IRIS
She comes to us in late autumn, when frost clings to the branches of gnarled trees, chilly wind slips between the cracks in the cabin’s walls, and the sun disappears behind the misty blue mountains long before the day’s chores are done.
She doesn’t even have a coat. The only things protecting her from the biting cold are a cardinal-red hoodie, which looks to have been made for someone nearly three times her size, and Lily’s arm, wrapped around her shoulders as she guides her up the dirt path.
We watch from the attic window, the heat of our breath fogging the glass as Zinnia, curious and frustrated, tries to wipe it away.
“Could y’all stop breathing so much?”
“Who do you think she is?” Poppy asks, ignoring her younger sister’s request.
I shrug. “New girl.”
“I can’t get a good look at her,” Zinnia whines. “I’m gonna go down to see.”
Poppy and I follow her, the old wooden stairs creaking as we make our way down. I stay at the back, and my bare feet have just touched the bottom stair when the front door opens. Lily steps inside with the girl still tucked safely under her arm.
She is beautiful.
All the girls here in the hollow are, in different ways.
Poppy and Zinnia, with their dark brown skin; long, graceful limbs; and cheekbones sharp enough to cut diamonds, look like the girls you would expect to see on New York runways, only without the expensive clothes hanging off their lithe frames.
Lily has a warm, angelic glow about her, with tan skin and cheeks that are nearly always rounded into a smile.
She’s short and curvy, everything about her soft and gentle and welcoming.
The unknown girl, though, almost takes my breath away.
She reminds me of a princess in a fairy tale. Only from the start of the story, when, to the rest of the world, she still appears to be nothing more than an incredibly lovely peasant. Cinderella before the fairy godmother. Snow White, still living among the dwarves.
Snow White. That’s who this girl reminds me of. Her skin may not be as white as snow, but it isn’t too far from it. Her loose, wind-tangled waves are as black as the coal from the mines this region is known for. And her lips are a deep shade of bloodred.
That strikes me most of all. She has no coat in the middle of a Cumberland Mountain November, but her lips are perfectly painted.
Lily laughs when she notices the three of us at the foot of the stairs. “So dang nosy! I should’ve known you two would be down here the minute we walked through the door. And dragging Iris along, too.”
“We didn’t drag her!” Zinnia protests.
“We’re just following Zinnia,” Poppy says. “She’s the nosy one. It ain’t us.”
“Y’all are just as nosy as me and you know it. Don’t go telling lies about me.”
I watch the new girl, her huge, dark eyes moving back and forth like a pendulum as she follows the conversation.
Lily turns to shut the door, her arm falling away from the taller girl’s shoulders.
The girl stands there, hands pulled into the sleeves of her oversized red hoodie, silently taking everything in.
This girl, with her delicate, doll-like features, looks nothing like me, but I still see something so familiar in her expression.
I’ve seen it in my own reflection, though it’s been nearly a year, back in the days after I first arrived at the cabin.
I’ve seen it in the eyes of Zinnia and Poppy, too, when they showed up this past summer, one on either side of Lily as she held their hands and guided them down into the hollow, toward their new home.
It’s a look of mingled uncertainty and wonder. Of worry and want and wishing.
It’s the face of someone tentatively allowing herself to hope for the first time in far, far too long.
“You know,” Lily says, politely cutting through Zinnia and Poppy’s bickering, “y’all are being a little rude, not introducing yourselves to our new friend.”
That shuts them up. Poppy and Zinnia are Southern girls—most of the cabin’s occupants are—and nothing makes them straighten up faster than being scolded for rudeness.
“Sorry!” Zinnia says. “I’m Zinnia. Nice to meet you.”
“And I’m Poppy.”
The new girl looks between them for a moment before asking, “And you two are sisters?”
I expected her voice to be high and airy, like Snow White from the old Disney movie, so I’m surprised to hear that it’s a little bit deep and quite raspy.
“Uh-huh,” Zinnia answers.
“Zinnia and Poppy might be related by blood, but we’re all sisters here,” Lily says. I am unsure if she is saying this to the new girl or as a reminder to us all.
And now she’s looking at me. The new girl, with her too-large, too-round, too-green eyes, looks right at me. And maybe it’s just a draft of cold air wafting through the poorly insulated cabin, but a shiver runs through me, raising goose bumps on my arms and causing me to stammer a little.
“I-I’m Iris,” I say, reaching up to pull my hair over my shoulder so I can nervously twist my fingers in the ends.
“Iris,” she repeats, that raspy voice scratching lightly over the name. She tilts her head, red lips pursing, thick black eyebrows rising. “Iris, Poppy, Zinnia … and Lily.” I hear the question in her words, though she doesn’t ask it directly, and none of us answer.
“There’s one we’re missing,” Lily tells her before turning to us. “Y’all know where Violet is?”
“Sol asked her to go clean up the shed,” Poppy answers.
“She’ll be in here soon enough, then,” Lily says. “I promise, everyone here is real nice.”
The new girl gives a small smile and nods before saying, “It’s nice to meet everybody. My name is—”
Before she can finish, the back door of the cabin swings open, and footsteps too heavy to belong to Violet thud across the wooden floor.
We move as one—Zinnia, Poppy, Lily, and me—without a word, with barely a thought, we move together into the hall, ready to see him, to greet him. The new girl follows behind, asking no questions, though I’m sure she has many.
He stands by the back door, unwrapping the moth-eaten scarf from around the lower half of his face and neck. Two pale blue eyes look our way from beneath blond, bushy brows, and a smile forms amid the thick mustache and beard. “Girls,” he says in greeting. “I see you’ve made a new friend?”
Lily beams at him. She radiates adoration, bathing in his light. “Sol,” she says, “I met her when I was in town. She needs a place to stay. I told her she’d be welcome here.”
“Of course she’s welcome here,” Sol says. He takes a step forward, and we separate like the sea parting for Moses, making a path for him to move straight toward the new girl. “I’m glad you found us, sweetheart,” he says.
She stands there, staring at him. She looks tense, her shoulders up near her cheeks. But the second Sol smiles down at her, she seems to relax.
Just like we all did.
“We take care of one another here,” he tells the girl. “You can call this place your home as long as you need to. We’ve got a few rules, of course, but I’m sure the girls will fill you in.”
She nods. “Thank you. You’re Sol, right?”
“I sure am,” he says, throwing an appreciative nod to Lily. “I suppose Lily’s told you a bit about me. About all of us.”
“A little.”
“Excellent,” he says. “And you …” He stares down at her for a long moment, taking her in. She doesn’t flinch. She stands there like I did once, and like Zinnia and Poppy after me. Eager, anxious, hopeful.
Grateful.
“You,” Sol says, placing a gentle hand on her cheek, “seem like a Rose to me.”