Rowan

by Josephine Angelini

  Juliet ran to the fridge as Tristan and Breakfast carried Lily upstairs to the bathroom. Tristan put her in the tub and cranked on the cold tap, tilting her head under it. Lily sighed when the water spilled across her roasting forehead. Juliet joined them and dumped ice into the tub. Tristan’s face floated over hers. She wanted to cry and scream and push him away from her, but she couldn’t move.

  “Please tell me she’s not going to die,” Breakfast said in a slightly hysterical tone. “I don’t think I could handle watching someone die.”

  “How did this happen, Tristan?” Juliet asked, ignoring Breakfast. “Did you leave her alone?”

  Tristan didn’t answer for a while. He scooped water over Lily, his hands stiff and white with cold. “Yeah. I left her.”

  Water filled the tub. Lily’s slack limbs floated up around her. She looked at them, breaking the surface of the water. She watched how the surface of the water clung to her and formed liquid webs between her fingers. Finally, she felt the fire go out. Exhaustion followed, nearly paralyzing her with its quick onset.

  “Her fever’s dropping,” Tristan said from far, far away.

  Lily’s eyes shut and she slipped into sleep.

  * * *

  Lily felt Tristan’s arm, heavy and smooth, draped over her shoulder. He was tucked against her back, all the covers piled on top of him to keep him warm while Lily stayed cool. The window was open. Lily watched her white curtains swell and sink on the cold November breeze. A day ago, she would have been over the moon to lie like this with him, but now she felt nothing for him. In fact, she wanted him to leave so she could figure out why she felt so empty. Lily was looking for a way to wiggle out from underneath his heavy arm when Tristan’s breathing hitched and he woke up.

  “Lily?” he said anxiously, rising up on his elbow behind her.

  “I’m awake,” she answered.

  “Are you okay? How do you feel? Do you need something?”

  “No, Tristan. I don’t need anything.”

  She felt him looking down at her, studying her, but she couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. Again, she wished he’d go away so she could think.

  “I’m so sorry—I can’t believe Scot did that to you,” he said quietly. She could feel angry heat radiating off of Tristan and saw his fist clench. “I’m going to beat the shit out of him.”

  “Why?” Lily asked. “He’s not the one who abandoned me for another girl.”

  A long, awkward silence stretched out between them. Lily felt Tristan grow tenser with every passing second. He flopped onto his back with a frustrated sigh.

  “I’m sorry you saw that, okay?” More silence. She didn’t know what to say. He took her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. “Will you at least look at me?”

  Lily did as he asked. She half expected to burst into tears or start screaming at him as soon as she saw his face. But she didn’t feel anything for Tristan except a growing sense of disgust.

  “Say something,” he urged. He was afraid.

  Lily had never been the cold anger kind of girl. She was a yeller, a foot stomper, and a pillow thrower. This blankness she felt toward him was completely unlike her, but she couldn’t help it. All she could see when she looked at Tristan was a guy who’d taken a sophomore girl into the bathroom for a quickie at a party. It was nasty—borderline nauseating—and she wished she’d never seen it. It had stolen something from her, but she didn’t know what it was just yet.

  “What?” she replied when his expectant look intensified. “What do you want me to say, Tristan?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re punishing me. Fine,” he said tersely. “Just remember I never made any promises. And I never lied to you, Lily.”

  “Let me get this straight,” she said, sitting up and turning to him. “As long as you don’t verbally promise anything to anyone, you can treat girls like dirt, and you aren’t technically doing anything wrong. Aren’t you going to accept any responsibility for this?”

  He looked away. He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m just pointing out that I never said we were exclusive.”

  “And that’s your justification? The same justification you gave me about Miranda yesterday?” Lily felt like she’d been tricked. Like some huckster had sold her snake oil and blamed her for not reading the fine print when it made her sick. “I used to think I meant more to you than they did, but I don’t, do I?”

