Old Green World

by Walter Basho

  “It calms the nerves. You said you were nervous.”

  “I guess you want to start trying.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  They both had their fair share, Thomas a little more than Cynthia. The drink made him dizzy, dizzier than wine, and it made him feel warm. He opened the window, loosened his robe to the waist. He and Cynthia told funny stories, and then Cynthia told a bawdy story. Thomas told one as well, but it was one about Albert and him. With the gin, he was halfway through before he realized that it was a bad idea. “I guess you didn’t want to hear that,” he said.

  Cynthia laughed. “It’s fine, I don’t care anymore. Look, you can fuck Albert as much as you want, as long as you fuck me, too, and we have babies.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she widened her eyes, covered her mouth, and gasped in horror. Then she began laughing hysterically, and Thomas did, too. They fell over each other and lost their breath.

  That night was blurry and clumsy, but Thomas would remember it fondly. It was different, and kind of curious, but wonderful, too. With Albert it had been intense and rushed, with a desperation that exceeded both of them. With Cynthia, it was slower, rife with smiling and giggling pauses, softer, more a hike than a race. Neither of them needed it to be more than exactly what it was.

  The next morning, Mister Ewan brought them breakfast. They spent a little time in bed, nursing hangovers and telling each other jokes. They took supper in their quarters for the next month. A month after that, Cynthia announced she was expecting.

  + + +

  Sister Alice checked in once a week during the pregnancy. She would focus on Cynthia, observe the rhythms of her body and the baby, the balance of her body’s chemicals and energies.

  “Everything is going wonderfully. The baby is healthy.”

  “Do you know if it is a boy or a girl?” Thomas asked.

  Sister Alice paused. “I do. But you know that it is terrible fortune and poor form to tell you. Focus on your child’s happiness and not its gender.”

  Thomas shrugged. “Fine,” he said, annoyed.

  Cynthia would sing and hum warm, old songs as she moved around the house. Thomas would sing, as well. They would read together by the fire. Thomas thought he might be falling in love with Cynthia. Even Lady Newton was in a good mood. They all took more meals together, and Thomas and Lady Newton had whole conversations without disagreement. Thomas had begun to take on more of the mayoral duties in his mother’s stead.

  “I’m proud of you,” she said. “You’re becoming a leader and starting a legacy. Eden-town is in good hands. Thank you.”

  “Of course, you’re welcome,” he said, not saying what he truly felt. He had decided this was all for Albert. If Albert could leave his home, just after losing his parents, and venture across the sea to face homesickness and war, just to make himself worthy of Thomas, the least Thomas could do for him was keep a place, an Eden-town, that was ready to welcome him back. Surely Albert regretted his words the last time they spoke, the madness about the woods. There was no reason they couldn’t make it work here. He and Cynthia and Albert could make it work together.

  Early in the spring, Sister Alice came to the house accompanied by a short, thin woman wearing the simplest of wool clothing, gray and naked of embroidery. She had enormous eyes that never made contact with Thomas’s. “This is Anya,” Sister Alice said to Cynthia and Thomas. “She’ll begin work as your nurse. I’ve discussed this with Lady Newton.”

  Anya nodded at them, shyly.

  “I’ve been working with her on our language. She knows enough to do the work.”

  “She’s not from the Islands?”

  “She’s from Terra Baixa. She was displaced by the war.”

  “Displaced?” Cynthia asked.

  “She can speak—ask her,” Sister Alice said.

  Cynthia did. “How did you come to be here with us, Anya?”

  Anya paused and then spoke hesitatingly. “My family, we lived in the woods with our tribe. A green sickness came over us, and we left our village. We fought the Islanders. I’m sorry to fight you. It was sickness. Then we were prisoners in your camp. And now I am here.”

  Thomas, taken aback, stayed silent. He had heard some discussions of the war and its effects, and had worried about Albert, but it had all been abstract and far away. The war was here, in the room.

  Cynthia met eyes with Anya and smiled sadly. “I’m sorry for your misfortune. Did you have children in Terra Baixa?”

