Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

Nothing fits, even if it’s fitted, because it’s not really about the size of the body or how it fills the clothes, but how much space it takes up in the world.

fear and fun could be neighbors, right?

Everyone insists it is her purpose, and it drives her mad, the idea that the shape of her body determines the shape her life must take. That her beauty is something she is expected to pass on instead of keep. That anything she makes will thrive while she is left to wither.

Two kinds of women have leave to walk through this world alone and unmolested.

And I am not close enough with God to be a nun.

“Those grown in the midnight soil are never 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.”

“You should always be found ahead of your corpses, and never in their wake.”

She swings, and the bottle shatters on impact, the sound as high and bright as bells, and Alice winces, even though she saw it coming, a kind of automatic flinch, because it’s one of those sounds that means trouble. It’s a rock pitched through a kitchen window, a pint knocked off a counter, a pair of glasses crunched under a clumsy foot, a girl taking out her heartbreak with a bat.

Because rage shatters out, not in.

wishing she’d picked something more suggestive, even though she knows it doesn’t really matter. That the simple act of having a teenage body, no matter how it’s dressed, has always been enough to justify a man’s attention.

And here’s the thing—Alice probably wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn’t been looking at her first. Staring, really, that way some men do, as if looking is fair game, because in their minds, all girls are just asking to be looked at.

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.

Who you were isn’t who you have to be.”

“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.”

She is not a lily or a rose. Not a flower ready and waiting to be picked. She is still growing wild at the edges of her family garden. She is not ready. She will never be ready. This isn’t what she wants.

Some people keep their heart tucked so deep, they hardly know it’s there. But you have always worn it like a second skin. It will make your life harder. But it will also make it beautiful.

And here is the awful thing about belief. It is a current, like compulsion. Hard to forge when it goes against your will, but easy enough when it carries you the way you want to go.

“Great,” mutters Alice. “You guys get pipe smoke and fresh bread, and I get anxiety. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“Death is rot and ruin. Death is bones and dirt. You are a rose that grew out of it.”