Spaces Running Parallel

Erin didn’t like to linger in the Banquet Hall, especially when it was empty, but today she’d made an exception. Maybe it was the heat, or the extra calories her body seemed to demand now, or maybe just the promise of an hour without any of the others. The food was better when you didn’t have to fight for it.

She was at her usual spot, perched on the edge of a barstool at the corner of the long window. The view didn’t matter, not really—she’d seen it a hundred times, the same blue ocean and the same stupid palm tree that managed to photobomb every sunrise—but she liked the way the glass made her skin look even greener, minty-fresh and almost natural, like a plant set out to propagate on a windowsill.

Today’s lunch was a tower of donuts, stacked three-high and half demolished already. The maple-glazed was best; she’d started with that and worked her way down, savoring the slow melt of sugar and the faint, echo-sweet stickiness left on her fingers. She washed it down with pulpy orange juice in a glass big enough to float a goldfish.

In front of her was a sheet of paper, torn from a kitchen notepad. She’d written names on it in all caps, a running list that grew every time she thought of something better, or worse. There were a few columns: one for “Serious Names,” one for “Jokes,” and a third, labeled “Liesa’s Terrible Ideas.” The first was tidy: EVE, KAY, JANE, VENUS. The second was chaos: XYLEM, FICUS, CELERY, SPROUT (all circled). Under Liesa’s, there was Dandelion and the improbable Photosynthea. She’d underlined Dandelion twice, unsure if she hated it or loved it. She had decisively hated Photosynthea, which was now nearly illegible under streaks of ink.

Moss and Fern had question marks. Petal was crossed out with a dark, dramatic slash.

She turned the page over, tapped the pen against the bar top, and let her mind wander. What would life be like with a baby? Two, even? She had trouble picturing herself as a mother, let alone as a mother with bare green skin and breasts the size of small continents, but every time she tried, the mental image came out a little less ridiculous and a little more real. Maybe she’d get used to it.

Would they go back to New York? Would people stare? Would it even matter, once the reality field reset and the game let them go?

She snorted, picturing herself on the L, naked except for sneakers, her stomach round and her breasts bouncing like a cartoon, everyone politely pretending not to notice. In the daydream, she was just another woman getting by, maybe even envied for her self-assurance. Maybe she’d work in a garden, or a greenhouse. Maybe she’d join the PTA and scandalize the other moms.

She liked that version.

She took another bite of donut, the maple sugar catching in her teeth. It was only then, as she chewed, that she realized something had changed. She was… comfortable. With her body. With the idea of being naked, and green, and maybe even with the idea of being a mom.

It wasn’t a sudden thing—more like the slow untangling of a knot she hadn’t noticed was there. She rolled her shoulders, straightened her back, and stretched her arms over her head, letting the sunlight gloss over every inch of her skin. She felt powerful. She felt good.

She wondered what Andy would say about it, and for a second, the thought made her laugh out loud.

She’d have to call her parents, eventually. Two calls, since they didn’t talk to each other. Her mom would probably say “I told you so,” and her dad would try to be supportive but fail, and then she’d have to explain the plant thing and the “no clothes” thing, and—

She laughed again, sharper this time. Last time she’d told Andy about her parents, he’d written up a script for how to break the news. “Hi Mom, it’s Erin, I got a new job, oh and also, I’m a nudist now and I’m the color of a succulent.” He’d even suggested sending a photoshopped selfie.

She loved that about him. That he could take the weirdness and make it funny, not just for her but for himself, too. He’d always known how to talk her down from a spiral, or at least to make the spiral less miserable.

She finished the maple donut, licked her fingers, and reached for the next one—some kind of lemon-poppy, which was fine but not worth fighting for. She sipped her juice, made another note on the paper, and tried to picture herself pregnant. For real. The thought was strange, but not frightening.

She glanced up, expecting maybe another Contestant, or a Mildred, or even Andy himself. But the room stayed empty, silent but for the faint hum of the fridge and the lazy clack of her nails on the bar.

She took another bite, the sweet tang of lemon surprising and pleasant. She grinned. “Photosynthea,” she said, out loud, and decided it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

The sunlight caught in her hair. Maybe she’d name the baby Moss, after all. It was growing on her.

She looked down at the notepad again, idly adding “Arugula” to the joke list. She didn’t notice the shift in the air, the way the light flickered just a little, the way her own outline seemed to soften at the edges.

She was still mid-laugh when the world blinked, and Erin vanished, donut and all.

Mildred entered the Banquet Hall less than a second later, carrying a clipboard and a steaming mug of black coffee. She looked at the empty stool, the neat pile of donuts, and the page of baby names, still fluttering in the breeze from the open window. She blinked twice, then shrugged, and took a careful sip of her coffee.

“Starting now, then,” Mildred said, and wandered off to the next item on her list.

Norah had always been a pattern person—read the same spreadsheet enough times, you’d start to see where the decimal drifted, where the errors clustered, where the whole column was off by one for reasons no one else bothered to check. That was how she navigated most of her life: not by intuition, not by the subtle social magic that people like Dawn seemed to conjure out of thin air, but by systematic review. The Hall of Curiosities was no different.

She’d been there before, of course, yesterday, walking through the cabinets in a daze, the way you might float through a museum you never meant to visit. That first trip, she’d only taken in the horrors on the surface—collars, photos, the evidence of prior harem seasons more gruesome than any legend. This time, with everyone else occupied (gossip, drama, the kind of slow-moving social collapse that always preceded a challenge), Norah had come prepared: a pocket-sized notebook, a sharp pencil, and a resolution to find what she’d missed the first time.

The Hall was empty and chill, the lights set just a little too low, and the hush so deep she could hear the faint scrape of her own heels on the worn wood. She didn’t need the stilettos in the Hall—her transformation only mandated them for public—but Norah felt better in them anyway, taller, steadier, harder to shake. She took each cabinet in order, jotting notes, sketches, anything that seemed like it might matter. She paused at the first case, the collar, reading the inscription for Sandra Guerrero again. It struck her that the velvet had not faded, as if someone (or something) still came by to maintain it, dusting away the evidence of time.

