Deep down, Pearl and I both knew she was going to come home in a box. I also knew, when Pearl was past knowing anything, how the town would talk when I dug a hole for that box in the backyard, Pearl and all. I didn’t know a rosebush would grow from the grief-tilled earth, though, so quickly that the space where I’d imagined a headstone became a fairy tale thicket, blushing with cloyingly sweet roses.

“Did she like roses?” I frown even though my mother can’t see my expression on the other end of the phone. She’s been discovering herself in New Mexico since I was fifteen. Thirteen years later I continue to imagine her eternally swimsuit clad, an unnaturally bright cocktail in each hand.

“That’s not exactly the point, Ma,” I say, glaring at the rosebush that’s now almost taller than I am. Not that it’s hard to be taller than I am. “I haven’t even planted any roses.”

Not to mention that no, Pearl had never liked roses. Her favourites were always snowdrops. I only ever picked them for her once, but it was enough to know not to give her flowers again or to expect any. No flowers, no chocolates, no holding hands when we walked along the shore, welcoming the sand between our toes. I didn’t need any of that, though. She was enough. I wish I’d been the same.

I hiss when I prick my finger on a rose thorn with enough force to draw blood. When I go to suck my fingertip clean, the stem absorbs what my capillaries have left behind as voraciously as a sponge. A nearby bud unfurls into full bloom before my eyes with the slow relief of a last breath.

“I was six years old the first time I noticed another girl was pretty, and I pinched myself so hard I left a bruise.”

The voice is an echo of Pearl’s, a whisper through an empty glass, and I swallow the shocked lump in my throat.

“Ma,” I say, holding the phone so tightly the plastic creaks in my ear, “one of the roses just spoke to me.”

There’s a beat of silence, then my mother sighs.

“Oh dear,” she says as though I’ve told her it’s raining and there’s washing on the line. “Honey, you need the Tippiti Witch.”

*     *     *
I believe in many things Pearl never did—Santa Claus, mermaids, happy endings—but the Tippiti Witch always seemed too homespun to be real. If Pearl were here, while swampy mud seeps through my hole-ridden sneakers until I might as well have set out barefoot, she’d say something logical like how the Tippiti Witch is probably just a strange lady who lives on her own in the marsh—a lady I don’t know enough about to presume it’s safe to approach her, stinking of roses and sweaty bereavement.

“How are you going to run away in those shoes if she’s dangerous?” Her voice is so clear in my head I almost lose my footing. “One of these days you’re gonna get yourself killed, Zinnia.”

“You already beat me to that.” I say before I can stop myself, and immediately regret it when my head quietens. Turns out I can’t even keep Pearl when she’s imaginary.

I brush hair I didn’t bother tying up out of my face; there’s a fresh mosquito bite in the crook of my elbow and a wave of grief like I’ve swallowed my own tongue hits me thinking about how Pearl will never see it. Never again will she apply cream or kisses to my hurts or find a new grey hair or a laugh line. In a couple of months my skin cells will regenerate and there’ll no longer be any part of me left that she touched.

I suck in humid air and push myself forward. I’ve barely eaten a thing since the police arrived at my door, bearing solemn-faced news that’s made me feel as though I’m constantly missing a step in the dark ever since, and I can’t remember when I last drank anything either. Pearl was forever reminding me to stay hydrated. Even back when she was in Afghanistan, she stuck post-it notes around the house before she left—inside cutlery drawers, on the fridge door, under the desk—reminding me to drink more water. The irony of wading through a saltwater marsh with a tongue as dry as a ginger snap doesn’t escape me, but there’s no stopping until I find the Tippiti Witch.

“You’ll find her soon enough,” Ma told me. “Just look for the mouths.”

She didn’t clarify further after that—she was already late for Pilates and mindfulness with Joyce—but I understand her soon enough when I stumble into a clearing, as though I’ve just discovered the centre of a labyrinth, and spy a pink and green mound twice my height that looks as though it’s breathing. I creep closer, saltwater sloshing over my socks as I disturb a small crab that quickly scuttles away, and realise the mound isn’t a mound at all, not really.

