Among the Beasts & Briars

I always thought that gardeners’ daughters couldn’t thrive where our roots didn’t grow. But maybe we were like dandelion tufts.

Maybe we were built to catch a warm spring wind and grow somewhere new.

Everything that I grew up believing was a lie. The stories, the history, the magic. Aloriya was far from perfect. It held poison in its roots like an elderberry tree, where you thought all it offered was wine. And this house that stood in the overgrown ruins of the garden reminded me of the girl who used to drink the wine without questioning how it came to be.

I was walking a dangerous tightrope where I knew no one would catch me when I fell.

“There are lights down in the city. It looks like a market. I’d say we should start by going and finding some actual food.”

“What, you didn’t have your fill of the vegetable surprise?”

“Daisy, it tastes like old shoes.”

“I’ve seen you chew on an old shoe, so I believe you.”

...it felt like, for the first time, I’d been found in my safe little garden, and asked to come outside.

“Daisy, I love food—there’s hardly a thing I love more. If I could marry a meat pie, I would—why are you laughing?”

“I’m just trying to picture the sort of meat pie who would marry someone like you.”

Her eyes were the color of butterscotch. They should have been warm, but they reminded me of gems instead—cold and old and rare.

I dreamed of blood. The city colored in it.

I’d be a fool if I turned around, I thought.

But at least I’d be a loyal fool.