Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

“Careful. In nature, beauty is a warning. The pretty ones are often poisonous.”

“A name is like a dress. It might be by nature pretty or plain, but it is the person wearing it who matters most.”

“Knowledge is power, María. Never turn it down.

“One can be alone without feeling lonely,” she muses. “One can feel lonely without being alone.”

“Bury my bones in the midnight soil,” he begins, infusing the words with the air of theater. “Plant them shallow and water them deep. And in my place will grow a feral rose.” He leans down to Renata and cups her face, running a thumb across her bottom lip. “Soft red petals hiding sharp white teeth.”

“Fire, steel, wood, it does not matter. Destroy our hearts, and we are destroyed as well. So, I suggest you learn to guard yours better.”

Alice’s hand responds before her brain, reaching to take the thing just because Catty held it toward her. Because that is the power of big sisters, the urge to take anything they offer.

But the truth is, Alice has never felt an anger strong enough to be called hate. Oh, she feels plenty of other emotions—worry, and panic, sadness, and fear—but they make her want to hold on to things as tight as she can, keep them together. She doesn’t understand the urge Catty has to break them instead.

A steady current of students fills the hall, headphones on, heads bowed, one of those grim reminders that your life is small and the world is big, and even when it feels like it’s falling down, it’s only falling down on you. To everyone else, it’s just going on as usual.

“You are not afraid.” Those bright blue eyes find hers across the room. “Of death?” asks Alessandro. “Or of you?” Sabine arches a brow. “Consider us the same.” He hums thoughtfully. “I have no fear of death, nor any urge to court it. In fact, I am quite fond of living.” Sabine props her chin on her palm. “And yet,” she says, “you are still mortal. Does Matteo refuse to make you as he is?” “Not at all,” he answers cheerfully. “He has offered many times. But I refuse to let him.” She frowns. “If you are so fond of living, why reject the gift of life?” “Is it life,” he counters, “if there is never death to balance it? Or is its brevity what makes it beautiful?”

“Control is knowing yourself well enough to know your limits.” His eyes drift toward the stairs. “Better to avoid temptation.”

What is the point, she thinks, of loving something you are doomed to lose? Of holding on to someone who cannot hold on to you?

Sabine has walked the earth long enough to know that not all flowers grow well in the garden. Some thrive, and others wither. And a wretched few must be dug up before they ruin everything.

Perhaps she craves the risk as well as the reward. After all, the danger is what makes the prize so sweet.

After all, there is no art without life to inspire it.” She tapped her finger on the very tip of Charlotte’s nose. “So go, and be inspired.”

In fairy tales, big things happen in threes. Three children. Three beds. Three roads. The third bite is poison, the third gift is great, the third door always leads home. It makes sense, then, that when Charlotte looks back on this time, it is the third ball she dwells on most. The one that changes everything.

“The world will try to make you small. It will tell you to be modest, and meek. But the world is wrong. You should get to feel and love and live as boldly as you want.”

“Guilty.” “Don’t worry,” she says. “It will fade.” The words are clearly meant to comfort, but the idea, that she could do a thing like that and feel nothing at all, is somehow worse.

“How many times have you done this?” asks Charlotte. “How many lives have you lived?” “Enough, and not enough,”

“Death comes, and sometimes it is kind, and often it is cruel, and very rarely it is welcome. But it comes, all the same.”

Why does Charlotte stay? That is like asking—why stay inside a house on fire? Easy to say when you are standing on the street, a safe distance from the flames. Harder when you are still inside, convinced you can douse the blaze before it spreads, or rushing room to room, trying to save what you love before it burns.

“The fact is, whether death takes you all at once, or steals pieces over time, in the end there is no such thing as immortality. Some of us just die slower than the rest.”