Under The Willow Root

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” --Frank Herbert

When we get back to camp and tell the others what happened, Bard is furious. I’ve never seen him so angry. By the time he’s done yelling, Luca feels bad enough for me to forgive me. Even Ismeni is nice--at least, she doesn’t go out of her way to be cruel. It’s the same thing, for her.

Once Bard calms down, Luca explains that the mountain cat could sense the Light coming off of me as something between a smell and a sound. He says it makes me seem bigger and more threatening and that’s why the mountain’s inhabitants don’t like Light. When he talks about the cat, Luca sounds amazed, almost reverent.

“Her mind was...wondrous,” Luca says. “She’s completely aware of herself, of others...she thinks in terms of past and future and abstract.”

“Fascinating, I’m sure,” Ismeni says dismissively. “Does it matter?”

“Other animals don’t do that. Not on her level, anyway. Any other animal would have attacked,” Luca says. “She listened to me. She even understood what I was telling her about what we’re trying to do. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

His admiration for the cat aside, Luca is very clear that she would have eviscerated me and left me to the crows if he hadn’t been there. I swear on Pretty Girl’s pretty head to be good and not wander off again, and we make our way through the mountains without further incident.

Good thing, too, because I’m coming to the end of my strength. Now fully aware of my own mortality, my weakness scares me. I didn’t realize how much I relied on Caris’s “boosts” to keep me going in the City. Every night, I collapse without bothering to cover myself with a blanket. Luca and Sadra have to force me to eat.

A week after the mountain cat, I start to skimp on my exercises. Within days, I give up completely. Bard tries to teach me a kind of meditation that he says will help, but I usually fall asleep when I try. I stumble through each day in a daze, concentrating on just putting one foot in front of the other. I recite the facts of my life in an endless loop, just like I did in the Cage.

It’s kind of a fitting symmetry that I’m leaving this world in more or less the same state I arrived in. But now the facts of my life are different. Instead of Melanie and Tara and Emily, now it’s Sadra and Luca and Bard and even Ismeni who anchor me to my sense of self. When I think of home, it’s not my grandmother’s house in the suburbs that I see but the crowded, colorful streets of the City.

I have only fleeting moments of clarity. During these episodes, I sometimes find Ismeni staring at me intently. I don’t know what to make of it. Luca is solicitous and anxious, like a mother hen. Normally, it would annoy the hell out of me, but now I’m either too out of it or too worried myself to notice. Sometimes I come to myself and don’t remember where I am or what I’m doing. It’s completely unsettling, enough so that I find Luca’s fussing comforting instead of obnoxious.

I wake up one morning in a strange house. I’m too tired to get all that freaked out about it, but I have to wonder where we are and what we’re doing there. Sadra tells me it’s been just over two weeks since the mountain cat incident, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like I’ve been walking for an eternity, but I can only remember a few days.

They tell me an old couple offered us shelter for the night. Our elderly hosts would probably let us stay, but they’re poor and Bard doesn’t want to take advantage of their hospitality. That’s what Bard tells us, anyway, and we have no way of knowing otherwise. They speak a different language and none of the rest of us understand them. So we leave after a hasty breakfast that I don’t really remember eating and walk for another three days (or so I’m told).

When we stop just before sunset on the third day, I’m so startled and amazed by the beauty that surrounds us that I feel almost like my myself again. We’re camped beside a lake fed by more than a dozen little waterfalls. They look like ribbons draped over the side of the surrounding rock formations. When I move to the edge of the lake, I can see all the way to the rocky bottom.

“Don’t go wandering off that way,” Bard says, coming up beside me. “The cliffs are slippery.”

“There are more waterfalls?” I ask, delighted.

“Many more,” he says with a smile. “A whole chain of lakes and waterfalls leading down to the sea. You and the others will stay here for a few days while I arrange our transport to the Apostate and see about what we can do for Ismeni. Rest and resume your exercises, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I feel a jolt of excitement and anxiety. We’re almost there. It’s really happening. Soon I could be on my way home. At the very least, I’ll have the House’s shadow out of my mind. Energized by the thought, I find a quiet spot and try to go through my routine. I only last about fifteen minutes, but it’s something.

