As her final note faded, a stillness within and without fell upon the whole of the world. Then, through the release of this impossible pause, the trees in Rothwyke’s woods began to rustle and above their reach, swallows flocked in numbers unknown to our land in generations. The swallows descended in a torrent of blue stars and flew into the town. The birds twirled among the buildings and through the streets. The whisper of their wings was a gust in every ear, a breath from a realm not quite their own.
Harmyn’s fingertips reached for the last of the flock who flew above and around her. She cringed and looked down.
I heard footsteps and turned to see Nikolas.
We went to Harmyn. The child lifted a bird from the ground. When Harmyn faced us, the swallow lay dead in her hands. A red stain appeared on her white shirt.
“Your chest,” I said. “The bird.”
“The swallow struck me. Look, her neck is broken,” Harmyn said.
“What do you want to do?” Nikolas asked.
“Bury her, but I want to alone,” she said, her eyes shiny with tears.
“Very well,” I said, close to tears myself seeing the bird. “Remember, we’re having dinner at the castle tonight at seven. Come home in time enough to wash.”
Harmyn glanced past me, searching. “I remembered.” She blinked at us. “You’re so beautiful together. I love you both, you know.”
Nikolas hugged her at his side. “We love you, too,” he said.
She stepped away and, with a little wave, turned to walk to the woods. The flight of swallows gathered again to spiral above me and Nikolas, then soared toward Harmyn.
Nikolas linked his arm with mine. “I never tire of the magic that happens around you.” I patted his hand. “There’s a carriage waiting.” I hesitated. “She’ll be fine,” he said.
The carriage took Father and me home. An hour passed, then two. Harmyn found some friends and stayed to visit in the woods; no reason to worry, Father and I said to each other. At five thirty, I peered up and down the street from the bedroom window. Below, a young red squirrel was circling our front steps and scratching at our door.
I ran downstairs. As soon as I stepped outside, I saw a horse charging in my direction. Nikolas reined in the horse. He noticed the squirrel.
“An owl nearly brained itself at a window. Something’s wrong,” he said.
In a swoop, I lifted the squirrel, placed her on Nikolas’s lap, and climbed up behind him. The squirrel scurried to my shoulder.
Go to the ancient one, she said.
“Reach,” I shouted to Nikolas over hoofbeats.
We went through the northwest wards to the green, cutting between the abandoned wall and what was left to store away after the day’s events, and into the darkening woods.
He slowed the horse not far from Reach. I jumped off, set the squirrel on the ground, and called the child’s name. No answer came.
Nikolas ran ahead of me and disappeared around the tree’s enormous trunk.
I found him with Harmyn on his lap. The blue swallow lay against a root. I knelt at Nikolas’s side and touched the bloody rose on Harmyn’s chest. There was no heartbeat above the rounded swell. I pressed again, confused. This couldn’t be. I stroked Harmyn’s small hands. The palms were a pale blue. I brushed her cheeks, slightly warm.
Shocked beyond tears, Nikolas reached out his hand. “This was next to her,” he said.
Dear Secret, Nikolas, and GrandBren,
I want you to know I didn’t want to leave you, but I had to, to answer my ultimate call. For some time, I knew what my fate held. My dreams told me, and that is where I learned about myself and practiced my gifts in other realms. I didn’t worry any of you with this because there was nothing you could do. Nothing to do. As the great Voice Sisay told Aoife, and me, this is beyond our understanding.
Because the plague has spread to so many kingdoms, I’ve seen to it that those who sleep next will sleep like bears. Few volunteers will be needed to tend the adults, but the children will need care until the adults awaken again. Tell the Guardians now.
As the plague runs its course, you must understand the purpose was never to eliminate all shadows and their pestilence of lies, but to release what could be and expose the rest. As the balance of your world shifts to good, it means nothing without its opposite. Now, as it’s always been, this is matter of free will.
I am grateful you were my family. Look for me in dreams.
