Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [63]
Sleep pulled her back immediately, wrapping her in the sort of haze that presses down on you and you’re not sure it will ever let you go but you’re not sure that you ever want to leave. It was so peaceful there in the fog. She wanted for nothing.
And then the flowers began to whisper to her. The noise did not belong. It pulled at her brain like longing, and Hazel wanted it to go away.
They did not stop whispering. The flowers had secrets. They had names, too, though the couple in the cottage called them Daisy, Lily, Hyacinth, Violet, Dahlia, Jasmine, Poppy, and they did not remember the ones they had before. They told Hazel that she must listen.
Daisy grew up in a house with a stream in back, and behind it were some woods. She and her friends Isabelle and Amelia played in them all the time when they were little kids, even though they weren’t supposed to. Daisy’s mother liked to keep her eye on them, and the trees blocked her view. And then Daisy got sick and could not play anymore. Her friends stood by her bed telling her of the things they did, but after a while they stopped coming. Daisy snuck out of the house one morning, dragging her muscles and bones with her, and crept into the woods. She came upon a wizard who lured her in with healing whispers but did not mean her well. She ran, and a kindly couple took her in.
She was a flower now. She missed her friends and the games they’d play in the woods. They were princesses once, charged with saving the kingdom from a dragon, and whoever could defeat it would be queen. Daisy used strength, Amelia wits, and Isabelle fell in love with the dragon, because that’s the sort of girl she was. She rid the kingdom of the dragon, and then made it its king.
Violet had a brother who was eight years older, and he always treated her like a doll. One day, one of the neighbor boys put a snake in her shoe and taunted her for crying. The next day her brother paid him a visit and he never bothered her again. There was a war, and her brother decided to go. He was gone two years, and when he came back he was a shell.
In the woods she fell in love with a shadow who tricked her into believing he was a man. A kindly couple took her in. They’d had a girl once, but lost her.
She was a flower now. Her brother used to pretend to be a general. He gave her stuffed animal ranks and put them through basic training. He demoted the penguin for insubordination.
Lily was in love with a boy who promised her things. He did not keep his promises, and the heartbreak sent her into tar-thick blackness. She started taking long walks and wondered what would happen if she just kept walking. She went into the woods one day, and there the blackness was real. The cold began to tug at her, it whispered promises in her ear. A kindly couple took her in. They’d had a girl once, but lost her. She meant to leave, every day she meant to leave, but they were like the parents you think you should have, and everything tasted like honey.
She was a flower now. She could think of the boy without bringing the blackness on. In the summer they would sneak out at night and meet in the park, and now the smell of the evening air always reminded her of him. He’d push her on the swing just to make her fly. The mosquitoes ate her arms and the grass tickled her legs. When he laughed, his ears turned bright red.
Poppy had lived here ever since she could remember. She was on her own, but she got by. There were wolves in the woods, and sometimes they watched her cabin. She huddled in it until they left. There was a woodsman who came by sometimes, he had kindly eyes and an ax, and that kept the wolves away.
One day she found something near her little hut. Someone had left red ballet slippers. She could not resist them; she had never had anything like them. She danced, and she remembered the mother and the father she had had, and it was like they were there, applauding her.
But she could not stop dancing. The shoes