Bard leaves that very night. He assures us that it’s perfectly safe, but I still worry. As Sadra points out, if something happens to him, the rest of us are totally screwed. Those aren’t her exact words, of course, but it can’t be denied that we are almost completely dependent on him.

We don’t know where we’re going or how to get back or even the Apostate’s name. We don’t speak the language and we know nothing about the customs or the people of this land. But Bard is very firm about going, and going alone. He doesn’t say so, but I think it might have to do with Ismeni. I think he doesn’t want her to know any more about the Apostate and how to find him than she already does.

After Bard leaves, we sit around the campfire eyeing each other nervously. In addition to acting as our guide, Bard also served as a buffer. Without him, I half expect Ismeni and Sadra to go for each other’s throats. Ismeni, though, is strangely pleasant, at least compared to her usual bitter nastiness. Even Sadra can’t find anything in her behavior worth starting an argument over.

For two days, I do nothing but sleep and eat and dance until most of the fog in my mind has lifted. I ignore everyone and everything else. There’s a name for the fog, I remember. What was it? The Pall, that’s what Caris called it. Whatever it is, I want it out of my head.

I think Luca and Sadra both feel a little abandoned, but I can’t afford to break my concentration. Besides, it’s a good bonding experience for them. I want them to be friends.

When I finally feel well enough to slow down, the first thing on my mind is a bath. I’m sweaty and grubby and I smell terrible. It makes me sick. But I want Luca almost as urgently. I find him piling firewood at our campsite.

“Come swim with me,” I say, taking his hand and tugging on it. “Where are Sadra and Ismeni?”

“Checking my snares,” Luca says. “They’ll be back soon as long as they haven’t killed each other. You’re feeling better, then?”

“Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Yes. I wanted...well, just come swim with me. Please?”

“Of course,” he says. His smile is full of relief. “Let’s go.”

We make our way down to the water and I jump in, fully clothed. I scrub my face and scalp frantically for several minutes before peeling everything off with Luca’s help. It feels strangely cathartic, like I’m peeling away the last lingering effects of the Pall.

“Are you really alright now?” Luca asks as I whack my wet clothes against a rock.

“Mostly,” I say cautiously. “Not completely. I’m still having trouble focusing.”

“Mmm,” Luca comments, eyeing my clothes. I’ve stopped and started washing them three times in the last ten minutes. He takes the clothes and sets them aside, pulling me into his arms. His fingers brush the scar on my hip. “I hated seeing you like that. Like a thrall. You were...empty.”

I laugh without humor. “That’s what I called them in the beginning--Empty Men. It doesn’t happen right away, you know. A lot of us held on to ourselves until we arrived in the City. I didn’t lose myself until I had been with Ismeni for a few weeks. I think it takes time for the shadow to do its work.”

“I can almost understand how Ismeni feels,” Luca reflects as he floats us out to the center of the lake. I lean back against him with my eyes closed, resting my head on his chest. I can feel his voice rumble as he continues, “I never would have suspected. But then, I never thought to look. Stars above, how could I not have noticed something? And Costi--he never said a thing…”

“I’m sure it was to keep you safe,” I tell him. I consider telling him that he used to pass by me nearly every morning without ever looking at me, but decide against it. It will only upset him. “And it’s a good thing he didn’t say anything, considering what happened.”

“I think Ismeni might be changing her mind,” he offers. “She’s been acting odd lately. She’s only insulted you once since we got here, and she’s been asking questions.”

“Really?” I ask hopefully, turning over so I can look at him. “If we can convince her, maybe she can help...maybe finish what your brother started. She’s very influential in the City.”

“She was,” Luca corrects me, “before she was accused of murdering the Prince. I don’t know how much use she’ll be now.”