I love you, so much,
Harmyn
I fell next to him, taking the child in my arms as he coiled us in his. I kissed Harmyn’s closed eyes, blind again, blind for good. I wept with grief for a love I never believed I could feel.
A crack broke through my heart, through my spine, and into Reach’s trunk. I turned to watch a thin fissure open in the dead wood. The beginning of a sacred hollow.
When we could finally stand, I called the horse. I climbed on first, pulled Harmyn up from Nikolas’s arms, and held her between us as he led us to the castle.
Everyone stood aside as he carried her through the courtyards, into the residence, and placed her on the bed which had been hers. Behind me, I heard Hugh ask what he could do.
Within the hour, as I sat alone with her in the dark, Father and Margana arrived. He collapsed the moment he saw Harmyn, kneeling at the bedside. When Margana entered the room, she dropped a large bundle on another bed and stood in tears. She rubbed my father’s back, then came to hold me.
“We have to prepare her,” she said.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“I’m here to help. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said.
Nikolas lit every lamp in the room while Father and I sat in silence. When Margana entered again, she placed cloths and a bowl of water on a night table. She sent Nikolas and Father out.
“Help me undress her,” Margana said.
We began to remove the coat, the bloodstained shirt—underneath, the amulet and medal—her little boots, then the trousers and thin drawers. We paused to glance at each other. I reached to turn up the lamp’s flame and held the light near her thighs. Our Voice lay before us.
Harmyn’s body, naked—both male and female.
“Margana, were you told the Myths of the Four?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Were you told Azul the Orphan, as a child, was ‘he and she, both and they’?”
“I heard the same. You didn’t know,” she said.
“No. Harmyn hid this all along.” I cradled Harmyn’s face, pressed my forehead against her, his, theirs, and kissed the divine child’s brow.
After we dressed our Voice, Margana held out a length of blue cloth on the other bed. “In the months since I received this, I could never decide what to do with it. Not until the king’s man came to fetch me did I realize it was meant to be a burial shroud.”
We were in tears again as we cocooned Harmyn within the cloth, their face exposed like an infant’s.
Once Margana departed for home, I refused to leave Harmyn’s side. I surrendered to Father’s arms as we sat next to the child’s body half the night and then to Nikolas, who held me through morning.
In the Great Hall, Harmyn lay in state. The people of Rothwyke came to mourn through the next day and night. The children surrounded Harmyn with flowers and covered our Voice in tears. There would be no burial, because Connau arrived on the second morning with an invitation.
“The Ancient Elders offer the release bestowed to our warriors. We’re here to help, if that’s what you choose,” Connau said to Nikolas and me.
“Of course,” I said. “We couldn’t deny Harmyn this honor.”
A horse-drawn cart brought the child’s corpse to the woods, to the glade near Old Woman’s cottage. Connau and Nikolas placed Harmyn’s body on the waiting pyre. Five men dressed in blue coats, holding bronze shields with a dragon herald, kept vigil over the fire.
That evening, the oldest among them came into the cottage with an
urn filled with Harmyn’s ashes.
“Connau will show you the way when you’re ready,” the man said, his mouth twisted in one corner from a ragged scar.
“We’ll go alone,” I said.
Nikolas held the urn as we thanked them. We entered the woods, Connau and his men going to one tree, Nikolas and I to another. I watched as a doe led them home. When the bees came for us, I held Nikolas’s hand as we crossed into the realm.
We walked toward the mountain. I leaned against him as I thought of Aoife, a thousand years before, standing in that same place with Wei at her side, waiting to release Leit. As it happened for her, the clouds shifted into shades of red. The billows took form and down she came. Egnis, she who knew the future present past.
With one wing, she beckoned us into the valley. She stared into our eyes, into the pain, and from the dark, drew out the light and joy of our time with Harmyn. Together, Nikolas and I spilled the vessel, scattered the dust. The dragon huffed, the ashes disappeared, and Harmyn became one with All. As swallows darted past, Egnis spiraled into the air with a plume of violet flames. She flew higher and higher until she vanished behind the rising moon.
