Among the Beasts & Briars

Briars, brambles, bones, and blossom, I smell a girl who can’t be forgotten.

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

She said that the people who die never really leave. That we carry them with every breath we take, until the wind itself is gone.

We were nine, and therefore invincible.

What could go wrong? The sky’s bright, the sun’s out, and there’s spring in the air—I can taste it.

Now, what's a pretty flower like you doing in a wood like this?

The leaves on the trees we approached were a molten gold, like an artist had taken a sunset and poured it over the forest, and the crisp smell of the coming winter floated on the autumn breeze. It was early afternoon, and the birds sang bright and loud in the treetops.

Where there was celebration, there was food, and where there was food, there was my happy place.

IT IS SAID that the first king of Aloriya was born with the fire in his blood.

But can you imagine? Me, dancing with that boorish, brainless . . .