Page 24 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“Yes…uh…Nelson, isn’t it?”
“They’re good for infestations of invasive bugs?”
“Yes, but what else?” When no one answered, Mrs. Wildenberg said, “Security guards, of course! Historic Wild Whisperers have found that sundews are happy to act like guard dogs, so they’ve bred and magically altered these ones to heighten that characteristic. In fact, in Belliview, many of these plants are potted and placed on either side of high-security doors to ward off intruders.”
“Shit, I knew that,” Rodhi hissed on the other side of Gileon. “I’ve seen them guarding the entrance to the local bank.”
“But don’t they get… mad?” Cilia spoke up. “When they’re uprooted and potted?”
“Oh no, no, no.” Mrs. Wildenberg beamed. “In fact, sundews enjoy the superior status of transportability. But I warn you, it takes a special temperament to train them. None of the carnivorous plants take as kindly to the gentle type, as some of you found out when you were feeding the butterworts last year. But these beauties are a lot fiercer than butterworts.”
She cast a dewy-eyed smile to the nearest sundew as if she’d never seen anything as cute, then started teaching us how to click our tongues in a way the sundews could understand. After we’d all spent a few rounds practicing, she began partnering us up to practice—not by name, but by pointing at each of us with a gnarled finger.
“You with you. And you with you. And you withyou.”
By the time she’d paired me with Dazmine, I was one hundred percent sure our instructor still hadn’t picked up on a single name or social relationship in the class. The glares Dazmine sent me as I trudged over to her could have come close to shattering my wall of ice.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” Dazmine said flatly.
You did something to Jenia and Fergus, and I’m going to find out whatseemed to hover between us. Trying to ignore it, Inodded at the nearest swaying stalk. “Do you want me to go first, or do you want to?”
Dazmine sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ll go.”
She stalked over to the plant and touched its bristled edges.
Instantly, it snapped around her hand and spiraled up her arm, the bulbed bristles digging in. Dazmine didn’t even wince. She just threw me a look over her shoulder and said, “Go on. Free me.”
It wasn’t really a command, I sensed. It was a dare. To see if I was the kind of person who relished watching others get hurt. To see if I’d hesitate to help someone trapped and in need of rescue.
I didn’t hesitate. Immediately, I began clicking my tongue the way Mrs. Wildenberg had demonstrated.Tk tk tk tk. Tk tk tk tk.
The sundew twitched, but didn’t relent.
“Dammit,” I spat, and tried again. Dazmine watched me intently from within her confines of flesh-eating bristles.
“Wow, you really suck at this,” she said after my fifth try. “It’s supposed to be a click, not acluck. What are you, a peahen?”
“Gee, thanks, Dazmine,” I gritted out. “I’m literally trying to save your life right now, so how about some helpful pointers instead of insults?”
She scoffed, as if the prospect of acid spreading in her bloodstream right now didn’t faze her in the slightest. “I talked to some of those fire ants over lunch break, and you know what they told me?”
I didn’t answer her, sure that it was a trick question. I just tried clicking my tongue again… to no avail. The damn sundew only twitched.
“They told me,” Dazmine plunged on, “thatyouasked a bunch of them to attack me, Fergus, and Jenia last year. And apparently, the ants obliged.” She threw back her head and gave a bark of a laugh. “Now I know why I felt like I was on theverge of a panic attack when Ms. Pincette unveiled that tank. Why I could barelybreatheduring that class. But what I can’t figure out—” She squinted at me. “—is why I don’t remember the attack. Because when I thinkreallyhard about blistering, raging welts all over my body, I do remember it… but the memory is muddled. Like someone tampered with my head.”
I gawked at her. The sound of the rest of the class clicking their tongues might as well have been miles away.
HadI set a horde of ants on Dazmine last year? And Jenia and Fergus, too? Back in Ms. Pincette’s classroom, the pain in my head had certainly jolted, like a memory trying to unleash itself. But again, what did Steeler have to do withants? And why would he have erased that memory from me—from all of us—ifIhad been the culprit?
Dazmine clicked her tongue in rapid succession.
The bristled stalks released her with an unspooling flick.
“Seems like you’re better with trees and vines than you are with meat-eating death traps, Rayna,” she said, a hint of triumph in her tone. Like she’d caught me bloody-handed. Which… maybe she had. “Kind of weird for someone who carries a knife everywhere she goes, don’t you think?”
When the usual thumping sounds of partying began to ripple down Bascite Boulevard that night, I snuck to the grove of black bamboo and practiced throwing my new knives again and again, imagining that the stalks of dark bark were hundreds of murderous pirates with fangs.