“So what will happen to her?” I wonder. “If she can’t go back to the City?”

“Bard talked about finding her work at a respectable inn or wayhouse,” Luca says, and I wince.

“She’s not going to like that,” I sigh.

“Definitely not,” Luca agrees. “But what choice does she have?”

None at all, seemingly, but the thought makes me uneasy. I just can’t see Ismeni meekly accepting a life of service, even if it comes with wages. What can she do? I don’t know. Knowing Ismeni, though, it won’t be pretty.

I shake my head and push my worry aside. The waterfalls and the mountains and Luca’s face are all too beautiful to waste, and I have so little time left. I lean forward and press my cheek against Luca’s, winding my arms around his neck, and let him carry me through the water. I don’t loose my hold when we reach the shore. I don’t want to let him go, not even for a second.

“What are you thinking?” Luca asks softly. He turns his head to press his lips to my temple.

“I’m thinking that I love you,” I say. I’m thinking that my heart will break.

Later that night, I approach Ismeni and find that Luca was right. She’s almost friendly. She even asks me about my exercises and listens when I explain how it helps clear and strengthen my mind. I don’t mention the Pall, though. I don’t want to push my luck. But still, I’m encouraged. I haven’t seen Ismeni behave with this much civility since...well, since I was her thrall.

So when Ismeni asks me the next morning to accompany her for a walk, I agree right away. Her opinion of me matters more than I like to admit, and the possibility that she may have come to believe me--and accept me--makes my stomach flutter with hopeful nerves.

“I want you to know that I forgive you,” Ismeni says after we’ve been walking for some time. “I bear you no ill will. I don’t know what happened to your own body. It must be something terrible if you’d go to so much trouble to keep Blue’s. But the simple fact remains that it’s not yours, and you have to give it back.”

“Give it back,” I say incredulously. “To who? To you? You don’t own me, or this body.”

“To the House of Light and Shadow, of course,” Ismeni says. “I told you that my husband’s sister has high standing. She has arranged for me to be pardoned and you to be expelled from that body and punished. You’ve made my Blue into something foul and unclean, and you will pay dearly for it.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. How can she still cling to such a flimsy explanation? I remember something Sadra said so long ago. “You just don’t want to believe that you’ve done something bad. Every time you hurt Blue, you were hurting a person. You were hurting me. You caged and enslaved and degraded me.”

“Stop it,” Ismeni cries. “Stop this nonsense. I’ve had enough of your lies.”

Ismeni raises her arms and closes her eyes. Her sleeves fall back, revealing the strange marks on her arms that I saw before. There are more of them now--and they’re glowing. I back away, my heart pounding. I yell for Luca and turn to run.

Before I can take more than a few steps, Ismeni throws herself at my back. I hit the ground hard. The impact knocks the breath out of me. I lie there for several seconds, trying to refill my lungs, then push myself to my feet and try again to run.

“None of that,” a horribly familiar voice says in my ear.

“You,” I croak, trying to jerk away. It’s not Ismeni but Cimari whose fingers are digging into my arm. I look wildly around, looking for Ismeni, but she’s nowhere to be seen. “Get away from me.”

“No,” Cimari says simply. Her eyes glint like hard, cold jewels. “I don’t know how you deceived me, but you will not escape again.”

“Please,” I whimper. I dig my heels in and try to pry her fingers off my arm. “Why are you doing this? I’m real, I’m a person--”

“Oh, I know that,” Cimari informs me. My mouth drops open in shock, and I stop struggling. Cimari continues, looking me in the eye. “You think I’m the villain, and, to you, I suppose I am. But I am a faithful servant of my people, and of the House. Ismeni tells me you escaped to the Temple. You enjoyed your time there, did you not? You spent your days dancing and playing with the children and lounging in the baths. You marveled at the City’s wonders and sang hymns in the streets on the high holy days.”

“So?” I ask warily.

