The sound of the sisters’ habits swishing against cold stones filled the pathways along the edges of the courtyard. It was a calming sound, gentle and swift. Marigold lingered in the back of the cluster. She was tired. Her sleep had been replaced by vivid and fantastic and terrifying visions.
The visions came to her as the other sisters said they might. She was alone, scrubbing the chapel floors. There was bright light, blurriness, a shift into a waking dream. Everything became outlined by a bright and colorful brushstroke filled with white. When she blinked, it was like closing and opening the shutters in her room. The visions had continued every day for weeks now.
In all her time at the Abbey of Fading Flowers, Marigold had prayed for a vision. She’d heard it was exhilarating, terrifying yet full of love all at once. But her visions made her feel nothing, only a numbness, a numbness and a lack of life. Was this how it was supposed to feel?
On this morning, as the shifting of habits filled her ears, her steps toward vespers were heavy. When the group finally reached the chapel, Marigold hesitated by the large wooden doors. The carvings surrounding the Abbey’s insignia seemed ancient, and maybe they were. The pictures told the story of the founding of the Abbey of the Fading Flowers, of the sisters who came together to help young girls in need. Though those with her affliction used to be regarded as healers, it became dangerous for them when accusations of witchcraft grew from whispers to shouts. The door’s panels showed the first women of the Abbey rescuing groups of girls from The Burning Times and nurturing them here. It was a noble history. But the visions had started telling her a different story, one that exposed the supposed nobility for a river of falsehoods.
“Marigold,” said Mother Lily sternly, “don’t fall behind your sisters. It’s time for prayer. Find your seat in the chapel.”
“Yes, Mother,” Marigold replied with a curtsy.
These prayers would be special. One of the other sisters had received her first visions. This meant that soon she would graduate to the Abbey of Eternal Flora. When the visions came, it was only a matter of time before sisters left for their new home. Marigold didn’t know where this other abbey was and she had never heard anything about their Mother Superior, not even a name. Yet like the other girls, Marigold had longed to gain her visions and graduate to what awaited her. The Abbey of Eternal Flora…
Perhaps it was some sort of induction to womanhood that only sisters had. A glorious ceremony was held whenever a sister graduated, and Marigold couldn’t help but grow jealous; sisters younger than her had been leaving one by one with wide smiles and happy tears. They left the cloister’s stage shaking with excitement about their newfound power and place in the world. Pure priests, the unafflicted men who managed the Abbeys, guided them through the locked front doors that only opened when they whispered. No one at the Abbey of Fading Flowers saw them again.
Despite her jealousy, Marigold liked to imagine that the other abbey was a place of freedom. No uniforms, no schedules. No cutting flowers from their fingertips, from the ends of their hair, or from wherever they grew. No giving the cuttings to the Mother Superior. Marigold imagined a group of girls turned women playing in a shallow stream, covered in their flowers and shining under the sun.
Years ago, aged thirteen or so, Marigold had asked Mother
Lily about the Abbey of Eternal Flora. Where is it? Where do the sisters go? Do they like it there? She spouted so many questions so quickly, as if she’d torn the seal off herself, that she was nearly out of breath.
The Mother Superior chuckled quietly. The deep lines around her mouth grew deeper as they lifted her doughy cheeks into a soft smile. Her eyes gazed down, yet far away, without focus. Unlike the other women at the Abbey, she didn’t have the affliction. Instead, she had joined The Abbey with her sister—her real sister, who was the afflicted of the two—with the understanding that she would one day run the place. There was always one pure woman to watch over the rest. The pure Mother kept her name, while the girls were renamed after their flowers. Mother Lily’s name was, she told them, just a funny coincidence.
“You’ll see soon enough, my dear,” she said without raising her eyes. “Have you been praying for your visions?”
“Of course, every night. And every morning. And every afternoon.” Mother Lily chuckled again. “Then you shall see. Soon, very soon.”
Marigold still felt that her visions weren’t yet meant to be shared. At first, she thought she would only keep her visions to herself for a few days. Then the days turned into weeks, and the weeks became two months. It was nearly winter now. Her daily courtyard walks with Daisy—her best friend and fellow sister—grew chillier. They suffered the cold together, piling on scarves and shawls, bound by restlessness, having outgrown so many of their counterparts.
