In the days that followed, Mat gave up his questioning when the girl continued to serve him only silence. Then, Gran gave it a go, from threatening to pleading with her to say something, anything.

On the fifth day, Gran broke a vase, vowing to send her out into the cold. The girl tore into the bedroom and hid under the bed, not coming out until Mat had given the old woman a tongue lashing on the finer points of compassion and threatening to leave if she refused to adopt them. What was almost certainly a bluff worked. From then on, Gran gave the girl space, throwing only stern glares and complaints her way. But the girl couldn't shake her fear and continued to crouch low to the ground and hide behind furniture every time the old woman came into a room.

"She acts like a wild animal! She could at least brush that untamed head of hers--dragging it about and dirtying it on the floor, like she does. It's all knots."

To avoid the unpleasant tension at meals, Mat had been bringing food to the girl's room. Until he didn't.

"Come to the table or you don't get to eat," the old woman called from the kitchenette.

Stomach grumbling, by the time the girl did as she was told, there was nothing left but a hunk of crusty bread.

As Mat cleared the table, Gran towered over her, hands on her hips.

"It's time for a few ground rules. You wanna eat, you eat with us at the table. You wanna stay here, you help out with the chores: sweeping, cleaning clothes, drying dishes. You wanna act like a wild animal, fine, but you don't get to look like one."

The girl was already backing toward the bedroom, ready to bolt, as Mat approached, brush in hand.

"Come," he said, waving her to him. "I'll help."

The girl startled herself by backing into a dining chair.

"Please." Mat brought his hands together in a show of invocation as the girl crouched behind the chair and peered over the seat at them.

"Aren't you tired of that tumbleweed—that bird's nest?" Gran shouted, gesturing wildly. "Who knows what's trapped in there!"

Mat slumped onto the floor with a sigh and rested his head in his hand.

Gran bristled and rushed the girl.

"Don't," Mat said.

The girl darted away, snatched up the brush from Mat's lap, then took a wide step back. He and Gran froze, as if expecting her to lob it at one of them. Instead, she stalked off to the bedroom and up to the cottage's only mirror that hung on the wall, dingy and broken at the edges.

What an ugly little girl, you are, her mother used to coo at her with a candy-coated smile right before taking a razor to her head. Mother couldn't be bothered to be precise; cuts oozed like fat leeches.

Better to see your enemies, Eliwood would say once they were alone, always eliciting a smile.

Since it'd been only them, she'd grown it long. Eliwood brushed it; she always seemed to miss the tangles in the back. The old foes were back as she tried to drag the bristles through her locks, grimacing in pain and frustration. It stuck, quick. She pulled and yanked until the handle broke off in her hand, and a lick of rage swirled in her gut. She punched the wall, sending the mirror to the floor, causing it to shatter over her toes. Mat rushed in to find her fists balled up, hoisted her up by the armpits, carried her to the dining room and plopped her in a chair.

"What has she done now?" Gran asked.

"The mirror fell." Mat got on his knees to examine the girl's cut-up toes that dangled above the floorboards.

Gran grumbled about flared tempers.

Mat's brow furrowed. "It's a mirror. She's hurt."

The old woman pressed her lips into a thin line before taking the broom from the pantry and into the bedroom.

"Hold still. I need to remove the glass." He wrapped his hand around her ankle to keep her foot steady and began removing the shards, one by one. When he removed a larger piece wedged into her ankle, pain shot up her foot and she tried to pull away, but he held fast. "Nearly finished."

Horror pickled her insides as a thick green liquid began to ooze from the cut. She pushed him away, the chair teetering with her failed attempt as he held her in place, brow already crinkling at the peculiar goop. Running a finger over it, strings of the sticky substance held on like a spider's web to his finger. He sniffed at it. The girl felt like her heart might fall out of her butt as the smaller cuts began to push out the same dark-green goo, and the memory of the first time she discovered she bled green careened into her head.

A girl kept inside away from the horrors of the world has few reasons to bleed. It wasn't until her fifth birthday that Eli convinced their parents to let her play outside. He knew how to swing it, he made it about them: You say she's always milling about, Mother. Let me take her out of your hair.

She'd never forget the first time she touched grass, the wispy blades pushing up through her fingers and toes. Pure glee burgeoned in her middle as she ran circles around the yard until she stepped on a broken stick. Yowling with the dramatics only a child does, she sat down hard and stared at the underside of her foot through a blur of tears, but the shock at what budded there stopped them quick. She stared dumbly as it formed a rivulet across her sole and Eli, who had been chasing her, too, stared with wide eyes. When Father strode back from the well with a water pail for the garden, Eli hunched over, covering her, and hastily wiped away the mysterious substance only for it to bloom again. Once Father's back was turned, Eli jerked her upright, pushed her inside and into a chair. He rummaged through a drawer while she stared, fascinated by the green splotches she'd left behind on the floor.

"What's wrong with me?"

He got on his knees before her with a bundle of cloth. "Nothing, you need a bandage, that's all." But there was a lilt in his voice.

He roughly wrapped her foot, but not before Father caught them in the act; he'd seen the green footprints on the stoop.

Mat quickly wiped her foot with the underside of his shirt as Gran came back into the room. He ran his hands down her feet, searching for any glass he might have missed. "Think I got 'em all. Stay. I'll get something to rub on the cuts."

Gran lingered, her eyes suspicious slits as the boy rummaged around in the pantry.

"Tea tree oil," Mat explained, holding up a ceramic vial as he pushed past the old woman.

He uncorked it, dabbed a bit on his finger and started rubbing it over her cuts.

"You missed a spot, girl," Gran chided, observing the knot that had bested the hairbrush.

The girl fought the urge to stick out her tongue.

Once he'd wrapped a bandage over the larger cuts, Mat asked if he could assist with that monstrous knot. She nodded. He started at the bottom and worked his way up. Green goop began to bleed through the fabric and the girl tucked her foot under her leg.

Father had nicked himself enough times when drunk, Mother had suffered enough nose bleeds, and Eliwood had grabbed enough critters in the yard with a mind to fight back for her to know it wasn't normal to bleed green. He told her she was special, that some things just aren't like all the others and it's nothing to cry about. But Mother did cry when Father told her the news. They fought about it, more than once, and loud enough for the girl to catch snippets of heated banter: "not normal," "faeries," "halfling." She didn't look like her family, but that wasn't so strange—there were people born pale with pink eyes and others darker than a starless night, people born with splotches like those on herd beasts, some born with extra fingers and toes and others born without any at all. She'd read about them in books Eli had plucked from their father's study. But not another single someone bled green. Eli had confirmed it, and who knew more about the world than him?

Someone, probably.

"There," Mat said.

The girl ran a hand down the back of her smooth hair,nostalgia burning behind her eyes.