Legendborn

by Tracy Deonn

  Black folks.

  They’re all Black folks.

  Black folks raising the round slab like hundreds of Atlases holding the world. Some of the men wear long shirts over pants. Others are bare-chested, their bronze muscles straining across stomachs and biceps. Women in skirts lift the impossibly heavy weight. Their feet are buried beneath the mud and mulch, and yet they push.

  My voice is quiet and breathy. “What is this?”

  “The Unsung Founders Memorial. Carolina’s way of acknowledging the enslaved and the servants who built this place,” she says, her voice wavering between pride and disdain. “We get this memorial, and it’s something, I suppose. It was a class gift. Not unimportant. But how can I be at peace when I look down and see that they’re still working? You know?”

  I do know what she means. This type of knowing is an expensive toll to pay. I can’t forget the knowledge just because the price is high. And yet, sometimes we have to tuck the reminders away today in order to grow power against them tomorrow.

  Dr. Hartwood draws herself up on the bench. “But that is not what our session is about.”

  I stand, but it’s difficult to disengage from the memorial, now that I know what—and who—it represents. It’s hard to turn from its strange mage flame, too. Why would aether collect here? I make a mental note to ask Nick about it.

  I finally tear my eyes away. “I’m guessing my dad told you all about me.”

  “He is very proud of you.” Her smile reminds me of my mom’s. Laugh lines at the edges. Lipstick that matches her shawl. “He told me you were bright and, more than that, wise.”

  I snort. “Wise? I got in trouble my first night here. I’m not wise.”

  “Not a trait one can claim or dispose of themselves, I’m afraid.”

  “S’pose so.” I’m surprised at the easy way my own drawl slips out. Talking to her feels familiar. Like home. Like reunions and fish fries and potato salad on picnic tables behind the church. I haven’t felt like this, let my mouth move like this, since I came to Carolina.

  I sit down, and she offers me her hand. When our palms touch, a low and steady hum of electricity courses up my arm to my elbow. It’s nothing like Sel’s gaze. It’s warm like spiced cider on Christmas. Hot syrup over pancakes.

  “Nice to meet you, Bree.” She actually refrained from a platitude. An adult who definitely knows that my mother is dead. I’m stunned.

  I stammer, “Uh… you, too, ma’am.”

  “Patricia, please. Dr. Hartwood, if you must, but I’m not one for the ma’ams.” Patricia waves her hand dismissively. “Save that for the aunties who demand it.”

  I laugh, and she grins back. I haven’t been around an auntie like that since my mother’s funeral.

  “So, you’re my shrink?”

  “Psychologist, counselor, therapist. I like those best. You’ve been living on campus for a few days now. How do you like it?”

  Demons. Aether. Knights. Homework. A boy who makes me feel fuzzy.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Mm.” Patricia’s brown eyes seem to dig through my skull, like a drill covered in velvet. “Friends?”

  “I came here with my friend Alice, but we had a bit of a rocky start.”

  Patricia nods sagely. “Common for students who room with friends from high school. Many find that the new environment challenges old relationships.”

  “That’s an understatement. I’ve met a few people in classes and events.”

  Oh, you know, events like secret feudal rituals.

  “Tell me about Alice.”

  How rude would it be to tell her the only reason I’m here is to find out what she knows?

  “We’ve been best friends since we were little. We applied to EC together. We went off campus to this thing at the Eno Quarry, which I assume you know about, and we got in trouble. We fought about it. Did the silent treatment thing, but I think we made up last night. Mostly. I’m still kinda pissed that she called my dad, but I sort of get it.”

  Patricia’s eyebrows have raised a fraction. “Were you aware it was against the rules to go to the Quarry?”

  Something occurs to me, and I sit up straight. “Does my dad get reports on what we talk about here?”

  She shakes her head. “Everything is confidential. Unless you express a desire to harm yourself or others, or describe abuse, either past or ongoing. In those cases, I’m required to file a report with university police.”

  “Hm,” I say. “In that case, yeah. I knew it was against the rules.”

