Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

stained glass, a woman in a green dress riding a white horse.
    I knocked, and the door swung open. “Come in.”
    Janet was tall—about six feet, I thought, and in low-heeled brogues. Lean and silver-haired, eyes the same green as the tweedsuit she wore. Both the shoes and the suit seemed from a different era, but her gaze was as sharp as her gestures.
    “I haven’t told her that I had plans to speak with you. I’m not certain if I will. Helena sees you as a rival, and the fact that we are speaking might upset her,” she said.
    Not exactly the most promising opening.
    “If my being here is going to upset her, then I should go.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “I think you should stay.”
    “Why?”
    “Curiosity.” She handed me a plate of cookies, thin and peppery.
    “What do you want to know?” I set the plate down on the table next to me.
    “Why do you care if Helena burns her work? Do you not draw lines through your own writing, hit delete when it is necessary, consigning the words to the ether? How are those losses any less to be concerned about?” She sat so straight in her chair her jacket might have been corseted with steel. Her speech was somehow off—too precise, like she was counterfeiting a posher accent than she actually had. Everything about her seemed calculated, but I couldn’t parse the desired effect. It was just . . . weird. Uncomfortable and weird, and I was beginning to understand why Helena had felt so desperate that she had burned her work.
    “When I delete something, yes, it’s gone, but that’s part of the writing process, not something angry or destructive. The purpose of doing so is to improve the work that remains. And even if I were to erase an entire file, hitting the delete key doesn’t risk the other people I’m living with.”
    “So, had Helena torn years of work to pieces while sitting quietly in her room, you would not be here.” She gave a small nod, confirming something to herself.
    I felt as if I were sitting for an exam, one that I was failing, even though I had a cheat sheet right in front of me. I wasn’t going to use it. “No. I wouldn’t. I probably wouldn’t have even known that she had done that. As you said, she doesn’t like me. She doesn’t confide in me. We’re not friends. I’ve never read her poetry, but even if I had, it wouldn’t be my business if she tried to destroy it, and I seriously doubt she would have told me if she did.
    “Our house has a fireplace. I’m guessing Helena has a trash can. But she burned her notebooks outside. In front of the house. It was really hard to miss. So I think she wanted someone to know, and to stop her. Maybe even for someone to be concerned about her, because setting things on fire strikes me as an extreme reaction to a bad day’s writing.”
    “Indeed,” Janet said. She ate a cookie, and then another. “You really should have one. I find it’s always best to take a gift when it’s offered.”
    She wasn’t offering Turkish delight from a winter sledge, but I was pretty sure the cookies would still have tasted of betrayal. “I’m still not sure what I’m doing here. You talking to me about what I think about hitting the delete key doesn’t do Helena any good.”
    “And that keeps you from eating?” She shook her head. “As I said, I was curious. Now, I am less so.
    “The structure at Melete, or lack of it, prevents me from monitoring Helena. She has no obligation to me as a student, nor do we have the kind of professional relationship where I might call upon her socially. She does not, I believe, like me very much either. We are not close, and we don’t need to be. I am her mentor, not her friend, and my duty is to her art. All the same, thank you for telling me of her distress.”
    “Is there anything else?” I asked.
    “No,” Janet said.
    “Then I’ll see myself out.” I did not have a cookie.
    I was sorry I had gone, and fairly sure that nothing I had said to Janet would be used to help