Her first visions had been bright and full of a clean whiteness. It felt similar to cutting her flowers, as every girl had to do when one grew by accident. But as time passed, the visions grew darker and darker, both in color and in mood. An arresting shadow now claimed her, altering her view of the Abbey at least once every day and in all her dreams at night. Where she had once seen lovely outlines, she now saw through her sisters in shades of gray and black, watching as they walked on neon skeletons haunted with the ghosts of flower vines slithering between their joints. It was almost beautiful. But every new vision came with a renewed sense of dread. She was regretting her decision not to tell anyone of her visions. Cutting her flowers before evening prayers became a respite, a white light in the midst of her mind’s darkness. One night, when she cut the thin marigold stem from her finger into the pot Mother Lily held, she let out a louder-than-acceptable sigh of relief. Her marigold mixed with the several types of flowers the other girls made. A soft rustling came from the pot as Mother Lilly shifted it to rest against her hip.
“Are you alright, dear?” she said, a slyness in her raised brows. Marigold knew she suspected a change, maybe even knew the visions were already coming to her. She swallowed tightly. “Fine, yes,” Marigold said. “Only sleepy.” A silence passed between them. Their eye contact did not break. “And to the Flora Mother, we give our stems; from the Flora Mother, the world will be healed,” Marigold added flatly, reciting the daily prayer that came with the shedding of any flowers that had grown during the day.
Marigold was aching for some sort of guidance. Why were the visions darkening? Was this normal? Had the other graduates experienced this before their ceremonies? And then the voices began. The first one sounded like Jasmine.
“Marigold,” she said. “Marigold, can you hear me?”
Marigold was in bed at the time, almost asleep. Her eyes popped open. There was no one else in her room.
“Jasmine?” she ventured to ask the silence. “Is that you? I thought you graduated. You went to the Abbey of Eternal Flora.”
“I did,” the voice said, whispery and sweet like the scent of jasmine flowers themselves. “The Abbey is right outside,” it said, “come see.”
Marigold hesitated. The Abbey of Eternal Flora wasn’t right outside. She knew that. She started to rise and quietly put on her shoes.
“You can visit me now,” Jasmine’s disembodied voice said. “I’m right outside.” Marigold thought of the gothic archway in the hall near her room, covered in vines of jasmine, and her throat grew tense and cold. She opened her door carefully, avoiding the spot where she knew it would creak. “Over here,” the voice said, coming from the jasmine vines, just as Marigold had predicted. She tiptoed over to the archway.
A vision began as soon as she was underneath the vines. She shook her head as her eyes adjusted. Looking down at her hands, she saw the neon lines of her bones underneath and watched as marigolds flowed around them. Slowly, she tilted her chin up toward the archway to face the dangling, powder-white jasmine flowers. Hidden among the vines, high up on the arch, was a skeleton just like her own.
Marigold reached up toward the vines. One of the skeletal hands—Jasmine’s tiny hands—was outstretched toward her, as if trying to tap her on the shoulder. When their pointer fingers met, Marigold was shocked out of her vision. She was looking only at vines. She let out a sigh of relief. It was another dream, that was all.
A small click. Something fell on the stones by her feet.
She bent down to pick it up, then stood and held the thing up to the moonlight. It was small, thin, and white as the flowers. It was a finger bone. Jasmine’s finger bone.
The only way Marigold could keep from screaming was to run. She ran toward the courtyard, her closing throat begging for air. In the middle of the courtyard, by the well, she paused to suck in deep, wavering breaths. As she looked around, her legs turned soft and she leaned on the well for support. All of these flower beds—the ones that matched the names of sisters long gone—were they…?
More voices started talking to her from all around the courtyard. Some were familiar, others were the faint voices of girls she’d never met, and others sounded like ancient hums from the earth. She prayed another vision wouldn’t come. She couldn’t stand to see more bones—their bones—wrapped up in the dirt around her. Jasmine’s voice was right. The Abbey of Eternal Flora was here. Marigold gripped Jasmine’s finger so tightly that her nails made half-moon indents in her palm. She held in her screams as she stiffly stood, trying to ignore the other voices that were speaking to her. Back in her room, she whimpered into her pillow until she fell asleep.