“So,” she says, her hand tightening on my arm, “the City owes its prosperity to the presence of thralls. Without thralls, everything that makes the City great--all its beauty, its learning, its might--would crumble. We sacrifice a few for the good of many. You should understand--I have it on good authority that you do the same in your own world.”

“A few!” I scoff. “There are thousands of thralls in the City alone.”

Cimari shrugs carelessly. “It doesn’t matter. We will sacrifice however many we need to...and we will silence whomever we need to.”

“You lied to Ismeni,” I say helplessly. “You lied to everyone.”

“Ismeni is happy in her ignorance, and so is everyone else,” Cimari says. “Not that Ismeni’s happiness will last long, the poor dear. The casting which let me take her place here will almost certainly kill her.”

“How could you do that to your own sister?” I cry. Tears prick my eyes. Whatever Ismeni’s faults, she doesn’t deserve this.

“Her death is regrettable, of course,” Cimari says. “But necessary. Come, now. it will go better for you if you don’t struggle.”

I spit out a snarled expletive and twist out of her grasp. She reaches for me again and I lash out in a panic, landing a glancing blow to her mouth. Cimari stares stonily at me for a moment, then attacks with an animal-like ferocity. I respond in kind, driven by fear as well as rage. I can’t go back. I can’t live as a thrall again.

A blinding, white-hot fury washes over me, obliterating rational thought. I fight with no finesse or anything approaching technique. I think of nothing but hurting Cimari as much as I can. I didn’t know I was capable of such viciousness...but I like it. I suffered countless indignities, abuse I never would have imagined in my old life, and I endured it all in perfect silence. But no more.

Dimly, I become aware that Cimari is trying to reach for something at her side and I instinctively try to prevent her from getting at whatever it is. Cimari pushes me off of her and I stumble back a few steps, giving her enough time to pull a knife from her belt. She points it at me, panting, and wipes blood out of her eyes.

I note with a kind of dark glee that I split her eyebrow open in almost exactly the same spot that Pouter split mine. Blood pours from her nose and mouth and she clutches her stomach, obviously in pain. I feel a rush of satisfaction. I can take her, I can hurt her. I might even kill her...but she has a knife.

I hear a low growl behind me and I turn to see Pretty Girl streaking toward us with her lips pulled back in a snarl. Before I can stop her, she launches herself at Cimari. I scream, snapped out of my blood-thirsty haze. I lunge forward to knock Pretty Girl out of the way.

But I’m too late. Pretty Girl falls to the ground with Cimari’s knife buried in her throat. I fall to my knees beside her, sobbing. I can’t breathe. Pretty Girl’s silky, pale fur is wet and matted with blood. Her teeth are still bared, stained red not with Cimari’s blood but her own. She tries to lift her head, just once, before the light leaves her eyes. I cradle her head in my hands and touch my forehead to hers. I hear a terrible sound, guttural and animalistic, and it takes me several seconds to realize that the sound is coming from me.

“It’s over,” Cimari says, jerking me to my feet. “It’s time.”

I can barely hear her over the roaring in my ears. I can’t believe this is happening. I was so close. So close. It was all for nothing. Pretty Girl is dead. Miocostin is dead. It is my fault. I wish I had died in the Cage. None of this would have happened.

I feel a strange pulsing in my head, like I’ve been hanging upside down for too long. I hear Luca and Sadra shouting, but I can’t see them. I can’t see anything, I realize. I don’t know what’s happening.

The roaring in my ears gets louder, and I hear Cimari scream. I find that the roaring isn’t just in my head. My vision clears and I see the mountain cat crouched over Cimari’s torn and bloody body. My eyes lock with Cimari’s and she jerks her curled fingers like she’s tearing something in half.

My mind rips apart. I scream. I’m writhing in Luca’s arms--but I’m also sitting bolt upright in a hospital bed, shrieking like a banshee right into an astonished nurse’s face.

I moan and cry, overwhelmed by the weight of two worlds competing for space in my mind. The nurse calling frantically for support is just as real as Sadra pleading with me to tell her where it hurts. I see more nurses and doctors rushing into the hospital room, but I also see Luca communing with the mountain cat. I see--I think I see--Ismeni lying dead beside me.