The second cabinet, the one with the Carol Wilson photo, was the one that had haunted her the most. The central figure—late forties, brown hair streaked gray, motherly, yet remade into a pinup nightmare. Her daughter at her side, hands clasped, her face caught in a horror that contrasted with her mother’s likely newly vacant expression. Norah had stared at it the first time and felt nothing, too shaken by Sandra’s photo. This time, she wanted to. She leaned close, running her eyes along the glass, the wood, the crevice between the display and the wall. That was when she noticed the edge of something, a tiny wedge of yellowed paper, crammed behind the velvet liner.

Norah hesitated, then worked it free with two fingernails. The sheet was delicate, printer paper but yellowed with age, folded once along a diagonal. She expected to find an inventory slip or some old memo. But the paper was a letter. There was no envelope, no date, but it was addressed, in careful, precise script:

Arabella,

Norah looked over her shoulder—reflex, as if she might be caught—but the Hall was silent. She read.

Arabella,

I’m not writing this to change anything. I know you can’t stop the show, or the rules, or Greg. I’m not even asking you to. I just want you to know I see you.

I know you didn’t make the rules. I know you didn’t invent the seasons or the prizes or what happens to us if we lose. I know, too, that you watch what happens. Even if you never say so.

I’ve watched you since the first week. I used to think you were cold and ruthless. But then I saw the way you looked at Sandra. I saw the way you looked at Nancy, and all the others, when Greg was in one of his moods. I don’t think you’re cruel anymore. I think you’re a gear in a machine, and you know it, and you’re not happy about it, but you have to keep turning anyway. I think you do your best, but you can’t let it show. I think it costs you something. You said once that the rules are engraved in your bones. I understand, now.

I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I don’t want you to hate yourself for what’s coming. But I have to ask for two things. Not for me—for my baby. She isn't even born yet, and I love her so much.

First, if you have any latitude, let me keep enough of myself that she won’t be scared of me. That she won’t hate me. I know what’s coming. I know how the shows go. Maybe I won't become another Carol, but Greg will break me, or the transformations will. I try to resist, but it gets harder and harder. I know you don’t get to say what the final results are, but I hope—I beg you, if there’s any part of the rules you can bend, please let me keep enough of my mind to love her, just for a little while. Let me hold her, just once, without compulsions or restrictions, and let me tell her that her mother is hidden under all that, that her mother loves her more than anything. She didn’t choose to be here. I don’t want her to be alone.

Second, if you can’t—I understand, I really do—but if you can’t, then please protect her after. Greg won’t. I know you know that. I think you’re the only one here who can. Even if you can’t do anything day by day, even if all you can do is watch, just do that. Please.

I don’t blame you, Arabella. I really don’t. I understand now that the game only revealed what he really was all along. But I want you to know that someone is asking.

Sarah

Norah read it once, start to finish, not daring to breathe. The signature—Sarah—rang a bell, but she couldn’t place it. She read it again, slower, this time letting herself see the words as they must have felt to the woman writing them: the resignation, the pleading, the absolute clarity of a person who knew the rules and had accepted them, but could not help but hope for a miracle.

She stood in the corridor for a long moment, the light flickering on the glass, the silence unbroken. Norah had never thought of herself as maternal, but reading the letter she felt something twist, not just for Sarah or for the child, but for Arabella too. She wondered what the Host had done—had she kept the letter? Had she even read it? Had she done anything, when the game was over, to keep the promise? The question itched at her, so she read the letter a third time, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

Eventually, she folded the paper with care, pressing along the original crease. She slipped it between the pages of her own notebook, tucked it there as if it might explain something that still eluded her. As she left the Hall of Curiosities, the tap of her heels echoing down the empty corridor, a deep resonant gong sounded somewhere in the distance, vibrating through the marble floors. Norah paused, letter heavy in her pocket. Mildred appeared around the corner, her uniform crisp despite the early hour.

"There you are," Mildred said, deadpan. "Special announcement in the banquet hall at two. Attendance mandatory." Her eyes flicked to Norah's notebook, then away. "Don't be late."

If there was a time of day that belonged to Marissa alone, it was the early hours after dawn. Even the ocean outside seemed slower then, its waves dulled to a hush, the hotel’s hum stilled by the residual gravity of sleep. She liked the solitude, the absence of expectation, the way she could walk the cool marble halls barefoot and not run into anyone’s heartbreak or complaints before she was ready. Most mornings she wandered through the library, maybe the little cafe, but today she found herself in the club lounge, drawn by the memory of a particular piano at the far end of the room.

She sat by the piano, stretched her fingers, and let them find their own way.

She didn’t have a song in mind. The melody was muscle memory, a leftover from years of after-dinner lessons at her mother’s upright, the kind of exercise that never impressed guests but could wring emotion out of a Tuesday night. Marissa’s hands fell into the old routine: right, then left, then together, always a little too loud in the middle, always overcorrected by the end. She closed her eyes. The chord progression was built for nostalgia. She could almost hear her mother’s voice—cracked, barely above a whisper, singing along for her own sake.

She played a wrong note, let it ring, then played it again on purpose, daring the piece to sound worse for the repetition. It didn’t. If anything, the imperfection made the room feel more lived-in. She smiled, then played on, not caring how long she stayed or who might drift in to hear.

She was halfway through the third pass of the song when she felt, rather than heard, the presence behind her. A soft shift of air, the faint scent of lavender and something like burnt sugar. Marissa didn’t turn, just kept playing, finishing the piece with both hands still on the keys.

When she finally looked over her shoulder, Myra was sitting at a table, her cane across her knees, ears tilted toward the sound. There was no sign that Myra had knocked or cleared her throat or even intended to interrupt. She just listened, her posture unusually at ease, a slight glow outlining the tips of her fox ears in the pale club light.

Marissa didn’t say anything for a moment. Neither did Myra. It was a perfect silence—not awkward, not searching, just the kind that sometimes followed music.

“It was lovely,” Myra said finally, her voice low and precise.

Marissa shrugged. “It’s old. My mother’s favorite.”

Myra nodded. “I’ve never heard it before. I liked the wrong note near the end.”