There was no respite in sleep. A vision, or a dream (she could no longer tell the difference) grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook. Her memories of coming to the Abbey were practically nonexistent, like they’d been wiped. But in this moment, she found herself standing in a grassy valley near a village. It was sunny, and the breeze smelled like lilacs and rain.
A couple and a child walked on a small path by the burbling stream. Marigold could hear their laughs carried away by the breeze. Their joy was enticing. She stepped closer and looked at the child, a little girl.
The girl started wailing and shook her hand as if trying to swat away a stinging bee. Sun shone through her light hair, making it match the color of the flower’s petals. But soon her locks turned darker, damp with tears and sticking to her face, tangling in the snot dripping from her nose.
When the girl turned, Marigold was stunned by two things. One, a small flower was sprouting directly from the child’s fingertip, growing taller before her eyes. She recognized it as a sign of the affliction that her and her sisters all suffered from. And two, Marigold knew the girl’s face. It was hers.
“Shhh,” the father said, holding the girl close. “We know, we know.”
At prayer the next morning, Marigold moved her lips as if she were reciting the floral psalms. She was instead racking her brain for memories of the people she had seen last night. Mother Lily had told her and the rest of her sisters that they were all orphans. What else had she told them that wasn’t true?
She wanted to ask Daisy more than anyone. It was too frightening an idea to ask Mother Lily. And Daisy had started to notice a difference in her. Dark circles grew under her eyes as she slept less and cried more. Broken capillaries sprung up by her irises and nostrils. Smiles were forced. Yet Marigold still hid herself from her sister. At first, Daisy teased her about it; then the same changes started to show in her. Their walks grew quieter and quieter until they were barely speaking as they strolled around the cloister.
They knew. Both of them knew. The shadowy visions had come for them both. The flower beds all around the Abbey that had once given them peace now gave them pause. They held their breath when they got too close. Floral smells now seemed sour, bouquets left to rot.
It had been several weeks of silent walks and they were well into winter now. Marigold and Daisy walked the grounds arm in arm, silently assessing the Abbey with matching bloodshot eyes. Their backs constantly tingled as they walked around the Abbey, as if they were being watched, or silently touched by guiding hands.
She was there in the outlines of the dirt. Their rose garden sprang from her loose curls, and the pits of her eye sockets nestled cups of roots in soil. Thorns stuck out where her skin would be. Marigold felt tears sting her eyes, but tried to hold them back so they wouldn’t blur her vision. Her sister, her fellow woman of the flora, gone right in front of their faces. How many times had she reveled in the smell of roses fresh-picked from this very plot?
“Daisy,” she said shakily, “Daisy, did you know?”
“Know what?” Daisy replied, attempting to look reverently and ignorantly at all the flowers around them.
“Look,” Marigold demanded. She cupped the cheek of Rose’s soil-swallowed countenance in the raised flower bed. An obvious form calling out to her, a strange death, the body eaten alive by the flowers that once sprang lively from her fingertips.
“All I see is a lovely rose garden,” Daisy said. But she was sweating. Marigold could see her brow moisten and her feet shift slowly and uncomfortably. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right. She continued to shuffle and play with her fingers behind her back, her smile strained, threatening to crack.
“I see,” Marigold said, straightening up. “I see. Let’s get ready for dinner, shall we?”
“Yes!” Daisy said, letting out a breath. “Yes,” she said, more measured this time. “Let’s.”
They sat together in a corner of the refectory on benches away from the rest of the sisters. “Do you remember your name, Daisy?” asked Marigold.
“Of course,” she answered with a puzzled laugh. “It’s Daisy.”
“Not the name the Abbey gave you. Your real name.”
“Oh,” Daisy said, immediately sobered. “No. I don’t think so.”
“I have it, you know. I have your name and mine, hidden away,” Marigold said.
Daisy’s face froze. Her usually rosy color started to fade to an almost yellow hue. “What do you mean? How?” Her voice had reduced to a whisper, and she glanced around the hall at the other girls eating their dinners, hoping no one would overhear.
“I remember it now…a man first brought me here,” Marigold began slowly, “and he gave me a journal. On the last page, he had written my true name over and over, then glued it into the cover so the sisters wouldn’t see it when they did their search of my things. I saw it in a dream last night. A... vision.” Daisy seemed surprised that Marigold would dare say all of this aloud. Her lips tightened, pulled together inside her mouth. Marigold knew she wouldn’t tell.
