by Amy Ewing
Her orange mother was about to protest when her green mother interjected. “Of course you may,” she said. Leela escaped gratefully, hearing a whispered, “Leave her be,” from her green mother as she did.
But her room was too small and confining. She rested her arms on her windowsill, remembering the first time Sera had coaxed her out late at night, when they were only ten. The memory was torture. Leela felt the whole City was now designed to torment her daily. Because every place reminded her of Sera. The moonflower fields where they used to play Seek Me If You Dare. The orchards where Leela would wheedle extra pieces of fruit from Freeda, because Freeda would never give Sera extra anything. Every part of the Great Estuary where they had raced or swam or bathed was its own private hurt.
Leela tried to tell herself that Sera would not want her to be sad, but how could she not be? It was as if a piece of her had been torn out and lost forever.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to know for certain that the tether was still there. She needed to see it with her own eyes, even if it meant going against the directive of the novices, of the High Priestess herself.
In one swift movement, she was out the window and running. The banks along this part of the Estuary were close and heavily wooded with golden-leaved polaris trees, so she was able to slip away unseen, avoiding the bridges that led to the island where the temple stood and running to cross at the Western Bridge, by the seresheep meadows. She reached the Day Gardens and found them just the same as they had been only days ago, a riot of blooming color as if nothing were wrong, as if the world hadn’t been turned upside down and Sera was still here to listen to the ethereal songs of the minstrel flowers.
She made her way to the very edge of the gardens, to the place where a large willow bent over the Estuary as it spilled into space. Leela climbed up and nestled herself into a crook between two branches. She peered out over the lip of the City, at the blue-green orb below, thin clouds passing over the familiar shapes of Kaolin and Pelago.
And there it was: the tether, looking just the same as it always had. It seemed to wink at her, glowing silver, then blue, then gold, then silver again.
Leela felt anger rise in her heart, a hot fury at this beautiful chain of magic. It was one thing to have lost her friend. It was wholly another to have lost her with no purpose to it, no reason. She felt powerless as the tether twinkled at her innocently, mocking her loss.
And then hope pierced through her, lighting up her soul like a sunburst.
The tether had not broken. Perhaps Sera was still alive.
“Sera!” she cried. The leaves on the willow rustled and the tether kept winking. “SERA!” she screamed, sure that if she called out loudly enough, her friend would hear her.
She shouted until she was hoarse and the sunburst of hope had burned itself into ashes. Sera was not out there. She was dead.
It was the first time Leela had thought the word. Dead. It was so awfully, brutally final. She sat in the crook of the willow, pressing her face against its rough bark, and cried for her friend with no shame and no comfort.
At last, she roused herself. It wouldn’t do to linger too long. Her mothers trusted her and would likely not seek her out, but it would only take one of them passing her room to notice she was not in it. She wandered back along the banks of the Estuary, ignoring the Western Bridge this time, though it was the more direct route home. Instead she crossed at Faesa’s Bridge, the very one she and Sera had run across on the day of the choosing ceremony. It was risky, taking her past the temple, but the hedge should provide her cover and besides, the High Priestess was sequestered. She was nearly to Dendra’s Bridge on the opposite side of the island, which would take her straight home, when she heard voices.
Afraid to be caught out of doors when she was meant to be praying, Leela dropped to the ground and froze.
“. . . worked before.” It was the High Priestess; Leela would know her voice anywhere. “No reason to think . . .” The rest of what she said was muffled.
“Things were different then, you said.” Leela recognized the voice of the oldest acolyte, Acolyte Klymthe. “There was an agreement.”
“It was more than that.” The High Priestess sounded sad. “And I was stronger then.”
“I could have—” Acolyte Klymthe began, but the High Priestess cut her off.
“No,” she said sharply. “You could not.” Leela felt her head spinning. She did not fully understand what they were talking about, and yet something about this conversation set the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. There was a rustle of movement, and when the High Priestess spoke again, her voice was gentle. “It is not so easy as that, my dear Klymthe. You do not get to choose.”
“Yes, High Priestess.” Acolyte Klymthe sounded resigned. “The novices have kept everyone inside.”
“Good.”
“Will we make another sacrifice?”
“Not yet,” the High Priestess said. Acolyte Klymthe said something Leela couldn’t hear, and the High Priestess replied, “No. Believe me. They would not understand. And another ceremony would look suspicious. Mother Sun does not make mistakes.”
“But this was not the work of Mother—”
“I know,” the High Priestess snapped. Leela felt as if she had grown roots as deep as the hedge, pinning her in place. She could not move even if she wanted to.
“Let us call the City to the temple,” the High Priestess said. “We must keep them calm.” What she said next was too low for Leela to hear.
“Of course, High Priestess.”
There was a shuffling of feet and then silence fell. Leela could hear her heart beating in her own ears. If what she had just overheard was true, then Mother Sun had not chosen Sera to be sacrificed after all.
The High Priestess had.
Leela did not realize how long she stayed behind the hedge, her mind reeling, until the bell began to toll, calling the City to the temple as the High Priestess had instructed. She shot up and started running, arriving home to panicked mothers.