Marissa almost laughed, but didn’t. “That’s how she played it. Never the same twice. She said it gave the song character.”

The words lingered. Myra set her cane aside, then folded her hands on the table. Her eyes were unfocused but not sightless—just turned inward, as if she was searching herself for the right response.

Marissa waited. She didn’t want to rush the conversation. She didn’t need to.

“I’ve been thinking,” Myra said after a long pause, “about what I’ll do after all this.” She gestured loosely, the sweep of her hand catching the ceiling, the piano, everything.

Marissa nodded, once, careful not to fill in the blank too quickly.

“I can’t really go back to clinical practice,” Myra continued. “Not after… not after what happened. But I might want to teach, or maybe supervise. Mentor students. I just don’t know if—” She stopped, lips pressed tight.

Marissa knew the feeling. She said nothing.

“It’s like,” Myra said, choosing her words, “how do you build a life when you never really had one before? I was always—” She searched for the word, then settled on, “useful. I don’t know how to be anything else.”

Marissa didn't reach for her therapist voice. She didn't try to reframe, or reorient, or lay out a five-point plan for self-actualization. She just said, "I think you can. If you want it."

Myra smiled, a real one, soft and unguarded. "Do you?"

"Yes," Marissa said. "Absolutely." She hesitated, then added, "The hardest patients I ever had weren't the ones with the deepest trauma. They were the ones who couldn't imagine themselves as anything different."

"And you think I can?"

"I've watched you change more in weeks than most people do in years."

Myra's tail twitched behind her. "It's strange. All those years helping others find themselves, and I never..." She trailed off, fingers tracing the curve of her cane.

"Never gave yourself permission to want something just for you," Marissa finished.

"Exactly." Myra's ears flicked forward. "I still want to be a doctor. I do. But I want to be a woman, too. I want to have a life." Her tail swished once, the movement visible even from where Marissa sat. "Maybe even someone to share it with."

Marissa let her fingers rest on the piano keys without pressing down. "What would that look like for you? The life part, I mean."

"I don't know." Myra laughed softly. "A garden, maybe. Books that aren't medical journals. Music in the morning." She gestured toward the piano. "Laura's forgiveness—" she paused, as if checking the sensation—"it helped. It made the rest of it easier to believe."

"Start there," Marissa said, and she meant it. "With forgiveness. The rest will follow."

"Is that what you did?" Myra asked, her voice gentle but direct.

Marissa's hands tensed on the keys. "I'm still working on it."

Neither of them spoke for a minute. The club was full of nothing but the slow dawn and the scent of old fabric and the faint residual warmth of the song.

Marissa turned back to the piano. She picked up the melody again, this time playing it slower, letting the notes stretch out, like she was building a bridge between her hands and the woman listening in the dark.

Myra didn’t leave. She just sat and listened, her face calm and open, as the music filled the empty space between them.

The second piece was simpler, mostly chords and a handful of melody lines, nothing designed to impress. Marissa played it slow, letting the notes fill the quiet, her mind already moving ahead to the day’s next complication. She wondered, briefly, what it would be like to have an audience of more than one—what it would mean to perform not for herself, not for her mother’s memory, but for someone who might one day play these same notes out of love.

She glanced over at Myra when she finished. The other woman sat perfectly still, eyes closed, her hands folded gently over her cane. The lines in Myra’s face had softened, her tail loose and at rest, not a hint of tension anywhere. Marissa realized, suddenly, that she liked seeing her that way—unburdened, even if just for a song’s length.

“Thank you,” Myra said, voice low.

Marissa shrugged, but let herself smile. "Anytime."

She played a few more bars, not to impress or fill the air, but because it was easier than talking. The notes hung in the air between them when a deep, resonant gong cut through the melody, vibrating through the floorboards beneath her feet. Myra's ears twitched forward. Three heartbeats later, Mildred appeared in the doorway, her uniform impeccably pressed, her smile disturbing as always. "Pardon the interruption," she said, her voice crisp as fresh linen and not at all sorry. "There will be a special announcement in the Banquet Hall at 2 p.m. Attendance is mandatory." She lingered just long enough to ensure they'd heard, then vanished as efficiently as she'd arrived.

Emi’s favorite time in the Inner Gardens was right after sunrise, when the light made the dew beads look like a million tiny prisms and none of the other women were awake to claim the best benches. Today she sat cross-legged on the old stone seat, her skirt bunched around her ankles, three of her six hands working at a sketchbook and the fourth absently tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear. She’d been sitting here since early morning, working on her sketch. The last two hands held pencils at ready, switching in and out for shade and line. It should have looked ridiculous. Instead it looked, somehow, like the only possible way to be.

She was mapping the island, sort of: tracing the outline of the hotel complex, the winding garden trails, the stubby dock jutting into the sea. But where her memory faltered—at the outlying buildings, the back side of the volcano, the little knotted runs of mangrove—she left blank space or sketched a little question mark. It wasn’t a real map so much as a confession of what she didn’t know, and she liked it better that way.

She was shading in a shadow where she thought the Sanctuary might be (she’d never gone inside, but she imagined it cool and blue, like the churches her mother used to take her to) when she heard footsteps behind her, soft as driftwood. She didn’t look up; she was pretty sure who it would be.

“Is this a private art class, or can anyone join?”

Emily dropped onto the bench without waiting for an answer, her long blonde-and-pink hair even more unruly than usual, still damp and clinging in spots to her shoulders and breasts. The breeze did its best to tease the hair aside, but it always seemed to fall back into perfect modesty, never exposing more than Emily herself was comfortable with. Emi glanced at her, and Emily flashed a quick, genuine smile that said I know I’m a sight, but I’m not sorry.

“You’re wet,” Emi said, not as a complaint but with a tinge of envy.

“I just swam,” Emily replied. “Mornings are best. No chance of running into Norah or Riley judging my backstroke.” She considered. “Or my frontstroke.”

“Or your breaststroke,” Emi supplied, deadpan.

Emily giggled, a little hiccup of sound. “You’re evil. Let me see what you’re working on.”

Emi handed over the sketchbook, three hands still holding pencils while a fourth steadied the page for her. Emily whistled softly.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Is this the dock? And the—” she pointed, “—oh, is that where the waterfall is?”