Nikolas and I stood in each other’s arms until the night became cold and returned to our world as the sun rose again.
ON THE NIGHT OF THE full moon, seven days after Harmyn died, I dreamed of a black-haired man with scarred hands who carried a singing swallow on his shoulder. I followed him into a shed which smelled of sawed wood. He lifted a sheet to reveal a blue chest painted with animals. “Mine?” I asked. “Yours,” he said. I opened the lid and peered inside. “Look, there’s a secret,” he said, pointing to the bottom. With a gouge, he removed a knot in the wood. He caught the hollow with his fingertip and raised the panel to reveal a hidden space.
Wide awake, I fumbled for a light, found a pen with a broken nib, and went to my old room, where I’d placed the chest weeks before. I flipped the top, rubbed my hand along the bottom, and dug at the knot. The dark core rolled away. I clawed the hole and lifted the panel.
I descended into what for so long had been sealed off.
Mother’s high academy diploma. Rose-colored silk shawl. Four letters in a language I couldn’t read. Map, hastily sketched, not by her. Desiccated human finger, wrapped in a handkerchief. Talisman tied with sinew—sticks, a stone, an iron nail, a feather turned into dust. Clay pendant in the shape of a crescent moon. Small leather bag holding nineteen rings. Carved beast with a coiled tail and bird’s wings. Sapphire bracelet with one crystal, Guardian blue. Drawings, almost three dozen, in a young but skilled hand. What they represented, I didn’t know, except for three.
A girl tied to a tree, where three shadows loomed close, and a man and a wolf watched nearby.
The symbol.
An infant with eyes the colors of night and day.
My tears rushed not for grief or rage, hatred or resentment. I wept with sorrow for the enigmatic woman who could not bear the risk of being known, not even by her inevitable daughter.
23 SEPTEMBER /39
IN THE WEEKS AFTER WE lost Harmyn, I went to the woods for hours each day until I retreated there. Old Woman’s cottage became my home. I trusted Nature to comfort me, as only it could. Among the trees, I felt our Voice with me, but I missed the child no less because of it.
I guarded against my instinct to withdraw. I lived in the woods, but I didn’t leave anyone to grieve alone, which included myself. When the children came to the cottage or found me among the trees, I didn’t send them away. We shared stories about Harmyn, took walks with the animals, and rested in the shade, content with the silence we chose. Several times a week, I visited with Father and my friends. Rather than meet at the castle, Nikolas would come to me. We found refuge in the quiet and each other.
Then, on the morning of my twenty-second birthday, I awoke to find a pigeon, a dove, and a sparrow on the windowsill.
Return to the castle.
Messengers await.
You will soon have a choice to make.
When I arrived, I found Nikolas and kissed him in front of a guard who no longer took notice.
“I’m told we have visitors, but I wasn’t informed who they are,” Nikolas said.
We held hands as we walked to the meeting chamber. His guard opened the door.
There, next to the crest of scales, were two elderly Guardians. I hugged Old Woman as Nikolas accepted Old Man’s embrace. When Old Woman kissed Nikolas’s cheek, I accepted the clasp of Old Man’s strong, thin-skinned hands. We sat at the table and spoke few pleasantries.
“We know what happened to Harmyn. None of us expected the loss. I’ve mourned for our dear child. A gift beyond measure,” Old Woman said.
“The child and the two of you made us proud. We’re relieved peace remains in Rothwyke, despite the adversities,” Old Man said.
“Our people deserve the credit for that,” Nikolas said.
“As well as the one who guides by his own actions,” Old Woman said. “But we’re not here to talk of that and the compassionate king you’re proving yourself to be. We’re here for Secret.”
Old Man placed a package on the table and pushed it toward me. I removed the paper wrapping. My fingers filled with sparks. I brushed my hand across Aoife’s minuscule handwriting. Another manuscript. Before I could study it, Old Man pulled it back to him.
