IRIS
Spring seems to come to the hollow overnight. One day frost spread across the glass over the attic window, and the next wildflowers are popping up along the dirt path, their blooms reaching up to grasp for those limited hours of sunlight the Cumberland Mountains can provide.
Sol loves spring. He walks around the cabin singing old country songs every morning and playing his guitar on the porch in the evenings.
He has us all working on this year’s garden, planting new seeds and tending to the soil.
That, on top of all the other chores, is a lot of work, but we do it for him, for the praise.
There is no better feeling than having Sol tell you he’s proud of you.
At least, that’s what I thought before. Now, though, every smile, every kind word, comes with a dousing of shame—like ice-cold water dumped on my head. It’s a reminder that I’ve betrayed him by telling Rose about the trials, that I’ve lied to him, and that I don’t deserve his love or appreciation.
I’m not the only one getting a lot of Sol’s attention, though. He’s started calling Rose in for extra Growth Sessions, sometimes two or even three meetings a week.
“It’s not fair,” I hear Violet hiss at Lily one night when Rose has followed Sol down the hall to his room. They’re in the living room, sorting the laundry while I clean up after dinner in the kitchen. “She’s taking up so much of his time.”
“She’s got a lot of work to do on herself,” Lily replies. “She needs his help more than any of us.”
“She’s not even putting in the work. She’s just mooching at this point. It’s Marigold all over again.”
I’m in the middle of putting the dishes away after washing them, but I freeze at the mention of Marigold. There’s a long moment before Lily responds.
“Don’t say that,” she says, so quietly I barely hear her.
“Get over it, Lily. It’s been years.”
“I am over it,” Lily says. “I just …”
“You just have a meltdown every time you go near the shed.” Violet’s voice is cold and mocking. It’s a tone I’m used to but that I rarely hear her use with Lily. “She’s gone. There’s no point being sad about it. She would’ve ruined everything anyway.”
“I know. But … maybe if we’d done things differently, if we’d done better—”
“We? Don’t speak for me. I did my best with her. It ain’t my fault she was too pigheaded to know what was good for her.”
“Fine,” Lily says. She sounds so quiet. So much smaller than I’m used to hearing her. “Maybe if I’d done better, worked harder to make her see—”
“You can spend your life on maybes, but that ain’t gonna get you anywhere. She’s gone, Lily. And we’re better off for it, if you ask me.”
Lily is silent after that. Violet keeps going, though.
“Rose is the same sort of problem, though. Everyone can see it. Except Iris. The rest of us all know she’s a weed in this garden. She’s exactly the poison Sol’s warned us about. And now he’s giving her so much of his time instead of the rest of us.”
I wince at the sound of my own name, and a stone drops in my stomach as I take in Violet’s words. Could it be true? Are all the other girls skeptical of Rose? They’ve all been so welcoming to her, except Violet, of course. But were the others actually wary of her?
“He’s just trying to prevent another situation like with Marigold,” Lily says at last. “He still wants to save her.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t drag the rest of us down with her first.”
I don’t hear anything more after that, as the two of them head down the hall with the clothes to wash in the tub.
Their words linger with me, though, leaving me wondering if I’m oblivious, if my fondness for Rose is keeping me from seeing the trouble she’s bringing to the hollow.
It’s hard to deny the way her presence has changed me.
After a year of being here, of unwavering loyalty to Sol, I’ve broken his trust and lied to him in recent weeks, for her.
And the older girls aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed our closeness. A few days later, while the others are downstairs and Poppy and I are tidying the attic, she broaches the subject directly.
“Iris,” she says, “can I ask you something?”
I look over my shoulder at her from where I’m currently making her and Zinnia’s bed. “Of course. What’s up?”
She sits down on Rose’s mattress, fiddling with the hem of the raggedy orange dress that I’m pretty sure Violet picked up from the local Goodwill last summer. “Is something going on with you and Rose?”
I stiffen, worry immediately beginning to coil tight in my stomach. “What do you mean?”
She bites her bottom lip. “I just … I feel like something is happening between y’all. You two were close and then you seemed like you weren’t talking or were mad or something and now y’all seem like you might be cool again? And I see the way y’all look at each other sometimes.”
“We don’t look at each other like anything,” I say, more insistently than I mean to.
“Yeah, you do. And to put it bluntly, it’s nothing like the way I look at Zinnia. Or any of the other girls here, for that matter. Because … we are all supposed to be sisters, right?”
I don’t meet her eyes as I smooth out the sheet. “We are,” I say. “And I’m not supposed to look at Rose any differently.”
There’s a long silence. When I finally finish the bed and turn around, I find Poppy tilting her head and watching me for a long moment, lips pursed, dark brown eyes narrowing slightly. But then she smiles. That big, wide, very white smile that I know means she is genuinely delighted by something.
“You like her.”
“Of course. I like all of you.”
“No,” Poppy says. “I mean you like her like her.”
I gesture to the door. “We should go help the others—”
“Oh, come on, Iris,” Poppy says, almost whining. “Let me have this. I used to read all sorts of romance novels. When I could sneak them from the library. I’ve been stuck reading the same two books Sol got me for months. I need something new. You get to be my romance novel.”