“It should be,” Emi said. “But I don’t remember the path. The hotel makes it confusing on purpose.”

Emily nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. It’s like they don’t want us to ever really map it out.”

For a while they just sat, shoulder to shoulder, Emily flipping pages, Emi tweaking lines with a light touch. The garden hummed with bird song, but no one else came through. It was the kind of silence that felt safe.

Emily pointed to the center of the map, where Emi had left a perfect blank ring. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know,” Emi said, her lips pursed. “It’s where the volcano is. But I’ve never been able to get up there.”

Emily thought for a moment, then said, “Me neither. I bet Arabella’s hiding something amazing up there.”

“Maybe it’s her lair,” Emi suggested. “Or maybe it’s just a way out.”

Emily made a show of shuddering. “No way out. That’s the one rule.” She set the sketchbook down, careful with the pages. “Can I be honest with you?”

Emi nodded, using one hand to spin the book back toward her.

“I keep thinking about the Queen thing, after what Arabella said,” Emily said, not quite meeting Emi’s eyes. “Like, I know it’s just a title, but it’s got me all twisted up.”

Emi smiled with half her mouth. “Me too. But I don’t think it should be me.”

Emily grinned. “God, no. You’re way too gentle for the job. You’d just end up making everyone cry, and then draw them as animals to cheer them up.”

“That’s not true,” Emi said, but she was already laughing. “Anyway, you’d be a great Queen.”

Emily made a face. “Not a chance. I’m better at making sure everyone else is fine than at leading anything.” She paused. “Plus, if there was ever a vote, I’d sabotage myself. I can’t even order at restaurants without making someone else go first.”

They both laughed, the sound rolling through the garden like a toy wagon over stones. A blue jay swooped down, checked the girls out for crumbs, then zipped off toward the mangroves. Emi watched it go, then used three hands at once to erase and redraw a bit of the map’s coastline.

“Riley would be a disaster,” Emily said, voice low, and then immediately covered her mouth in horror. “I mean—she’s great, but—”

“No,” said Emi, “she’d declare martial law on day one and send us all to therapy.”

They cracked up again, but this time there was a little sadness in it—an edge of guilt, maybe, for making fun of someone they both liked, or for not knowing how to fix the weirdness between them all.

After a while, Emily sobered. “Who do you think it should be?”

Emi was quiet, her hands slowing. “I thought maybe Chloe. She’s the best at seeing what people need, even if she never says it out loud.”

“Chloe would be sweet,” Emily agreed, but she sounded uncertain. “She’d be so worried about doing it right. She’d have to be convinced.”

They sat with that, both thinking. Emi re-shaded a cloud. Emily traced a pattern in the dew on the bench.

“What about Norah?” Emily asked.

Emi considered. “She’d be good at the practical stuff. But I think she’s too used to going it alone. It might hurt her.”

Emily nodded. “I think you’re right.”

Neither of them spoke for a bit. Then Emi said, quietly, “What about Sam?”

Emily smiled, and this time it was real, not hiding anything. “She’s the only one who actually knows what to do with a roomful of stubborn weirdos.” She thought for a second. “But she might say no.”

“She won’t,” Emi said, with a conviction that surprised them both.

Emily looked at her, eyes wide. “You really think so?”

Emi nodded. “She’s brave. And she loves us.” She added, a little softer, “I’d follow her.”

Emily put an arm around Emi's shoulders, and even with the six arms, it felt easy. "Me too," she said. "Maybe we should tell her."

"Not yet," Emi said. "I like it here."

A deep, resonant gong cut through the garden air, vibrating in their chests like a second heartbeat. Three notes, then silence. They exchanged glances just as Mildred appeared around the bend in the path, clipboard pressed to her crisp uniform, her sensible shoes barely disturbing the gravel.

"Ladies," she said, her voice pleasant but businesslike. "There will be a special announcement in the banquet hall at two o'clock. Attendance is mandatory." She smiled—the practiced smile of someone who'd delivered thousands of such messages—and continued on her route without waiting for acknowledgment.

Dawn didn’t write journals. She tried, for maybe three weeks in fifth grade, but the exercise of putting feelings into sentences never made them less confusing. Half her entries were lists—what needed fixing around the house, which little brother was in trouble for what, who was owed an apology, or when she’d last made pastelillos with her abuela. Dawn understood herself mostly by doing, or by sitting in silence and letting everything sort of steep until it tasted like her own thoughts. The Chapel of Small Kindnesses was perfect for that.

It wasn’t a real chapel, more a clearing that someone—maybe one of the Mildreds, maybe Arabella, maybe nobody—had shaped into the rough suggestion of a church once Dawn had explained what she had sought. No doors, no windows, but a bower of living branches at the back, a careful ring of benches, and, at the far end, a crooked arch of woven wood that made a stained-glass pattern on the grass when the sun caught it just right. Dawn liked to think of it as an algorithm for peace: sunlight, benches, the hush of leaves overhead, and absolutely nothing else to do.

She picked her usual seat, near the far right, where a patch of moss grew so thick it made the bench feel like a cushion. Her breasts made any bench a little hazardous, but here, the moss was soft enough to make kneeling almost comfortable. Sitting, of course, was out of the question. There were no laps available. The morning light came in sideways, painting lines on her thighs and calves, making her feel a little like a saint and a little like a bug under a microscope.

She folded her hands and let her mind wander.

Today she’d been thinking about what she told Arabella, yesterday, in the Tavern of Second Chances. Dawn had never much liked bars, and the idea of a “tavern” made her think of something old and sticky, like a place where her dad might waste a Sunday afternoon. But Emily’s version was all low lights and big rough tables and a fire that somehow never smelled of smoke. Emi and Emily had joined her, and for a while it had been just the three of them, trading stories about dumb food service jobs and customer disasters, the kind of war stories that only made sense if you’d ever worked for tips.

Then Arabella had come in, and slid into their world with that soft, exacting smile. Dawn couldn’t remember exactly how the conversation started, but soon enough Arabella was asking how they felt about Andy and Laura. Like she was chasing some big revelation, or like she’d never heard a rumor in her life.