  “My children fell to the sickness. I nursed them. I can be a nurse for you.”

  Cynthia took Anya’s hand, her eyes welling. “Thank you. We will try to make a good home for you.” Anya looked back at her blankly.

  + + +

  Summer came, and Cynthia was big with child. “I hope it doesn’t get warm too soon,” she said. That morning she had an appointment with Sister Alice.

  “Let’s ask her today if she knows how soon the baby will come,” Thomas said.

  The hour came, but there was no knock on the door from Sister Alice.

  “What’s happened? You should go and see if she’s all right,” Cynthia said.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Thomas said. “She’s just running a bit late.”

  “Is she?” Cynthia asked. “Has she ever run late, ever? Have you ever known an Adept to run late?”

  Thomas started to open his mouth to respond, but knew that Cynthia was right. He got up, put on his jacket, and crossed the square to the school and Alice’s quarters.

  It was early in the morning: Sister Alice made her rounds before and after school. Her modest apartment was just behind the school. Thomas approached the door and gave it a brief knock. “Sister Alice? So sorry to trouble you, it’s Thomas Newton.” No answer. He waited for several moments, shuffling his feet, whistling, hands in pockets. He knocked again, with a little more force, but still well within the boundaries of deference and politeness.

  It was silent still. Thomas began to suspect she was away on another visit and had gotten held up. Adepts are never late, and never forget, he thought, but if they are helping someone and the time gets away from them, surely they would tend to the matter at hand. That’s all that’s happened. It was early, though, the beginning of the day. And Thomas felt something, something on the edges of his perception. He had a feeling Sister Alice was there.

  He knocked once again, with strength but without impatience. It was a knock that communicated a brisk and forceful concern, a good knock. “Sister Alice, this is Thomas still. I’m worried something might be wrong. I’m going to open your door and come in. I hope that’s all right. Please speak up if you’re there and would rather I stay outside.” He knew what Sister Alice had the power to do, and preferred to act deliberately and with great transparency. He waited another couple of moments. “Trying the doorknob, Sister Alice!” he said with nervous cheer.

  The doorknob turned; the door was unlocked. Thomas paused for another moment before moving forward. He had never entered or really seen the interior of an Adept’s quarters before. He worried that it was sacrosanct, or full of dangers. “Sister Alice?” he called, tentatively.

  There was a small and simple kitchen with a table. There was a book on the table, some clean paper for writing, and what looked to be a stack of student assignments. There was a hearth at the wall next to the kitchen, with a modest pile of wood. The hearth was cold. Beyond that was a doorway. Thomas saw a cat peer from the doorway, then disappear once it was detected. A low moan came from the doorway.

  “Sister Alice, are you unwell?” There was no response. He walked to the doorway.

  She lay sprawled on the bed. Her hair, usually tied back and up, fell loose around her, across her face and nightgown and across the bed. Thomas was struck by how long her hair actually was. She had an arm over her face, and her jaw was slack. She groaned again.

  “Oh, you are ill. Sister Alice, is there anything I can get you?”

  Sister Alice moaned again, an angry, desp
erate moan.

  Thomas wasn’t sure what to do. She was breathing and seemed to be reacting to things, but this didn’t seem like just a headache. If this were anyone else, he would call Sister Alice to tend to them.

  “I’ll bring Muriel over.” Muriel was an elder who retained some of the healing practices of the old ways. “I know it’s not the same, but maybe she will be able to help a little. And then we can call the Brother over from Over-town right away.”

  “No,” Sister Alice shouted.

  Thomas, stunned at that, blurted, “Sister Alice, what do you want me to do?”

  “No Adepts! I don’t want an Adept to see me like this.” She then began to sob. “I don’t think there are any more Adepts.”

  Thomas didn’t know what that meant. “Look, I’ll bring Muriel over, and we’ll figure out what to do after that. Having Muriel over can’t hurt.”

  “I don’t want any of you to touch me. I don’t want to be touched by apes.” She sobbed quietly. “I’m like an ape now, too. I’m an ape again.”

