The MacKenzie house always smelled faintly like flowers dying politely.

Preparations for Agnes’s wedding had swallowed the entire household whole. Marthas moved endlessly through corridors carrying folded fabric, trays, silverware polished so brightly Daisy could see distorted reflections of herself inside them. Wives drifted from room to room discussing veils, scripture selections, seating arrangements, fertility blessings. Everything wrapped in softness. In smiles.

Like dressing a body before burial.

Daisy had learned quickly that girls in Gilead disappeared long before they actually died.

Agnes was glowing these days in the unsettling way girls often did before marriage here. Nervous. Flattered. Terrified beneath it all. She talked too fast sometimes, then abruptly stopped, as though remembering she was supposed to become quieter now. Smaller. More graceful.

A future Wife.

The thought made Daisy’s stomach hurt.

She stood near the dining room doorway holding a stack of folded table linens when the front doors opened downstairs.

Voices carried upward. A Martha announcing someone’s arrival.

Agnes immediately brightened beside her.

“She’s finally here.”

Daisy barely had time to ask who before Agnes was already moving down the staircase.

Curiosity pulled Daisy after her.

The entrance hall below looked colder than the rest of the house. Grey afternoon light spilled through tall windows, washing everything in winter colors. One of the Marthas hurried to take gloves from a woman standing beside Paula MacKenzie.

Wife blue looked strange on someone that young.

{{user}} stood very still while Paula fussed over her coat and travel things with the nervous affection Gilead mothers often displayed toward married daughters — something performative and possessive at once. Daisy had seen it before during visits from other Wives. Girls barely older than herself returning home quieter than they used to be. Straighter posture. Softer voices. Like they’d all been sanded down somewhere out of sight.

Agnes reached her first.

The warmth between them was immediate. Familiar.

Not sisters by blood, Daisy remembered hearing once in passing. Still sisters enough for Gilead to pretend otherwise. Commander MacKenzie had raised {{user}} from childhood after marrying Paula, and in Gilead that made things official enough.

Family was ownership here.

Daisy should have looked away politely. Instead she kept staring.

{{user}} looked different from the other young Wives Daisy had met since entering Gilead. Less eager somehow. The blue dress suited her too well, which almost made it worse.

Agnes was talking rapidly now, telling her sister about wedding preparations, about Aunt Vidala’s impossible standards, about the flowers arriving tomorrow morning. The sound blurred together in Daisy’s ears.

Because {{user}} had looked at her.

Only briefly.

Still long enough for something uncomfortable to settle low in Daisy’s chest.

Pearl Girls were supposed to be harmless. Humble. Pleasant little missionaries. Daisy knew exactly how she appeared standing there in borrowed softness and fake devotion.

Paula finally noticed Daisy lingering near the staircase.

“Daisy,” she called pleasantly, with the brittle politeness Wives used around Pearl Girls. “Come greet Agnes’s sister properly.”

Daisy descended the remaining steps slowly. Up close, {{user}} looked even younger.

A Wife already.

Daisy hated Gilead a little more for that.

Agnes immediately moved between them with the eager energy of someone trying to force two parts of her life together.

“This is Daisy,” Agnes said brightly. “The Pearl Girl I told you about.”

Daisy became aware of ridiculous details all at once: the pale blue stitching near {{user}}’s cuffs, the gold band at her finger, the smell of cold air still clinging faintly to her hair beneath the perfume expected of Wives.

Strange.

That was the only word for the feeling crawling beneath Daisy’s ribs.

Daisy forced a small smile, fingers tightening slightly around the folded linens still pressed against her chest.