It’s a small house, almost entirely covered with yawning Venus flytraps. Some are closed around their latest meal; others patiently await curious insects like baby birds frozen in their want. A tickle on the skin between my sock and the frayed edge of my jeans has me looking down just in time to see a small one pulling away. I stumble back, hands clenching and unclenching by my sides.

I’ve almost given up looking for a way in or any sign of life that isn’t botanical when I spy a brass Venus flytrap that appears to be devouring itself. It’s not fossilised or a rare breed mimicking inanimation, but a doorknocker that’s the only indication there’s an entrance there at all. I’m reaching for it when the door swings open.

The woman standing on the other side of it only looks a few years older than my mother, her silver hair haphazardly tied up with the assistance of a pink polka dot scarf. There’s a not entirely unpleasant stench of sweat and soil coming from either her or her house.

“Uh huh?”

“Are you the Tippiti Witch?” I blurt out the words before I can ask them with any attempt at grace and she looks me up and down, wiping her hands on dungarees saturated with grass stains.

“I prefer Audrey.”

*     *     *
I can’t remember what I said to Audrey, if any of it even made sense, but I suppose it must have.

“Show me,” was all she said before she began to lead me back through the marsh to my own house. She holds my hand like I’m a lost child and I watch her feet; they’re bare, her soles dirty and calloused, and I swear the marsh’s flora and fauna leans out of her way to offer us a clear path.

The rose bush has almost doubled in width in the hours I’ve been gone, creeping beyond Pearl’s resting place towards the rest of the garden, which is mostly wildflowers aside from the small rows of radishes Pearl had loved adding to her salads, covering her food like bullet wounds. The petals are a luscious organ red, the thorns abnormally long and spindle sharp.

“And this was here when you woke up this morning?” I watch Audrey watching the rose bush. She’s clearly surprised and I thought that would make me feel better—like I’m not going crazy—but it only makes me more uneasy that a woman who lives in a cocoon of Venus flytraps thinks my garden is strange.

“Yes,” I say, “but listen.”

I offer my thumb to a hungry thorn that sinks into my skin like a tooth, and another bud flowers.

“In second grade I told my best friend Martha McGinnis that I wanted to marry her someday. She told everyone and I was bullied so badly I had to change schools.”

I remember this story. Pearl and I spread-eagled on the grass after too much wine and not enough sleep, watching the clouds drift past while the sunburned skin on our noses peeled. A slurred, quiet confession from Pearl, only a week out of her second tour of Afghanistan, about Martha and her nastiness. I don’t think Pearl ever knew I once went searching for Martha online, only to find a beautiful photo of her and her wife on their wedding day.

I never told Pearl. Now I wonder if Martha thought about her at all when she got married, or if she even remembers the hateful poison she dripped into Pearl’s ear. If she’ll ever know that she got a ring on her finger while my Pearl fashioned one for her neck.

Audrey crouches down, knees cracking, to rub the soil between her fingers; she licks a fingertip and then spits into the grass, away from the grave, and examines the leaves as though she’s reading a palm. She doesn’t really start frowning until she presses her fingers against the thorns. I wait for the whispers, but nothing happens; she presses with so much force her arm shakes and still her skin won’t break.

“This ain’t her,” she says at last, pulling her hand away and looking at me, “it’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ain’t let her go.”

Of course not. How could I? Why should I, when I’d spent the best part of a decade watching the woman I love punish herself for not being enough for the parents who didn’t deserve her? Why, when I loved Pearl so damn much and knew Pearl loved me too—she’d’ve been happier, after all, if she hadn’t—and yet none of it had been enough to steady her balance on mortality’s knife edge.

“What happens if I can’t let her go?”

“Then there ain’t much I can do for either of you.”

I feel the burn of tears behind my nose and my voice breaks when I say, “Am I hurting her?”

Audrey shakes her head, offering me a smile just short of pitying.

“She’s past pain now.”

