Her Broken Bond

Annalise

Mrs. Greer says I have a green thumb.

I checked both of them the first time she told me that.

They weren’t green.

There was dirt under my nails and a grass stain across one palm from falling over the wheelbarrow, but that wasn’t the same thing. When I told her this, Mrs. Greer laughed so hard she had to sit down on the little wooden stool she keeps beside the tomatoes.

I didn’t understand what was funny.

I still don’t.

It means you’re good with plants, Ruby tells me.

I know that now.

Then why are you thinking about it again?

Because plants make sense.

People don’t.

I kneel beside the last row of strawberries and carefully push dirt around a tiny plant that looked terrible yesterday. Its leaves had been brown and droopy, and Mrs. Greer said we’d probably lose it.

I didn’t want it to die, so I stayed after she went inside and talked to it.

This morning, it has three new leaves.

“See?” I whisper, touching one gently. “I told you.”

You’re talking to your breakfast again.

“It’s not breakfast yet.”

My stomach growls.

Ruby sighs.

Your stomach disagrees.

Mrs. Greer would feed me if I woke her.

She always does.

She’s been taking care of me since my parents died, which happened so long ago that I don’t remember coming to live with her. I don’t remember much about my parents either. Sometimes I think I remember my mother singing, but Mrs. Greer says I was so little that it could be something my brain made up.

Mrs. Greer isn’t my grandmother, even though Sarah called her that once. She isn’t really anything to me.

Except she’s the person who taught me to tie my shoes.

She’s the person who sits beside my bed when I’m sick and makes terrible soup that she insists has “healing properties.”

She’s the person who braids my hair every morning even though one braid always ends up fatter than the other.

So I suppose she’s something.

Last night, she told me if I woke her before sunrise again because I wanted to check on a strawberry plant, she’d plant me in the garden.

I decided not to test whether she meant it.

“I’ll get something myself.”

She’ll be mad.

“Only if she finds out.”

Ruby groans.

I hurry toward the pack house.

I’m good at knowing which floorboards squeak. I’m also good at knowing which hallways Marcus usually uses and where to stand when older wolves are talking so nobody notices me.

I’m good at lots of things nobody counts.

The kitchen is empty.

Perfect.

There’s half a roll in the bread basket. I grab it and take a bite.

“Well, look what crawled in from the garden.”

I close my eyes.

Maybe if I don’t turn around, Marcus will disappear.

That’s stupid.

I know.

Marcus Thornridge is leaning in the doorway when I turn. Sarah and another boy stand behind him.

His eyes drop to my bread.

“Stealing again?”

“I’m not stealing.”

“Then what do you call taking something that isn’t yours?”

Breakfast?

I don’t say it.

Sometimes words come into my head that Ruby thinks are funny but would probably get me killed.

“Mrs. Greer said I could eat when I’m hungry.”

“Of course she did.” Marcus smirks. “She babies you.”

My fingers tighten around the bread.

“She does not.”

“She has to. You can’t do anything yourself.”

“I work.”

Marcus laughs. “You pull weeds.”

“I grow things.”

The words slip out before I can stop them.

Sarah snorts. “She grows things.”

My cheeks get hot.

Marcus steps closer. “Warriors protect this pack. Hunters feed it. My mother says everyone has to contribute. What exactly do you think a runt like you contributes?”

I stare at my shoes.

They’re too big because they belonged to another girl first. Mrs. Greer stuffed cloth into the toes so they wouldn’t fall off until I grow into them.

She says I will.

I’m beginning to suspect she’s lying.

“I help Mrs. Greer.”

“You’re eight years old. You’re not helping anybody.”

Tell him about the strawberries.

I’m not telling him about the strawberries.

He’d probably step on them.

Sarah folds her arms. “My dad says Alpha Silverwood is tired of feeding wolves who don’t contribute.”

My stomach suddenly doesn’t want the bread anymore.

“What?”

“He was talking about the old ways.”

I know what those are.

Everybody does.

Weak wolves used to be sent away.

Mrs. Greer says nobody is sending me anywhere, but she isn’t Alpha.

