“You are so crazy!” Claire said. “You’re going to wind up in jail!”
“Dad didn’t know last time. He won’t know this time. Anyway, I think they went away for the weekend. You said you were late, so hop in. I’ll be your chauffeur.”
Elv was wearing sunglasses. In the spring sunlight, she looked like Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road. Their mother could watch that movie every night and never get tired of it. It was all about falling in and out of love with the same person.
“Ready, set, go,” Elv said brightly. She pushed her sunglasses up.
Claire grabbed Meg’s arm. “Let’s,” she said.
“You’ve got to help shift,” Elv told Claire, who’d already begun climbing into the passenger seat.
“You don’t know how to shift?” Meg was standing in a patch of bluebells.
“Two heads are better than one,” Elv reflected. “So two drivers are better than one. Come on. Squeeze in. I’m going to get a sports car when I move to Paris.”
“You’re moving to Paris?” Claire was surprised.
“Maybe. Lorry and I have plans.” Elv winked, which was exactly what Audrey Hepburn would have done.
“Come on,” Claire said to Meg. “Trust me, it’s fun.”
Meg got into the back, which was less of a seat than it was a shelf for sacks of groceries. She pulled her legs up under her. She had her book bag on one side and Claire’s gym bag on the other. It was only a five-minute ride to the stable. The sky was unbelievably blue.
Elv told Claire when to shift, and after an initial stall-out, they got going. The Miata revved like a racecar every time Claire shifted. They went past the woods, then along the harbor. It was a beautiful stretch of road. Sometimes you could see blue herons glide over the water. There was no traffic, so Elv kept her foot pressed down on the gas. The wind smelled fresh, and the sun was surprisingly strong. When Meg squinted, the light looked green. She could hear her sisters laughing, but she couldn’t hear much more. The motor was loud and the wind blew against her ears. She could see bits of the water in the bay and the tall bare trees that would soon be leafing.
They were only going fifty, but it seemed as though they were flying. When Elv lost control they didn’t even realize what was happening; they were just flying higher, blue sky, sweet air, the sound of the motor, and then they weren’t flying anymore. Elv screamed, but Claire couldn’t really hear her. She heard the wind, then a thud and a metal sound. Elv grabbed Claire and pulled her down hard, toward the floor. Claire covered her head with her arms, as she’d been taught to do should she ever fall from a horse. The impact was so hard she bit through her lip. They had leaped from the road into the woods. Everything was dark when they rolled over. It was quiet, but something echoed. Claire couldn’t tell if she was blind or if the whole world had turned black.
“Are you there?”
It was Elv’s voice. Shaky, unsure. Claire could see shadows: There was the car window, there was the earth covered with leaves and patches of snow, there was a stalk of swamp cabbage.
“Go out the window,” Elv told her.
Claire pulled herself through the shape that looked like a window. The car was upside down. There was still a blue sky. Elv was climbing out through the place where the windshield used to be. Broken glass was scattered in the leaves. There was a carpet of diamonds; diamonds were everywhere.
Meg was underneath a big tree. There were pine needles spread out, the color of hay. There was the sound of a siren very far away. It was like something in a dream, but it was coming closer. Elv went to stand beside Claire. Meg’s face was cut and she held one arm close to her body, clenched against her abdomen. She had hit the steering wheel hard. She was covered with glass. Blood was flecked over her skin. Elv stared down at the grass. “Tell her to get up,” she said, baffled by what she saw. “Tell her. She’ll listen to you.”
Claire turned to Elv, sobbing. “Don’t you see? Look at what we did to her!”
There were dog violets in the woods. They grew underneath the snow and now the snow was gone. Beneath the tree everything was quiet. The quiet spread out like water in a pond. Elv ran off, but Claire didn’t care. She didn’t hear the sirens when the police cars drew near. Everything had stopped, even the sky. No clouds moved. No birds perched in the trees. She went to lie down beside her sister. If she really tried, she might be able to imagine they were still safe in bed, hours before this, back when the day was just beginning, when the ice was still melting, when the violets in the woods hadn’t yet bloomed.
Part Two
Snow
Twelve girls were missing. One gone for each month of the year. People in town grew used to it. They wondered what beast had done this, and who the next victim would be.
I found a handful of teeth on the ground. My mother said they belonged to a dragon. My father said they had lined the mouth of a wolf. But the teeth were small and white, perfect as pearls. There were twelve all together. I strung them on a chain and wore them around my throat.
That was when people began talking.
There was a town meeting to decide what to do. Everyone said the teeth must be disposed of. They’d bring a curse to me and to my village. But I heard someone whisper “No” in what sounded like my voice.
I ran away. The town council came to my house. They questioned my father and my mother. They searched for me, but it was too late. I was on the hillside, planting the teeth in the ground. When it rained, twelve girls would grow. They would point to their murderer before they turned into flowers, each one as white as snow.