It can only mean I’m a terrible person that I’d rather she was in pain if only it meant she were here. If only I’d found a way to convince her not to do what she did. But she faded like a sun-bleached book spine, so gradually that I didn’t notice the difference between what she’d once been and what she’d become until it was too late. And then there was me, perpetually jocund, hoping my happiness could save her.

I never really wanted anything before I met Pearl. I stayed in the home I was born in, in the town I know so well I could walk the streets blindfolded, and left school with no great accomplishments to work whatever odd jobs I could find. Even when Ma fled and it was just me and Pa in the rickety house his great-grandfather built, until his pickled liver saw him exit stage left when I was eighteen, I was content.

Then two years later I saw Pearl. A military belle fresh from her first tour in Afghanistan, hiding out in a bar on the other side of town in the hopes she might unsee some of it. She drank whiskey like it was communion wine, shied away from the drunkards who patted her shoulder and thanked her for her service, and I wanted.

I refilled her glass for free. “What service can I offer you tonight, soldier?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them, and she finally looked at me. I grinned and she gulped and I wanted.

“We all grieve differently—”

I bat Audrey’s hand away before she can rest it on my shoulder. “I don’t want to fucking grieve, I want her!”

“She’s gone,” Audrey says as gently as she can, but her eyes are steely. “This will fade when you’re ready for it to fade, and right now you ain’t ready.”

*     *     *
To Audrey’s credit she tried to comfort me before she left, with a promise to return when the roses stop talking, but I have no patience for sympathy. I weep until my throat is raw and pound the dirt with my fists. A thorn as eager as low-hanging fruit scratches my wrist, just sharp enough to draw blood, and I hear Pearl.

“Sometimes I hated Zinnia for how much I loved her, and I wished she’d meet someone else when I was away.”

There’s a strange sound like an old car that won’t start. It takes a moment to realise the sound is coming from me. I’m laughing.

“You’d’ve loved that, wouldn’t you? That would have made everything so easy for you, wouldn’t it? Because we both know you love the easy route! Maybe I fucking hate you too, alright? Did you consider that? Did you ever fucking think about that, Pearl?”

I slam my hand against the thorns, seeking an answer I know I won’t get.

“I thought the army would make me braver but all it really made me was more ashamed.”

I rip roots from the earth and a thorn spears my palm.

“I spent my life afraid, like my whole existence was a matinee show performed by an understudy who forgot to practice. But I swear I loved Zinnia—even on the days I couldn’t prove it.”

I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe as I rip clumps from the rose bush and crawl in, my fingers sinking into the soil that separates me and Pearl as thorns rake along my arms, pierce the spaces between my ribs and tangle in my hair.

“I’m sorry, Zinnia. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m-”

I scream and the roses bloom.

*     *     *
The rose bush is gone when I come to in Pearl’s arms. We’re so close our noses are almost touching and I can see the earth caught in her hairline. For a moment I’m frozen with the fear that someone has been cruel enough to dig her up and leave her beside me—but then she blinks.

It’s the quickest I’ve ever sat up, loathe as I am to leave her embrace.

“Pearl?”

A thorn protrudes from the corner of her right eye, clogging the tear duct; it doesn’t seem to bother Pearl when the petal her eyelid has become snags on it with each slow blink until the edge tears as easily as tissue paper.

“Yes,” she says, pauses, “and no.” She sits up and looks at her arms, running trembling fingers over her collarbone, bulging with thorns. A spiny peduncle has wound itself around her throat like a necklace, hiding the bruises. “I don’t know what I am.”

I cup her face in my hands. “You’re alive.” I reply through a watery laugh. “You’re here.”

Pearl’s fingers curl around my wrists, the clammy kind of cold of something thawing out. I can smell the fear on her when she looks me in the eye.

“You can't love me like this, Zinnia,” she says, but my head is already shaking.

I bring us close enough for our foreheads to touch, heads bowed in a shared prayer.

“Stay. Stay here where you’re planted.” A thorn jutting from her scalp worms its way into mine. “Stay with me.”