Roses and Rot

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FOR MY SISTER

Unlike Imogen and Marin, I have a family who loves me and supports my work. Thank you, so much, to my parents, my sister, and my brothers. I could not have done this without you. I love you guys.

When I think of what it means to have a good mentor, I think of my grad school adviser, Rebecca Krug. She has supported my writing since the day I told her that I was going to take two months off from writing my dissertation to go to San Diego and learn to write fantasy and science fiction, and has encouraged me in every leap since.

I cannot say thank you enough to Maria Dahvana Headley and Megan Kurashige, who read a draft of this book when it was the hottest of hot messes, and helped me find the story I was trying to tell. Their encouragement at that point kept me going. Thank you also to Megan, who gave me great insight into the life and career of a professional dancer. Marin’s gift is due to her. All remaining errors and dramatic license are mine only.

Thank you also to Neil Gaiman, who read a somewhat less-messy draft and told me I needed to write the hard parts. And that I really needed a new title. I did.

Thank you to my glorious agent, Brianne Johnson, who read so many versions of this book and pushed me to make it better, who has been an unwavering support and advocate of me and my writing, and who I am so, so lucky to have in my corner. And thank you, thank you to Sarah McCarry for being there in a period of professional crisis, and introducing us.

Thank you to my excellent editor, Joe Monti, who helped me make this the best book I could, and to all the excellent people at Saga Press who have made it shiny and gorgeous. I couldn’t have asked for a better home for my story.

Thank you to all of the women who made art, and inspired me to make my own.

More strange than true. I never may believe

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
,

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Marin sat on my bed, next to my half-packed suitcase. “I wish you weren’t leaving, Imogen.”

I couldn’t say the same, not and answer honestly. “I’d be leaving for college in two years anyway.”

“Yes, but that’s two years from now.” She picked through my T-shirts, separated one with a rose embroidered in tattered ribbon on its front from the pile. “This is mine, by the way.”

“Sorry, forgot,” I said. I took her hand, rubbed my thumb over her fading scars. Mine hadn’t healed as well, which had been the point. “You know I can’t stay here, Marin.”

“I know,” she said, looking down at our joined hands. “I can’t believe she’s letting you go.”

“Blackstone’s fancy. It gives her bragging rights.” I had planned my escape carefully. I knew I had to feed my mother’s ego enough to outweigh the pleasure that thwarting me would give her. It had been an agonizing two weeks after I’d been accepted, before she decided to let me enroll. She didn’t say yes until she’d found a press release about some ambassador’s son attending attached to an invitation to a parents’ social.

I had made sure she found it.

“True. And she can delicately cry about how much she misses you, but she doesn’t want to get in the way of your dreams, mothers sacrifice so much for their children.” Marin gave a sniff, and pretended to wipe tears from her eyes.

“That was almost scary, how much you just sounded like her.”

“Thank you.” She bowed. “I’ve been working on character interpretation. It helps my dance.” She paused. “You’ll come home for Christmas?”

I squeezed her hand, let it go. It was the previous Christmas when we’d gotten our sets of scars. It wasn’t exactly my favorite holiday.

“For you? Of course. And there is email there. Cell phones, even. I’m going to boarding school, not Mars.” Christmas break would only be a couple of weeks. For Marin, I could endure it.

“Marin, if you’re not down here in three minutes, you’re walking to class.” Our mother, her voice creeping up from downstairs.

Marin rolled her eyes and picked up the bag full of pointe shoes and tights and all the other assorted dance paraphernalia she had dropped inside my door. “She’d make me, too. Driving along behind me all the way.”

“Marin, now. If you don’t take your training seriously, you’ll never be the best. There are hundreds of girls out there, thousands, with talent. I’m trying to give you an advantage, but you need to take it seriously.” Our mother, again, more impatient this time.

“Is this the week you start the new classes?” I asked.

“Extra training for an extra advantage.” That same sarcastic mocking of our mother’s voice.

“You’re already better than anyone at your studio.”

“I’m good for here.” She shrugged. “I need to be better if I want to dance for real. Extra classes will help.”

She stopped in the doorway, looked back. “I just don’t understand why I can’t come, too. To Blackstone. If you had told me about it, I could have applied. Didn’t you want me to be there with you?”

“I’ve been saving money to pay tuition for the last year and half,
Marin. And I still couldn’t have gone until next year if I hadn’t gotten a scholarship. There was no way I could afford to pay for both of us.” I’d hidden the account from our mother, then paid all the tuition up front so I wouldn’t have to worry about it accidentally disappearing.

She shrugged her bag onto her shoulder. “Fine. Whatever. See you at Christmas.”

When I unpacked my suitcase in my new dorm room, Marin’s rose T-shirt was inside. I traced my hand over the ribbon, telling myself that she would be fine, that I had done what I’d had to do.

I didn’t go home for Christmas, or any other holiday. I didn’t even speak to my sister again for four years. We didn’t live under the same roof for almost seven years after that.

A decade after I’d stopped living with my sister, I was packing to do so again. This time, I wasn’t just packing a suitcase, but my entire apartment, and Marin wasn’t sitting on my bed, she was on speakerphone.

“I get in four hours after you do,” she said. “So I’ll just meet you at the house at Melete. Unless you want to wait?”

“At the airport? For four hours?” I asked, taping shut the box of dishes. Most of my things were going into storage. I wouldn’t need them at Melete. All incidentals—including dishes, sheets, towels, and the like—were provided as part of our residence at the artists’ colony.

“You’re right. That would be silly. I’ll meet you there.”

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You sound nervous.”

“It’s not nerves. It’s the echoes from your speakerphone. Love you!”

“Love you!”

Marin did sound weird, though, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t from being on speakerphone in my almost-empty apartment. It was a weirdness I thought I understood—I was nervous too, about living in the same house, and the memories that might bring back. I loved my sister, and I missed her, but it was hard to put the past behind you when the past was living down the hall.

I taped up the last box, smoothed my hands over it to check the seal. Living together would be fine. We would both be fine.

The shuttle I had gotten into at the tiny Manchester airport sped down the pock-marked highway. We crossed a river, gleaming like silver ribbon wound through the green of the hills. I felt like I was being driven through a Robert Frost poem, and I shook my head as we passed the freeway sign marking the exit for his house. Because of course the Frost house would be Melete’s neighbor. One more perfect thing about it.