Where the Drowned Girls Go(Wayward Children #7)(31)

“I thought that might be why they let me outside, but I didn’t care if it meant I got to smell the green things, and I still don’t care,” said Regan. Her voice was worn out, resigned, like she had considered every way this conversation could play out, and decided none of them were worth fighting for. “I guess they know I’m not going to graduate, and they don’t want to send me home still broken. So they might as well dangle me for someone like you, to see whether you’ll take the bait.”

It took Cora a moment to understand what Regan was implying. She scowled, too offended to measure the expression against the sort of things that were considered appropriate and acceptable for a girl like the one she was pretending to be. “So they sent you out here, and you went anyway, even though you thought they were going to have someone come along to kill you?”

“You let your friend hit me the last time we talked.” There was a flicker of humor in Regan’s eyes. Under all the weariness, she wasn’t broken yet.

“Yes, yes, to cover for you so you didn’t get in trouble for talking to us,” said Cora. “I’m not that kind of killer.”

“Don’t you mean ‘I’m not a killer’?”

“I say what I mean, usually,” said Cora. “I’m a killer. I’d bet most of us are, here. Doesn’t matter whether you admit it or not. Once you’ve killed, you’re a killer. The difference between a person they write songs about and a person they tell their children to avoid is volume, and how many lungs you ripped out.” Cora visibly caught herself, wincing. “Sorry. That was a little … intense. I’m not going to hurt you. Actually, I’m glad you’re the honeytrap they set for me. I have a question for you.”

Regan looked dubious. “What question?”

“You can talk to horses, and to things that look like horses but can’t possibly be horses. Some of the things you mentioned have feathers. Horses don’t have feathers. So is it a shape thing, or a hooves thing, or what? Can you talk to cows? Can you talk to deer?”

“I don’t know what it is,” said Regan slowly. “I suppose it’s more shape than anything else. If something says ‘horse’ to the part of my brain that knows how to translate, I can do it. I understand what cows are saying, but I don’t know how to talk back to them, and I try not to listen too hard. Cows write really bad poetry about grass and clouds and the farmers they see by the fences, and it makes me sad.”

“Are you a vegetarian?”

“No, and that’s part of why it makes me sad.” Regan shrugged. “I like meat. I like sustainable farming practices and ethical slaughter and making the lives of domestic animals as pleasant and stress-free as possible, but I also like hamburgers, and steaks, and the sort of long-lasting energy I only get from protein. Honestly, I’m glad I’m not a vegetarian.”

“Why?”

“If I was, it would be because I know that cows write poetry. Which would make it part of what I’m supposed to be learning to forget, and means I would have been living entirely on bacon and bad dreams since I got here. They already restrict me to an all-meat diet.” Regan sighed. “Sometimes I dream about finding out which of the matrons sets the menu, and making her eat the slop they tell us is food.”

“Oh.” Cora frowned. “You didn’t answer the whole question. What about deer? Can you talk to deer?”

“They look enough like perytons that I can,” said Regan. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think any of us has ever met the headmaster,” said Cora. “We’ve met a man who says he’s Headmaster Whitethorn, and he does a pretty good job, but he’s not the headmaster, and I think we’re in an awful lot of danger here, if we stay.”

Regan stared at her. Cora beamed, looking relieved to no longer be carrying this terrible revelation entirely on her own.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go find the rest of my class. If we’re going to start planning a way to get out of here, I guess we’ll need to make sure they can accept you as one of their own. While we walk, you can tell me about lichen.”

“Why lichen?” asked Regan bluntly.

“Because I expect the matron to ask what I was looking at that took me so long, and lichen’s about the most boring thing I can think of that still might be believable, and you look like the kind of girl who might know stuff about lichen.” Cora started walking, slow and decorous, leaving Regan plenty of time to catch up.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Regan.

“You can talk to horses. You don’t get to question me.”

“I like lichen. There’s nothing wrong with liking lichen.”

“That was exactly my point,” said Cora, and laughed, bright as a summer morning, and led her new friend deeper into the woods, away from the looming shape of the school, toward the trembling and uncertain future.





PART IV


JAILBREAK





13?LICHEN AND LIES


CORA’S CLASS WAS CONSIDERABLY deeper into the woods, clustered on the path and studying a leopard-spotted slug with the sort of intensity that most of them normally reserved for more fascinating things. Sumi had found a twig somewhere, and was poking the poor thing in the side. The matron—Miss Lennox, a matron with a name, a matron who could be picked out of the herd with an identifying mark, something that branded her as an individual—was standing a short distance away, technically supervising them, but shifting from foot to foot like she no longer quite knew what to do with herself.