Sarafyna

  “Are you alright Mom?” Peter asks. I am relaxing in the kitchen with him and my father. A chill cuts under my skin like a knife peeling fruit. I shudder as I look at him. Concern escapes my adopted son with every shift of his eyes. I understand. I love seeing my family again. I’d been so worried about them when I left. But Annie. I was only supposed to be gone for a week. What is she facing now? What is she dealing with? The longer I stay here, the more I worry. And the more guilt I feel. But the idea of just going back now? That makes me feel guilty too. Everywhere I turn and every choice I have feels like I am letting someone down. It all feels like letting Annie down.

  I almost bite my tongue, but . . . this is what family is for. I spent almost ten years wishing I had my father back. Wishing I could tell him I wasn’t doing okay. “Not really,” I respond, looking out the window and past the fruit trees growing through it. “I’m scared. I’m scared and I’m lost, and I don’t know what to do.” Neither my son nor my father respond right away. Neither is shocked to hear this. I’ve never worn a mask quite so well as Annie, and what pretense I can keep up is useless against these two.

  Dad places a hot cup of tea on the table in front of me before sitting down with his own. Pete joins him and both examine me in silence for several breaths. “Lillith?” Dad finally asks. I give a slight nod, which he doesn’t miss.

  “She’s hurting, Dad. I can feel it. She’s hurting, and she is struggling, and she is lost. She needs me. But so does everyone here. And . . .” I trail off. I can’t say the next part. Not even to them. Not even to myself. As much as I know it’s true, I am too ashamed to let it exist in spoken words. That acknowledgement would warrant a real confrontation with myself.

  “Sara, when I met your . . . partner? When I met Lily, she was bringing fire and death to anyone who would dare interrupt our reunion. She’s strong. You know she can handle herself,” Dad offers. I wince.

  “She looks that way,” I respond. “She always looks that way. She pushes herself. Hurts herself. Abuses herself. Just so that she can look confident, collected, and reliable. For everyone else’s sake. But I have seen her. In the quiet, and the moments of safety. Her brother died. She is falling apart, but I’m the only person she lets herself fall apart around. But I’m not there. She has been waiting for me to come back, and I’m not there.”

  Again silence settles onto the table a little at a time, like the dust in sunbeams. They understand. To so many people Annie is like a fact of nature. A shield they can always hide behind. A flawless wall without a single crack. But it only looks that way on one side. These two, they both know what wearing a mask feels like. They both understand how heavy it is, and what it’s like to lose the only person who sees you without it. And so they don’t reply. Because they know why I’m needed here. But they both owe Annie and don’t want to see her abandoned. An answer isn’t much easier for them than it is for me. So we drink our tea and tap our feet. It’s not that long before Peter speaks, but it feels like ages.

  “You care more, about her. Don’t you?” He asks. With a few words he voices the same concern I was too terrified to admit just moments ago. They aren’t words of accusation. There is no hurt behind them. If anything his voice has the flavor of empathy. Realization, to a degree, but understanding more than anything. I look at my son with guilty eyes, and they answer his question. It’s not that I don’t love him. Or my father. It’s not that I’m not desperate for their safety and security. It isn’t a failure to care about the minds and bodies of the so-called monsters we have locked away in a new, shorter tower nearby. It’s just that . . . Annie is carved into my heart with bloody calligraphy and I can feel her name each time it beats. He’s right. That’s what it boils down to.

  There are so many more people I am helping here. But you know what? I do. I care more about Annie. And the rest of my family can see it on my face.

  “You’re doing a lot of good here,” Dad says, after I don’t answer. “We all feel safer with you around. I don’t know why the Collector leaves us alone when you are here. But it’s true, and everyone is more safe when you are here.” I sigh and look down into my tea. It ripples as I struggle to steady the hands that hold it.

  “I know, and I won’t–” I begin, but he cuts me off.

  “But you aren’t Lillith,” he says. “Just because you love her, doesn’t mean you have to be her. When you came back, it gave us a chance. A chance to get everyone to one spot. To set up defenses. To organize. To make sure everyone at risk has a way to support each other, and a way to keep everyone safe. If the attacks start again, we are ready to stop it. And we are ready to stop it without hurting even the victims of the woods. Lily carries the world on her shoulders. She kills herself to keep everyone safe. And, according to you, it is crushing her. But you aren’t her. You don’t have to be her. We are safer with you, but that doesn’t mean we are abandoned without you. If you love her so deeply, if you care about her more than anything, then . . .”

  “Do what is most important to you,” Peter finishes. The weight starts to lift, but not entirely.