  “Did that give you pause?”

  “Not at the time.”

  “You went anyway. Why is that, do you think?”

  “I was upset. I just wanted to go somewhere. Do something.”

  “What type of something?”

  Even though I don’t want to answer, I think about the restlessness I’d felt at the cliffside before Sel found me. The pressure under my skin. The desire to explode.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hm.” Patricia doesn’t believe me. She reminds me of my mother in that way. There was a reason I went behind her back to apply to Carolina. If I’d asked and she’d said no, she’d have read the defiance on my face. “Let’s shift gears.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “I’d like to talk about your mother.”

  An eager sort of panic flutters in my stomach, at the back of my throat. “My dad said you knew her?”

  “I did,” she says warmly. “Not well. But I liked her very much.”

  Suddenly, swallowing is hard. I thought I’d wanted her to talk about my mother. Why does it feel bad now that she is? “Oh.”

  “Do you know why I asked to meet you here, Bree?”

  Her question takes me by surprise. “No, not really. Is this a trick question?”

  Apparently, my answer takes Patricia by surprise, because she blinks and sits back.

  “These gardens are abundant with root energy. Are you not a Wildcrafter like your mother?”

  19

  SHOCK, FEAR, HOPE—EMOTIONS war in my belly. “What’s a Wildcrafter?”

  For the first time, Patricia looks rattled.

  “Wildcraft is shorthand for the branch of Rootcraft she practiced. The type of energy she could manipulate is found in growing things—plants, herbs, trees. As a student, she spent hours here in the gardens and—” Her face folds into a sympathetic frown. “I’m so sorry, Bree… I thought this would be a comforting, familiar setting to you. I thought you knew about her.”

  I almost fall off the bench. How many times in a week can one have their world spun and fractured and put back together again? A dozen? Two dozen? After-Bree presses against the walls that restrain her. Against surprise and secrets and another moment of my life that breaks the world open a little further. My skin feels prickly and tight. I shut my eyes and shove it all back before panic steals my senses. “My mother… manipulated energy?”

  “Yes.”

  Questions tumble against one another like dominoes. “What type of energy? What is Rootcraft?” Does everyone keep secrets here?

  Patricia recovers her composure. She taps a polished nail on her lower lip, her eyes darting back and forth in thought. “I’m not sure that I should say any more.”

  Suddenly, I’m so impatient and indignant I could shake her until the answers fall out. Scream until she shares what she knows. I grit my teeth. “Why not?”

  She hesitates, but meets my eyes. “I don’t think it’s my place.”

  “Why? Did she tell you to keep this from me?” A thought occurs to me. “Did my dad?”

  She spreads her hands over her skirt. “I didn’t know Faye very well, and we didn’t keep up after graduation. I didn’t even know she had a daughter until your father called me today, didn’t even know she’d passed. And I doubt your father knows about any of this. Most often, the craft flows from mother to daughter.”

  “What?” I shoot to my feet.

  “Bree, I’d like you to calm d
own.”

  “Why would I be calm about this? My mother had a secret life and she never told me. Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “I don’t know why Faye made the decisions she did. When loved ones die, there are always questions like this, with answers we can only guess at.”

  Confusion and anger flood me in a hot rush. “And are those questions always about magic?”

  “We don’t call it magic.”

  “We?” My fists ball at my sides. “I just met you, and now it’s ‘we’? You and my mother?”

  Patricia’s lips thin.

  “My mother was a botanist. A scientist. Five minutes ago, I thought any manipulation of plants she did happened in a—a pharmaceutical lab. And now you’re telling me she lied to me.”

  A fine line appears between Patricia’s brows. “Thank you for sharing how all of this is making you feel. You’re right. I owe you more than what I’ve said. Please, sit.”

  Whiplash. “Just like that, you changed your mind?”

  A smile tugs at her lips. “I find that, in my field, emotional agility comes with the territory.”

  My breath comes in shallow pants. My fists refuse to unclench. But I sit.

  “Do you know what auras are?”

