Root

by A. Sparrow

  ***

  Karla led me back around the corner to Ardconnel Terrace, to the gate of the private garden. She unlatched the hasp and stepped aside to let me pass. For a moment I thought she might lock me inside and run away, but she followed me in, pulling the gate closed behind her.

  We went down three flights of stairs to the bottom of the ravine where a path of faux concrete flagstone led us to a little glade in the back corner, hemmed in by beech trees and ferns. She took a seat on a little bench. I sat down next to her, barely restraining my urge to take her into my arms.

  “I’m going to tell you this once, James and that is all,” she said, in a calmer voice. “You are to go away and never return here. Do you understand?”

  “No. I don’t get it. And no way can I promise such a thing.”

  “But you must! I cannot be allowed the tiniest shred of hope that I will ever see you again. Why can’t you understand?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t,” I said, my eyes starting to sting, my nose getting all stuffy. “How could I? I came all this way to see you. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

  She sighed with aggravation.

  “It is my little sister … Isobel. She is having a very hard time with my father … now that she is almost twelve. I suspected … before I met you … that she was on the brink of being visited by Root. But now I am certain. The little she talks to me, she tells me of her dreams. But I cannot help her. I cannot save her, because I am stuck here … because of you.”

  “Because of me?”

  “You gave me hope, James. Even a little is too much. I will lose Isobel. And she is all I have. My sister. I am frightened, James. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you considered … counseling?”

  She picked up a pine cone and threw it at me, hard.

  “Counseling? Is this a joke?”

  “I don’t know. They say it helps. I’m just—”

  “You really are a stupid boy. Coming here. For what? You think I would run off with you?”

  “Well, yeah … that was the idea.”

  “Not without Isobel. And she is not ready. She doesn’t know how to deal with Root when it comes. And she won’t listen to me about it … not yet. I am afraid … when Root comes … and it will come, I can feel it … she will be Reaped.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  “I … I don’t know what to say.” I never felt so empty. “Why can’t your sis come with us? We can just pack up and go. Your dad … he’s not home. I saw him leave.”

  Her posture stiffened, and her face went blank. “You saw my father?”

  “Well, yeah. I was watching the house and—”

  “How long have you been stalking me?”

  “Stalking? I’m not stalking. I just got here this morning.”

  “Do not go near my father! He keeps a gun by the door. A shotgun. Loaded. Did he see you?”

  “Um …no.”

  “You don’t understand what kind of trouble it will bring if he finds out a boy is looking for me. He will blame me.”

  “Blame you for what?”

  “For luring you. Attracting boys. For being un-chaste. I am given to God … for life.”

  “What do you mean? Is that … what you want?”

  “It does not matter what I want.”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “No. I am to be with no other man … forever … but God … and my father.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Please! Don’t make me explain everything!” her face distorted in pain.

  “Jesus, Karla. You guys don’t need to put up with this. You need to grab your sister and come with me.”

  “Oh yes? And where would we go?”

  “I don’t know … anywhere … away from here. Maybe there’s an Occupy in London. In Rome they gave me free food, a place to sleep.”

  “Occupy? Are you insane?”

  “Just as a start. We could find jobs. Get an apartment.”

  “I can’t leave my sister.”

  “I keep telling you, you don’t have to. Bring her with us.”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “It is not possible. She does not … she will not go willingly. She is deeply depressed, Unresponsive. You, of all people, should know what that feels like. She has no control over her entry to Root. I fear the worst. I was nearly Reaped my first time. If it wasn’t for Bern and Lille….”

  “But why even mess with Root if we don’t have to? We can fix things here … make things right … and the first step is getting you and Isobel away from that monster.”

  A sadness crept into her gaze. “Oh? And how will that work? First of all … Isobel would not cooperate. She does not listen to me. And if we force her to come, she is a minor. The government would come looking. She would give us up. You would be arrested for kidnapping. Deported. Prison. And that is if you are lucky and Papa did not find you first. Only bad things would come of this. And that is why you must go.”

  My head spun. “Your dad … he’s the one that needs to go to jail. If he did that did that to your eye. Those other things … why didn’t you report him?”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “He is too well connected. Too well respected in the Order. No one would believe me or Isobel. They are loyal.”

  “Fuck that! I’ll report him … just tell me—”

  “Stop it! That is just foolish talk!”

  “What do you mean? He’s a criminal. Grab your sister and we’ll go. We’ll work it out. It’ll all work out.”

  Karla shot to her feet. “Did you not hear anything I told you?” Her voice cracked.

  I took her hand. She yanked it back.

  “Where is she? Your sis? She home?”

  “She’s at school. But it doesn’t matter, we are not going with you. Not now, not ever. And you … you should go back where you came from … to Florida. I don’t want you here. You had already ruined everything and now you have made it worse. You must go away and promise never to contact me again. Only that will break the curse.”

  “No way! Karla, I—”

  “Go!” she shrieked. “Go and never come back! Promise me this. Promise me!” Her face blushed purple. Her lips trembled. “You are my curse.”