  “You know I care more about you than I ever have about anyone else.” Tristan was yelling now, and in a way he seemed relieved—like having a big fight would clear the air. “You have no idea the things I’ve gone through for you. I’ve been there for you, defended you, protected you. I could have slept with you the other night on the couch, but I didn’t. I stopped before we went too far because I knew I wasn’t ready to be faithful to you, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “I bet you think that makes you a good person.” Lily wasn’t angry anymore. She just wanted the whole thing to be over. “It doesn’t, Tristan.”

  Lily had never shown this side of herself to Tristan—the harder side that had protected her when girls started whispering about her family behind her back—and he didn’t seem to know what to do with it. The look on his face, after the shock had passed, was pure hurt. Then the anger set in. Proud anger.

  She saw the shape of him put on his shirt and storm out, but the image was blurry because she didn’t have the strength to focus her eyes. She just couldn’t find a reason to try and stop him. What was the point, really? He wouldn’t be coming back. And if he did, nothing would ever be the same anyway. Their friendship was over.

  She repeated the phrase Tristan isn’t my friend anymore in her head, trying to convince herself that it was real.

  Lily sat in her bed, legs pulled up, chin resting on her knees, not seeing anything but blurry shapes and colors. Things would never be the same again. Especially not after half the school had witnessed one of her seizures. Lily had been embarrassed many times in her life, but no one outside of Tristan and her family had ever seen her foam at the mouth before. As messed up as her life had been, it was about to get exponentially worse. And this time she would have to face all the jeers and taunts in school alone. Tristan wasn’t her friend anymore and he wouldn’t be there to help get her through it. He wouldn’t stand up for her, or protect her, or drive her home and make her talk about it. Lily didn’t know what to look forward to after a day of horror at school if she couldn’t look forward to seeing him.

  Lily stood up and got dressed. Her legs and arms still felt rubbery and weak from the seizure, but they still worked, and that was good enough. Jeans. T-shirt. Chucks. She went outside and down to the shore. She sat on a rock and stared at the water. Gray. Cold. Wild. She let her mind drift out there somewhere with the waves, farther and freer than ever before. There wasn’t one thought in her head. Usually when Lily tried to empty her mind, it became ironically crowded, but not this time. For once, there was silence inside of her, an empty space that seemed to be expanding. Tears slid down her face. She wished she could just disappear.

  She heard a faint voice again from far away, a voice that sounded just like hers.

  Are you ready to go now?

  “Yes,” Lily answered, only feeling half crazy. Maybe this is what her mother felt, she thought. Maybe being crazy didn’t feel crazy at all—it just felt like you were having a conversation with yourself. “I’m done here.”

  * * *

  I watch the flames rise around me and hear the wood of the pyre pop and groan. Even though I’m prepared for this, the fear I feel is unavoidable. No matter how strong you think you are, fire has a way of bypassing rational thought. It talks directly to your skin. Your brain never enters into the conversation.

  Heat builds around me, and the fire begins to eat into my flesh. Yes, fire has teeth, and it chews at you like a living, breathing animal. It even roars like an animal. When you’re in its mouth, you have to fight for air. Fire, like a lion, likes to suffocate its prey.
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  The flames rise, and I twist and scream, trying to get away, but the iron shackles on my wrists keep me bound to this stake.

  I’m a witch. And witches burn.

  There are other ways for a witch to gather power, of course, but the pyre is the best. When I’m burning, I’m completely focused. Every micro-joule of energy is converted into power. It’s almost like I can’t waste any part of my pain. Like agony itself is another source of power. When I come to the pyre, I remember that I am alive.

  I also remember what I owe for my life—what I did to keep it. I remember what I must do, even if it makes me the villain of my own story. Most importantly, I remember that the good of the many really does outweigh the good of the few. Even if one of those few is me.

