Firewalker

by Josephine Angelini

  “Where?” Rowan asks the page. Gavin points in a northerly direction toward the tip of the oval wall that surrounds the miles-long city. She couldn’t be farther away from my southerly, east-side keep. Rowan’s willstone glitters as he weaves a field of still air around him. Undistorted air is easier to see through, and his vision is sharpened. He sees his target and takes me up against his side. I feel the familiar tug of his willstone, urging me to give him strength.

  For a moment I teeter on a precipice of my own, wanting to possess him. He’s so open. I could take over his will, but I resist as I almost always have in the past. I gather my energy, change it into force, and pour it into his willstone. Pure power pumps in his veins and we share in the heady rush of my strength in his body. He leaps upward, the ground shrinks beneath us, and in seconds we have flown to the top of the colossal wall that surrounds the city of Salem. We alight on Walltop. I have read of a wall like this in China. It is rumored to be much longer, but not nearly as tall as this. I dream of going there one day, but I doubt I ever will. This whole continent has been cut off from the others for the same reason we built this wall. The Woven.

  Walltop is like China in a way. It is a world apart with its own rules and customs—a world that exists two hundred feet above the city of Salem. Generations have served up here. They even have their own slang and a distinct accent. Technically, I am the absolute ruler of Walltop. The Council and the Coven don’t have any say up here, and my word is law. But secretly I know that Walltop is run according to its own complicated set of rules that I don’t fully grasp.

  “The Lady of Salem,” announces Leto, the ranking captain. A flurry of stiff backs and crisp salutes follows.

  “Captain Leto,” I say in greeting. I break off when I see my mother.

  She’s in her nightgown. It’s frayed and soiled at the hem as if it’d been dragging through mud for hours. Her hair, a riot of flame-red curls like mine, is tangled and frizzy. Her bare feet tread the very edge of Walltop. They are so dirty I can barely see the blood from where she’s torn a toenail. The only reason I know it’s torn is from the crimson footprints in her wake. Her face is serene and a small smile softens the corners of her mouth, but her eyes blink and burn with an unhealthy light. A strange shame flowers hot pink in my cheeks. It isn’t her nightgown or hair or bloody feet—it’s the insanity in her eyes that I’m ashamed of.

  “Mom,” I whisper. There’s something about seeing my mother behaving like this that turns me into a child. I am not the Lady of Salem right now. I am a scared little girl who is desperate to defuse a powder keg inside a woman I have never understood. “Come back from the edge.”

  “You know, Lillian, all I have to do is squint my eyes and there’s nothing here,” she says, stamping her feet and holding her arms out wide. “No wall. It’s like I’m walking on air.”

  Rowan slowly inches his way toward my mother. “What do you mean, Samantha?” he asks lightly. He sounds amused and curious, rather than worried.

  “I mean that in other versions of this”—she waves her arms wildly to take in the city and the Woven Woods surrounding it—“there is no wall, and no forest full of monsters.”

  “Other versions of what?” Rowan asks. He is within arm’s reach of my mother now. His hands are relaxed but ready at his sides.

  “Other versions of the world,” Samantha says, smiling at him. She’s always adored Rowan. If I tried sneaking up on her this way she’d throw a fit. I’ve never been able to soothe her the way he can. “They’re all here, you know. Right here, right now, there are other lives being lived. Down there”—my mother points over the side of the wall at the ground hundreds of feet below, her eyes half closed—“there are houses. Children play in the grass.”

  I sigh with frustration. She’s convinced her hallucinations are real.

  “They do,” my mother says, rounding on me defensively. “I can see them, Lillian.”

  “I’ve seen lots of things over the wall, Lady Samantha,” Captain Leto says kindly. “Children playing wouldn’t be the strangest thing, but it would probably be one of the nicest.” The rest of the soldiers around us chuckle sadly. Walltop guards see plenty of evil and very little of the sweetness of children.

  “When I was young, the holy men of my tribe used to talk about multiple worlds,” Rowan says casually, as if he were having a completely sane conversation. “They told us that anything we could dream was true in some universe. They even told us that somewhere, each of us was a king.”

