"Flowers?" I asked, laughing at the ridiculousness of the notion. I’d only just seen her twirling in the fields surrounded by narcissus and never harming a single flower.
"Colors," she whispered as she reached the back door, taking the handle in her grip. She turned back to me, her eyes silently pleading to keep her secret. Whatever she saw on my face must have reassured her, because she nodded once and pursed her lips thoughtfully.
Looking far too old for her body and for her age, she turned the handle and swept into the house. She was gone by the time I followed, disappearing like a ghost in the wind.
Like she'd never been meant to exist at all.
2
Thalia
Ten months later.
The knuckles of my left hand ached as I washed the blood away. My split skin moved as I flexed my fingers, watching the dark stained water swirl down the drain. My mother hovered in the doorway, her face pinched as she watched me. "You must remember to use your right hand, Thalia."
"I know, Mommy," I said, turning to stare up at her face. It had been almost a year since I'd made the silly mistake of telling the boy I didn't know my secret.
I hadn't made that mistake twice. Even though he hadn't told on me, nobody else made me want to trust them as much as the boy who'd sat with me in the grass and didn't look at me like I was a broken doll.
Mommy's light hair gleamed in the overhead light as she stepped in to help me clean the sink basin. It was far easier for her to spot the red stains than it was for me to tell them apart from the dark spots of the marble.
Daddy hated when I used my left hand, because “proper girls” were right-handed. Proper girls didn't stop to think about which hand they should grab their fork with at the dinner table. Even a moment of hesitation meant Daddy reached across and struck my left hand that he sat next to at the table for dinner every night.
"These will scar," Mommy said, grasping my hand in her grip and studying the wounds that never healed. Every strike, every lesson, reopened the injury until my left hand always hurt.
I thought that was the point. In his words, Daddy would beat me into being right-handed if he had to.
"Miss Thalia, Calix Regas is asking after you," one of the housekeepers said as she poked her head into the open bathroom door. Her eyes narrowed in on the injury I tucked behind my back in shame, a scowl pinching her lips together. The shadows under her eyes grew worse by the day, as if she couldn't stomach working for our family.
I knew it would only be a short while before she too left.
They always did.
"Who?" I asked, turning my eyes to my mother who set to straightening my dress. To studying the fabric and checking for bloodstains. It wouldn't be the first time that I'd wiped my injury onto my dress, but I did my best not to.
Daddy didn’t like it.
"He's the heir to one of the six families," my mother answered, fluffing up my wavy hair. She took my right hand in her grip, tugging me out of the bathroom and pasting that fast, easy smile that came so naturally to her on her face. I envied her ability to smile even when she wasn’t happy. She said I'd learn in time.
We stepped out into the dining room where my father stood beside the already cleared table, his eyes angry when he turned his attention to us. I swallowed back my nerves, letting my mother lead me to the boy standing beside him.
The same boy who'd sat in the field with me and kept my secret. The same one who I knew I shouldn't trust, but something in his eyes made me wish I could.
"Calix," my mother said as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. He was just a boy, years older than me for sure, but he couldn't have been old enough to be as tall as he already was.
"Mrs. Karras," he said politely. He nodded to my father, who bit his cheek in displeasure but stepped over to my mother and took her hand. He guided her out of the room, leaving me alone with the boy when I knew it couldn't be what my father wanted.
I wasn't supposed to be alone with boys.
"I brought you something," he said, squatting down so that he was my height. He held out a single light rose, and I took the stem in hand, noting that he'd trimmed the thorns off. I drew it to my nose, inhaling the uniquely sweet smell as I bit my lip.
"Why are you here?" I asked, wincing as I thought of how my father would scold me for being so rude. It wasn't normal for a teenage boy to want to spend time with a child.
"A little birdy told me that tomorrow is your birthday," he said, standing and reaching into his back pocket. The box was small enough that he had tucked it away, but curiosity got the best of me as I reached out to take it from him.
"What is it?" I asked as I pulled the lid off. Inside the heart-shaped box were six little plastic pockets, each with a rounded ball nestled inside.
His, Calix's, eyes narrowed as he watched me lift one into my hand. "It's chocolate, Little One," he said, grinning at the flush that warmed my cheeks. Nobody ever called me anything aside from my name.
Not even my mother.
"Have you never had chocolate?" he asked, taking the one from my hand and holding it out for me to take a bite out of. I hesitated, staring at him for a moment before I leaned forward and bit into the soft chocolate. My eyes widened as the sweetness of it exploded over my tongue, forcing myself to chew politely even though I wanted to snatch the other half out of his hand.
"No," I said softly before I leaned in to eat the other half. He chuckled as he drew his hand away and wiped the excess chocolate from his skin onto a napkin from the table. "It's yummy."
"I'll bring you more the next time I come to see you. Would you like that?" he asked. I tilted my head to the side, still wondering what could possess him to want to spend time with me and why my father would allow it.
Even the girls at school didn't want to be around me.
"Okay," I said warily as I put the lid on the chocolates and placed them on the table delicately. Without knowing how long it would be before his next visit, I felt the need to make them last.
To save them for the bad days.
I drew the rose to my nose once more, inhaling to fill the quiet that claimed the room after my admission. He didn't seem to know what to say, which I guessed was normal considering our age difference. He pushed to his feet, towering over me once more as he glanced to the door. "Do you like it?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders as if he couldn't decide why he cared.
"It's pretty, and it smells nice. Thank you," I said.
"It's pink," he answered, as if that meant anything to me. I'd never seen the color pink. There was nothing to connect to that word. "I thought it would be nice to have something different than all the narcissus flowers in the yard."
"I like the narcissus," I said defensively. "They're mostly white. I don't—" I paused, sinking my teeth into the corner of my mouth on the inside.
"You don't what?" he asked, leaning forward to tuck my hair behind my ear. His fingers hovered at the odd point at the tip, but where others made fun of me and called me names, he gave a slight smile.
As if maybe they were cute and not freakish.