“And they didn’t catch you?” Daisy asked after a moment of silence.
“No, they didn’t. The rest of the journal was blank. They leafed through it and then started to search the next thing.”
“But that’s your name,” Daisy said. “How do you have mine?”
“Do you remember the night we met? The night I moved in?”
“I…I think so. The same day I came. It was so long ago.”
“And we were in my room, crying together. I took out the journal and lifted up the corner of that glued page, and I had you write your name in big letters. So we would never forget. Then I folded it back and put it away.”
Daisy slouched on the bench. Her smile had long since faded, but now a frown blossomed in its place. She looked down at her plate as her brows knit together, forming two little lines Marigold had come to expect when asking difficult questions.
“You’re sure?” she finally asked, voice cracking a little. She couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Marigold said. “Come to my room tonight and I’ll show you.” Daisy swallowed thickly, saliva sticking in her throat. She nodded. They finished their meals in silence.
“And we were in my room, crying together. I took out the journal and lifted up the corner of that glued page, and I had you write your name in big letters. So we would never forget. Then I folded it back and put it away.”
Daisy slouched on the bench. Her smile had long since faded, but now a frown blossomed in its place. She looked down at her plate as her brows knit together, forming two little lines Marigold had come to expect when asking difficult questions.
“You’re sure?” she finally asked, voice cracking a little. She couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Marigold said. “Come to my room tonight and I’ll show you.” Daisy swallowed thickly, saliva sticking in her throat. She nodded. They finished their meals in silence.
At midnight, Marigold heard three soft knocks in quick succession—Daisy’s usual announcement that she had arrived for gossip or comfort or both. She opened the door and barely had time to whisper a welcome before Daisy barged in and shut it behind her.
“Shhhh, deep breaths,” Marigold said to a hyperventilating Daisy. She breathed deeply and clutched her friend’s forearms, modeling a steady pace that would hopefully calm her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Daisy said. “I thought I heard someone calling my name. I was worried it was Mother Lily.”
“Did you see anyone following you? Mother has been strict about curfew lately.” “No. It sounded like…”
“Like what?”
“It sounded like Rose.”
Marigold pursed her lips, still holding Daisy by the forearms. They searched each other’s eyes. The tension could snap them in two. Marigold broke the silence.
“I’ve heard her, too. And others. Some I remember. They graduated months or years ago. Some are voices I’ve never heard before. I mostly hear them before the visions.” Daisy’s mouth dropped open and closed as she moved to hide her shock. “Come on, Daisy. I know you’ve been having them, too.”
“How can you tell?”
Marigold led Daisy by the hand and sat them both down on the edge of her bed. She took a moment to observe her face: the deep, dark circles around her formerly cheery eyes, the dryness from tears, the sallow cheeks from weeks of eating less than she should. Reaching out, she cupped Daisy’s cheek in her palm.
“Look at us. If we keep looking like this, acting like this... Mother Lily will catch on soon enough.”
“Why us, Marigold? Why did the others so easily tell everyone about their visions? Why was it an accomplishment for them? Did they not hear the voices?”
“I don’t know. I only know that... it’s time. We need to... we need to leave.” Daisy carded her hands through her short hair. They always forwent wearing their habits for their private visits, leaving their short curls out. The Abbey forbade long hair, as flowers sometimes grew from the ends and made things messy.
“Where would we go, Marigold? There’s nowhere for us.”
“That’s what they tell us, but we don’t know that for sure. They’ve told us so many lies. What choice do we have? Do you want to stay here and become part of the gardens? You hear what the voices say. They don’t want us to join them.”
Daisy rubbed her sweaty palms together in her lap, avoiding eye contact. “Alright,” she said, “where’s your book?”
A new determination lit Marigold’s eyes. She nodded and bent to retrieve the journal from under her bed. She flipped to the final page and gently started to separate the back cover from the glue. When it was fully separated, she spread the pages wide on her lap and they looked together. Over and over, what looked like hundreds of times, Marigold’s father had written in small cursive: “Beatrice.” And at the very bottom of the page, under a folded corner, was juvenile handwriting in a different ink: “Anne.” They stared for a few minutes as awe and fear mixed in their bellies.