  “But people will get hurt. We are more ready now, but people will get hurt. And not everyone will hold back against the victims,” I protest.

  “Maybe,” Dad says. “Maybe if you leave, and they attack again, someone will get scared and kill them. Maybe they will attack us and we won’t have done enough to protect everyone. Or they won’t have done enough in Visenar. And maybe if you don’t, we’ll be attacked by these ‘sages’ and more people will die. Maybe the Collector will hit us harder. We don’t know, kiddo. But I can tell, you feel a need to go back to the woman you love. And the last time I ignored one of your feelings . . .” he trails off, leaving the disastrous results of my first confession unspoken.

  “Besides. You don’t have to leave permanently. You can come back and forth, like you originally planned. We only need to keep them at bay for a week or so, right?” Peter adds.

  “That’s what I said to Annie,” I counter. My dad and son share a look.

  “If that happens again, it’s because she needed you that much,” Pete shrugs. I look back and forth between them, but smile softly to myself.

  “Thanks,” I whisper. I want to do exactly what they say, but they won’t be the ones fighting. They know that, and I know that. I need to speak to Dom, I think. “I’ll think about it.” It’s not as simple as they make it feel. But that’s why I love spending time with them. Because, while I am with them, everything feels more simple than it is. Their home is small but it’s a corner of the world where everyone is kind. I hate the idea of leaving them almost as much as I hate leaving Annie. ‘You care more, about her. Don’t you?’. The words ring through my head. As opposed to the guilt I expect from them, they are almost warm. I was so afraid of the shame they would carry, but it’s absent entirely. Because I do. She may burn for the sake of the world, but I burn for her.

  I sigh and take another drink of tea. There is so much to fret over. So much to drag me down into the dirt, and the shame of both action and inaction. But for this morning, I can just be a girl with a cup of tea and smiling friends. Just for this morning, I have the promise that I can just ignore everything\ and do what I care about most. For this morning, I can let it be true.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Dad and Pete are stuck in my head as I go to join Gilbert and Dominic. They’ve been keeping watch over the captives. Victims of the forest. We don’t know what to do with them except offer them food and what comfort we can. A few volunteers help bathe them with water mana. When they sleep, with the help of one of Victor’s alchemical concoctions, the same people help dress self-inflicted wounds on twisted bodies. It’s not enough, but aside from what help my divine magic offers, that’s all we can do. There is something that can be done for them. There has to be. Maybe if Annie was here we could give them their bodies back. At least those who were originally human. She has implied she lacks the expertise to help me return an ailur or volu victim to their true body, but even helping a few would be something.

  As it stands I have been coming here every day. The Collector doesn’t want me around them, and that means something. That means I can do something for them, and the more time I spend around them the closer I am to finding out what. And, of course, I can help a little even without Annie. The pointed feet and open limbs can be altered to prevent further harm. These people were designed to suffer with every forced movement. That, at least, I can heal. I can stop their own bodies from betraying them with every twitch. Something I am nearly done doing for every victim we have. Another reason it may be time to return to Annie, at least for a while.

  Except, as I approach the building, something feels off. I’ve fallen into something of a predictable routine in recent days, and the change in the air burns my skin as I enter our newest tower. It’s a gentle place, usually. With soft cotton, and fragrant plants. In Potestia, such a tower would be the prize of any lord’s estate. But there is an air of anxiety all around, even before I find anyone around to create it. Gil’s table is empty, or at least unattended. It sits just outside the main holding area, wearing dozens of sketches and drawings on its surface. I feel my heart start to beat faster. He has been there every day, jealously guarding his artwork. This is the first time he’s been missing.

  I glance at the table. It’s drawings of people, mostly. One in particular catches my eye. A picture of Annie and me, with Annie’s arms around my neck and a wide grin on her face. I appear to be blushing, and I actually remember the depicted moment. It was weeks ago, one of the first times we’d kissed in front of Gil. He’d had no drawing materials at the time. He must have remembered this, almost perfectly, and drawn it later. I reach up to my face and trace some of the ugly scarring he has depicted with such precise detail, as if I’d posed for him. Somehow, they look so beautiful when drawn like this.

  There are several other people. Ed, wearing eyes like broken lanterns as he kneels before a pillar of glass. Joan, crouching and offering a treat to Suzume. Henry, dozens of times. Smiling. Cuddling one of Autumn’s stuffed animals. Mixing potions and laughing. Playing some kind of card game. Putting some sort of powder down the back of Ed’s shirt.

