IRIS
A storm rolls in that night and stays through the morning. Dark, lightning-filled clouds hang low over the misty mountains as torrents of rain pour down. It seems fitting, all things considered.
Rose hasn’t spoken to me since my confession in the shed.
She joked with Poppy and Zinnia while we got ready for bed last night, but her dark eyes haven’t looked my way once.
Then, when I woke up this morning to the sound of a distant clap of thunder, she was already gone, having gotten up before dawn, presumably just to avoid me.
The sight of her empty mattress leaves me feeling lonelier than I have in a long time.
She can’t avoid me completely, however, because the storm has us all trapped inside the little cabin.
Zinnia struggles the most with this claustrophobic situation, though. Once her chores are done, I find her sitting by the attic window, watching the storm with a wistful expression, pencil slack between her fingers and a sketchbook open in her lap.
“You okay?” I ask her as I grab some of our dirty clothes for the laundry.
She looks up at me and shrugs. “Yeah. I’m just …
stifled.” She emphasizes the word in a way that makes it clear she’s been thinking for a while about how to describe her emotions, and that is the term she landed on.
It rolls off her tongue like she’s testing it out, speaking it aloud for the first time.
Then she nods. “Yeah. That’s it. I feel stifled. ”
“From being cooped up today?” I ask.
“That’s part of it.” She looks out the window again. “I oughta be asking you that, though. You and Rose.”
I pause, half bent down to pick up a discarded T-shirt. “What about us?”
Zinnia gives me a sideways look. “Y’all usually get along real well. Smiling and teasing. But she’s not talking to you for some reason.”
Leave it to Zinnia to pick up on things. The girl isn’t just nosy—she’s also perceptive.
I pick up the shirt and stand slowly, chewing on my lip before I say, “She’s … upset with me.”
Zinnia turns to look at me fully, like she’s expecting more, but I don’t give it. I’ve already broken Sol’s trust by telling Rose about the trials, and all it got me was this lost, shattered feeling in my chest. I can’t do it again.
After a moment, Zinnia asks, “Does this have something to do with why you’ve been real weird this past week?”
“I haven’t been weird,” I say reflexively. But then I remember Rose teasing me about being a bad liar, and I sigh. This time I give her a real answer. “Yeah. It’s got something to do with why I’ve been weird.”
Zinnia purses her lips. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Even if I say that gossip would make me feel better?”
I laugh at that, and Zinnia smiles.
“Was worth a shot,” she says, adjusting her grip on her pencil and going back to her drawing. “And if it makes you feel better, you ain’t the only one Rose seems upset with.”
The other person is Sol. That becomes obvious as the day goes on. Each time they cross paths, I see Rose meet Sol’s smile with a flat, neutral expression, red lips pressed in a firm line. And Sol notices.
“Rose,” he says that night as we all sit in the living room after dinner. His smile is bright and warm, in stark contrast to the cold rain still coming down in sheets outside. “Are you feeling all right, sweetheart? You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
I tense and look away from the television, where Little Women is playing.
Rose, sitting on the couch between Poppy and Lily, turns to look at him.
For a moment, she doesn’t answer. There’s an uneasiness in the air, like the seconds between lightning and the thunder that follows.
Or maybe I’m the only one who sees it. No one else seems to react.
Finally, Rose says, “Yeah. I guess you could say that. There’s a lot on my mind.”
“Care to share?” Sol asks, the cheer in his voice unwavering.
I hold my breath, and my eyes dart to Rose.
For a moment, I’m afraid she’ll tell him the truth.
Tell him why she’s upset with us both. That she knows about the fire, knows about the trials.
I’m worried she’ll tell him how messed up she thinks this all is.
And I don’t know what about that possibility scares me more: that Sol would know I broke his trust or that Sol might decide Rose can’t stay here if she is so opposed to the trials.
But of course Rose doesn’t say any of it. Because she promised she wouldn’t.
“Not really,” she says with a shrug.
“Maybe at your next Growth Session, then,” Sol says.
“Maybe.”
Thunder rolls outside. The tension eases as both Rose and Sol turn to look at the television again. I’m relieved. Until I notice another pair of eyes that have been watching the exchange.
Violet is staring at Rose, too. And the look on her face, even colder than usual, causes something like dread to settle in my stomach.
We are only ever allowed in Sol’s room during Growth Sessions or when personally invited. That’s the one part of the house that is off-limits to us. It’s a rule that’s understood rather than spoken.
Sol is usually busy during the day, either hunting or chopping firewood or doing odd jobs in town to try and bring in a little bit of money, so Growth Sessions only happen in the evening, usually after dinner.
That’s why, when I catch Rose sneaking out of Sol’s room the next afternoon, I know something is wrong.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
She jumps, not realizing I just came in the back door, putting me in the hallway behind her.
The storm moved on late in the night, leaving the hollow soaked through, water from the hills trailing down until the soil can’t hold any more.
But we’re back to business as usual this morning, trudging around in the water and mud if necessary.
Just now, most everyone is outside, picking up fallen branches and drying out the shed, which has apparently developed a leak in the roof.
The only people inside the cabin are Rose and Poppy.
Until I walked in, at least.
Rose spins around, eyes wide with panic. But she breathes a sigh of relief when she sees me. It’s the first time since I told her what I’ve done that she seems relieved and not cold or sullen in my presence.
But that relief fades quickly.
“Nothing,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”
I glance at Sol’s bedroom door, then back to her, but I don’t say anything. The question hangs in the air.