I smell blood and antiseptic and cologne and leather and sweat. There are hands pulling at me and I don’t know if they belong to Luca or Sadra or the people in ugly green uniforms. My mind swirls around and around itself, images and sounds and smells blurring together until nothing makes sense. The last thing I know before darkness claims me is soft fur under my cheek and Sadra’s arms around my waist.

And then, there’s nothing.

“I’m so sorry, Emily,” says a voice. I see nothing but blackness. “I don’t know what to tell you. She just started screaming and was comatose within minutes. We’ve run every test there is. I hate to say it, but we just don’t know what’s wrong.”

“But you have to,” another voice sobs. “Simon, you can’t just leave her like this. You have to help her--you have to fix her.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” the first voice says sadly. “But I don’t think we can.”

I wander through darkness without wondering where I am. It seems completely natural to be without sight. I wonder if I have a body. I touch my hands together. It seems like I do, but how can I really be sure?

The dark is restful and calm. I feel relief, but I don’t know what I’ve been relieved of. Whatever it was, it must have been exhausting. I must have come from somewhere else. I don’t think I want to go back.

I don’t realize I’ve been without sound until a faint but familiar melody fills the heavy silence surrounding me. I turn my head, trying to locate its source. It seems to come from everywhere...and nowhere. I am nowhere.

“I will tell you fairy tales

and sing you little songs

but now you must slumber,

with your little eyes closed

bayushki bayu.”

I know the words. I know the voice. And once I know that, I know myself again.

“Babulya!” I yell. “Baba Nadia, where are you?”

I cast around in the dark until I smack my head on something hard. I reel backwards and trip over something else. I throw my hand out and hit something, and suddenly light flares overhead, blinding me all over again. Somewhere above me, the song continues.

“There will be a time, after you will learn about life,

When with courage you will place your foot into the stirrup

And take your rifle

Throw your saddle across your horse

I will sew this saddle from silk.

Sleep now, my dear little child, my little one.

Bayushki bayu.”

I look around with watering eyes and gasp. I’m in my own kitchen, and the hard thing that attacked me was an open cabinet. I run for the stairs, calling hysterically for my grandmother.

“I will fear for your troubles

far away in a foreign land

Sleep now, as long as you don’t know sorrows,

bayushki bayu.

When preparing yourself for the dangerous fight

please remember your mother

Sleep, little one, my beautiful

bayushki bayu.”

I burst into my childhood bedroom, tripping over my own feet in my hurry, and fall onto the old rug where I used to play with my toys. My grandmother sits in a shabby armchair next to my bed. Baba Nadia gazes tenderly at something in the bed as she sings. I look closer and realize that the thing in the bed...is me. A younger me, maybe ten.

“Baba Nadia,” I say uncertainly.

“Sasha,” she says, turning to me with a radiant smile. “Oh, Sashka, kotik, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“But…” I put a hand out to touch her knee. “Baba Nadia, am I dead?”

“No, kitten,” she says. “I’m dead.”

“But you’re here,” I say. “I don’t understand. You’re right here with me. How?”

“Nevermind that,” she says. “There’s a more important question to be answered.”

There is, but I think I’ve been avoiding asking it.

“What am I doing here?”

“You’re here to choose,” Baba Nadia tells me.

“Choose?” I say. “What…”

“Come here,” she says, beckoning me with a gnarled, spotty hand.

I move closer, taking her hand and pressing it against my cheek. She turns my head so that I’m looking down at my own sleeping face. I touch her--my--cheek and everything falls away like a crumbling sandcastle. Once again my mind splinters, trying to take in two--no, three--realities. I snatch my hand away and look at my grandmother.

“You have to choose,” she says gently.

“But how?” I ask. “How do I know what’s real?”

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” she says, shaking her head.