  I clammed up. Her eyes tracked mine with a glare as glassy as a tarn and colder than the Cairn Gorms in a sleet storm. The depth of the void behind them stunned me.

  “Karla?”

  “Promise me!”

  “I can’t … I … I don’t want … I … love you.” Tears distorted my view of her face, as if I were peering through a wavy lens. They made it seem as if the world was melting before me. I wanted her to take it all back, to change her mind, to reach out and hold me, comfort me, tell me everything would work out all right. But she did none of those things. She just stood there and glared, arms folded. She could have passed for a bronze statue.

  I wheeled abruptly and started up the garden stairs. I didn’t look back and didn’t even say goodbye as my heart imploded into the blackest of holes.

  Chapter 43: Careening

  I wandered like a drunk, careening from street to street, bumping into people and brick walls, and neglected to notice or excuse myself to either. I took little to no care crossing streets, but through some curse of luck, suffered no ‘accidents.’ A bridge tempted me with the tumultuous current boiling below it. What I really wanted was for Root to come to me. So I bided my time and ‘surfed,’ but never had the pain of waiting pressed so deep.

  I spotted a sign for the train station and tried to follow, only to find myself caught in a tangle of alleys bounded by walls of brick and concrete stone that mixed and matched building materials in a slap-dash fashion, as if the city had been assembled a little piece at a time with whatever was lying around at the moment.

  A row of small cars were parked perpendicular to the street here, crammed into every possible space. I passed a TJ Maxx that made me
wonder for a moment whether I really was in Scotland.

  I found the tracks and followed them to a hangar-like structure overarching the main station. It had vaulted, windowed ceilings to help remind travelers of the bad weather outside.

  The ticketing and waiting area reminded me of a hospital with its white tile floors and barebones furnishing. On second thought, if a provincial portal to Heaven had a train station, it would probably look something like Inverness—humble, unpretentious but gleaming with the promise of better destinations.

  A cheery train with a yellow nose and pulling red-striped cars chugged away from the platform just as I wandered in. I gathered from the board that it was headed for Edinburgh. Just as well. I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave just yet, because if I left Inverness now, it would be for good.

  There were seats available here and there in the waiting area but I had no desire to be around people, so I crumpled myself into a ball behind a water fountain in the far corner of the station, and tried to sort out the storm raging in my brain.

  So Karla didn’t want me in her life. That was clear and that was that. I had no Plan B. So what was I supposed to do now? I didn’t have enough money to get back to Florida, not that I had any reason to go back there in the first place.

  I guess I could find some menial under-the-table job, landscaping maybe, where my immigration status didn’t matter. That would enable me to scratch out an existence somewhere here in the UK, where I could at least speak the language. But to what end? What kind of life would that be?

  Back to Rome, perhaps? I had never felt more alive than when I had been in Rome. But that was when I still believed finding Karla would be its own award. I never fathomed it would lead to a flat-out rejection.

  So in short, I was in Limbo. I could do nothing but coast on the fumes of my existence. If fate was merciful, it would snuff me out without my having to lift a finger.

  I sank against the tiled wall, begging for the roots to come and claim me. I hoped for a pod in the deepest, darkest lair of the meanest, hungriest Reaper.

  I waited and waited, but not the slightest inkling of Root came to me. Were they toying with me? Would they not be satisfied until I had been driven to the lowest of possible lows. But why? Were they simply evil?

  Maybe they would not come because I was still too close to my dreams. Karla and Ardconnel Terrace were only a few blocks away. Did they sense that I harbored some slight and unconscious hope that she would reconsider and come looking for me? Or that she would respond differently the next time I appeared at her door? Was I cursing myself with some subtle and subliminal optimism?

  Maybe I had to get as far away from her as possible to really make my depression sink its teeth. Root was my only recourse other than death, and I was beginning to question which might be the better option.

  A security guard came by and rousted me from my corner. He was good-natured about it. He just didn’t want me mucking about on the floor. I had to show him my cash to have him let me remain in the station. Otherwise he would have booted me out the door like some bum.

  I orbited around the ticket booth for a while, while I clung to the desperate notion of going back for another try at convincing Karla. Either that, or leaping onto the tracks in front of the 4:55 from Aberdeen. Ticket or leap, it would be same end result. Both would take me farther from Karla, so I did nothing for the moment but pace and wander.

  Of course, there would be another one of those lone, young men hanging out by the coffee stand. There was one in every station in Europe, after all. He was in his mid 20s, with short hair. He looked bored, but his gaze seemed to wander dutifully to every face that wandered past. But never mind him, I wondered what people wondered about me.

  I found a spot on a bench vacated by an older woman who had gotten up to greet someone stepping off the Aberdeen train. The security guard kept looking my way. Had he noticed that I had yet to buy a ticket? I hoped he wasn’t going to hassle me until I had the proof in my hand to show him.

  I sighed and thought again of Karla, coming to the realization that there was no way in hell I would be leaving Inverness as long as she remained here. Wherever she was, that was where I wanted to be.