  It took me eight months to find the right candidate, to watch and wait, and now she’s finally ready to come. She’s strong. She’s independent. She’s a survivor. She has all of my power, but in her world she is powerless—sickly, even. I need to be certain that I’m not stealing the savior of another world in order to save mine. But most importantly, there is no Rowan in her world. If there were, I’d never be able to convince her to leave. I wouldn’t bother trying. I know what it is to love Rowan and what it feels like to lose him. I’d never ask that of another.

  I feel like I’ve been roasting on this pyre for days, but I know that in reality only a few seconds have passed. I haven’t even begun to transmute the energy of the flame and use it to bring her body from her world into mine. Funny how quickly the mind moves, but how slowly time does when you’re in pain. I always think of Rowan when I’m in pain, probably because the comparison comforts me. If I survived the pain of losing him, I guess I can handle anything.

  This logic has served me well over the past year. Whenever I’ve felt weak and doubted my path, all I’ve needed to do is think of Rowan and what I did to him. If I didn’t have mercy on him, why should I be merciful with others? There’s a clarity that comes with cruelty. When you’ve alienated everyone who means something to you and you’ve sacrificed every last sense of self, then there really is nothing left to lose.

  This girl I’m about to steal has no concept of loss. She doesn’t understand the difference between infatuation and love. That’s a good thing. I don’t want her broken like me. I want her wounded, yes, but stronger for it. There comes a day when every girl loses the stars in her eyes. And then she can see clearly.

  This is Lily’s day.

  * * *

  The voice went away for a few moments, and Lily thought that was that. She didn’t really think anything would happen. Then all sensation left her body and the voice came back.

  It will be terrifying. It was for me.

  There was no more warning than that. At first, she was too stunned to be frightened, but then the fear came, just as the voice had promised.

  It was like being numb, but not the warm, tingly numbness of Novocaine. This was absolute sensory deprivation. Lily couldn’t feel the clothes on her body, the hard rock under her legs, or the weight of her skin on her bones. She couldn’t even feel the panic that she knew she was experiencing; she could only think it. She was disembodied and she wondered if that meant she was dead.

  Then the vibration began. Lily didn’t know if it was a sound, a sensation, or something in between, but a steady thrumming became her only focus in the void. It was a distinct pattern, a unique combination of rhythm, intensity, pitch, and duration that was as recognizable as a friend’s voice. It was a song without notes, as complex as a symphony, and startlingly beautiful. It ended and another began. The second vibration was as unique and as infinitely complicated as the first, and it ended just as abruptly.

  As fast as a light being switched on, Lily could feel her body again. She could feel, see, taste, and smell the world again. She was still sitting on the same rock, still staring out at the same Atlantic Ocean, but several things were off. The air smelled clearer and fresher. The sky lacked the vaguely brownish smudge of smog ringing the horizon. There were more barnacles on the rocks and more starfish in the tide pools.

  Her skin prickling with a preternatural sense of wrongness, Lily turned and looked behind her.

  She was still in a Salem. The shape of the shoreline, as familiar to her as the whorls of her own thumbprint, told her that.

  She just wasn’t in her Salem anymore.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lily sat and stared at the impossible sight before her.

  A massive castle-like structure loomed where her house was supposed to stand, and beyond that, Lily could make out the outline of a city. She stared at the skyline, trying to make it register. A city larger than Boston stood where little Salem used to be. A city made up of weird buildings that were shaped unlike any she’d seen before. Twisting high above even the tallest skyscrapers were spiraling towers that seemed to be crawling with vegetation. Lily jumped down off her rock and ran up the steep path from the beach, hoping that as she got closer the whole thing would dissolve like a mirage in the desert.

  “I’m dreaming. I fell asleep on the rock and now I’m dreaming,” she muttered under her breath, but she knew it wasn’t true. Her skin tingled with awareness of the world around her. She felt completely awake. Whatever was happening to her was real.

  Lily crested the rise and met the implacable wall of the castle. Running along its side, she reached a turret that blocked any further progress along the edge and quickly realized that there was no way around the fortification. This structure was built to keep invaders out, whether they approached by land or sea.

