She casts a shifting silver shadow, broken only by the current, by the falling leaves. She watches the brook’s eddies and swirls, as if it were being stirred by a water god’s hand. Another leaf falls. Now she knows what she can do with water. She can sway and shape it. Like a water god, she can command it. This is what she can do.
Suddenly, Liyana stops flailing. She is perfectly still. She closes her eyes. She opens her mouth, drinking in fresh water as if she’s parched, as if she has not drunk a drop for days. When she exhales, releasing fat bubbles that rise and pop to the surface, Liyana opens her eyes.
At her fingertips, the water begins to churn.
Bea
“So,” Bea says, as she follows Dr. Finch into the clearing, “what’s the surprise?”
“You’re the most impatient girl I’ve ever met.” He steps onto a high square-shaped stone. “Don’t rush me, you’ll ruin everything. Come here.”
Bea steps forward. She doesn’t want to and, in that moment, has the sudden feeling she should run again, so fast that he’ll never catch her, not in this world or the next. But he’s right, she is impatient, and that’s the least of it. So Bea lets Dr. Finch slip his hands around her waist, lets him pull her close, until there’s not a shimmer of moonlight between them. She hopes this isn’t his idea of a romantic seduction.
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude but—”
Dr. Finch leans in. “It won’t take a moment,” he whispers. “It’ll be over before you know it. If you don’t fight, it won’t hurt.”
“Wait, what the fuck?” She tries to pull back but his hold on her is tight. And then she remembers. “You’re a soldier.”
Dr. Finch smiles. “I am.”
His grip tightens, trapping Bea’s breath in her lungs.
She shakes her head, frantic. “N-no . . .” She kicks at him, twisting away.
“Don’t fight it.” His voice is gentle, tender. “It’ll be painless, I promise . . .”
Bea grits her teeth as a wind of fury blows through her.
She. Will. Slaughter. Him.
The storm begins to build, rage pulses in her veins as she turns the full force—and then Bea thinks of Vali, of what she took from him, of what she deserves to have taken from her. Suddenly, the storm dies. The fury fades. She doesn’t deserve to kill, she deserves to die. And she doesn’t need the razor blades, this will do. It’s better, more fitting. It’s not right that she should take her own life. She murdered Vali and now this soldier will murder her. Just as it should be. She won’t fight, she won’t fly. Justice will be served. Val will have his revenge.
“No,” Bea says, her voice already floating away. “I want it to hurt.”
Dr. Finch frowns down at her. He’s too gentle and it’s too late. Her head is heavy. She doesn’t want him to be the last thing she sees. She closes her eyes and remembers Vali as he’d been, laughing, eating, loving. She sees the view of Everwhere from just beneath the moon.
It is a soft fall, a drop into sleep.
And her soldier is true to his word: she feels no pain.
Scarlet
I wrote myself a letter, Scarlet thinks, as she watches the split tree burn. The wood cracks, spitting out fiery sparks that scorch holes in the moss. When I was little, I wrote myself a letter about this place.
“I’ve been here before,” she whispers. “I’ve been here many times before.”
Her mother stands beside her, watching the flames. “I know.”
“How do you know?” And what happened to—it burned in the fire.
“I told you, I’ve been doing my research. There are more girls like you out there than you think.” She smiles. “Well, perhaps not quite like you.”
“No, that can’t be . . .” Mesmerized by the flames, Scarlet forgets her mother, forgets herself. She has something else to do, she’s sure, but she doesn’t care. She wants to watch the fire till it burns out, till it’s only embers and ash.
“Scarlet, we’ve got to go. I don’t . . .”
Her mother is talking, but she can’t hear the words. As Scarlet stares the flames seem to be shaping themselves into an image, a blazing image of four girls sitting in a glade. One is making plants grow, one is juggling balls of fog, one is levitating leaves, and one—she is setting fire to sticks. Her sisters.
“. . . we’re not safe here,” Ruby is saying. “We’ve got to—”