Dawn remembered what she’d said, because she’d thought about it all night. “They’re meant for each other, but Andy loves me too, and that’s enough.” She’d said it so easily, like it was a fact, like she hadn’t run the words through every filter in her body a dozen times before letting them out. And she’d meant it, too. Andy did love her. He never tried to make her feel less than, never played games with her loyalty or her need to belong. Dawn was his, and that was supposed to be enough.

But what she hadn’t noticed, not until she’d said it out loud, was that “enough” was a word that could hide a hundred other things. Enough for what? Enough to make her happy? Or enough to convince herself that she didn’t want more?

She picked at a bit of moss on the bench, rolling the green fluff between her fingers until it fell apart. She wanted to believe that “fine” and “happy” were neighbors, maybe even roommates. But what she’d said to Arabella was “enough,” and now, sitting here in the hush and the green light, she was starting to think they lived in different neighborhoods entirely.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not really. She didn’t want to be Laura—couldn’t imagine having to carry that kind of history, or that kind of hurt. And if she was being honest, the idea of being bound to Andy forever in the way Laura was… it didn’t scare her, but it did make her tired just thinking about it. She liked belonging, but not owning, or being owned. And she didn’t want to be anyone’s “other” or “second.” She wanted to matter, and for the first time in her life, she wanted to say so without the safety net of a joke or a self-deprecating smile.

Dawn let her mind drift back to the night before, to the moment after Arabella left their table. Emi had watched her with that dreamy, painter’s expression—like she was trying to decide if the light on Dawn’s cheek was worth sketching. Emily, by contrast, was all nerves and questions, eyes darting between the others as if she was afraid the topic might turn on her next. Both of them had looked at Dawn the same way: like she’d said something so reasonable, it had to be true. That was the problem. She wanted it to be true. But every time she tried to sleep, or to just let herself be happy for a whole hour without the voice in her head poking holes in the day, she came back to the same question: what did she really want?

It wasn’t a new question. Dawn had always been the fixer, the organizer, the one who held it together for everyone else. In every job she’d ever had, she’d been the one to stay late, to re-tape the schedules, to pick up the call when someone else’s life fell apart at 2 a.m. When her mom died, it was Dawn who got the brothers to school, made the lunches, handled the bills. When the old man flaked or called in “sick” (which really meant hungover), it was Dawn who carried the house until he pulled it together. Wanting something for herself felt—if not selfish, then at least risky. Like asking the universe for too much would break the little bit of luck she’d managed to hoard.

She looked up at the arch, the rough twining of branches and light, and tried to remember if she’d ever actually asked for anything. Not a job, not a grade, not a day off. Just something for her.

She sat in silence, long enough that the sun finished its slow climb and the air started to warm. The birds got louder, then quieter. A bee wobbled past her knee and vanished. Nothing changed, not really. But inside, she felt the question building, like water against a dam.

What did she want?

It wasn’t to be Harem Queen. She didn’t want to run the show, or to be an anchor. She had been an anchor for so long, to be anointed one forever felt suddenly exhausting. And besides, wanting to be Queen would mean she’d have to put herself first, which still felt like wearing a coat inside out. She didn’t want to win. But she didn’t want to fade, either.

She wanted to be seen. She wanted Andy to see her—not as a helper, not as a comfort, not as the girl who’d always show up and never complain. She wanted, for once, to ask for something and believe she deserved it.

She sat for a long time with the shape of the idea. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t even make her nervous. It just made her want to move, to get up, to go find Andy and say it out loud, even if it made her sound crazy or greedy or like she didn’t appreciate everything she already had.

She thought about what it would look like. Would she catch him at lunch, or wait for a quieter moment? Would she say it plain, or find a way to wrap it in something gentle, something that wouldn’t scare him off? Would he even believe her, or would he smile, thank her, and then go back to loving her in the quiet, careful way he always had?

The arch at the end of the Chapel caught a stray shaft of light, and for a moment the whole clearing glowed. Dawn felt the answer click into place, so quiet she barely noticed it at first.

She wanted Andy to marry her.

The thought made her laugh, low and surprised. It was so obvious, it felt like a prank she’d been playing on herself for years and only just now discovered the punchline. But it was true. She wanted it. Not instead of Laura, not as a prize, but as a promise. Not because she needed rescuing, not because she needed to be fixed, but because she wanted to choose him, and she wanted him to choose her.

She wanted to be chosen for always, not just for as long as she was useful. She wanted to stand in front of everyone—here, at the arch, or in a grocery store back home, or on a pier in some other world—and say it out loud: I choose you. It didn’t even matter that she wouldn’t be the only one to want that, or that she might not be the first. She didn’t mind sharing Andy, and she loved the other women like the sisters she had never had. She just wanted to belong.

She sat with the idea for a while, letting it warm her. It didn’t fix everything. She was still going to worry, still going to feel the tug of being not-quite-enough some days, but for the first time she felt the courage to say what she wanted, and not just settle for what she was given.

She stood, stretched, and shook the stiffness out of her legs. Her body still ached, her breasts still pulled at her center of gravity, but she felt lighter now, like she could maybe run all the way to the edge of the world if she had to. She dusted moss off her knees, smiled at the arch, and promised herself she’d do it—she’d say the words, no matter how scary it felt.

As she left the Chapel, a deep gong rang out from somewhere across the island, vibrating through the morning air. Dawn paused, listening as the sound faded into birdsong. Before she could wonder what it meant, Mildred appeared around the bend in the path, like a patch of darkness taking shape.

"There you are," Mildred said, smoothing her perpetually perfect hair. "Banquet hall at two. Special announcement." Her eyes lingered on Dawn's face a moment longer than necessary. "Don't be late."

Dawn nodded, watching Mildred retreat down the path. She didn't know what would happen next, but for the first time in forever, she wanted to find out.

The path to Room 1 was never the same twice. Riley said it was a trick of the gardens, how the winding stones and shadowed hedges seemed to rearrange themselves just enough that you never got too comfortable. Chloe wasn’t sure if that was magic or just Riley being Riley, but she let herself be led anyway, following the flicker of her girlfriend’s red-black hair as it whipped and shimmered in the morning light.