  The only person rivaling Henry is, interestingly, Dominic. The two have been rather close lately, but the number and type of drawings imply something more than close. Something I likely wouldn’t have considered, before I courted and slept with another woman. These drawings are centered much more on Dom’s face. I can make out his stubble and individual pores. There is a care given to them. A level of detail and apprehension most others lack. Despite the strange tension all around me, these draw me in. As I shift them around, I discover some less realistic depictions. Events that haven’t actually happened, I suspect. These are littered with impossibilities and artistic license.

  I smile a bit as I discover a rather salacious one, buried deep. It depicts Dom and Gil, as I suspected, but also a woman. Julie, I think? It makes me blush a bit, but would likely embarrass Gil more. There are others as well. Victims I recognize, walking through a veil of rose petals and emerging human on the other side. These are nude as well, but clearly not sexual in nature like the first. There is a coffin, carried by a raging river with a bed of flowers on the lid. And finally, there is another portrait of Lillith. Not Annie. They are the same person but as I look at the artwork, ‘Lillith’ is the only name that seems to fit.

  Her eyes are weeping while her mouth remains level as stone. Without the tears, she would look determined. With them, she looks broken. Her face is half on fire, skin melting and running into her tears. The flames dig into her flesh at her neck, continuing to run like veins or roots into her body. They all meet and form a flaming tree, not unlike the one tattooed on her torso, but shaped more like a weeping willow and less like a sakura tree. I understand exactly what he has drawn here. The furious grief she lets burn under the surface. Unattended. Ready to devour her even as she paints her face with stoicism.

  So much for oblivious Gilbert.

  A loud sound tears me from my musings as a few voices shatter the silence of the next room. I quickly leave the table alone and move along, entering the main holding area and seeing Gil, Victor, and Dominic. With them is one of the victims we are protecting. A shivering woman, currently built like a massive snail lacking a shell but wearing brilliant red fur. Victor is shuffling her slowly back into the wide cell before locking the cage behind her.

  “What happened,” I ask with concern. “Why was she outside?”

  All three look at me, Victor wearily and the others with confusion of their own. “We don’t know,” Victor responds. This sends a unique chill down my spine. He’s always been the most advanced of the former priest apprentices. He’s the man who helped me figure out the hat shop, after all. Or at least the idea behind it. It and, in the future, more distinct portals for travel without using the woods or hat shop at all. He always thinks through and examines everything. And his answers are never as simple as ‘we don’t know’. He always has a theory of some kind. Which means he isn’t just in the dark, but completely off guard. I look toward Dominic.

  “We really don’t,” he agrees. “Someone left the gate unlocked and it . . . she left when no one was in the room. Simple as that. But that’s not the strange bit.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” I ask immediately. That would be the worst case scenario. If we want to avoid innocent blood being shed, we need people to feel safe. A death as a result of one of these people would be a tragedy on its own. The violence that would inevitably follow would be even worse. We already need the kindness and bravery of volunteers to feed and bathe these people. And there is no shortage of complaining and fear mongering surrounding them. A single excuse will light a fuse we can’t douse.

  “That’s the strange thing,” Gil says. “No. We have no idea how long she was gone, but all she did was find a group of wild flowers and lie down. She even passed other people. A group of children, and didn’t attack. She just wanted the open air.” He pauses after this, biting his lip and examining the woman as she rejoins the other victims. Then something flicks across his eyes and he asks his own question. “How can you tell, by the way? That she is a, uh, she?” I furrow my brow as I look at him.

  Every single victim was violent when they left the woods. Every single one tried to kill anyone they could reach. It’s why they need to be drugged to be bathed or healed. It wasn’t until they were locked up, unable to harm anyone, that they immediately calmed. We’ve been assuming they would turn violent again, given the opportunity. “I don’t know,” I answer the last, offhand question. I can’t explain anything else and the answer just spills out. “She just feels like a woman. I can kind of just tell, when I am around them. I couldn’t at first, but after spending every day around them, certain realities just sort of . . . present themselves.” Victor’s head snaps in my direction.

  “Oh,” he says. Then he crosses the room with an urgency that leaves me looking for danger to react to. “Would you say it was always there, and became more obvious, or would you say these . . . feelings literally manifest with greater strength, the longer you spend around them?” I shrug.

  “The latter, I suppose,” I say.

  “You need to go back to Lillith,” he says. My heart soars at the thought but bafflement spots the stream of joy like lily pads.

  “Um . . . why? How is that related?” I ask. He adjusts his round glasses as he turns and looks at the peaceful prisoners.

  “I need to see how these people behave when you are gone,” he answers. There is a lot to talk about regarding this, but my family’s words sing through my head. They are ready for me to be gone, at least for a little while. A full mouthed smile splits my face as a genuine excuse to see my girlfriend is handed to me on a silver platter.