IRIS
“I … Sorry. You’re asking me to burn down the grocery store?”
I’m convinced I must be misunderstanding. This must be a joke. Or I’m too tired and hungry to comprehend the actual thing he’s asking me to do. In the darkness of this quiet side street, lit only by the full moon above, the whole thing feels weirdly dreamlike.
But Sol nods, confirming that this is real, that I’m not missing something. His eyes don’t leave my face, and I know he’s making note of every reaction I have.
“But why?” I ask.
“The old man pays too much attention,” Sol says. “Even before he sent the police, I know he asked a lot of questions of Lily and Violet.”
“I think he’s just worried about us,” I say. “Yeah, he should mind his own business, but he doesn’t understand that we’re okay. He probably thinks he’s being kind.”
“Perhaps. But after the way he caught you stealing and then sent the cops to check in, his mild concern has become something bigger. Something that puts all of us—but especially you younger girls—in real danger. It’s more than just an annoyance now.
It’s a problem. One that, I’m sorry to say, Iris, you’ve caused. ”
Guilt curdles like sour milk in my stomach. I have no response to that.
He lowers his voice, softens it, lets it coil around me like a child’s security blanket. “I’m not asking you to hurt anyone, Iris. But we need him to focus on something else besides a few girls in his shop. This will do enough damage to keep him occupied and off our backs for a while.”
I try to say something—anything—but nothing comes out. My brain is too hazy and my body too weak from lack of food and sleep to form a reasonable argument.
Sol sighs. “I do find your reaction interesting,” he says, “considering what you’ve told me about your past. It’s not as if you’ve never committed an act of vandalism before. And the last time, there wasn’t even a good reason, was there?”
The comment, even delivered gently, feels like a slap across my face. A painful jab at a wound only he knows about. Because he knows everything about me.
I’ve never committed arson before, but he’s right that the crimes of my past had no justifiable motive. They were for fun or to impress someone else. This would have a purpose, at least.
“What’s it supposed to teach me?” I ask quietly.
“Loyalty,” he says. “To prove to yourself—and to me—the lengths you’ll go to protect your family. Are you willing to let our garden be destroyed because some old, unenlightened man was ‘nice’ and poking his nose into our business? Will you pick him, a stranger, over us?”
“No, of course not.” My hands are shaking as they try to keep hold of the matches and canister. “But …”
“But what?”
I open my mouth, but once again, there are no words. I close it and look down at the matchbook in my palm. I try to focus on it instead of on the panicked thrumming of my heart. Or the way I’m struggling to breathe through the tightness in my throat.
No answer comes.
Sol opens the driver’s-side door and climbs into the truck. “Do what you think is best for you, Iris,” he says. “If you don’t trust me, so be it. But you’re not coming home unless you’ve completed the trial.”
My heart stops, and a painful lump rises in my throat as I imagine watching the truck speed away, leaving me alone, in the dark, in a town I barely know.
No car, no phone, no money. No one. I don’t know what I would do or where I would go.
I’d be lost. Even more lost than I was when Lily found me last year.
So I walk back to the grocery store alone. There’s no point being hesitant. No point being nervous. Because the choice has been made. Not that there was ever a choice at all. Because I have to get back in that truck. I have to go home.
And, like Sol said, it’s not like I’ll be hurting anyone. Not physically, at least.
As I climb back through the broken window, I slice my hand on some broken glass. I don’t feel it. The world only consists of me, the crunch of my footsteps, the pulse of my heart in my ears, and the heavy canister in my hand.
I begin spilling a stream of gasoline, creating a trail down the cereal aisle and then up the canned goods aisle.
It’s as if I am walking underwater, movements slow and heavy.
With each step I hear Sol’s voice, telling me why this has to be done.
I think of Marigold, the whispered name of a girl I never met, because she never finished her trials. Because she couldn’t stay.
My hand is slick with blood, and I’m struggling to keep hold of the canister as I finish the trail of oil. I cap it and head back to the window.
When I’m out on the sidewalk again, I open the matchbook and pull one out.
I strike it, and suddenly the flame sparks to life.
I freeze, staring at it, the faint heat warming my chilled hand.
The intense smell of gasoline fills my nostrils.
The reality of what I am about to do crushes like a stone on my chest and threatens to collapse my lungs.
There’s no turning back now.
And even if I could, I have nowhere else to go.
I take a deep breath and brace myself. Then I toss the match through the broken window.
