The Secret World of Briar Rose(38)
“You were wearing a blue dress made of satin and a crown of moonflowers. You were sleeping in a bed that was decorated like a garden. There must have been a hundred roses wrapped around the bed frame, and they were in full bloom. The brightest one was pinned to your chest like a brooch.”
As Corin described the scene, the corners of Briar’s lips turned downward. None of the descriptions impressed her. “That sounds more like a casket than a bed.”
“Where I come from, people consider a casket full of roses the best thing that could happen to them when they die.”
“Roses are a bit outdated, though, don’t you think? I much prefer sunflowers.” Briar placed the basket on a windowsill and gazed at the sunflower field outside. Under the sun, her eyes shone like false coins. “Their faces are always pointed at the sun, as if trying to reach to the skies. But they never do. They’re always tethered to their stems, forced to be rooted to the ground. Someday, I want to watch one of them reach far enough to become the sun itself.”
Corin held back from scoffing at Briar’s nonsense. The girl spoke in delusions and pixie dreams. Only people like her could turn their sadness into whimsy. Corin was not interested in words spun into gold, but the real thing. She tried steering their conversation onto the right path.
“It wasn’t just you I saw in the castle. I met someone else. A prince named Ezran, who said he promised to protect your treasure. He’s waited a hundred years. If I returned with it, I’m sure he’d consider his job finished.”
Briar turned to the frosted cake on the table and began stacking red blocks on top. They smoothed their edges into strawberries again, the plastic around the cake solidifying into white glaze. Frosting stained her fingers, and as she licked them off delicately, Corin figured the girl had to be toying with her.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m sorry,” Briar said. “I cannot give it to you.”
“Why not?”
“I abandoned many things when I fell asleep. My family’s treasure was one of them. It’s painful to think about, so I would rather not.”
Corin let out a bitter laugh. She couldn’t stand the irony. “Some of us don’t have the comfort of avoiding what makes us uncomfortable. You were cursed by magic. The rest of us were cursed just by being born.”
“I wasn’t cursed.”
Corin blinked. “What?”
“A demon’s curse cannot be broken unless the demon takes it away themselves. Malicine revoked the curse before my eighteenth birthday.” Briar sliced a piece of dessert, then offered the plate to Corin. “Would you like some cake?”
Corin gawked at her in disbelief. What had been the purpose of these fairy tales, then, if there wasn’t a damsel in distress trapped in another world? The girl chose to be here. Left the rest of the real world behind to rot and die. When Elly traveled the tunnels and risked her life, when her sister called out for Amelia, the princess hadn’t responded. She never would.
“Oh! I almost forgot.”
Briar opened a drawer, rifled through its contents, and placed a cake topper on the frosting. The ceramic fox curled between buttercream and strawberries. His eyes were closed, his bushy tail a veil that hid him from the rest of the world. Recognition struck Corin like shards of clay cutting into her palm. She tried swallowing, but her throat was thick and dry like cotton. The corners of her vision blurred, only the fox figurine in full focus.
It was one thing to see a live fox stalking her throughout the land. It was another to see the actual figurine her father had made, the one that Harlow had given back to her, the same object that Corin would later destroy. Even the chip in the fox’s tail was an exact match.
She strained to keep her voice calm. “Why do you have this?”
Briar shrugged. “Sometimes I’m not sure where the things I find here come from.”
“Don’t mock me. This is the same one as before.”
“Before?”
Corin sucked in a shaky breath. Briar was taunting her with this carefree performance. The airy tone of her voice, the subtle tilt of her head. It didn’t matter how many plants Briar tried decorating this place with. Even flowers would show their rot eventually. Corin closed her eyes to stop herself from leaping at Briar and tearing the girl apart until she found the rotten core inside. She needed to remain placid if she wanted to crack the girl open.
Her eyes opened to a plate in her hands, holding the slice of cake and fox topper. The clay figurine cracked under her touch, revealing maggots that writhed beneath the cake’s frosting. They wormed through the strawberries and left red trails behind. A familiar stench of death filled her nostrils. But Corin could force Briar to remember things she would rather forget, too.
“You’re a liar,” she said. “You, this world, everything—it’s all a lie.”
The plate slipped from Corin’s fingers and shattered. Cracks spread over the fox figurine and dissolved like sand, spilling into the floorboards that split open. A hole caved in the middle of the room and turned the house’s foundation at a slant. Trinkets fell off sliding tables, reverting to useless blocks. The armoire fell over with a violent thud and burst open its drawers, but nothing spilled out, just the hollow thud of plastic against a sinking floor.
Still Corin and Briar remained standing, as if acknowledging the catastrophe around them would mean exposing the cracks beneath their own facade.