“We’re not a romance novel,” I tell her. “Nothing is going on between us. We’re not allowed to date each other anyway.”
“Forbidden love is my favorite trope.” Poppy keeps grinning at me. “Just don’t do any funny stuff with me and Zinnia in the room, okay?”
“What?” I sputter.
“You heard me!” She flops onto her belly and kicks her legs as she rests her chin in her hands to look at me. “Will you tell me if something does happen?”
“No!”
“Please? Gives me something interesting to hold over Zinnia’s head.”
“No—I mean, nothing’s going to happen.” I start walking toward the door. “Drop it, okay?” My face is burning and my heart is racing. I feel like I’ve been caught. Like I’ve done something wrong.
I’ve done a lot wrong recently, but not this.
I’m telling the truth—nothing has happened between Rose and me.
But the fact that Poppy sees the connection between us, that she assumes we’ve broken the rules already, has me wondering if maybe I’m delusional.
Maybe that line I keep telling myself we haven’t crossed is blurrier than I thought.
Rose has another Growth Session that night. It’s the second one in a row, and it goes much later than usual. Poppy and Zinnia—exhausted by the long day of chores—were asleep within seconds of their heads hitting the pillows. I, however, can’t seem to close my eyes.
Dread sits heavy on my chest, tense as a cat waiting to pounce, staring at me with accusatory yellow eyes.
A tally of everything I’ve done wrong runs through my head in an endless loop: telling Rose about the trials, lying to Sol about her absence, every touch of our hands, every secret smile, every blush.
If Poppy has noticed and Violet thinks I’m so attached to Rose that I can’t see her true nature, then surely Sol has noticed, too.
I think about the day I was caught shoplifting, the cops showing up to check in, and the smell of gasoline and smoke from the fire.
I tell myself not to regret the arson—I did it for the other girls, after all, and because Sol asked me to, and Sol has been so good to me that I should do everything he asks.
But part of me does regret it. And I certainly haven’t done everything Sol has asked of me. Not recently.
I’m meant to be blooming, and instead I feel as if I’m withering.
Rose sees that I’m awake when she finally returns from her Growth Session. I turn my head to give her privacy as she changes out of her jeans, and I hear her sigh when she finally falls down onto her own mattress.
“How was it?” I ask.
“Same as always. Lots of telling me how I’m not meeting my potential. I’m not blossoming or whatever. I have so much to accomplish, and I need to let him help me. Blah, blah, blah.”
All I can think of is Violet comparing Rose to Marigold.
Marigold, who isn’t here anymore.
“You should, you know. Let him help you.”
Rose scoffs. Then, after a moment, she says, “He asked about us, by the way.”
That gets me to sit up. I look over at her, feeling the claws of dread curl into my chest. She sits up, too, and faces me.
“What did he ask?”
“Personal things,” she says. “Questions he really shouldn’t have been asking me.”
“Like what?”
“He asked if something was going on between us,” she says. “He asked if we’ve kissed.”
“Poppy asked me that, too.”
“Yeah, but Poppy is our age. It’s weird when a thirty-six-year-old man asks that kind of stuff about teenage girls.”
“He’s not just any man, though.” I feel the instant need to defend him, even as the panic squeezes my throat. Not just for him, but for myself. For all the answers I’ve given him, the stories I’ve told him, unquestioningly. “He’s … he’s Sol. He’s our family. Our sun, our light, our—”
“I know, I know,” Rose says, shaking her head. “But I still find it creepy, Iris. He’s also been asking me questions about what you say to me. About him and the other girls.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I told him you’ve only ever said good things about him, and that you love the other girls. Which is all pretty much true.”
“And … what did you say about us?”
Rose cocks her head, staring at me through the darkness, like she’s searching for something. After a moment, she moves from her mattress and crawls over to sit on mine. And I can’t explain it, but the instant she’s next to me—the second her arm brushes against mine—the dread begins to recede.
“I told him there’s nothing going on between us,” she whispers. “I told him that we’re just good friends.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Is that true?” she asks.
The air around us feels electric, charged and buzzing. Her voice has set off that pleasant tingling in my scalp again. Moonlight from the window illuminates her face in a silver glow, and I’m hyperaware of the way her knee is resting against mine.
“What do you mean?” My voice has gone breathy. The sound of it warms my cheeks with embarrassment. But I can’t look away from her face.
“Was I telling him the truth?” she asks. “Is there really nothing between us?”
“Oh. I … um …”
Rose bites her lip, still stained from the scarlet lipstick she’s recently scrubbed off. “I like you, Iris,” she admits. “I think you like me, too. But if I’m wrong—”
“You’re not,” I say quickly. “You’re not wrong.”
She smiles at that, green eyes shining even in the dark. I shake my head, though.
“But we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not supposed to date,” I tell her. “It’s against the rules.”
Rose is still smiling, and she’s closer now. I’m not sure if she’s leaned in or if I have. Maybe both of us. The magnets that have been pulling us to each other ever since the day she arrived inch us closer and closer now, until there’s hardly more than a thin slice of air between us.
“You know I’m bad at rules,” she murmurs, her breath dancing across my lips.
And then that distance between us is closed, both of us breaching that invisible line that was drawn between us as we meet in a kiss.