“Where have you been?”
“You told us you were praying in your room!”
“Leela, you cannot disappear like that. We were out of our minds with worry.”
“I am sorry, Mothers,” Leela said, her eyes downcast, her pulse racing. Something in her resisted the urge to tell them what she’d heard, a warning to keep this information to herself, and she held her tongue. Her orange mother tsked and handed Leela her prayer robe.
“You are just as bad as Se—” But she cut herself off before saying Sera’s name. Leela’s heart spasmed in pain. Her purple mother shot her orange mother a stern look.
“We know this is especially difficult for you,” her green mother said gently, smoothing back Leela’s hair. “But it is a hard time for us all. The City needs every Cerulean to be united in faith. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mother.”
She leaned in and whispered in Leela’s ear. “And I could not bear to lose you, my darling. My heart would not survive it.”
She kissed the top of her head and released her. Leela slipped her robe on and followed her mothers out the door to join the throng of Cerulean headed to the temple.
They knelt on their cushions in their usual family spot. Sera’s three mothers were in their place near the Altar of the Lost, but they looked incomplete without Sera in their midst. Sera’s orange mother was stoic in her grief—her face was a hard mask, her shoulders rigid. Her green mother’s eyes were red and watery and she seemed to wilt, like the weight of her prayer robe was too much to bear. But Sera’s purple mother was empty, her face blank and expressionless, as if the soul that resided inside her had vanished over that dais with her daughter.
“Hood up,” Leela’s orange mother whispered, as the High Priestess made her way to the pulpit. She spread her arms wide, her warm, confident smile fixed in place.
Who are you, really? Leela thought as she raised her hood and the High Priestess began
to speak.
“I have prayed long and hard, my children, and in the end, the answer has come to me, though I fear this time it brings me little comfort. Mother Sun has spoken. Sera Lighthaven was unworthy.”
There were gasps and murmurs of shock, and Leela felt as if her battered heart could not bear another blow. Unworthy? Unworthy?
The High Priestess seemed so sincerely distraught, Leela did not have to look around the temple to know the Cerulean would believe her. They always did. She herself always had. And besides, this was easy to believe, easier than thinking Sera was special or pious or noble or any of the things they had been saying about her.
“She was not true enough to aid this City in its quest for a new home,” the High Priestess said, and some of the novices were nodding in agreement. “But take heart, my children! For Mother Sun, in her infinite wisdom, has forgiven us all for the sins of only one—there shall be another ceremony when she has chosen a pure and deserving Cerulean. Put your minds and hearts to rest, for our City is in her hands.”
The relief at her words was palpable—the Cerulean smiled at each other, orange mothers uttering prayers of thanks.
“We thank you, Mother Sun,” the High Priestess continued, raising her hands, the moonstone on her circlet glowing against her forehead, “for the gifts you bring us, for your light and warmth, for your healing power. We beg you to receive us into your heart as we receive you into ours, to guide us on our journeys and protect our City from harm. This we pray.”
For the first time in her entire life, Leela did not join in when the congregation repeated, “This we pray.”
24
THE VERY NEXT MORNING, THE NEWS SPREAD THROUGHOUT the City that a wedding season was about to begin.
It was just as Koreen had predicted days ago in the cloudspinners’ grove. To Leela that felt like another century, a time when Sera was still alive and the High Priestess could be trusted implicitly. Now she could not help but be suspicious. Just as the City was teetering on the brink of uncertainty and confusion, a period of joy and celebration had been announced. It all seemed a rather convenient distraction.
And it was working. Sera’s failure had been explained away, their leader had reassured the Cerulean all would be well, and now a time of love and laughter would begin. Everyone was out and about, harvesting food for the upcoming feasts, spinning fabric in the cloudspinners’ grove for wedding gowns, digging for stargems in the mines, or making garlands of flowers in the Day Gardens. There was a unity to the work and the Cerulean thrived under it.
“Are you not even a little excited?” her green mother said that afternoon as they milked seresheep in the meadow. “To see a wedding season at long last. I know it is something you have always wanted.”
Leela shrugged and focused on filling her pail with milk. A wedding season had been something she and Sera were supposed to experience together. They would decorate their dresses and giggle through the ceremonies and eat until their bellies were stuffed. They would dance the Lunarbelle and stay up past the hour of the dark, whispering of their own futures. That was how the wedding season was supposed to be.
The seresheep she was milking let out a loud bleat and Leela patted its silvery fleece. Her pail was nearly full.
“I will take this to the creamery,” she said. Her green mother reached out and placed a hand on Leela’s arm.
“Talk to me,” she said. “Please. Your mothers and I . . . we are fearful of this pall that has befallen you.”
Leela did not know where to begin. For a moment she considered telling her mother of the conversation she had overheard, but something in her whispered no.
“Everything is changing so fast,” she said instead. “It is as if everyone has simply . . . forgotten her.”
“No, my darling,” her green mother said. “No one has forgotten. But Cerulean do not deal with uncertainty well. We are happier when there is work to focus on, and a unity of purpose. We have that now.”
“Do you think she was unworthy?”
