Clove Bakshi's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Clove came home the next afternoon to a house with all the lights on and no warmth in it. His mother stood in the kitchen with her hands flat on the counter. His father was on the phone. "Rosemary is gone," Madhuri said, plain as a closed door. "Since this morning. Her bed was empty." Clove's backpack slid off his shoulder. He wanted to say it. He wanted to say, I know who took her. Instead he walked to the back window and looked out at the garden. There, curling up between his mother's herb pots, was a branch that did not belong. Dusky grey thorns. Dark purple flowers, wide open, watching. "Did you check the garden?" Clove asked. His voice came out steady, which surprised him. Anand shook his head. "Police are coming. Stay inside, beta." Clove nodded. He pressed his thumb against the cold glass and felt the small scar there twinge, the one the thorns had given him before. They had said there would be consequences. He had refused. This was the bill. He slipped upstairs while his parents argued with the phone. In his room he pulled on his jacket and tied his shoes tight. He could not tell them. Telling them meant telling them everything — the ears, the swap, the fact that the daughter they were crying for had never been theirs by blood. So he opened his window instead. The thorn branch in the garden seemed to nod at him. Clove climbed out alone.