“What’s wrong?” Marigold asked, as Daisy had begun to cry. “Nothing,” Daisy said. “It’s just…I like it. That’s all. Anne. It’s a nice name. Simple. Yours is pretty, too.”
“We can get out of here with these names,” Marigold said. “Iris’s voice told me that the main door only opens when you state your true name. That’s what the priests whisper when they lead the girls out of the Abbey. We have our names now. We can leave.”
“And then what?”
“We’ll have to go very far away. Back in The Burning Times, we would be tried and burned for witchcraft. This abbey was a mercy. But there are rumors that other places still see women like us as people who can heal. People they want around. And I think we still have families, Daisy. Real families.”
“But we’re orphans.”
“I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure of anything Mother Lily told us.”
“Well, how do we get to a place where people will like us?” Daisy asked.
“I have no idea. I just want to leave this place where we’re destined to die in some sick ceremony.”
“That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
“Remember your other option,” Marigold said solemnly. “Then tell me if you’re ready to leave.”
Daisy nodded.
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Mother Lily,” Marigold said, stopping by her table at breakfast the next morning. “Have you heard anything from Rose?”
She laughed tersely. “No, dear, you know that letters don’t go back and forth between the abbeys.”
“Oh, that’s funny. I thought I heard her voice. Like she was visiting.” Marigold was no longer afraid of the Mother Superior. In place of her fear, a hot anger tightened in her chest, a fist threatening to punch outward and ruin their plans. Her sisters’ voices... they had so much pain.
“You must be hearing things,” Mother Lily said. “That can happen sometimes, when you really miss someone.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Marigold said, smirking. She could tell that their leader knew more than she let on.
“Back to breakfast with you,” Mother Lily chided, her usually calm smile slipping into a tense frown. “Don’t want your food to get cold.”
“Yes, Mother,” Marigold said. She returned to her seat across from Daisy at the far end of the refectory.
“What are you doing?” Daisy spat through clenched teeth. “Don’t raise suspicion. Are we leaving tonight or not?”
Daisy had lost some of her fear, too.
“Yes, yes. We’re leaving tonight. But it bothers me.”
“What?”
“That Mother Lily knew all this time. I used to think that our graduates were shaking with excitement after the ceremony. Now I think they were terrified.”
“Even so,” Daisy said, “we can’t risk her knowing that we’re trying to leave.”
“Not trying. We will leave this place.”
“Not if you play this game with her. She’s smarter than you think.”
Daisy looked beyond, over Marigold’s shoulder and met eyes with Mother Lily. It was only a second, but there was a coldness there that made Daisy uneasy. She pushed it down with thoughts of her name repeating over and over. She had been repeating it since last night. Even her dreams had been infested with chants of “Anne, Anne, Anne,” and this morning the voices had joined the chorus.
Daisy let Marigold into her room after two soft knocks. They looked each other over: plain dresses, big scarves wrapped around their heads for warmth and to hide their short hair, gloves embroidered with the insignia of the Abbey and small flowers. They could almost pass for normal women.
“I have a lantern,” Daisy said, “and some extra fuel in case we need it, and a little bit of food I stole from the refectory, and—” Two harsh knocks at the door interrupted her. They froze, eyes wide.
“Daisy, dear,” Mother Lily said from the other side of the door. “It’s much too late to take visitors, don’t you think?” The handle jiggled as Mother Lily tried to enter. Marigold looked around the room, blew out Daisy’s lantern, and dove under the bed, scurrying to fit under the mattress and blend in with the far wall. Daisy quickly wrapped a blanket around her shoulders to hide her clothes and mussed up her hair to make it look like she had just woken up. She slowly opened the door.
“Hello?” Daisy said, squinting her eyes against the light of Mother Lily’s large candle. “Sorry Mother, I was sleeping.”
“I saw someone come into your room,” Mother Lily said. “I was just saying it’s much too late to have visitors.”
“No, Mother.” Daisy punctuated with a yawn for good measure. “Maybe it was someone visiting Violet,” she said, pointing to the door across the hall. “I’m too tired to be taking visitors. This cold weather has been making me so sleepy.”
