharpened to use as a weapon if need be.
            So far, it seems like I’m enough of a weapon myself.
            I run for what seems like hours—until I can’t anymore, until my legs literally give out and I fall to the forest floor, dirt clogging my lungs, leaves tickling my cheeks. The last thing I see before I slip into unconsciousness are those damned red flowers, growing up around me like a blanket.
            I wake at dawn.
            I don’t know what day it is, but the sun is definitely just coming up. My body aches in a way that makes me think I’ve been sleeping for a whole night and day and night again. I shake out my arm and an uncomfortable prickling sensation runs through it.
            The flowers are gone, and I wonder if maybe I just imagined them.
            But I know better.
            I’m starving, but I don’t want to eat all my food at once. I settle on a tomato, since the three I have won’t last long anyway, and a mouthful of bread.
            At least, that’s what I start out eating. But ten minutes later, my meager stash of food is gone completely. I didn’t mean to, I’m just so hungry. I look up at the kaleidoscope of leaves overhead. Patterns of gold and umber and crimson, interlinking, like the canopy over my bed in the palace of the Lake. My mouth hardens into a line. At least I’m free now. That should count for something.
            I stand and brush the dirt off my pants. Free to do what, though?
            “What do you want from me?” I shout at the forest. This isn’t the first time I’ve yelled at nothing, but it is the first time I’ve been free to shout as loud as I want. It feels good. A tree behind me groans. “What?” I cry, whirling around to face it. It’s an aging sycamore, its bark chipped and weathered, thick roots poking up from the ground.
            And then, I swear on the Exetor’s life, it moves. Branches lift, reaching toward me, and my confident shout turns to a pathetic squeak. I grab my makeshift knife, the only possession I have left, and make several slashing motions at the branches.
            “Get back!” I say, but my voice is breathy and trembles, and it makes me scared.
            I hate being scared.
            I’ve been scared for too long—when the Duke beat me and threatened me, when he tried to get me to kill off one of his own children growing inside me. When I discovered I was in a morgue and not a hospital. But I have never been as scared as in this moment, with a sycamore reaching toward me, and then the dogwood beside it, and the oak. They all start groaning and creaking, branches stretching out for me like many-fingered hands. I imagine them wrapping around my throat. I picture them dragging me underground to some hidden tree lair, where I’ll never escape, where I’ll drown in dirt.
            Without even thinking, I take off again. My feet pound against the forest floor and every tree I pass reaches for me, their branches and roots on my heels, twisting into grotesque versions of their former selves. Brightly colored leaves spray up into the air like the confetti I saw when I attended the Exetor’s Ball. Like with the flowers, I feel as though they are pushing me, corralling me, but I don’t know where to or for what purpose. I find a crevice between two lichen-covered boulders and squeeze myself inside, hunched and shivering.
            I stay hidden there for the rest of the day, until the light dims and the first stars come out, and my stomach cramps so painfully that I’m forced to find food and water.
            I always think the night will keep me safe.
            And I’m always wrong.
            The next day brings more of the same.
            I’ve taken to eating nuts and bark and leaves. I find a stream around midday and nearly cry at the gurgling sound, the fresh scent of water. The water is clear and freezing. I drink my fill and wash myself as best I can. As I stand and take stock of my surroundings, I feel it.
            A small tug, like someone’s thrown a hook around one of my ribs and pulled it gently. I’ve never felt anything like this, and against my better judgment—without using any judgment, really—I follow the pull. A big cypress groans at me as I pass and I pick up my pace. I wind through the trees and the tug grows stronger, sharper. Part of me is thinking this is crazy, that I should turn around and find shelter, that I should not be following this mysterious feeling because mysterious feelings haven’t been working out well for me.
            But there’s something so satisfying about this pull. Something that reminds me of my grandmother’s voice, calling me and my brothers inside for dinner. It’s my friend Carmine’s laugh, the happiest sound that ever graced the halls of Northgate. It’s desire and fear and hope, all wrapped up around my insides like a fist.
            I don’t know how long I walk. Time loses meaning. It’s just me and this feeling and the trees that shudder as I pass.
            Then the trees stop, as abruptly as the pull.
            I’m standing at the edge of a wide clearing, overgrown with yellowing grass and weeds. Sunlight reflects off a pond just beyond the ruins of an old, red brick farmhouse. A decrepit barn looms off in the distance.
            For a moment, I just stand there, drinking in the silence. The forest is utterly still around me, for the first time since I entered it. Like it’s holding a collective breath. Like it’s been waiting for me to find this place.
            I approach the crumbling farmhouse warily. A porch made of rotting wood juts out from the front door, a withered garden curling around it. Several windows are shattered or missing, and the door hangs off its hinges. Inside I see only dust and cobwebs and broken furniture.
            I stand and stare at the old ruin and my heart sags. How could I make a home out of this place? It’s broken. It’s in shambles. I don’t know how to fix a house. I don’t know how to do anything. I was raised to make a baby and die. I’m not supposed to be here.
            A single tear clings to my lashes. I blink and it tumbles down my cheek.
            I look around me again, and from within the very center of the dead garden, life emerges. A lone flower rises up, its stalk a bright, spring green, its petals unfolding before my eyes, the purest white I have ever seen, like new fallen snow on the roof of Northgate.
            It’s a rose. A white rose. And in this moment, I know it’s for me. That this place, this forest, has given it to me. A sign of life.
            A sign of hope.
            I reach out and stroke the petals. They are softer than rabbit’s fur and they open even more at my touch. But unlike the red flowers that follow me everywhere, this rose doesn’t scare me. I look at the ruined farmhouse again and see possibility. I see a life for myself.
            The trees behind me twist and sway, and for the first time I think I hear something in their rustling, and it’s not frightening but welcoming. Maybe this forest wants me here.
            Maybe I’ve finally found the place where I belong.