  “You’re not yourself,” Thomas said.

  “Get out! Get out of my house, you . . . you pet, you pampered, simpering animal.”

  Thomas flushed at her curses. “I’ll leave you to collect yourself,” he said. “I’ll come back when you have your composure back.”

  “Get the hell out of my house,” Sister Alice shouted.

  He left. Several strides away from the house, he realized he’d left the door open, thought about going back to close it, then let it be. To hell with her, he thought.

  Some students were beginning to collect in front of the school. “The school is usually open by now,” one of them said to Thomas. “Where’s Sister Alice?”

  “School is cancelled today. Sister Alice is ill.” He dismissed the children. He crossed the street to the house, went to his mother’s chamber, and related the incident to her. Lady Newton was incredulous and went to Sister Alice’s to see for herself. While she did so, Thomas composed a sign for the door of the school and posted it. He then returned to Cynthia, who was having a cup of tea with Anya at this point, and told her. As he was finishing the story, Lady Newton came back.

  “So?” Thomas asked.

  “She called me a deluded old hag.”

  “She’s very ill.”

  “Let’s send a letter to Cynthia’s family and see if they can spare Brother Benedict for a day or two. He should be able to get to the bottom of this. She seems to have some sort of brain fever.”

  “Is it a mistake to leave her alone?”

  “She just seems to get agitated when we are there. Let’s leave her be and check in every once in a while.”

  Lady Newton sent a horse messenger to the Kelvins. They let Alice have the day in solitude; the next morning, both Lady Newton and Thomas went to her door, knocked stiffly, and let themselves in when there was no response. They found some drawers pulled open and empty, the cat curled up in one of them. Sister Alice was gone.

  Two days later, they received word back from Over-town. Brother Benedict had been found in his room the same day Sister Alice took ill. He had hung himself.

  “She said to me that she didn’t think there were any more Adepts. That morning,” Thomas said. “I thought that she was just talking nonsense. But something has happened.”

  “Of course there are still Adepts. How could there not be?” Lady Newton said. “How would one stop being an Adept? That makes no sense. Certainly, something happened, and two Adepts took ill. That’s troubling, but I believe in facts. Facts and reason. And there’s no sense in dreaming up a conspiracy before we know the facts.” The militia was lean in Eden-town—most able troops had gone to Baixa—but Lady Newton found two to send to the Old City. “There are plenty of senior Adepts there. They’ll know what is happening and what to do.”

  “What about the baby?” Thomas asked. “What do we do without an Adept, with Cynthia almost ready to have a child?”

  “In Baixa, we had plenty of babies without Adepts,” Anya said. Everyone paused and looked at her; she didn’t speak much. “When the Lady is ready to have the baby, we’ll have the baby.”

  Cynthia smiled. “Anya’s right. We’ll be fine, Thomas,” she said, patting his hand to calm him.

  + + +

  That autumn, a bit later than expected, Cynthia gave birth. Anya tended to her, and indeed knew the process. They had a daughter, born with a full head of her mother’s brown hair. They named her Cydney, after a pet name Thomas had given to Cynthia, and immediately started calling her Cyd.

  It was a difficult birth, and long. Cynthia stayed in bed for a week, but started working as soon as she was able, despite Anya’s protests. “Without Adepts, we all need to help each other,” she said.

  The troops that were sent to the Old City never came back. Thomas finally convinced his mother to consider contingency plans, in case they were without an Adept for some time.

  “I’m sure it’s going to be fine,” Lady Newton said.

  “The only town we are in contact with is Over-town. They’ve sent troops to the Green Island, with no response. We need to consider the possibility that it’s not going to be fine.”

  Between elders trained in old ways and students who had learned some medicine in school, they had a small group of nurses who could tend to the sick. They were comforted by the yield from the farms, which had been good that summer. Cynthia even opened the school once a week, acting as the teacher, though attendance was low.

