Winona doesn't like Wendy.
She doesn't intend the dislike, doesn't really want to feud with a child, especially not when they're meant to be keeping one another alive, but she can't help it. She doesn't like Wendy, doesn't like her hair bow or her dainty little outfits that no one sane would wear in the Constant, doesn't like her pale, aristocratic face. Always frowning, as though the universe was out to bully her alone and not the rest of them.
Doesn't like her morose attitude toward life, which is life, after all, isn't it? Children should be cheerful.
It doesn't occur to her to wonder how long Wendy has been a child.
And those arms. Those toothpick arms that can't even throw a punch. It enrages Winona just to look at them. Winona was riveting artillery barrels when she was practically in diapers.
Wendy isn't a credit to feminism, Winona thinks, and she doesn't like anyone who isn't.
She goes on thinking this right up to the afternoon she watches Wendy charge into a triple-decker spider nest with nothing but a pickaxe in hand-the same heavy tool Winona watched her swinging so ineffectually at a granite boulder that morning. In Wendy's hands, in combat, it's transformed into a sweeping blur, and despite that that damned spirit trails after her, making sure she doesn't take a scratch, Winona has to admit. Kid's got nerve.
So she watches her, wondering what the war movement lost when Wendy Carter was born into wealth. Mostly, she watches Wendy's interactions with that ghost. Her sister.
That's the biggest reason Winona doesn't like Wendy. She's still got what Winona has lost for good.
Spirits aren't uncommon in the constant. You see them once in a while, flitting through the trees. They favor woods, the darker and less alluring, the better. Like sunshine is some sort of insult when you're dead.
Maybe it is, but Winona doesn't intend to find out.
Abigail's different, though. She's everpresent, or so it seems to the rest of them, though they don't ever actually catch more than a fleeting childish form in overalls. Sometimes they don't see her at all, and it isn't at all odd to catch Wendy in the garden, conversing with nothing.
You can tell when Abigail's around because sometimes Wendy actually smiles.
But it isn't the same as a flesh-and-blood sister, and when she finally sees that, Winona is shocked that it took her so long. The little white hand that reaches out from the sleeping pad, pauses, and then retracts as though remembering. The fresh smile that vanishes within moments every morning. The way Abigail hovers at Wendy's shoulder, sinking for a moment into her sister's elbow as though they could truly embrace once again.
Wendy has never actually been in mourning for herself, Winona realizes.
And the garden. She busies herself in the garden from dawn til dusk, despite that unsightly clumps of soil stick in her blonde pigtails like crawling insects and mud spoils that spotless blouse. She pays more attention to the weeds - the flowers - than most of them do. One day Wickerbottom leans over her shoulder, in a misguided attempt at making friends, and says, "Ah! Asteraceae."
Wendy throws down the blossom in disgust and stalks away.
No one is about to kick Wendy out - Abigail brings in far too much food for that - but no one tries to make friends after that, either. The others all have each other. Wendy has only Abigail.
She takes to vanishing into the forest for long amounts of time, sometimes failing to return until after dark. When asked, she simply says she's "looking for something".
One evening Winona watches the wavering trail of sparks from Wendy's torch and decides to follow.
But Winona wasn't built for moving quietly through the woods. She's not a quiet person - that was Charlie - and she hasn't got the practice. Wendy shakes her off once, twice; Winona headaches over tiny shoeprints in the pine needles for a moment and picks the right trail more by luck than skill.
And when she's found out, Wendy isn't angry like she thinks she'll be. She looks up as a twig cracks beneath Winona's feet, looks up from something white she's crouched over, with - a kind of thrill runs through Winona to see it - a broad grin stretched across her face.
"Did you find it?" Winona asks stupidly, striding forward.
"Yes," Wendy breathes, hunched over the item, and Winona looks and sees…a perfect white morning glory, small enough to fit in the palm of Wendy's hand.
Suddenly, Wendy rises to her feet and wraps her arms around Winona's ribs. Winona actually coughs in surprise. The kid has a grip.
"Wendy? What's this about?"
Wendy's face shines with joy as she leans down and plucks the little blossom out of the pine needles.
"Don't you see? I may be able to do it now!"
"Do what?"
"Make her talk!"
"I don't understand," says Winona, who is starting to feel as though she's walked into some very odd dream.
"Abigail! These flowers have an odd effect on her. I've been trying to grow one since…"
"Months now," says Winona, remembering Wendy's ardent hunt for every type of seed, even the smallest, her hours spent watching birds come and go, turning up her freckled nose at those that yielded mere vegetables.
"Yes! I've got a chance now!"
And Winona speaks as though in a trance, as though any of this makes sense, as though this child's dreams are more than just that.
"What makes you think this will do it?"
"I found some growing on a child's grave some time ago. They had strange effects," Wendy repeats. "Depending on what I ground the petals with, they made her stronger…faster…they could do anything, don't you think? Don't you?"
Winona hears the pleading tone and senses disappointment on the horizon. It's time to bring the kid back to reality, but she doesn't want to be the one to do it.
"Have you talked to Wilson about this?" she asks gently.
"Yes." Wendy's lower lip pulls downward. "But he's a funny man, Wilson. He has never…" and her eyes glaze over a bit, whitening, as though she's looking at something Winona can't see. But when she speaks again, it's in that odd, formal tongue she sometimes uses. The one she borrows from beyond the veil.
"Despite his time on the throne, Wilson has never looked into the heart of the Constant, and so he knows only science. This is magic, Winona. Within our grasp. In this world, what have we to do with possible?"
And it's the worst, most twisted sort of optimism Winona has ever heard, and she loves Wendy for it. Loves her for the sort of heart that would think Charlie redeemable, more than a stagehand in the dark.
Neither of their sisters are coming back anytime soon, Winona knows. But maybe one day they'll join them.