  A vision of the red mage flame washes over me in a hot rush. Was that an aura? Was it not mage flame at all? Patricia’s attention sharpens on my face, but before she can ask a follow-up, I wave a hand in a vague circle around my head. “Colors around people?”

  “Mostly right. Auras are your personal energy, reflecting the state of your spirit.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “From what I understand, they look like a faint sort of fog or thin mist.”

  That mage flame had roared up my skin, all fire and anger and blood. Not an aura, then.

  “While an undergraduate here, I had a friend named Janice who was a Reader, someone whose branch of Rootcraft allowed her to see people’s auras. Emotions, intentions, abilities. One day Janice saw me and your mother talking outside class and later, Janice told me that your mother knew the craft. So I asked your mother to practice and fellowship together. She was very polite, but she declined. She seemed so uncomfortable by my offer that I never mentioned it again. I wasn’t offended. I thought maybe she had her own community. We tend to keep the craft private, but I thought, perhaps, she kept to a stricter code; rootcraft is taught within families, and different families have different approaches. Still, I am surprised that your mother never told you what she could do.”

  There’s no air in my chest. Where is all the air? My mind is blanking, shutting down.

  “Bree?” Patricia leans forward into my field of vision. “Take some deep breaths. Close your eyes and think of something or someone that made you feel safe in the last twenty-four hours.”

  I follow her instructions—and my mind travels to eyes, storm dark and blue.

  It takes a few breaths before I open my eyes again. The panic is still there, but it has trouble taking hold.

  I believe what Patricia’s told me. After all that I’ve seen here, it would be foolish to think there’s no more to learn. But of all the secrets I thought I’d uncover, I didn’t think my mother’s life—and the magic she wielded—would be one of them. Wildcrafting, plant energy manipulation. What danger would there be in sharing those abilities with others like her? Did she believe Patricia was dangerous? That seems unlikely—Patricia left her alone. The Order’s militancy is more than enough reason to keep a low profile on this campus. But if that was her reasoning, then that means she knew about the Order and Merlins long before I was born. So, did a Merlin know about her? My instinct says yes. Why else would one be at her deathbed twenty-five years later?

  Patricia stands up to wrap her shawl around her shoulders. “Traditionally, your mother would teach you all of this. For you not to know when your mother knew about her own abilities means she withheld this information for some reason. And that means, ethically, I need to consider what it means to tell you what your mother did not. Perhaps it’s the therapist in me, but I would like to respect her wishes. I think we should stop for the day. We’ll meet again on Friday and I’ll give you my decision.”

  “No!” I’m on my feet, heart pounding. “I need you to tell me everything. I have to know—”

  She pauses, frowns. “You have to know what?”

  What can I say? Telling anyone that I suspect the Order was a part of my mother’s death could put them in danger, much more so if they use aether. And if my mother hid parts of herself from Patricia, then should I hide my abilities too?

  I choose the safest thing to share, and phrase it carefully. “I know about aether.”

  Patricia lets out a harsh breath, and I know immediately that I’ve said something wrong. “Where did you learn that word?”

  “I—I can’t say.”

  Patricia gives me a shrewd, measuring look. She knows I’m hiding something. Like mother, like daughter, I think.

  “I respect and value confidentiality, and so I will not pry about what you know or how you know it. Instead, I will aim to earn your trust. But I must tell you that the… practitioners”—she says the word as if it tastes rancid in her mouth—“who use the word ‘aether’ are not your mother’s people.”

  “Her people?” I ask.

  “Her people. Our people. We are the descendants of those who developed the craft, and we do not call the invisible energy of the world ‘aether.’ We call it ‘root.’ ”

  * * *

  “Now that we’re best friends again, you wanna get dinner together? A girl from my Classics class wants to meet up.” Alice wrinkles her nose. “It’s ‘Italian Night’ at Lenoir, whatever that means.”

  After finishing classes for the day, we’ve been lounging on our respective beds, phones in hand. I’m not sure what Alice has been doing, but I’ve been opening my messaging app compulsively, as if Nick has texted me and the app is simply refusing to reveal it. Maybe this time. Maybe this time. Maybe now?

