The grass was silent for a long time. Then it said, “But you must have a rift in you. A crack where the magic can slip in, like moonlight through a slightly open window.”
“Yes,” said other-Mayhap. “But we have already lost so much. You wouldn’t even have to make the crack. Take a look.”
Winnow and Pavonine exchanged a glance.
The grass was silent again, as though perplexed. But it let go of Mayhap, and then she could feel cold sifting through her, and she knew that the grass was searching her for the cracks that other-Mayhap had spoken of. Her sisters were doubled over. The grass was searching through them, too.
“Ah,” said the grass. “The girl is right.” Its tendrils rushed and rustled like a contented sigh. “These four are like dolls fallen from a shelf. One Mayhap, who knows she was made for evil — made with a hole in her heart for a lonely girl to creep into. And another Mayhap, who was separated from her sisters at the age of only five. And Pavonine, who lost her parents when she was a baby. And Winnow — why, Winnow was attacked, her droomhund made into a weapon, her sister into an enemy. They all have cracks in them, cracks our magic can seep into.”
The sisters of Straygarden Place — all four of them — held their breath.
The grass wavered. It seemed to be thinking things over. Then, finally, it said, “Four girls to tuck the magic into — that’s better than one.”
“Do we have a deal?” asked other-Mayhap. “We agree to take your magic. But you must promise not to hurt this Mayhap or the white-eyed girl. Or anyone.”
The grass hummed. “We have already forgotten about killing now that we do not need to anymore.”
“All right,” said other-Mayhap.
She took Pavonine’s hand, and Pavonine reached for Mayhap’s. Winnow took other-Mayhap’s hand, too, and together they filled their lungs, ready to receive the magic that the grass so desperately wanted to give away.
“We will take it,” said other-Mayhap. “We will take it together.”
“We will take it together,” said Pavonine.
“We will take it together,” said Winnow.
“We will take it together,” said Mayhap.
The magic felt like someone singing, very loudly, in Mayhap’s ears. It felt like being drenched in something teeth-clatteringly cold.
She was sugar dissolving in tea.
She was sunlight through a window.
She was a still, clear pond.
She was sky, star-shatters, a hungry darkness.
All her broken places closed up, scabs over wounds. But as the magic pushed its way into her brain — her heart, her gut — they opened again.
And she understood: you needed a crack in you because the magic required space to slip inside, but also because it had to have a way to slip out — to touch the world.
The grass was right way up again.
The silver grass, which had once been so tall — taller than mansions — had lost its shine. It was simply gray now, gray as a rainy day’s sky, and short, too — only as high as a girl’s ankle.
Mayhap stretched out her arm to run her fingers through it, grabbing a tuft. She squeezed it, tore the blades out of the ground. They lay limp in her fist.
Winnow’s dark hair resolved before her, a silver streak among the curls like a river in a mountainside. Then Mayhap saw Pavonine’s pout, and the sleeve of other-Mayhap’s coat. The droomhunds were little mounds of blackest fur. The whole world had separated itself into shifting blocks, and now it all shifted back, slowly, into proper position. A finished puzzle.
There was Winnow — whole. And Pavonine, too. And other-Mayhap. They were lying on their sides in the grass. And there were Seekatrix, and Peffiandra, and Evenflee, and other-Mayhap’s droomhund. They were wagging their tails.
There they were. There they all were.
And it was morning, somehow.
Mayhap held Seekatrix and closed her eyes.
She did not know what it meant to have magic. But there was one person who could tell her.
“Quiverity?” she called out. She walked over the gray grass, crunching it beneath her feet.
She walked until she could see the first Straygarden Place. It was so far away that it looked only about the size of a hand. The wanderroot trees were sprawled across the now-ordinary field, unfloating, lying in heaps, their branches broken, their flowers crushed. The white bats that had been shaken from their branches dove through the sky in confused patterns. Seekatrix whimpered.
“Quiverity!” Mayhap called.
And found the girl standing right behind her.
“You don’t need me anymore,” Quiverity said.
“Of course I do,” said Mayhap. “We’re family. We are. You are my sister.”
“I’m not your sister,” said Quiverity sadly.
“You were a part of me for all my life. You are still.”
Quiverity’s mouth crumpled. “I’m sorry I let the grass get you.”
“The grass killed your family. It took everything from you.” Mayhap looked around her. “Are you still afraid of it?” she asked.
Quiverity didn’t answer, only shuffled her feet on the ground.
Mayhap held Quiverity’s fears in her hands as carefully as she would’ve held a newborn bat pup, and Quiverity did the same for Mayhap. And there, between them, all was forgiven.
In the distance, Cygnet hugged other-Mayhap and Pavonine. Bellwether crouched beside Winnow. They were checking to see if they were all right — their real daughters. Mayhap ached, but the feeling was more like love than loss.
She wiped her tears away. “We still have a house,” she said to Quiverity. “We could return there. To the first Straygarden Place.”
Quiverity fixed her gaze on the mansion. “I think it is time for me to leave this place,” she said. “I think — I think I would like to leave.”
“Then I will come with you,” said Mayhap.
When they looked at the horizon, it seemed like