  She put her hands on the stones, feeling the lichen covering them and inhaling their flinty smell, but still not fully believing they were there. Pacing back and forth along the precarious edge, Lily kept looking over her shoulder at the unchanged shoreline. This view, the one facing out to the ocean, was exactly the view she remembered. She’d seen the same rocks and the same unmistakable shape of the shore nearly every day of her life. Then she turned back to the wall that looked like it had stood there for hundreds of years. It had no business being there.

  “What the hell!” Lily shouted, hysteria threatening to take over.

  She heard footsteps along the top of the wall, and clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her screams. Men’s voices drifted down to her from the thirty-foot-high barricade—hostile voices barking orders. There was nowhere to hide. Lily looked around frantically, but she knew that if she ran or stayed it would make no difference. She was trapped between a rock wall and the ocean.

  A man dressed in dark clothes and holding some kind of foreign firearm aimed his weapon at Lily from over the wall. She stuck her hands in the air in surrender.

  “Lady! How’d you get out there? When did you…” The young soldier bit off his questions, as if realizing that he shouldn’t be asking them, and lowered his weapon.

  An older soldier joined the young man. He stared down at Lily for a moment, his mouth agape, before finding his voice and addressing her cheerfully.

  “Forgive us, Lady. Would you like to take a walk on the beach? We’ll send a detail down to you,” the older soldier said evenly.

  “A walk? No, I … Who are you?” Lily asked. Her voice broke, and she found herself shifting from foot to foot, trying her hardest not to cry. “I just want to go home.”

  Half a dozen more men joined the two soldiers. They all stared at Lily in disbelief. The older soldier called the others to attention.

  “Go down and escort the Lady of Salem back inside her Citadel,” he said crisply. The two soldiers stiffened and saluted.

  “Yes, Captain Leto,” they chorused, then rushed off to obey.

  Lily stared up at the men on the wall, holding her tongue. Silently, she took in their clothes, which seemed to be made of a new kind of fabric that looked a bit like leather but moved and bent with more ease. The weapons were strange to her as well. From what she could see, most of the soldiers were carrying crossbows, but not old-fashioned crossbows. These were high-tech
and looked lethal. In fact, very little about this place struck Lily as medieval—somehow it seemed both modern and old at the same time.

  And, judging from everyone’s deferential tone, apparently she looked like their ruler. Before she could crack that mystery, two soldiers who were hardly older than she was called to her from the beach.

  “Would you like us to come up the rise and carry you down, Lady?” one of them asked, still out of breath from running to get her.

  “Of course not,” Lily replied warily. “I can make it down to you just fine.”

  She had no idea what was expected of her at this point, or more accurately, what was expected of this Lady of Salem they seemed to be confusing her with. Regardless, Lily didn’t want two armed soldiers carrying her anywhere. She half walked, half slid her way down to them. The two soldiers flanked her, waiting for her to take the lead.

  “Which way?” she asked in as neutral a voice as she could manage.

  The two soldiers shared a confused look, but quickly collected themselves and led Lily around the side of the Citadel to a path that didn’t exist on her version of this beach. She tried to act as naturally as she could, even though she had no idea what passed for natural here. Her eyes darted down to the odd, vicious-looking sidearms strapped to the soldiers’ belts. She guessed that her best bet at making it through this episode was to play along.

  It was a long walk around. The Citadel was a castle on top of the highest hill, surrounded by a circular wall that was backed up against the ocean. Ballooning out from the seawall that Lily had walked alongside stretched a much larger wall that seemed to go on forever. Lily tried to see around it and decided that this larger wall must encircle the whole city. She scoured the landscape for something familiar but saw no landmarks she knew. The tallest buildings of a strange city poked up above the massive wall. Looking at the soaring spires, Lily had to forcibly calm her breathing so she didn’t start to hyperventilate. A busy metropolis had somehow sprung up to replace her little town.