  It’s not embarrassing if no one sees me doing it, right?

  I start no fewer than seven different texts but erase each one before sending, because what if I do text him and he doesn’t text back?

  More importantly, what would I say?

  I decide not to mention my meeting with Patricia to Nick. Not until I know more. And even then, I’m not sure what I should share with him, or anyone.

  If my mother knew about the Order, its claim on magic, and its tendency to put magic users on trial (or worse), it only makes sense that she’d have hid her abilities on campus, just as I’m doing now. If what Patricia said is true, then calling my father won’t be of any use, because my mother kept this part of her life from him. So far, only Nick knows about me and what I can do, not counting the red flames. Maybe I should keep it that way?

  Utterly confused, I toss my phone out of reach and flop back against my pillows to stare at the ceiling with a frustrated sigh.

  Knowing that my mother was on Carolina’s campus twenty-five years ago doing exactly what I’m doing now—keeping things secret, hiding parts of herself from other people—makes me feel closer to her and, simultaneously, like I never knew her at all.

  Who was she, really?

  “Bree?” Alice asks, pulling me away from my thoughts. “Italian Night?”

  “You know what Italian Night means,” I say, and sit up, snatching my phone again, because apparently I’m committed to being ridiculous. “Soggy, overcooked cafeteria spaghetti and runny sauce. Sad lasagna that’s been sitting under a warmer for two hours.”

  “It’s either sad pasta or the food court. Which do you want?”

  The dormer window of our top-floor room is cracked open. The whoops and cheers of the Wednesday night party crowd reach us from the sidewalk below. According to Charlotte, who’d stopped by our room on her way out, “Wednesday night is the new Thursday night and, by the way, nobody goes out on Fridays.”

  “I can’t go anyways,�
� I mutter, and my stomach twists on yet another lie. “That student group I mentioned? They’re hosting dinner tonight at their house.”

  Across the room, Alice sits up. “What’s this group called again?”

  I’m ready for her question and keep my voice as calm as possible. “It’s one of the secret societies.”

  Alice’s eyes grow wide. “I’ve heard of those! Can you tell me which one?”

  “No, sorry,” I say. I’m so sorry, Alice.

  She pouts. “I was hoping to get tapped by the Order of the Golden Fleece, but someone told me they don’t go for EC kids. If that doesn’t work, then DiPhi it is.”

  DiPhi is Carolina’s student debate society. If Alice joins them, we’ll both be in historic student orgs. The only difference is that she can list her membership on her resume.

  Lying to Alice after last night and this morning makes me feel like a complete asshole. Maybe this is why Sel is the way he is? Angry and grumpy and accusatory. And maybe this is another reason why Nick doesn’t want to be involved with the Order. All the lying, the strain of being on this campus and living two different lives. I sigh. “Nick says I’ve got to keep it secret, keep it safe.”

  “Did you just Lord of the Rings me?”

  “Nope.” I grin. “I just Fellowship of the Ring’d you.”

  Her face takes on a sly expression. “Why do you say his name like that?”

  “Say whose name like what?”

  The ends of her mouth lift. “Your voice got all funny when you said ‘Nick.’ It’s the same exact way you used to say Scott Finley’s name.”

  “I did not say Scott’s name in any particular way.” She did not have to do me like that. I was eleven when I had a crush on Scott Finley the baseball player.

  Best friends and their deep cuts.

  Alice points at me accusingly. “Lying liar who lies!” My heart clenches, even though I know she’s joking. She rushes over to perch on the end of my bed. “What’s Nick look like?”

  We’d only started talking again—for-real talking, like best friends—since the morning, but the warmth spilling from her brown eyes fills my cup in a way I hadn’t known I needed. With my mother’s secrets—and lies—looming since the session with Patricia, and the memories of last night rising up like a nightmare every other hour, sitting with my best friend and talking about a cute boy is beyond refreshing. And, like nothing else in my life right now, it’s easy.