Chapter Thirty-Six

The Crow Girl, Take Two

It was Amma who first stepped forward and hugged Iris and Lark, and then Gabrielle who joined in, and then Hannah, and then Morgan, and then one by one all the girls joined in, and slowly they all put the pieces of themselves together, and slowly they put Iris back together again, as much as they could.

Eventually Lark swept up Duchess in her arms and together they all headed back to the library, where they would try to pretend they were the same people they’d been two hours before.

As for me, I watched them as they moved out of the store and across the street, and they reminded me of a flock in the way they moved together—there was some consciousness in not just the individuals, but also the group, creating something startling and beautiful.

There’d been a moment, as they fought together in the shop, that it happened, that nine girls suddenly became a flock. I saw it. And I saw George fall down the shaft, arms flailing, and I saw the magic swallow him whole.

It was a poetic death.

When it was over, I flew back to my sign. I like my sign.

Alice, where are you?

I am in no danger anymore, and so I can say this:

Brother, I am here. And I can see everything. I am flying above you; I am perched on your sign; I am looking into your mind, into your history, into your twisted heart. I am swarming with the other crows; I am a piece of the murder; I am leaving shiny trinkets for the girls who will destroy you.

And now I am telling their story.

Brother, if you can hear me, I tell you this: The girls have destroyed everything you built, including the story you fancied yourself starring in. They have rewritten it, and turned you into the pathetic villain that they triumph over. That is how you will be remembered.

Iris was right—I did run from you. You locked me in a room, you said it was for my own good, and I pulled all the magic I could from the room and turned myself into a crow. I made a tool to open the latch and flew out the window. Crows are very good with tools.

Magic has a cost. You gave your humanity willingly to it.

I gave mine, too, but in a different way. I like my way better.

It helps to be able to think creatively.

I like being a crow. I collect shiny things. I soar in the air. I move in a flock with my fellows and create something greater than myself. I pronounce my displeasure to passersby, and there’s nothing they can do to stop me.

Still, I miss being a girl. He took that from me.

But he won’t ever take that from anyone again.

I wish I had been the one to defeat him; I wish I had understood that that, too, was possible. Perhaps I would have done more if I had had a sister, if I had had friends—a camp, a pod. Perhaps I could have understood that you can remake a story and change the world.

I did not know what would happen when I first saw Iris and Lark, but maybe I sensed it. Maybe I saw, in the magic between them, their ability to rewrite the story. Maybe I saw my brother’s end.

And yes, they do have magic, of a kind. Not a kind my brother would ever see or understand. Iris thought that magic was something that had to be protected. And that had a cost.

Now she understands that it can be made, shared, grown.

And there is no cost to that.

I understand, too, that I must give them their precious things. The bracelet. The ogre. The house key. The pen. The baby. Esmeralda. I should not have taken them, but I wanted to keep some of the girls’ story with me, lay the pieces out and tell it and retell it. I wanted to share in their magic. I could not help myself. I am a crow, after all. But that was the wrong way.

I know now that I can do that without their things.

(I did not take their mother’s electric bill, however. It was not interesting to me.)

I have their story, and I will tell it again and again to all the birds who will listen. But I am just the teller. Or at least I began that way. Once, I thought the best any story could hold for a girl was escape. But you learn things, watching sisters. You learn that you have the power to warn a girl in danger, to steal a key, to gather your flock.

You learn you, too, can rewrite the story and save the girls.

Or help, anyway.

But this story does not belong to me.

This story belongs to the girls who had the courage to do what I did not.

Now they are back in their library community room, surrounded by posters of superheroes, weaving lies to tell their unsuspecting parents—playground injuries, an accident in gym, a fall down the stairs when trying to walk on quickly growing legs, the sort of thing that happens to kids. No big deal. Don’t worry.

Iris and Lark’s mom picks them up at the appointed time, and the girls are so glad, because Iris could not bike home today, or perhaps ever again. Besides, Lark has the cat, and while Duchess is an extraordinary cat, she would not take to biking.

The cat requires some explanation, and Lark spins a tragic story, and while the facts of the story are lies, the truth is the same. This cat was in a bad situation and needs a home and we’re going to give her that home. And, she adds, just holding the cat makes her feel better about going back to school. Better about everything, really.

In the car, Lark holds Duchess and chats away to cover for Iris, who can’t talk, who is still full of cracks.

Iris stares out of the window, still feeling those terrible arms squeezing her, still feeling the terror of watching Lark head toward the magic well, of watching Mr. Green kick her, of the hand against her own mouth, of being locked in that room, of staring at the doll parts and imagining becoming them. Still feeling the specter of the loss of Lark, of her life, of Lark’s life, of all her friends’ lives, all because one creepy man thought they were something to be collected.

Eventually their mom notices how quiet Iris is, and Iris says she is tired. Lark glances at her and offers her Duchess, and Iris takes the cat and holds her tight. Duchess dutifully purrs, because she has been planning George’s murder for years, because now that it is done, she has a good home.

Iris can never tell her mom what happened, can never tell her the truth of the world. Her parents love her so so much and they do not want to know about the monsters in the closet and under the bed. Adults hold on to facts, desperately, as if they were truth. They tell you that stomping around is enough.

Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the monsters come harder when you dare stomp. Sometimes you need to bring the whole house down.

That is true.

Also true is that sometimes when you think you are most alone, a group of girls risk their lives to rescue you.

This truth is the hardest for Iris to hold: the Awesome girls all wanted to save her.

She does not quite know how to hold it yet, so she simply stares at it, trying to figure out what to do with it. Eventually, though, she will learn to hold it and she will grab on to it fiercely.

It is something, to have a flock.

Their mother is talking now, telling them the good news that their dad will be home two months early, that he will be very surprised about the cat but he will learn to love it, that she is looking forward to having the whole family back. And she takes a deep breath and says:

“Your father and I have been talking, and we owe you an apology. We were not forthright with you girls. We kept putting off telling you we were splitting you up and then suddenly the letters were there and in the moment I just—I don’t know. But it was wrong, and I am sorry.”

Lark still does not know what her mother is talking about; Iris never told her. Iris never told her a lot of things, but she will tell her everything now, because she understands that they are a team. But Iris can barely talk right now and Lark just nods at her mother like she accepts her apology, because it seems like the thing to do.

And her mother tells Lark that they’re having a meeting at school on Monday and they will find a way to keep school safe for her.

“Mom, I want to go,” Lark says. “To the meeting.”

Her mother blinks, like something has changed. “Oh. Well, yes. You should. Mr. Hunt will be there. Is that okay? I know you’re frightened of him.”

Both Iris and Lark make the same noise at that, something between a laugh and the sound you make when you’ve been punched in the stomach.

“What’s so funny?” their mom says.

“It’s just—I’m not scared of Mr. Hunt anymore.”

No. He is not an ogre. The real monsters don’t try to help you when you’re scared and sad—the real monsters take that fear and sorrow and use it to try to tear you apart, to take your heart.

What will happen now? Iris doesn’t know; she can’t know.

The only thing she knows is she loves her sister, and she loves their new friends, and she will stay with them and not ever let anyone separate them. They all have better outcomes when they are together.

THE END