Riley opened the weathered door with one hand, the other hooked around Chloe’s wrist as if she thought Chloe might float away. There was a pause on the threshold, the way you might pause at the edge of a cold pool. Then both stepped inside.

The nursery was exactly as she remembered it. Soft bands of faded pink and yellow wrapped the walls, with a milky wash of light filtering through curtains so old you could see the pattern only by squinting. The air had that old-house scent: not must, exactly, but the mingled whiff of furniture wax, old paper, and dust disturbed only by time and the memories of people who never came back.

The crib stood in the far corner, its finish worn to a dull shine. On the windowsill, a mobile of glass planets hung suspended, their colors catching the thin light and throwing broken constellations onto the floorboards. A shelf lined the wall near the door, crowded with baby care supplies: wipes and ointments, unopened jars of formula, a bottle sterilizer. Everything looked generic, the labels faded—and Chloe couldn’t tell whether a baby had ever lived here, or someone had prepared for a baby that never arrived.

Chloe gravitated to the crib, fingers skimming the rail, then reached up to set the mobile spinning. The glass planets wobbled, casting speckled halos over her face.

“Still here,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

“Like it’s waiting,” Riley said, voice low. She didn’t move far from the door, one hand resting on the jamb as if she needed the wood to ground her.

Chloe bent over the cradle, smoothing the quilt at the bottom. It was pale green, handmade, the stitches precise and small. Someone had cared enough to do it right. She looked up, gaze snagging on the little desk near the window.

Riley noticed, following her line of sight. “That thing,” she said, nodding at the closed book on the desk. “It was here last time. I tried to open it, but—” She shrugged, lips twisting. “Wouldn’t budge. Like it was glued.”

Chloe left the crib and crossed to the desk. The book was exactly where Riley said, its fabric cover blue, the edges slightly frayed. A silk ribbon held it closed, but the knot was simple. She pulled at it gently, not wanting to break the spell.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, a little firmer. Still, the pages held tight, like the book itself was refusing. Chloe pressed her thumb to the spine, then looked at Riley with an awkward, almost embarrassed smile. “You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t want to be opened.”

Riley stepped closer, her own curiosity overcoming whatever **** kept her at the door. She braced a hand on the desk and leaned in, inspecting the book as if it might yield its secrets under scrutiny.

Chloe set it down and looked to the shelf. There was another book there—a planner, maybe, its cover plastic, corners bent from use. She picked it up. This one opened easily, the pages thick and cheap, like something from a grocery store checkout.

The writing inside was careful, slanted just a bit to the right. The first page had a name, no date, no title:

Sarah W.

That was all.

No last name. No return address. Just Sarah W. Chloe ran her thumb over the ink, feeling the slight indent in the page.

“Does that ring a bell?” she asked, passing the planner to Riley.

Riley took it, brows furrowed. “No Sarahs on the island,” she said, leafing through the pages. “Maybe one of the Mildreds, or Arabella’s old friends?”

Chloe shook her head. “It’s not the kind of handwriting I’d expect from them.” She reached for the book again, scanned the pages. Most were blank. But here and there, the scrawl reappeared: to-do lists, notes about supplies, a chart tracking feeding times, diaper changes, “nap duration.” The entries trailed off after a few pages, replaced by empty space.

She closed the book, holding it a moment longer before setting it gently back on the shelf.

“Whoever she was,” Chloe said, “she thought she was going to need all this.”

Riley nodded. She ran her hand along the edge of the shelf, then looked up at the mobile, at the planets still spinning lazy arcs in the air. “Or she did,” she said quietly.

For a while, neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say, really. The silence felt different this time—not empty, not heavy, but soft, as if the room itself was holding its breath.

Chloe drifted to the window, watching the sunlight play across the glass. “It’s weird,” she said. “I know it’s just a nursery, but…” She trailed off.

“It’s not just a nursery,” Riley finished. She folded her arms, chin tucked low. “It’s a monument. Someone’s whole future, just—” She stopped, gesturing at the crib, the supplies, the books. “All of this, and nobody ever used it.”

Chloe’s throat tightened. “Maybe she did.”

“Maybe,” Riley echoed.

Chloe thought about the baby who might have been here, the one for whom all of this was meant. The careful lists, the formula lined up with geometric precision, the green quilt smoothed flat as new grass. She thought about Sarah W., whoever she was, preparing for something she could never finish.

She shivered, and it wasn’t the chill of the morning. She reached for Riley’s hand, her own fingers cold. Riley squeezed back, her grip warm and steady.

They stood that way for a minute, listening to the world move on outside.

Chloe looked at the book again, at the name. She wanted to know the rest of the story, but some part of her believed it was better not to—better to leave the mystery in its soft-wrapped package, waiting for whoever came next.

She took a slow breath. “We should go soon,” she said. “But I want to stay a little longer.”

Riley nodded. “We can wait,” she said. Her voice was gentle, gentle in the way that meant she understood perfectly.

Chloe closed her eyes, feeling the quiet settle inside her. For once, it didn’t feel like a burden or a threat. It felt like an old song, played only for them.

Riley was the first to break the silence. She crossed the room, her steps oddly careful on the wood, and settled on the edge of the old nursing chair by the window. The seat creaked under her, but only a little, as if it remembered what it was for. She hooked an arm over her knee and stared at the blank wall for a while, letting her hair spill forward to hide her face.

Chloe watched her from the crib, fingers idly circling the faded lacquer of the railing. She had the feeling she was in the presence of something fragile—like a wasp nest, so beautiful and perfectly engineered you forgot, sometimes, that it could hurt.

“Whoever made this room,” Riley said finally, voice barely above a whisper, “never got to use it.”

Chloe looked at her, then out the window, then back at the row of bottles lined up like chess pieces on the changing table. “How do you know?” she asked.

Riley shrugged. “It’s just the feeling. The supplies, the lists—everything’s still lined up. Nothing’s been broken in.” She hesitated, and for a second Chloe saw not the tough, sarcastic Riley everyone else knew, but the one she’d met first, the one who wore her sadness like an extra skin. “I think she wanted to be ready. Like, if she could just prepare enough, she could guarantee herself the ending she wanted.”