“I do not know. I speak the truth,” her green mother insisted, because Leela was shaking her head. “Sera was always a good friend, a loving, kind girl. Yes, she was loud, and boisterous, and my goodness, she had more questions than Seetha knew what to do with. Do I think her unworthy? No, I do not. But I am not Mother Sun, my dear. I never read the heart of Sera Lighthaven.”
I did, Leela thought fiercely.
“And she will live forever inside you,” her green mother continued. “Your memories and your love will keep her flame burning bright as a candle on the Night of Song.”
But Leela did not want to keep Sera alive in her memory. She wanted her here, now, and the anger that seemed to have become her constant companion over the last two days reared up again. But she did not wish to lash out at another one of her mothers, so she nodded, tight-lipped, and stood, gripping the pail harder than she needed to as she made her way through the grazing seresheep. She felt in a fog, as if her green mother’s words had pulled all her memories of Sera out like dresses from a closet and laid them before her.
“Oh!” She had not been looking where she was going, and some milk slopped over her pail as she bumped into another Cerulean. “I am so—”
But her apology died on her lips. Sera’s purple mother was standing before her with a basket full of feed for the seresheep. Except she was not feeding them. She was staring vacantly at a spot just above Leela’s head. She was the youngest of Sera’s mothers, but she looked older now. Her hair was lank and unkempt, and her silvery skin had a sallow tinge to it.
“Good afternoon, Purple Mother,” Leela said, addressing her formally as all Cerulean children addressed mothers.
“Estelle?” she said, her eyes unfocused.
“No, it’s—I’m Leela.”
Sera’s mother started and seemed to come back to herself.
“Oh,” she said. “Good afternoon, Leela.”
“Are you unwell?” she asked.
Sera’s purple mother looked at the basket in her hands like she had forgotten she was holding it. “I . . .” She seemed at a loss for how to answer.
“May I escort you home?” Leela wondered if she should fetch her green mother to help, but Sera’s purple mother was shaking her head, her face twisting in pain.
“No,” she said. “I cannot go home. She is . . . she is . . . everywhere.”
And without a word of goodbye, she wandered off through the meadows like a woman in a trance. The seresheep parted for her as if they knew this was not a person to nudge with a nose in search of treats. And Leela knew that whatever grief she felt was but a faint echo of the agony burning inside Sera’s mother. She did not know who Estelle was, however—Sera had never mentioned anyone by that name.
Koreen, Daina, and Treena were leaving the creamery as Leela arrived.
“. . . and then there will be a birthing season!” Koreen was saying. “Imagine all those darling little babies.”
“I’ve always longed to see a baby,” Treena said wistfully. “Attending to pregnant seresheep is all well and good, but imagine helping to foster in a new Cerulean generation! Ileen said I could begin to help prepare the birthing houses as soon as tomorrow.”
“And I shall be in the orchards,” Daina said. “And Koreen in the cloudspinners’ grove. How exciting it is to grow up.”
“Indeed!” Koreen exclaimed. “I shall be leaving my mothers’ dwelling soon enough.”
“So shall I,” Treena said.
“Me too,” said Daina. “We should all find a dwelling together!”
“Until we find our own triads,” Koreen qualified. Then she sighed. “What a time to be alive.”
The words left a trail of sharp stings over Leela’s skin. She did not feel as if she understood anything anymore—the High Priestess was a liar, Sera’s joyful purple mother had become a broken shadow of her former self, and her friends had moved on from death faster than you could say will-o-wisp.
“If only the cere
mony had worked properly,” Treena said. “We would have a wedding season and be on our way to a new home by now.”
That did it.
“If Sera had died properly, you mean?” Leela said. The girls started. Daina, at least, had the decency to look ashamed.
“Good afternoon, Leela,” Treena stammered. “I did not see you.”
The anger was a comfort to her now, a friend that sharpened her vision and sparked her courage.
“She is dead, and you are speaking as though she did something wrong.”
“We did not mean to be rude,” Daina said.
“But Sera did not break the tether,” Koreen said. “So something did go wrong, didn’t it?”
“Yes, but that does not mean it was Sera’s fault!” Leela was breathing fast. The three girls backed away from her like she was something dangerous. She did feel quite dangerous at the moment. The loneliness, the unfairness of losing her friend, of knowing something she shouldn’t, something she didn’t understand but felt was more important than anything she’d ever known in her life, it was all building up inside her and she wanted to scream.
“We know you were her best friend,” Koreen said. “But that does not change what happened. She was not worthy. You must accept it, Leela. The High Priestess said so herself.”
“She was a better Cerulean than most in this City,” Leela shot back. “Far better than you will ever be, Koreen!”
Then she stormed past them and into the creamery before she could say anything else that might get her in trouble. She slammed her pail down on the table, where the cheesemongers could collect it, and found herself face-to-face with Elorin. She was carrying several cloth-covered wheels of cheese in a basket, and her expression left Leela with no doubt that she had overheard the heated conversation.
“Good afternoon,” she said.
“Good afternoon,” Leela replied tersely.
There was an awkward silence. Leela had never been particularly close with Elorin and was not sure what to say. She just wished to be alone.