“You know there are more works yet to be translated,” Old Woman said. “You are the only one who knows this written form of our language. It could be taught, of course, and I hope it will be. Until then, the Ancient Elders believe it’s time for the knowledge to be shared. You’re invited to join me to live and work and learn among the Guardians. With us, you’ll find a place of peace unlike any you’ve ever known. You’ll be allowed to translate the texts into several languages and arrange production of multiple copies. We know Aoife recorded our history, but it’s a mystery what she preserved. You can solve this for us.”
I felt Nikolas draw me toward him without a touch. I gripped his forearm. He knew what I was thinking. The possibility thrilled me. To be the first to read the manuscripts, to ring it all to the world, to myself.
“Why can’t you send them to her here?” Nikolas asked.
“We could. But to live among us is to understand what words alone cannot convey. She might welcome it, after what she suffered through the plague,” Old Woman said. With that, I knew she’d received word of what the sickness forced us to see and feel. She knew of some of the shadows which came for me.
“In all paths, there are forks and crossroads,” Old Man said. “The future, as you know, is mutable. Fate is not so neatly fixed. You could choose to remain here now to serve with the gifts you possess. You are a woman of tremendous power. No one lesser could have turned an adversary to face his fork, as you did. You entered the mystery of duality—light, dark; good, evil; love, hate—and you are wiser now in its mastery, even if you lack faith that it is so.
“You need not consort with the dark again as you did. You can choose the light and nurture its expanse. The man who sits next to you has always known this possibility. It’s what he saw in you when you were children, and you saw in him. His Guardian blood is very old, long before this kingdom’s time, but it is strong. A wondrous marriage could come of these forces.”
When Nikolas’s hand swept into mine, the love between us charged through our palms.
“Do I have to give my answer now?” I asked.
“No, but you will have to decide soon enough. You’ve sensed this. Your return to the woods wasn’t only to grieve Harmyn and what you’ve suffered. You sought a deeper truth,” Old Woman said.
“We’ve delivered the message. It’s time to return home,” Old Man said.
We stood together. They kissed us good-bye and left the room, slow but steady.
The door shut. Nikolas held my face in his hands. He knew what I would choose, but the plea in his eyes told me what he wanted. A hum rose in my ears, sourceless it seemed, and
I realized this was the sound of the threshold, the liminal space between what was and what could be. He stood firm as I reeled on my feet. I swept my arms inside his coat, wrapped tight, and laid my head on his pounding chest. He drew me close, rocking us together.
“Hold me, Nikolas,” I said. “Don’t let me go.”
Afterword
YET HE DID, WILLINGLY.
My father understood her leaving was as much a part of her fate as the manuscript, the quest, the plague, and he were. Wise as he was, he knew she went to prepare Aoife’s manuscripts for untold thousands to read, but more so to mourn and heal. The wounds of betrayal and unwantedness festered deep. The woman my father loved required time to close them, enough at least. Old Woman welcomed her among her family and gave her an experience of acceptance she had never known.
During the seven years she lived among the Guardians, she translated sixteen manuscripts. She found Aoife had written their history, folktales, and myths as well as anthropological studies of their culture. In four languages at first, the words traveled to lands Aoife never knew existed, during a time of transformation which she couldn’t have dreamed. The peace and compassion which Aoife, Wei, Leit, and their Guardian family wanted the world to know was taking root and blooming, most vibrantly in the children who awoke from the sleep.
These same seven years, the Plague of Silences spread across the world. The illness afflicted the plants, creatures, and people on our continent in the first three cycles, then crossed the twelve seas to lands far beyond. The war, which my father didn’t want to enter, collapsed as the second and third cycles swept through the fighting kingdoms.
What suffering preceded the plague rapidly waned in the years which followed. Many reading this now find our world’s history as perplexing as I do. The neglect, cruelty, and violence committed within families, towns, and kingdoms, against our companion beings in all forms and the earth itself—we marvel at what we’ve been told. How unreal it seems.
The Plague Diaries Page 47