The eruption of the flames racing along the path of gasoline and catching on the wooden shelves and cardboard cereal boxes is instant.
But as hot as it burns, I feel frozen in place, shocked by what I’ve done.
It is so dramatic, so colorful and dynamic, that I am almost convinced it isn’t real.
That I’ve dreamed this whole thing and will wake up with Rose on our little mattresses in the attic.
Move!
That primal voice in my head—the one that screams of danger—pushes me out of my shock. I turn and bolt back toward the side street where Sol waits. The whip of the cold wind on my face as I run is enough to reassure me that I am definitely awake.
And that I’ve just committed arson.
I’m breathless by the time I reach the truck a few minutes later.
Sol throws the door open for me, and as soon as I’m inside, the tires squeal as we peel out.
We’re not even off the paved road yet when the night is pierced by the scream of the fire trucks.
I glance in the rearview mirror, but all I can see is the fading flicker of light as we leave town.
“Well done!” Sol is saying as he drives us down the gravelly roads back into the hollow. “I knew you could do it, Iris. I’m so proud of you.” He glances over and grins at me. “You had me worried there for a moment, but— Iris? Oh no. Hold on, sweetheart.”
He slams on the brakes, coming to a harsh stop in the middle of the dirt road, maybe half a mile from the cabin.
The wheels have barely stopped turning before I grab the handle and throw the door open, almost falling out onto the cold ground as I dry heave, my stomach too empty to produce anything worth vomiting up.
Sol gets out of the truck and comes to rub my back while I retch. When my body has finally given up on expelling the shock from my guts, he helps me stand up. His grin is gone, replaced by a softer expression.
“Let’s go home,” he says .
I go straight to the shower as soon as we arrive back at the cabin. I crank the water as hot as I can, letting it scald my skin. I scrub until my flesh is raw. But nothing can get rid of the smell of gasoline and smoke.
I stay there until the water has run cold, and only then do I bandage my hand and reluctantly make my way upstairs.
The moon has shifted now. It must be a little past three.
We’ll all have to be up in less than three hours.
But I can’t even imagine sleeping. My head is still spinning and my cut hand has finally started hurting and I feel as if I may start to dry heave again.
“Iris?”
For the second time that night, Rose says my name in that croaky, sleepy voice of hers, just as I’m slipping beneath my blanket.
I don’t look at her. I can’t. I don’t feel ready to look at anyone. I’m convinced that everything I’ve done, every thought I’ve had, will be smeared like dirt across my face. “Yeah, it’s me,” I murmur. “Go back to sleep.”
She must sense something. Maybe it’s in my voice. Or maybe the overpowering smell of the soap that I’ve just scrubbed my body with gives it away. But I feel her eyes on the back of my head for a moment before she asks, “Are you okay?”
The sweetness of it, the concern, it claws at my heart. It reminds me of Mr. Brophy, asking me if I was all right even as he caught me stealing from him.
“Fine,” I say, my voice cracking as tears begin to carve silent streams down my cheeks.
“You’re a bad liar, remember?” she says. I hear her push off her covers and cross the small space between our mattresses. Then she’s lying down next to me, one of her hands coming to rest on my arm beneath the blanket. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
I can’t answer. I’m not supposed to. But even if I could, even if Sol hadn’t forbidden me from talking about our trials, I wouldn’t be able to. Because the tears are coming harder now. So heavy I can barely breathe as sobs that I try so desperately to keep quiet wrack my body.
Rose doesn’t ask again. She doesn’t press for answers. Instead, her arm slips around my waist, pulling me back against her. Her chin rests on my shoulder, and her hair tickles my cheeks. And she holds me while I cry.
“It’ll be okay,” she says, despite having no idea whether it will or not. “I’ve got you.”
My imagination keeps conjuring up images of Mr. Brophy’s face, sagging with despair as he watches the flames destroy his store, trying to make sense of who could do this to him or why.
But as Rose’s warmth embraces me, I remember why this had to be done. That Sol would never steer me wrong. He had his reasons for this. Good ones. Mr. Brophy was a threat to us—to Rose and Zinnia and Poppy especially. I needed to prove my loyalty, both to him and to myself.
And yet, a little voice in the back of my mind whispers to me that if the girl comforting me right now knew what I’d done, even if I did it for her, she would hate me.
“Try to get some sleep,” Rose murmurs near my ear. “Things won’t feel so bad in the morning.”
If only that were true.