Where the Drowned Girls Go(Wayward Children #7)(16)

“But you went to Virtue, not Wickedness,” said Cora.

Sumi waved a hand, whisking her objections away. “I told them I went to Prism, and Kade’s told me enough about that shitbox of a bad cocktail party that I was able to make my case. I’m a Wicked girl now, my admission papers say so.”

“Wait, you know each other?” asked Emily. “How do you know each other?”

“We went to school together until the mermaid got scared and ran away from the whispers in the dark,” said Sumi, sympathy in her tone.

The nameless girl stepped forward, expression suddenly furious. “You can’t be here and tell lies! Rules are for everyone!” She raised her hand like she was going to slap someone, and hesitated when she couldn’t decide quite who.

Sumi didn’t so much move as suddenly had moved, flowing seamlessly from her position near the door to one directly in front of the other girl, her fingers wrapped tight around her wrist. “Why do you get to decide that?” she asked, tone remarkably reasonable. “What’s your name?”

“I’m,” said the girl, and her mouth moved, and nothing came out, not a sound, not a whisper, not a hiss. Just a sudden, profound silence, like something had been sliced neatly from the world and tucked aside, where it wouldn’t bother anyone. She struggled against Sumi’s grip. “Let me go.”

“I don’t want to,” said Sumi. “None of this matters. You know that, right? I fought a woman who wanted to have my bones hollowed out so she could store spices inside them, who wanted to make a whole world over in her image, and that mattered more than this, because things made the right kind of nonsense there. I buried my past under a tree with cookies for leaves, and my friends buried me in a garden of bones, and both times I got back up and kept on going, but it wasn’t as hard as it is here. I only just got here, but I can already tell this place is … it’s small. It’s hard and it’s small and it’s mean. It knows what’s true for you isn’t always true for me, and it doesn’t care, because it wants to make us all have the same kind of truth and believe in it the same kind of way. It’s a bad place. It thinks it’s helping and it isn’t. So I guess what I wonder is why you’re trying to make it even smaller than it already is. They don’t like you either. You’re not standing outside the cage looking in; you’re right in here with us. Why are you like this?”

“Because I’m not like you,” snarled the dainty girl, twisting free of Sumi’s grasp. “Let me guess. You went to a magical world of rainbows and pixies and talking horses, and you had adventures and you saved a kingdom, or maybe a whole bunch of kingdoms, and everybody loved you, because you were a hero. You were made to be loved. You were perfect. And then you fell through another door and wound up back with your family, the people who actually cared about you, who didn’t just think of you as a magical arm to swing a prophesized sword around, and you didn’t know how to love them anymore. You didn’t know how to be a person anymore. That’s why they sent you here. So you could remember how to be a person.”

“Is that why your family sent you here?” asked Sumi.

“Sent me?” asked the dainty girl, disbelievingly. “No one sent me. This old lady dressed like a circus clown tried to talk me into going to her school, and I would have had to be stupid not to realize she was talking about a place where everyone was going to wallow, forever, in how sad it was that their doors went and closed, even though that was the best thing that could have happened to them. I told her no, and Headmaster Whitethorn showed up the next day. He said I could come here and forget. He said I could be free. So yeah, this place is mean, but it’s mean because it has to be. If someone doesn’t want to wake up, you have to shake them.”

She stuck her nose in the air, like she thought it would somehow make her taller, and stalked out of the room. After a moment’s apologetic pause, Rowena followed her. The sound of the door closing behind them was very loud.

Sumi shook her head, looking after them. “That’s a girl with a whole lot of angry where her heart’s supposed to be.” Then she turned back to Cora. “I’m very mad at you, you know. But you need hugs more than you need yelling at, so: hugs?”

Arguing with Sumi was like trying to fight the wind: frustrating, endless, and ultimately pointless. Cora wrapped the smaller girl into a hug, and asked, “Are you the only one here?”

“Of course, silly,” said Sumi. “Confection wants me to come home, so this is almost safe for me, or safe as anything gets. Everyone else is back at school, waiting for me to bring you safely back.”

“I’m not coming back,” said Cora.

Sumi pulled back and stepped away, looking at her with wounded confusion. “But we miss you! You have to come back.”

“The Drowned Gods still whisper to me in the night,” said Cora. “I have to stay here if I want to be free of them. I can’t come back to school.”

There was a small cough from the side. Sumi and Cora both turned. Emily was standing there, a faint, almost hopeful smile on her still only half-familiar face, like she thought she might see someone she recognized, like she wasn’t entirely sure.

“Do you really think your door’s still there?” she asked.

“I know it is,” said Sumi. “I’ve met my daughter, and she hasn’t been born yet, and that means Nonsense is going to take me home when it’s ready for me.”