“What if I don’t want to choose?” I ask, though I’m sure this isn’t the ‘right’ question either. “What if I choose to stay here with you?”

“It would break my heart,” Baba Nadia tells me seriously. “It would break my heart to know that neither of my children lived to know all the joys and terrors of living.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” I whisper tearfully.

“Sashka,” Baba Nadia chides. “Wherever you go, I go with you. Silly child.”

“What’s the question I should be asking, then?” I ask. “How do I go home?”

“Well,” Baba Nadia says. “Where is home?”

I look at the sleeping me and back at my grandmother. She reaches out to stroke my hair.

“Go on, kitten,” she urges.

I take my grandmother’s hand in one of my own and reach out with the other to touch the sleeping Sasha’s cheek. This time, I don’t resist the flood of sensory input. Instead, I let it wash over me. I let it drown me.

Sadra pulls me off the mountain cat’s back and into Bard’s waiting arms. She peers worriedly down at me, demanding that I answer her. Emily calls excitedly for a nurse, shouting that my eyes are open, that I’m awake.

Salt water sprays my face. Sadra tries to shield me but has to lean over the side of the boat to vomit. Emily strokes my hair, begging me in a whisper to answer her. An old man cradles my head in his hands. He mumbles nonsense under his breath. His hands glow.

Luca and Sadra each hold one of my hands, praying for my deliverance. A woman in a white coat shines a light into my eyes and asks me questions I don’t understand. It hurts. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home.

For a microsecond, I focus on Emily’s eyes hovering over the white woman’s shoulder. I see her eyes widen. I see her mouth my name. I remember Emily pushing me on a swing and putting band-aids on my scraped knees and tucking me in on the nights my grandmother taught classes.

I remember crying bitterly when she went away to college and squealing with joy when she came back to teach at the studio after graduation. I remember her arm around my waist as they lowered Baba Nadia into the ground.

I try to speak, but my lips refuse to move. I hold Emily’s eyes as long as I can and hope that she knows how much I love her...and how sorry I am to leave her. With the tiniest of sighs, I let go.

I feel like I’m floating--or falling, but gently, as if through water. Above me, I see a strange picture that I can’t make sense of until I realize that it’s not above me but below me.

I see my own body covered with a blanket. Luca lies close beside me, twining his long, rough fingers with my limp ones and murmuring something I can’t hear. Someone has taken my necklace from the little pouch I sewed into my shirt and put it back around my neck. Sadra lies on a pallet by the fire, staring into the flames and stroking Kirit absently. Gradually, they all both fall asleep.

I look at them and I know I made the right choice. Maybe this is insanity. Maybe this strange world exists only inside me, maybe not. But I know my grandmother was right when she said I was asking the wrong question.

Real, imaginary--does it matter? I think it doesn’t. What matters is that I have a good life waiting for me, if I’m strong enough to take it, among people I like and respect. What matters is that I love Luca and Sadra, and they love me. If that’s not real, I don’t know what is.

It’s no more or less real than Emily’s love for me, and it hurts to know I’ll never see her again. But I’ve been without Emily and Tara and Melanie and everyone from my old life for over two years. Somewhere along the line, I think I let them go without even realizing it.

For better or worse and whether it’s “real” or not, this is my home now and Sadra and Luca are my family. I wish I’d realized it sooner. It would have saved us a lot of needless angst. But I know it now, and I don’t want to wait any longer. I open my eyes.

“Luca,” I whisper. I lay a hand on his cheek. “Luca, wake up.”

His eyes snap open and he bolts upright so violently that he falls off the narrow cot. He scrambles upright, calling for Sadra to wake up. In seconds, both of them are kneeling at my side, their faces alight with joy and relief.

“I don’t want to go back,” I tell them simply. “I want to stay here with you.”

No one says anything. There aren’t any words. Kirit jumps onto the bed and wiggles his way through the tangle of clasped hands. He stands on my chest and sticks his nose in my face with a small whine. I kiss Kirit’s nose and he turns around and around, licking the tears from our cheeks.