  “That would be one of your shamans, now wouldn’t it, Lord Fall?” asks Leto, playing the same game Rowan is playing. Acting like this is normal.

  “That’s right,” Rowan replies. His face lights up with a thought. “You should talk to a shaman, Samantha.”

  My mother laughs nervously and looks out over the edge. “You think so?”

  “I do.” Rowan nods emphatically, and the guards nod with him. Rowan holds his hand out to my mother. “My father knows the shaman of my tribe. I think you should meet him.”

  “A shaman at the Citadel?” my mother says, fluttering a dismissive hand in front of her face. “Is that even possible? I hear the shamans refuse to bond with willstones, and aren’t allowed into the cities.” She looks at me uncertainly.

  “I can make it happen,” I say. Anything to get her away from the edge—even if it means I agree to seeing one of those ridiculous shamans. Everyone knows it’s the hallucinogenic mushrooms they eat that make them imagine other worlds, but at this point I’d agree to anything. “I’d like to meet him, too.”

  “You would?” my mother asks. She’s confused now. She was about to take Rowan’s hand, but she pulls it back. “It would be so embarrassing if anyone knew you had one of those shamans come to see you, Lillian.”

  “Who’d find out? This is Walltop, Lady. No one here would ever say a word,” Captain Leto says seriously. “Now, why don’t you come into the guardhouse and get closer to the fire?” he adds in a congenial way. “We’ve got some tea on, haven’t we, Sergeant?”

  “Oh, yes,” another soldier replies immediately. “S’not great, but it’s still tea. You must be icy cold, Lady Samantha.”

  “That’s great,” I enthuse. “We’ll go have some tea in the guardhouse and tomorrow Rowan will arrange a meeting with the shaman.”

  We all stare at my mother as she tries to make sense of what we’ve said. Her hand wavers over Rowan’s outstretched palm.

  “I am rather cold,” she admits, and takes Rowan’s hand.

  He leads her down off the edge and my Walltop men sweep in and take over. They shower her with promises of too-strong tea and too-dry biscuits as they unobtrusively surround her with their burly bodies and form a jovial barrier between her and the edge. I’m near to tears, and Rowan knows it. It kills him to see me cry.

  “It’s alright,” Rowan says, pulling me close to his side.

  “Is it alright?” I ask, my voice shaky.

  “I’ll make it right. I swear it. We’ll make her better,” he promises …

  … That was the beginning of my journey down this path, Lily. I met the shaman and I shouldn’t have. There was a reason witch magic and shaman magic were kept separate, although I didn’t know it then. But I did it for Mom.

  * * *

  Lily awoke to the homey smell of roasting turkey. She rolled over and felt a body next to hers.

  “Be careful. Rowan will strangle me if you reinjure yourself,” Juliet said. She stowed the book she was reading and slid down on top of the covers, laying her head on the pillow next to Lily’s.

  “Where is he?” Lily asked groggily.

  “Cooking dinner. He’s an amazing cook,” Juliet said.

  “I know.” Lily grinned. “Wait till you see what he can brew up in a cauldron.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen plenty of that while he was healing you, although he had to settle for one of Mom’s old stockpots until he ordered a real cauldron off the Internet.” Juliet bit her lower lip as she thought
about what to ask. “I’ve seen Rowan do a lot of strange things. Is he really from a parallel world like Mom said?”

  “Mom’s not crazy,” Lily replied quietly. “There are countless other versions of the world. I’ve been to one of them. Mom sees all of them, all the time. That’s why she seems crazy—because she doesn’t always know which world her body is in when her mind is in so many.”

  Juliet’s luminous brown eyes rounded with sadness. “We just pumped her full of drugs,” she whispered.

  “We were wrong.”

  The two sisters cuddled closer to each other, silently giving the other permission to forgive herself.

  “And everything Rowan told us about witchcraft and willstones and mindspeak?” Juliet asked, still trying to absorb it all.

  It’s all true, Jules. Magic is real. He’s what’s called a mechanic and I’m a witch. This is mindspeak.

