“Is that why you gave our family droomhunds? After you took our sleep away?” said Mayhap. She spoke as though she wore armor, not a flimsy dressing gown and slippers.
The Mysteriessa’s face turned pink as cooked ham.
“I went to the Office of Residents’ Concerns,” said Mayhap. “You said it was the grass who took things from the families. But it was you. Pavonine said the grass took my first droomhund. But that’s not true, either, is it? Tell me what happened.”
The Mysteriessa of Straygarden Place pursed her dry lips.
The silence was like oxygen, feeding the fire within Mayhap. “The contract showed me,” she said. “You let my parents in here — you let all of us in here — and you made them sign away their sleep.” She tried to unfold the last page of the contract, to hold it up for the Mysteriessa to see. As she did, the pieces of her parents’ shredded note fluttered to the floor.
She crouched to pick them up, smoothing the contract before arranging the fragments of the note to make sure she hadn’t lost one. It was then that she noticed the handwriting. On the contract, Cygnet’s script was rectangular and resolute, Bellwether’s swooping and melodramatic. In the note, however, the letters were curled tightly, and slanted to the left.
Mayhap looked up at the Mysteriessa. “The grass has nothing to do with anything, does it? You took my parents, didn’t you? You took my first droomhund. And now you’re going to take Winnow.”
“That’s not true,” said the Mysteriessa. “Your parents chose to leave you.”
“According to the note they left, yes,” said Mayhap, standing up and leaving the pieces of paper on the floor like scattered autumn leaves. “But they didn’t write it, did they?”
“They —”
“The handwriting in the note doesn’t match either script in the contract.” Mayhap spat the words out. “So either they didn’t write on the contract or they didn’t write the note. And since I saw them in the contract’s vision — I saw them sign it — I’m more inclined to believe the latter.”
The Mysteriessa only stared at Mayhap, her eyes like two distant moons.
“You wrote it, didn’t you? They never wanted to leave. You made them leave.”
“Mayhap, I —”
“What happened?” said Mayhap, snatching the photograph out of the Mysteriessa’s hand and shoving it in her face. She whispered through gritted teeth, “What — did — you — do?”
The Mysteriessa stood up straighter and clasped her hands. “Mayhap Ballastian,” she said, “you would do well to respect me.”
The words shook Mayhap’s heart like a rattle. “Respect you?” A laugh like a cough left her mouth.
“Seekatrix,” called the Mysteriessa.
The droomhund walked over to her, his tail wagging.
“Leave him alone!” cried Mayhap.
“Seeka,” the Mysteriessa sang. She picked him up and held him in her arms, stroking his head. “You know I called the droomhunds, don’t you? I called them out of the night, and they came to me.”
Mayhap lowered the photograph in her hand.
“Did it occur to you that I can make them do anything I like?” said the Mysteriessa.
“Please,” Mayhap said. “I’m sorry for getting angry. Please leave him alone.”
“You need to get some rest, Mayhap,” said the Mysteriessa. “Trust me. I know you. I’ve known you your whole life.” She took a step toward Mayhap, Seekatrix balanced in her arms.
Sweet Seeka, who was trying to lick the Mysteriessa’s cheek. Sweet, sweet Seeka.
“No,” said Mayhap. “Whatever you’re going to do, don’t —”
The Mysteriessa put her mouth close to Seekatrix’s ear. “Time to sleep darkly, Seeka. Now.”
She threw him into the air, toward Mayhap, and he leaped at her, leaped into her mind, burrowing into her head frantically, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t stand. Her head filled with a fuzzy darkness, and she was falling.
The marble floor rose beneath her. The sleepy chirps of bats swept over her.
And then everything went black, as though someone had drawn a curtain over the world.
Seekatrix’s unbrushed fur prickled the edges of Mayhap’s mind. Color, image, sound, and smell — all of them hurried through her like trains through tunnels.
In her dreams, she held white bats in her hands, their pink and open mouths like the fragile insides of flowers.
In her dreams, she dug deep holes in a quiet garden and placed the bats into them. She covered them with soil as moist as pudding.
The bats’ clawed feet needled the earth. They threw the dirt off their backs, spread their fleshy wings, multiplied.
No matter how many of them she buried, they always came back up, screeching, until the whole sky was full of them.
She closed her hands, and when she opened them again, her palms were silver.
Mayhap woke in the conservatory, Seekatrix tumbling out of her mind like a stream of black smoke. The bats were swooping back and forth above her. She sat up and rubbed her temples.
“I’m sorry, Seeka,” she said, holding him tightly. “I don’t know how she did that. But we’re all right. We’re all right now.”
The silver grass was tinted with a distinctly crepuscular mauve. It was evening. She had been asleep for an entire day. While Winnow was sick and in danger. She had to go to her sisters. She had to do something.
She stood up on trembling legs. Her ears slowly adjusted to the world of waking.
And then screams echoed through the house like thrums of discordant music.
Mayhap moved toward the conservatory’s door, her vision smeared like a misty window, and Seekatrix followed her.
She found Winnow and Pavonine near their bedroom, around a few bends of carpet.
“May!” called Pavonine. “She was fine, I promise. Sleeping and everything. And then something happened, and she got upset again. I couldn’t stop her —”
Winnow was slumped against the wall. There were fallen mirrors all around her, shards of glass glittering like sequins. She was covering her eyes. She was sobbing. She bent forward as though she
