Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

working better than I thought it would,” she said. “There’s this peace, clarity, to being in the studio by myself. I don’t have to worry about the girl next to me having better extension or sharper turns. Like I’m figuring out how I see me as a dancer, instead of how everyone else does.”
    Confidence rang through her words. “That sounds great. And you’re still happy you’re working with Gavin?”
    She sat up. “Is that a nosy big sister question, or a how’s your art question?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “He’s the best partner I’ve ever worked with. I can tell I’m dancing better, even when he’s not there, because of what I’ve learned from him. Which is great. It’s one of the things I was hoping for.
    “I like being with him outside of the studio, too. He talks to me like I matter. We have fun.” She smiled.
    “I’m glad,” I said.
    “How’s the writing going?” She sat up, leaned against the side of the bed.
    “Good. I feel like I’ve got things figured out, at least for now.” I had sent Beth the pages she wanted, and then obsessively checked my email until she responded. She’d said she was happy with their quality, that it seemed like I was truly pushing on the possibilities of the structure I had chosen, which had been enough praise to make me do a victory dance around my room. She had also given me a detailed list of things to think about to make them better, and that had been good, too. You don’t tell someone how to get better if you don’t think they can. “I may steal your audience of birds for it.”
    “If you’re collecting weird stuff, you should talk to Ariel, too. Her studio was full of leaves the other day.”
    “Leaves?” It was so odd, I wasn’t sure I had heard right.
    “Everywhere. All over the floor. Even on her piano. It was a real mess. She had to call and have someone clean it out.”
    “I didn’t realize we had wind bad enough to do that. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time up here.” I hadn’t asked for studio space, so it was easy to lose track of the world outside of my storyand my room. Sometimes there were days that I didn’t make it out of the house.
    “That’s where the weird comes in,” Marin said, the undertone of excitement in her voice reminding me that she had devoured horror stories and unsolved mysteries growing up, the weirder the better. She always wanted to hear the scary parts.
    “Ariel hates people overhearing her when she’s writing songs, so her studio is one of the soundproof ones.”
    “Which means no windows,” I said.
    “Which means no windows. Which means that someone had to bring the leaves in there. So crazy, right?”
    “Really crazy,” I agreed. “But maybe good for a story.”
    Later that night, I looked up from my work, out of the window. The trees were full of birds, flocked velvet patches against the canvas of the sky. Maybe they watched, maybe they slept, tucked in convenient perches. Every time I looked up from my writing, they were there.
    So I did what I had joked about. I stole the birds for a story, of a night that came in on feathers and covered everything around it, houses and rivers and trees. That perched, watching. Of a girl who grew wings to fly over and out of it, flying above those other wings, that feathered night, and all the watching eyes beneath.
    Then I finished. Put my notebook away, saved files on the computer. Stood up from my chair and stretched, looking out once more to where the birds rested.
    As one, they lifted from the trees, moving shadows that blended into the rest of the night’s secrets.

8
    Wood smoke curled in through my open window, rich, like burning leaves. I pushed the covers back, rubbed sleep from my eyes. The scent grew stronger. Curious, I looked out.
    There was a fire in front of our house, and Helena was tossing things on it.
    My right hand curved itself into a claw, and I felt the flames, felt the sick-sharp heat of them, the hunger that would turn even my