  Juliet’s eyes widened for a moment when she heard Lily’s voice in her head, and then they darted down to the three faintly glowing willstones hanging from a chain around Lily’s neck. “I guess I should be more surprised, but I’m not,” Juliet said, a dreamy look stealing over her face. “I think we’ve always been able to read each other’s minds a little.”

  I think we have.

  “You gotta teach me how to do that,” Juliet said, grinning.

  “Deal,” Lily agreed.

  “So,” Juliet said, her eyes narrowing teasingly, “are all the guys in this other world like Rowan? And if they are, can you get me one?”

  “No, they are not all like Rowan,” Lily replied, laughing.

  “Damn.” Juliet sighed and rolled over onto her back. “I guess I’ll just have to keep imagining a gorgeous, intelligent badass who lives and breathes for me.”

  “Your guy’s out there,” Lily said. She gave Juliet a devilish smile. “But Rowan’s mine.”

  “Apparently,” Juliet replied dramatically. “He’s hardly left your side at all. I had to force him to take yesterday and today off and just get out of the house. And no wonder.” Her face suddenly pinched with worry. “We thought you were going to die. You were so badly burned we were sure there was no way anything could save you. But Rowan did it somehow.”

  Lily took her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”

  Juliet suddenly smiled and got out of bed. “Well! You’re here now, you’re safe, and you’re going to stay that way,” she said briskly, avoiding her feelings. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” Lily said. “Do you think you can get me downstairs? I’m sick of being in bed.”

  “Your feet are the worst,” she replied dubiously.

  “Please, Jules. I’m going stir-crazy.” Lily gave her sister a pitiful look.

  “I guess if we go slow it’ll be okay,” Juliet said, relenting.

  Juliet heaved Lily to her feet and they shuffled down the hallway together. Lily’s feet stung so much she found herself laughing at the pain as they minced their way down the stairs.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Rowan asked scathingly from the bottom of the stairs.

  “I wanted to eat at the table,” Lily said apologetically.

  “You have zero common sense,” Rowan said, stomping up the stairs. “I tell you to stay still, but do you stay still? No. Why? Because you never listen to me,” he mumbled grouchily, having a full-on conversation with himself as he gathered her up and carried her the rest of the way down the stairs.

  Lily knew better than to pick a fight. “I am a giant pain in the ass,” she agreed.

  “Is that you, Lillian?” Samantha asked expectantly as she wandered into the kitchen.

  Lily felt Rowan’s back stiffen. Lily’s mom was the only person who called her by her full name. Lily had never really thought too much about it, but now that name had an entirely different meaning for her, as it did for Rowan.

  “Hi, Ma,” Lily said, smiling, as her mother came over to inspect her.

  Rowan deposited Lily in a chair at the kitchen table and Samantha fluttered over her. She pushed Lily’s hair back and scanned her face, her eyes threatening tears.

  “Will she always have these scars?” Samantha asked.

  Lily drew in a shocked breath. She hadn’t seen herself yet and hadn’t given any thought to how she might be permanently maimed from the pyre.

  Oh my God, Rowan. Is my face scarred?

  “The marks aren’t scars. They’re graft lines,” Rowan said quickly, answering both Samantha’s spoken question and Lily’s mindspeak. “As long as Lily gives the new skin I grew her time to scaffold properly, it will heal evenly and there will be no scars.”

  You grew me skin?

  You can’t save tissue if the nerves are dead, Lily. You have to start over and grow new nerves.

  That’s kinda gross, you know.

  Much better than being skinless. I’m extremely fond of your skin, you know, and I have a vested interest in seeing it on your body.

  Rowan suddenly bent down and stole a kiss. Startled, Lily looked at her mom and sister. She’d never been intimate with anyone in front of her family before, and she didn’t know how to feel about it. Samantha didn’t even seem to register it, as if she’d seen Rowan kiss Lily thousands of times before. When Lily considered it, she decided Samantha probably had seen them kissing in other worlds. Juliet, however, stared at Lily wide-eyed and Lily just knew she was going to get teased the second she and Juliet were alone.

  Does it make you uncomfortable when I kiss you in front of your family, Lily?

  I don’t know, Rowan. It’s never happened to me before.