“Ah. I see. Are you sure?” Mother Lily peeked past Daisy into the fresh darkness of her room. She sniffed. Did she smell that the lantern had just been blown out?
“Yes, Mother. I know curfew is at ten o’clock. May I sleep now? Tomorrow is my day for cooking breakfast and I must be up early.”
“Of course. I’m looking forward to your cooking. You’ll be making your famous biscuits, I presume?”
“Yes, with honey on yours. I remember.”
“Good,” Mother Lily said, still suspicious but seemingly placated. “Rest well.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Daisy said. She shut the door without a sound and let out a heavy sigh. Marigold shuffled out from under the bed, wiping the dust from her dress as she stood.
“See, I told you she would get suspicious!” Daisy whisper-yelled. Marigold ignored her.
“Now is the perfect time,” she said. “Mother Lily will be at the other end of the hall.”
“Alright. Let’s go, Beatrice.”
“We can do this, Anne,” she said, taking her hand. “We can do this. Let’s go.”
They snuck through the hall, ignoring the whispers of their sisters who had gone to flower. Their breaths were shallow and their leather shoes patted softly on the stone floors. They stopped once when they thought they heard someone walking down the hall, but it was only an owl landing on a tree in the courtyard. It tilted its head at them, then looked away as if keeping watch.
The door to the outside was a heavy wood covered in ornate carvings, like the door to the chapel. By the handle, there was a subtle carving of a mouth bearing an almost sinister grin. Beatrice bent forward until her lips touched the wooden mouth like a soft kiss and whispered her name. The lock clicked once. Anne was next, shyly pressing her lips to the mouth and saying her true name. The lock clicked again, and the door began to swing open. Then it creaked. Long and loud and low. The sound echoed through the Abbey of the Fading Flowers. Beatrice and Anne both winced. They heard the click of Mother Lily’s footsteps from the other side of the building.
“Go!” Beatrice said, yanking the door open the rest of the way.
Behind them, Mother Lily’s footsteps broke into a run. Beatrice and Anne stepped out into the wind, bracing themselves against the dark, icy air. They slammed the door shut behind them, backing up slowly. They glanced at the landscape to their backs. The Abbey had no windows; they had never seen the forest that surrounded it, or the soft spires of chimney smoke rising in the distance.
“We should run,” Anne whispered.
“Yes, we should run,” Beatrice agreed.
But they stood and stared at what lay beyond the door, their breath fogging the air in front of them. They could hear Mother Lily’s footsteps grow closer and closer on the other side until they stopped. In her pocket, Beatrice clutched Jasmine’s finger bone like a talisman. The girls held their breath and looked back at the door.
“Lily,” they heard Mother whisper to the door. The lock didn’t click. “Lily,” they heard again, louder this time. “Lily!” she was screaming now, desperate. She banged on the door. “Girls! I know you’re out there. Open the door. Come back inside. There’s nothing for you out there. Nothing! You’ll be killed by the first person you find. They’ll kill you!”
Beatrice and Anne slowly turned away. The forest waited in front of them. It began to snow again. It would be so easy to turn back, to return to the warm beds they’d grown up in. Anne’s face was chill as the marble floors where they knelt for vespers. Beatrice took a step forward, holding Anne’s hand, but her feet didn’t leave the ground’s snowy embrace. She was looking down into nowhere, breathing into nothing. Her chest rose and fell quickly as her breaths turned fearful. Beatrice took Anne’s fear for regret, and gained a fear of her own. If Daisy—Anne—didn’t come with her, she’d be caught. Or worse, all alone in the wilderness.
“Girls!” Mother Lily was nearly crying. Her voice cracked. “Open the door!”
At the last scratch of Mother Lily’s voice, Anne blinked as if snapping out of a vision. She looked down her arm, over the pair’s clasped hands, and up into Beatrice’s eyes. Her breath slowed. She forced her shoulders down and back.
Beatrice and Anne nodded to each other and held hands as they walked away toward the woods. There was now no need to rush now. In the end, it hadn’t mattered that she wasn’t afflicted. There was no funny coincidence. They’d taken the Mother’s name, too.
Mother Lily screamed until her voice sharpened into a screech, and finally grew quiet. Soon, the girls were too far away to hear any voices at all.