But the only answer Rose offers is a shrug of tense shoulders. “Don’t worry about it,” she says again.
As if that’s possible.
But I don’t push the question. Partly because I don’t want to drive her further away. And partly because I don’t think I want to know why she was in Sol’s room. I don’t want to find myself torn between whose trust to break. Not again.
I take a step forward. “Can we talk?” I ask. “Please?”
It’s only been two days since our talk in the shed, but it feels like it’s been so much longer. The distance has left an ache in my chest, like I’m missing a crucial part of me. It’s strange, since I only met her a couple months ago. But now I can’t imagine life without her here.
Her eyes soften a little, but she shakes her head. “Not right now. I’ve gotta go.”
I don’t realize that my hand is raised, as if to reach for her, until it drops to my side again. “Go where?”
She glances over her shoulder, toward the front door, and fidgets with the sleeves of her shirt. Then she sighs. As if deciding that she doesn’t have time for the back-and-forth with me.
“I’m going into town.”
“You can’t,” I say. “You heard Sol: He doesn’t want any of us leaving the hollow.”
But Rose shrugs. “I’m going anyway.”
She turns and begins walking toward the front door, and I follow, flabbergasted and worried.
“He’ll get upset,” I tell her. “If Sol finds out you left, he’ll—”
“He’ll what?” She’s pulling on her boots now, my words not slowing her down in the slightest. “Sol can’t tell me what to do. He’s not my parent. Not my guardian. He’s just some guy in the woods who likes flowers.”
I stare at her, shocked. “He gave us a home,” I say.
“He did,” she says. “And I’m grateful for that. But it doesn’t mean I’m gonna let him force me to stay here. I don’t like rules. If I wanna go to town, I will. And right now, I want to.”
Rose is stubborn. I know that. And I know that nothing I can say will change her mind right now. She’s got one hand on the door.
“Why do you need to go to town? Do you even know how to get there?”
“I remember the way Lily brought me,” she says. “Just three miles up the dirt road.” She pulls the knob, and the door swings open. She barely even looks at me as she speaks. If anything, she seems to be in a hurry to go.
“Will you come back?” The question sounds pathetic. Quiet and shaky, my voice hitching as I ask it.
If Rose hears me, she doesn’t show it. She’s already down the steps now, checking to make sure none of the other girls are in the front yard.
They’re not. Nearly everyone else is out back, near the shed.
So she runs. Her sprinter’s legs carry her down the muddy road fast. And in no time at all, she disappears into the mountain fog.
I’m on edge the rest of the day, waiting for her to return.
Wondering if she will return. Did me telling her about Mr. Brophy’s store upset her so much she decided to leave for good?
Why had she been in Sol’s room? The questions spiral relentlessly through my mind, distracting me from everything else.
I find myself in the attic, staring out the window, waiting—or, at least, hoping—to see her running back down the path, inky black hair streaming behind her. But the sun moves from one wall of mountains to the other, and there’s still no sign of Rose.
Eventually, the others notice her absence.
“Where’s Rose?” Poppy asks. She’s joined me in the attic. “It’s our turn to make dinner tonight.”
I bite my lip and glance toward the window again. But still nothing.
“That’s a great question.”
Sol appears in the open attic doorway. I’ve been so distracted that I didn’t even hear his feet on the wooden stairs. He smiles at us, blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Hey, girls,” he says. “I was just coming up to find Rose. Haven’t seen her all day, and I wanted to remind her she has a Growth Session after dinner tonight.”
I feel a jolt of panic. I don’t know what will happen if Sol finds out Rose went into town. He might even make her leave.
If she comes back at all.
“Have you seen her, Iris?” he says. “You two seem like peas in a pod most days.” Something in the way he says it feels like an accusation. “Any idea where she’s gone off to?”
“I, um, I think she went for a walk,” I say.
“Where to?” Sol asks.
“Just … just around the hollow,” I say. I frantically scramble for some sort of story, something that could reasonably explain her absence. “She was curious. About the damage the storm did to the woods. She went to look around.”
I can hear Rose’s teasing voice in the back of my mind, telling me I’m a bad liar.
Sol has always been able to see through me.
See through my defenses, the walls I used to put up around him.
He knows me. He knows me so well. Too well.
He’ll know this is a lie. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can look at my face and immediately know I saw her sneaking out of his room somehow.
But if he does, Sol doesn’t show it. He just nods, still smiling. “Well, I hope she gets back soon. But if she’s not, Poppy, I’ll help you with dinner tonight.”
Poppy looks surprised. Sol almost never helps with the cooking. He’s got so many other things to do, and that’s on our rotating list of chores. “Really?” she asks.
“Absolutely,” Sol says. “It’ll be fun. Just you and me, teaming up.”
Poppy beams at him. Because we all love spending time with Sol.
All of us except Rose, I guess.
“I’ll see you downstairs, chef,” Sol says, winking at Poppy. Then he looks to me. “When Rose is back, remind her of the Growth Session. I think we might need to have a talk about not slacking on responsibilities when others are relying on her.”
If she comes back.
“Yeah. I will.”
He gives me a thumbs-up before heading downstairs.
I turn to the window again. The all-too-familiar feeling of guilt coils in my chest again. I’ve never lied to Sol before. Not beyond trying to say I’m fine when he asks how I’m feeling, and every time I’ve tried that, he’s always called me out. Always caught that small deception.
But this is bigger than that. It’s a real lie. A lie to the man who saved my life. Who gave me a home. A man I owe everything to.
And I did it for Rose.