Page 8 of Meadowsweet and Marigold
For the first time since Rowan had uttered those devastating words on stage, Marigold felt something other than pain — a flicker of determination, small but inextinguishable.
"Nobody follows fallen stars for long. They'll find something new to talk about."
She slipped out the back entrance, dodging the flashbulbs and questions. The night air hit her face with cleansing coldness, washing away the stifling heat of humiliation.
"I can start again," she whispered to herself as she hailed a taxi. "I will start again." The city lights blurred past the window, but Marigold didn't look back.
"I am Marigold Everhart," she whispered fiercely, her voice growing stronger with each word. "And I will not be broken."
In her mind, she was already gone — already picturing the overgrown garden at the cottage, the silence broken only by birdsong instead of applause, the solitude that had once seemed like a punishment but now felt like salvation.
"Willowbend," she told the driver, her voice gaining strength with each syllable. "As fast as you can."
~MAGNOLIA~
"Run, little Marigold,"she murmured, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "Run and hide, like the coward you are."
From her private box overlooking the theater's rear exit, Magnolia Everhart observed the unfolding of her masterpiece.
The emerald tones in her hair caught the dim lighting as she leaned forward, lips curved into a satisfied smile. Her sunset-gold eyes tracked Marigold's hunched figure through the glass of her opera binoculars.
"She's actually leaving," Magnolia murmured in anticipated glee, lowering the binoculars to take a delicate sip of champagne. "How perfectly predictable."
Her companion, the theater's financial director, shifted uncomfortably.
"Was all this truly necessary, Miss Everhart?"
Magnolia's smile hardened.
"Necessary? My dear man, it was inevitable." She traced a manicured finger around the rim of her glass. "Prima ballerinas don't just step aside. They must be...displaced."
Below, Marigold climbed into a taxi, her once-impeccable posture now a study in defeat. Something flickered across Magnolia's face —perhaps the ghost of sisterly connection— before vanishing beneath triumph.
"You've been planning this for years," the director observed.
"Since we were children," Magnolia replied, her voice softening with remembrance. "Always Marigold in the spotlight while I stood in the wings. 'The talented twin,' they called her." A flash of bitterness sharpened her features. "No one ever saw that I worked twice as hard for half the recognition."
She rose, moving to the window with feline grace.
The taxi disappeared around a corner, carrying her sister away from everything she'd ever loved.
"Did you see her face?" Magnolia whispered, pressing her palm against the cool glass. "When she realized I orchestratedthis grand scheme of utter embarrassment with her fiancé of all people. When she understood it was all orchestrated? I bet she’s realizing if Rowan boldly rejected her, so did the rest of her pack. She’d be a fool to try and return home." A quiet, satisfied laugh escaped her. "Worth every moment of waiting in her shadow."
Her reflection stared back at her from the darkened glass — so like Marigold's, yet fundamentally different. Where one twin's eyes had filled with heartbreak, the other's now shone with triumph.
"The company will announce my promotion to principal dancer tomorrow," she said, turning back to her companion. "After a respectful interval, of course. We mustn't appear opportunistic."
The freckles across her cheeks seemed to darken as she smiled, already imagining tomorrow's headlines, the flowers that would soon flood her dressing room— Marigold's dressing room.
"She'll recover," the director offered weakly.
"Oh, I'm counting on it," Magnolia replied, draining her champagne. "Marigold always was annoyingly resilient. But by the time she does..." She gestured around the opulent box, to the stage beyond, to the world she had coveted for so long. "All of this will be mine."
She closed her eyes briefly, savoring the moment when everything had changed— when she'd finally stepped out of her sister's shadow and into the spotlight that had always been meant for her.
The future was hers for the taking, and she would let nothing, and no one, stand in her way.
"To transformation," she whispered to the empty space where Marigold had been. "Yours...and mine."