  I’ll kiss you in private, then.

  Promises, promises.

  I’m good at keeping promises.

  “Do you want some help, Rowan?” Juliet asked, unknowingly interrupting Rowan and Lily’s telepathic flirting.

  “No, you just sit,” he said with a warm smile, and began serving the turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, and green beans.

  “Why are we having Christmas in January?” Lily asked, helping herself to only the vegetable part of Rowan’s feast. She was still vegan, and after letting Rowan cut her hair to avoid drinking squirrel blood, she fully intended to stay that way.

  Lily ran a hand through her hair, checking the length. It had been short to begin with and more of it had burned off in the pyre. Lily wondered how much she had lost. She ran the strands through her fingers and found it to be longer than expected.

  “Because you missed it,” Samantha answered, smothering her mashed potatoes with gravy. Lily forced herself to stop touching her head and tried not to worry too much over her hair.

  “And I like turkey,” Rowan said. “Haven’t had wild turkey in years,” he added quietly.

  “Wild turkey?” Lily asked.

  “Yeah. I went hunting yesterday.”

  “Why?” Lily asked, confused. “There’s a grocery store right up the street.”

  “It was Juliet’s idea that I needed to relax. And hunting relaxes me,” he replied with a shrug. “Took me forever to find this bird, too. Not many left out here. Had to walk through the woods to this little stead called Hop-king-ton to find one,” he said, sitting down and tucking into his meal.

  Juliet’s jaw dropped. “Please don’t tell me you went to the bird sanctuary out there? Right on the border of Hopkinton and Ashland?”

  “What do you mean, bird sanctuary?” Rowan asked, alarmed. “Is turkey sacred in this world?”

  Juliet shook her head, and Lily made a mental note to explain to Rowan later about endangered species and the shrinking wild—something he’d never encountered before.

  “No, they aren’t,” Juliet said, and Rowan relaxed. “Go on with your story.”

  “It was a long hunt, but that small area was strangely plentiful,” he continued. Juliet nodded resignedly. A bird sanctuary would seem strangely plentiful to a hunter like Rowan. “After I moved to Salem my dad and I would hunt turkey on the weekends and I grew to love the taste. We s
pent summers out west where I was born, though, on the Ocean of Grass. No turkey out there.”

  “What did you hunt when you were out west?” Juliet asked carefully, hoping it wasn’t another protected animal.

  “Buffalo, of course,” Rowan answered. His face suddenly darkened. “When we weren’t overrun by Woven. Western Woven are much smarter.”

  “So how far west did you get?” Lily asked, trying not to think of huge Woven chasing her across the open land of the Great Plains.

  “Into the flatlands, past the Misi-Ziibi, but not much farther,” Rowan answered.

  Juliet and Lily exchanged a confused look. “Do you mean the Mississippi River?” Lily asked.

  Rowan laughed out loud. “In Algonquin, Misi-Ziibi means ‘Great River.’ So it’s like you’re saying Great River-River. Forget it.” He waved it off. “I’m not making fun of you. Your accent is actually kind of adorable, Lily,” he said, taking her hand under the table and squeezing it. “My tribe spent a lot of time hunting on the edge of the Ocean of Grass, but no one’s made it across to the far river, the Pekistanoui, since before the Woven Outbreak.”

  “I think the Pekistan-whatever-he-said has to be either the Missouri or the Colorado River,” Juliet said in an aside to Lily.

  “He means the Missouri,” Samantha answered, and went back to her squash.

  “Thanks, Ma,” Juliet said with a quizzical smile. Lily shrugged. She had no idea how her mother knew that, either, but the sisters supposed they’d have to get used to their mother knowing random details about other worlds. Juliet turned to Rowan. “So the whole west is lost in your world because of the Woven?”

  “It is,” he replied. “And the farther west you go, the bigger and more intelligent the Woven get, and we call them by different names, too. Almost like they’ve earned titles. The two worst are the Pack and the Hive, although the Pride can be dangerous, too. But the Pride never leaves the mountains and you can usually slip past them.”

  “The Pack—is that like a wolf pack?” Juliet asked.