  “I wish I knew what was keeping them away,” Thomas mused at the table one day, during breakfast. “It’s still a community service that helps, even if there’s not an Adept to teach.”

  “What is the point of it now?” Anya asked. She was nursing month-old Cyd at the time. “The learning was Adept, right? Learning to do Adept things? What you talk about, physics and meditating and words and money. There’s no time for that now. It’s time to learn to defend yourself, fight, grow food, make medicine.”

  “You’re probably right. Maybe we could change things for now. Teach more useful things.”

  “They are all learning it from their families. The families will stay to their land and survive. The town here, with the trees taken away, and the houses all next to each other, and the tiny gardens, they know it’s not the way to live now. It only makes sense with Adepts to protect you.” She paused. “It won’t last long.”

  “I think you are having trouble translating from Baixan, Anya. I’m sure I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Thomas poured himself some tea. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know what I am saying. I think you do, too.” Anya looked at him. Cyd was nursing happily, eyes closed. “You aren’t your mother. You know what is going on. You should be ready when we have to run away.”

  The next day, Cynthia woke with a high fever, and wasn’t able to keep any liquid down. Thomas brought the elder Muriel to her; Muriel lit some pine incense and placed a poultice on Cynthia’s bosom.

  “The smell is invigorating,” Thomas said. “I’m glad we brought Muriel in.”

  “It’s not a good medicine,” Anya said. “The sickness is too strong.”

  “What do you think we should do, then, Anya?” Thomas asked impatiently.

  Anya stared at the wall as she rocked Cyd’s crib. “I don’t know.”

  Thomas spent every night by Cynthia’s side. On her sixth day of sickness, at sunset, she woke for a short while. They held hands. “I’m very lucky,” she said. “I have a beautiful daughter and a beautiful husband. You’re always so good to me. You always look out for me.”

  “Of course,” he said. “What else would I do?” Cynthia smiled and closed her eyes. Thomas watched her for some time in the dark, her chest rising and falling. When he woke the next morning, she was gone.

  The sickness went all through the town. No one would send their children to school; no one went outside unless it was absolutely necessary. Thomas would make and post announcements; he knew it was impo
rtant to bury the dead quickly, to keep houses clean and the sick isolated. He shouted announcements from the square, posted notices, and talked to anyone who would face him.

  He had to. He was the acting mayor. Lady Newton took ill not long after Cynthia’s passing. Every moment she was able, she drilled Thomas with instructions: diplomatic protocols with other nobles; the finer points of dispute adjudication in Eden-town, including many unspoken, long-simmering feuds of which Thomas was completely unaware; the locations of all important records; the care and feeding of the bank.

  Lady Newton had become chief financier of Eden-town with the departure of Sister Alice. Like the school, the bank had seen a drastic reduction in traffic, but there were still many accounts in place. Thomas, frankly, still found the bank to be the most confounding subject of all, especially now that the Adepts were absent. “What happens if the majority decides that the capital the bank holds is worthless?” he asked his mother.

  “Can’t you say the same thing about civilization, darling?” she asked him.

  He smiled. In the sadness and chaos of the past months, he had lost the will to maintain bitterness toward her, and she had lost most of her tendencies to formality and dogma. They had become friends again. She passed away, quietly, not two weeks later.

  + + +

  When the sickness had run its course, everything had changed. Dozens and dozens had died. People didn’t meet on the street to talk about the progress of the town or the war in Baixa or the world around them. They stayed at home, and they stayed alone.

  It was late in autumn when the boats came. Old dugouts and canoes, a couple of pockmarked catamarans. They came into port slowly, almost with a sense of fatigue.

  Thomas took a group of townspeople to the shore and found a group of soldiers from the boats, more than twenty. He recognized a couple of them from town: Daniel Bohm, the furniture builder’s son, and the second-oldest Planck boy. The rest of them were new faces, soldiers from other parts of the Islands.

  “Welcome!” Thomas said. “We’re so glad to see you. We’ve had little news from anywhere outside of town. Daniel, have you come across misfortune? How goes the progress in Baixa?”