  I drew solace from knowing that at least she was alive and healthy on this side of life. Things could be worse. Though her home life might be terrifying, her will remained strong. At least she managed to get out of the house now and then. She got to feel raindrops, smell lilacs and eat fresh-baked bread.

  The more positives I defined for her, the sadder I became, for the paltry life she led compared to what it could be with me. And yet I was powerless to change it.

  That guy at the coffee stand, he was looking at me now and he had taken out his phone. He tried not to stare, but I could tell that I was a person of considerable interest to him. Looking at him out of the corner of my eye, I realized that I had seen him before on the platform at Edinburgh when I had gotten off the train by mistake.

  I was struck with the urge to flee, but before I could rise, I sank into that oaken bench and became one with the wood. Its grain became the grain of my flesh as I plummeted into Root.

  Chapter 44: Searching

  I emerged into Root not swaddled in a tightly-wrapped pod on the threshold of a Reaper’s lair as I had wished, but laying free and naked in the cleft harboring Bern and Lille’s cabin. I lay there panting, stunned as usual by the transition. I knew that where one ended up in Root had a lot to do with the state of one’s mind, but the logic of these re-entries continued to elude me.

  Bits of root twinkled overhead like stars while a subtle glow built on one edge of the cavern. It was a nice touch. I bet that was Lille’s doing.

  The lone window of the cabin was dark. I crawled my way to their doorstep, hauled myself up and rapped on their door.

  A light flicked on inside and spilled out the window. The door opened. Bern stood there in a pair of satiny pajamas, not at all fazed by the bare-butted kid staring back at him. “Well … well! Look who’s back.”

  “Oh dear,” said Lille, sitting up in bed across the room. “This is not good news.”

  I barged in, sat down heavily at their little, rickety table, and put my head down atop my folded arms. It looked like they had been hard at work tidying up their little cabin. The walls looked brighter and smoother. Even the little hollow outside the window was deeper and wider and had been trimmed of stray roots.

  Bern reached over to a heap of clothes and shook out a pair of grey woolen trousers way too short and too big in the waist. “Here, have some pants.” He handed them over. “So tell us, what’s up, boy? Did you found your way off the mountain? Yes, I suppose you have, or else you wouldn’t be here. So what new tragedy has befallen you?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t even want to be here. The belly of a Reaper was beginning to sound more appealing than rattling off my travails to these two. I had not a smidgeon of hope left inside me, especially not if those bounty hunters had me pegged at Inverness Station.

  “Cat got your tongue?” said Bern.

  “Look at that long face,” said Lille, sliding off the bed. “And he’s so pale. James, tell us what’s wrong?”

  “I found Karla.”

  “Excellent! And…? Is she well?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Wonderful!” said Bern.

  “James, that’s brilliant news! But then … what are you doing here?”

  “She ditched me,” I said. “Told me to go away and never come back. She wants nothing to do with me. Ever. Forever.”

  Lille crinkled her eyes and smirked. “You didn’t actually believe her, did you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, just because she said it, doesn’t mean she actually meant it.”

  “She sounded pretty serious to me.”

  Lille’s eyes flitted around the room. “Well, I wouldn’t dwell. There’s more to play out, I’m sure.”

  “Say wh
at?”

  “There are things one must do on the other side to persist here in Root. It’s complicated, James. And sometimes requires great skills of persuasion. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, even if the particulars elude you.”

  I had no idea what to make of what she had said. I refused to find any hope in it. Hope would only got me into trouble.

  “I’m ready for death,” I said, quietly. “Ready to blink out … like a candle.”

  “Pfft! Aren’t we all?” said Bern. “That’s not exactly a new sentiment around these parts.”

  “It’s just an expression, I’m sure,” said Lille. “Let the boy express his emotions. It’s healthy for him.”

  I slapped my fist down on the table, rattling the teacups. “No. You don’t understand. It’s really going to happen this time. But it’s okay. I’ve got bounty hunters closing in on me. There’s nothing to be done. They followed me to Pittsburgh, and then to DC. They had people in Rome, London and Scotland after me.”

  “Bounty hunters?” said Lille.

  “If it’s not hypothermia it’s assassins with this one,” said Bern. “Who needs suicide?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “Did you run afoul of the law, son?”

  “Bern, don’t pry. What happens on the other side, stays on the other side.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re drug traffickers. I ran off with their shipment … and uh … tried to sell it.”

  “Oh my,” said Lille.

  “And now they want to … I don’t know … teach me a lesson? Make me an example? Kill me? Something like that.”

  “Oh my, oh my.”

  “And now there’s a guy … I think he’s one of them … in the train station with me in Inverness. He’s making a call to someone, but he’s watching me closely. I’m just sitting on a bench. It’s only a matter of time before he confirms who Iam and comes after me.”

  “Are you sure about this?” said Lille. “You’re not just being paranoid?”

  “Next time you fade, boy … you run! Leave the station. Hop a train. Go somewhere, anywhere, just make yourself scarce. Dying at the hands of these thugs is no way to pass out of the world, I assure you.”