Chloe found herself smiling, even though it wasn’t funny. “Why are you so sure it was a woman?”

Riley looked at her for the first time. “Because this kind of sadness is specific. It’s not like the angry kind, or the grieving kind. It’s gentle.” Her voice didn’t waver, but her eyes did. “It’s a girl’s sadness.”

The words hovered for a second, then landed, quiet as dust.

Chloe pulled the desk chair out and sat, legs tucked up, arms around her knees. She didn’t speak. She wasn’t sure she could, not with the way her breath kept catching in her throat. Instead she watched Riley, the slow, deliberate way she picked at the threads on her jeans, the way she sat braced against the air, as if waiting for something to fall.

Riley broke the stalemate first, of course. She always did.

“You’ve been moving weird the last few days,” Riley said. “Like you’re carrying something heavy and don’t want anyone to see it.”

Chloe let out a long, shaky breath. “I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

“I notice everything,” Riley said, but it wasn’t a boast. More a confession. “You want to tell me what it is, or should I make a guess?”

Chloe smiled, but it was a thin, watery thing. “I was waiting for the right time. Or the right place, I guess.”

Riley swept her arms wide. “Couldn’t pick a better one,” she said. “Go ahead.”

Chloe had rehearsed this moment for days. She’d walked herself through it in the shower, in bed with her hands folded over her chest, and even in the quiet, timeless halls of the hotel. She’d tried it with every inflection: casual, matter-of-fact, comic, tragic. She’d whispered it into her own cupped palms, half-wishing the words would dissolve into vapor and leave her exactly as she was.

But now, in the nursery, with dust motes drifting like the fallout of a future that never came for the woman who built this, it seemed impossible to just speak the truth as if it were any other sentence. The crib was a soft and insistent reminder of what was at stake. The glass planets, the quilt—every object in the room was a set piece in a drama she could not rewrite.

She glanced at Riley and tried to find a handhold in her expression, but Riley was unreadable: jaw set, eyes narrowed, mouth a flat line. There was a time, early in their friendship, when Chloe would have given anything to know what Riley was thinking. Now she saw that the unknowability was just as important as the knowing. Sometimes people needed a little mystery to keep themselves together.

Chloe pressed her palms into the cheap pine of the desk, grounding herself in the now. She let out a slow breath, counting the seconds it took to empty her lungs. “I’m pregnant,” she said, making the words simple, unadorned, a stone dropped in a pond.

She braced herself for a reaction: a flinch, a laugh, a crack in the stony silence. But nothing happened. Riley sat motionless, the only movement a small quiver at the corner of her mouth. For a second, Chloe wondered if Riley had even heard her, or if the news landed in that strange, hidden place where all the things you can’t bear just… wait.

Riley's face did something Chloe had never seen before: it went completely still. Not the stillness of composure—the stillness of someone who has just walked into a wall in the dark. Her eyes stayed open, fixed on a point just past Chloe's shoulder, and for three full seconds she didn't breathe.

Then she made a sound. Just one—small and involuntary, the kind you can't choose—somewhere between an exhale and the start of a word that never made it out. Her hand moved to her own sternum, pressing flat, as if checking something.

Riley’s eyes shuttered closed. It was an old reflex, the way she handled being overwhelmed—shut it out, take the blow, then decide whether to get up. She drew in a breath, her nostrils flaring slightly, and then exhaled in a slow, measured stream. When she opened her eyes, Chloe saw something raw and wounded flicker there before it vanished behind her usual shield.

“Okay,” Riley said at last, the word barely audible. It came out fractured—two syllables trying to hold a weight they weren't built for.

Chloe turned her chair so they could meet eye to eye, careful to keep her own hands visible and steady. “Are you mad?” she asked. The question felt childish, but she needed to know.

Riley shook her head, once, then again, as if dismissing an entire subroutine of possible answers. She opened her mouth, closed it. Her jaw worked silently for a moment. "I'm happy for you," she croaked, and the words seemed to cost her dearly. Still, she **** them out. "I really am, Chloe."

Chloe reached across the desk, her fingers closing gently around Riley’s wrist. The gesture felt both brave and impossible: she half expected Riley to pull away, but instead Riley’s arm went slack, the pulse at her wrist rapid and visible beneath Chloe’s thumb.

They sat like that for a moment—Chloe trying to transmit comfort, Riley trying to withstand it without breaking.

Riley's free hand found the edge of the desk, her knuckle going white against the pine. When she finally spoke, the words came out with the careful spacing of someone picking their way across ice. "I thought it would hurt," Riley said, voice wobbling in the air, "and it does—but not the way I expected." She stopped. Started again. "It's more like—you know when you stand up too fast, and the world recedes, and you can't tell if you're going to faint or fly?"

Chloe nodded. “I do.”

"That's what it feels like," Riley continued. She exhaled, the sound unsteady. "Like a part of me is gone, but the empty space is so precise that you wonder if it was supposed to be there all along." She looked down at Chloe's hand. Then, quieter—the voice she used when she was reaching for the right line: "Like a word you've erased so many times, the paper remembers it better than you do."

“It does,” Chloe said, squeezing a little tighter. “It does, actually.”

Riley made a soft, breathy noise—a laugh or a sob, Chloe couldn’t distinguish—and finally let her shoulders drop. For a moment, the impulsiveness that usually lived just under Riley's skin was nowhere in evidence: she was just a woman sitting very still, trying to locate herself. Her hand turned over, palm up, and Chloe laced their fingers together. It wasn't a romantic gesture; it was the grip of a person who had to hold on to something or risk floating away.

“I don’t want to ruin this for you,” Riley said, still staring at their joined hands. “You deserve to be happy about it.”

Chloe tried to smile, but it was a bent, unsteady thing. “You wouldn’t be ruining it. I want you to know. I want you to be here for this.”

Riley nodded, her hair falling forward to shield her face. “I want that too,” she managed. She laughed once, without humor. "God. That's the problem. That's what scares me."

“Why?” Chloe asked.

Riley let out a shaky exhale. “Because maybe it means I’m not done after all. Maybe… maybe I still want things to happen for me, too. Even when I tell myself I don't. Even when it's easier not to. Even when I swear I don't."

