RoseBlood(40)

My tank top, leggings, and a flowing chiffon floral rust-print dress, followed with a navy raglan-sleeved cardigan that I knitted a few months ago for autumns in Texas, are more suited for the day trip my classmates took. Still, with the way the sky looks, I can’t waste any time changing, other than my shoes.

I trudge through the parking lot, careful not to slip on the gravel rolling under my cowboy boots—their soles so worn they’ve lost all traction. When I was small, Dad and I weeded barefoot to keep from crushing the tender plants underneath. As I got older, and had to do things without him, these became my gardening shoes, because the smooth soles protected the leaves and stems.

Several birds flutter overhead, and I’m relieved to hear them trilling and chirping. I take it as a good omen. Once I reach the yellowed, grassy outskirts of the garden, I’m in awe. At home, my plot of perennials and vegetables is manicured and tamed. There, I’m the conductor.

Here, I’m the audience.

Nature provides the performers—spicing every inhalation with floral perfumes, rotted wood, moldy leaves, and soil. Everything from shrubs and brambles to vines and weeds encompasses the sprawling landscape, as high as my knees on either side of the cobblestone path. In the distance, crimson rose bushes that rise to my chest bow to the rhythm of rain-scented gusts, like actors answering an encore. Fall flowers burst up from the graves of dead summer blooms, reluctant to shed their costumes of purples, oranges, golds, and blues, in spite of how garish they are against the withering landscape.

Clouds swirl in a grayish mass, dimming the light. A thin film of fog clings to the plants and to my face like ethereal cobwebs. The sun has always restored me when I’m tired, sad, or unsettled. I could’ve used some of that positivity today.

Due to the ominous sky, I earlier clipped an LED book light—the one Mom bought for us to use on the ten-hour flight here—onto my sweater lapel. After I pull up weeds and break up clods with the fork from the cafeteria, I’ll have to remove any roots left in the loosened soil. A little extra illumination will help me find them. Some weeds, like elder, bindweed, and couch grass, will regrow if any chopped roots remain. They’re regenerative, like salamander tails, earthworms . . .

And phantoms.

I veer my gaze to the roses far to my right, those left for dead at the touch of a man’s hand last Sunday. The way they sway on their stems, heavy and black, proves I didn’t imagine it at all. My chest tightens and my footsteps falter as I notice a piece of gray cloth, strung across a cluster of golden flowers right beneath the thorny bush. I move closer. Partly because the fabric looks familiar, but more because it’s so out of place in this untouched wilderness.

Swallowing the knot in my throat, I crouch to tug the cloth free, recognizing it as one of the stockings Mom and I bought—part of my missing uniforms. The side seam gapes open, frayed but systematic, as if someone sliced it with scissors.

A sense of violation rattles through me, jarring. I stand on weak legs, catching movement everywhere now—other articles fluttering like flags on various flowers and plants, all along the path.

All this time, I’d assumed Kat and Roxie stole them, despite what they said to Tomlin. But when would they have had a chance to lay out a trail like this?

My windpipe narrows until the damp air seems to burn. I venture into the overgrowth, because no matter who’s responsible, I’m not going to give them the benefit of chasing me away.

Gathering up the damaged vests, stockings, and skirts, I place them in the tub I’d intended to use for gutted weeds and dead flowers.

The trail of damaged articles is like a macabre Easter egg hunt. Around every winding turn of the path, I find another ragged or frayed piece, all of them torn but possibly salvageable for someone who knows how to use a needle and thread.

Finally, I see the last article—a white ruffled shirt cuff hanging over an oddly shaped statue I can’t quite make out—on the other side of the footbridge where the garden ends and the cemetery begins.

I make my way over the water, trying not to look down into the depths, careful not to slide off the curved, cobblestone surface. Several yards away, the chapel casts muted shadows across the graves. The jeweled glint of the broken stained-glass windows frames the darkness within—a disorienting contrast that spurs the feeling of being watched again.

I step off the footbridge. Unlike the garden, the cemetery is easy to navigate. Ankle-high yellowing grass fringes a spongy, green carpet of moss between headstones. Stray, fallen leaves scatter across the ground on the wind. I stop at the tomb where my shirt cuff flaps, fighting the uneasy crimp in my stomach.

It’s an antique statue of a baby’s cradle with a canopy—the stone molded and etched to look like wicker. This must be the unnamed infant’s grave Madame Fabre mentioned. There’s only a year carved into the surface: 1883. Not even a month or a day.

Inside the stony cradle, my shirt covers the opening where a baby would be. The cloth puffs out, and red spots, resembling spatters of blood, tinge the white color. Ice-cold dread clenches my neck, makes my breath tight and whistling. After all the time I spent in Dad’s hospital room, observing him being poked and prodded with needles, watching his veins drained for test after test, blood is the one thing I’m squeamish about . . .

I shake my head, willing myself not to lose it. This is fake blood. At an academy like this, everyone has access to theatrical makeup. Gusts of wind tug at the shirt’s ruffles, creating the illusion of something moving underneath.