And my parents aren’t here to stop them.

They died in the war when I was so little that everything I know about them comes from other people. My father was a warrior. A good one, according to Mrs. Greer.

Nobody says much about my mother.

We aren’t weak, Ruby says.

Marcus looks down at me.

“You’re nothing but another mouth the pack has to feed.”

“Leave her alone, Marcus.”

Everyone turns.

Andre Silverwood stands in the hallway with his hair sticking up on one side.

The Alpha’s son.

Marcus immediately steps away from me.

“We’re just messing with her.”

“She’s eight.”

Andre walks into the kitchen. He’s bigger than me too, but everyone is bigger than me.

“She’s still pack,” Andre says. “Go bother somebody your own size.”

Marcus looks annoyed, but he leaves.

Sarah follows.

I stare at Andre.

Nobody does that for me.

Well, Mrs. Greer does.

But Mrs. Greer once chased Marcus out of her garden with a rake, so she doesn’t count.

“Thank you.”

Andre shrugs.

“Really. Thank you.”

“You already said that.”

“Oh.”

My face gets hot again.

I should leave.

Instead, because apparently I enjoy embarrassing myself, I reach into my pocket.

There’s a tiny yellow flower I found beside the strawberries this morning. I picked it because it was pretty.

I hold it out.

Andre stares at it.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

I quickly close my fingers around it.

“Nothing.”

Moon Goddess, I am stupid.

“Annalise.”

I stop.

For one ridiculous second, I think maybe he’ll apologize.

His friends aren’t here. Marcus is gone. It’s only us.

Andre glances toward the hallway.

“Next time, wait for breakfast like everybody else. We’re not running a charity.”

Oh.

I look at the bread still clutched in my hand.

Maybe Marcus was right.

Maybe every meal Mrs. Greer gives me is something the pack has to pay for. Maybe the shoes, my little room beside hers, the medicine when I’m sick—all of it belongs to somebody who actually earns it.

I put the rest of the roll back into the basket.

Then I run.

I don’t stop until the pack house disappears behind the trees.

My hiding place isn’t really a hiding place anymore. I’ve been coming here so long I’ve made little paths between the trees. There’s an old oak, berry bushes and a patch where I plant things Mrs. Greer throws away.

Plants nobody wants.

I understand those.

I drop beneath the oak and pull the crushed yellow flower from my pocket.

He’s a jerk, Ruby says.

“He helped us.”

Then he was a jerk.

I can’t argue with that.

My eyes burn.

Mrs. Greer would tell me not to listen to him.

She’d probably say something about Marcus having rocks where his brain should be, then feed me until I couldn’t move.

But I don’t want Mrs. Greer right now.

I don’t want her to tell me Marcus is wrong because she loves me.

I want him to actually be wrong.

I dig a little hole beside the oak.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell the flower.

Its stem is bent where I squeezed it.

“I shouldn’t have picked you.”

I put it into the dirt anyway and cover its tiny roots.

A tear falls off my chin.

Then another.

“I don’t belong anywhere either.”

Something tickles my finger.

I sniff and look down.

The flower isn’t bent anymore.

I blink.

Its stem slowly straightens.

Ruby goes completely silent.

One tiny green leaf uncurls beneath my fingertip.

Then another.

I jerk my hand away.

“Ruby?”

I saw it.

The little yellow flower lifts toward me.

Around it, tiny green shoots begin pushing through soil that had been bare seconds ago.

One.

Three.

Ten.

I scramble backward until my back hits the oak.

Flowers burst open across the ground.

Yellow.

Purple.

White.

Dozens of them.

Maybe hundreds.

My tears stop.

Ruby whispers the question before I can.

Did we do that?

I stare at the impossible garden growing around my dirty shoes.

“I don’t know.”

Above me, the ancient oak shivers even though there isn’t any wind.

Something drops from its branches.

It lands in my lap with a soft thump.

I look down.

An apple.

Bright red.

Perfect.

I slowly lift my eyes toward the tree.

I’ve been sitting beneath this oak for almost three years.

It has never grown apples.