Chloe let the silence do its work, the way therapists always said to. She traced her thumb over Riley’s knuckles, feeling the tiny scars and calluses that mapped the history of her friend’s life. She thought of all the things Riley had never told her, and all the things she never would.

“You can want things, you know,” Chloe said, her voice a thread in the hush. “It doesn’t make you weak.”

Riley’s mouth twisted. “It does, though. That’s the part that sucks. If I could just want things and let them float off like dandelion fluff, it wouldn’t matter. But I want things and then I have to watch as they get taken away. Or as I destroy them myself.”

She said it without heat, which was worse. The anger Riley usually kept stoked and handy wasn't there. What was there instead was just the fact of it, stated plainly, like something she'd had to make peace with a long time ago and hadn't quite managed.

Chloe thought of the green quilt, the careful handwriting, the lists of supplies and feeding times. She thought of all the ways a heart could be broken by hope.

“You didn’t destroy anything,” Chloe said, her voice firmer now. “You did your best.”

Riley shook her head, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she let her gaze drift to the crib in the corner, its bars slicked with years of ghosts. “I keep thinking about the woman who made this room,” Riley said. “How maybe she thought if she kept everything perfect, nothing bad could happen. Like the universe would notice and cut her a break.” She paused. "I've written that poem. About twelve different times."

Chloe followed her eyes. “Sarah.”

Riley smiled, but it was brittle, already shattered. “Yeah. Sarah.” She looked at Chloe again, her face suddenly ancient with fatigue. “You think she ever opened that diary?”

“No,” Chloe said, glancing at the sealed book. “I think she left it for whoever came next.”

They were silent again. Chloe wondered if the nursery would ever feel less sad, if perhaps the knowledge of one more life coming into the world would bring a modicum of… not happiness, but at least peace, to Sarah W., wherever she was.

Riley raked a hand through her hair. “When did you find out?”

Chloe blushed, partly because she didn’t know exactly, partly because she felt naive for thinking the news was, in some way, the main event. “A few days ago. I asked Arabella, to make sure.”

Riley arched an eyebrow. “And?”

Chloe smiled, all teeth. “Everything’s fine. Weird, but fine.”

“I’m glad,” Riley said, and this time it didn’t sound like a lie. “Do you know…?”

Chloe shook her head. “No. I don’t want to. Not yet. I like not knowing.”

Riley made a soft, approving noise. Then, after a while: “I hope it’s a girl. I mean, obviously you’ll love them either way, but—” She faltered. “I think you’d be good at raising a girl.” She faltered. “Boys are great. I know boys are great. But—” She stopped, pressing her lips together. Then: “I think you'd be good at raising a girl.”

Chloe felt her cheeks grow hot. She wondered if she’d ever be able to look at Riley again without seeing this moment superimposed over every other. “Thank you,” she said, and meant it.

The nursery held them in its soft green hush. Outside, the wind rattled the windowpanes, a sound as old as the world.

Riley flexed her fingers, still linked with Chloe’s, as if testing the bond. She said nothing for a long time. When she did, her voice was a cracked whisper: “I’m scared you’ll forget about me.”

Chloe’s heart kicked. “Never.”

“You say that now,” Riley said, and Chloe could hear the smile in her voice, even if she couldn’t see it. “But I know how this goes. People move on, and I just—I get left in the guest room, like a lamp no one has space for.” She snorted. “I wrote a poem about being a lamp. It was extremely bad.”

Chloe let the ache inside her have its way. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said. “And if I did, you’d come find me and slap me until I remembered.”

Riley grinned, teeth white and sharp. “Maybe I would.” She said it like a threat and a promise at once, which was, Chloe thought, very Riley.

When Riley finally pulled her hands away, her cheeks were streaked but her eyes were dry. “I’m supposed to say something comforting, right? Like, ‘You’ll be a great mom’ or ‘It’s a blessing’ or whatever.”

“You could,” Chloe said, “but it wouldn’t make me feel better. Or you, I think.”

Riley nodded, picking at the dampness on her sleeve. “You know what’s dumb? I thought—after John died, after the baby—I thought I’d never want to try again. That it’d be safer to just pretend I didn’t care.”

Chloe rested her head against Riley’s. “I remember you said that.”

“I lied,” Riley whispered. “Sometimes I think about it. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to start over, or at least… not fail again.”

“You didn’t fail,” Chloe said, the words so soft they barely made it past her lips. “What happened to John Jr. wasn’t your fault.”

Riley laughed again, but this time it was almost gentle. “Don’t tell me that. I’ll start believing you.”

Chloe squeezed her tighter. “I hope you do.”

They sat that way for a long time, the only sounds the tick of the old clock in the hallway and the soft, rhythmic pulse of their breathing.

Finally, Riley straightened. “This place is haunted, you know,” she said, glancing around the nursery. “But not by a ghost. More like a… a longing. A hope that never got to be real.”

Chloe followed her gaze, picturing the careful hands that had lined up the bottles, the gentle pens that had filled the planner, the hands that stitched the quilt. “Sarah W.,” she said, and it felt like a benediction.

“Yeah,” Riley echoed. “Sarah W.”

They stayed a while longer, just breathing the same air. Neither wanted to be the first to leave, but when the time finally felt right, they stood. Chloe took one last look at the mobile, then followed Riley to the door.

A distant gong sounded, low and steady, somewhere outside the nursery. It pulsed through the room and set the mobile spinning again, the planets wobbling in their orbits.

Riley raised an eyebrow. “Weird. That doesn’t usually happen.”

As if summoned, Mildred appeared in the doorway. Her dress was immaculate, her smile brisk and brittle as ever. “Special announcement in the Banquet Hall, two o’clock,” she said. “Attendance is mandatory.” Her eyes lingered on Chloe, then on Riley, then back to Chloe. “Congratulations, by the way,” she added, voice dry as salt.

Chloe nodded, not sure if it was meant for her or Riley or maybe Sarah W., wherever she was. But it didn’t matter. She took Riley’s hand, and together they walked down the corridor, letting the faint music of the nursery fade behind them.