The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  Shula quietly padded across the carpeted floor to check on Madeline. The morning noise and activity in the house seemed to help Madeline sleep. In the darkest hours of the night she was restless, coughing, uncomfortable. But the morning sounds of Yenil singing, of Sofía cooking, of Mrs. Oliver moving about, seemed to relax her, to make her feel more at peace, and she often drifted off for an hour or two at this time. Shula went to make herself a cup of tea and found the kettle already boiling. Sofía had a way of predicting the needs of the people in the household. Shula’s family had once had someone like Sofía who would come to their apartment when she was younger—Mrs. Rouhana. She went to their church, and when she was done with the cleaning and had made a meal for the evening, she would sit and read with Amira. Once Shula had even caught her playing a video game with Boulos. Mrs. Rouhana’s family had left for Turkey when Shula was fourteen. She thought of Mrs. Rouhana from time to time, though, and Sofía brought fond memories of her.

  Shula curled into an easy chair beside the garden window. She and Madeline had spent many hours in this spot, talking when Madeline felt up to it or watching out the window when she did not. Shula had taken to reading simple books to Madeline in the afternoons, which both filled the silence and helped Shula’s English. Sometimes, when Yenil was home, they would read books from Madeline’s childhood, and the Scim girl would stealthily enter the room, like a cat stalking prey, and curl up on the floor between them, listening to Shula’s words, occasionally correcting her pronunciation when Madeline did not.

  All told it was a peaceful life, and one Shula did not want to change. In time, she knew, Madeline would go the way of all the people Shula loved, and everything would be different. Madeline said Shula and Yenil could stay here in her parents’ home, but Shula had seen enough grief and hardship to know that the promises of the dead do not mean much to the living and that the powerful tides of sorrow can cause even the kindest souls to be cruel. She did not know what she and Yenil would do, should the worst come. She knew this should terrify her, that she should be startled to action by it, but Shula knew that if such a thing came, she was strong enough not to break. She had been through much worse already, and the continual waves of misfortune in her life were just that—waves. One came, and another, and soon another, and you could not steel yourself against a wave. You could only wait for it to come and hope you could swim through it or rise above it and not be dashed against the rocks.

  When her tea was done, Shula got her sketchbook and pencils and drew the flowers in the garden. Only in the last few weeks had her desire to draw returned, a full year and more since the death of her family. She rubbed the long scar on her face and considered the foxgloves. That’s what Madeline called them, a whimsical name that made Shula and Yenil laugh. Madeline seemed concerned by the flowers. She would not let Sofía bring them in the house and had flown into a rage when Yenil had snapped a stalk off and brought it inside, tearing the flower away from the child and throwing it into the backyard before collapsing by the door, wheezing, and reaching to turn the lock.

  Madeline wouldn’t speak about it. Shula tried to get her to share her anger, to talk with Shula about it so she wouldn’t explode in unpredictable moments or take it out on her mother. But when they got close, when they almost could speak about it, the conversation would touch so near to Shula’s own grief and anger that they would cycle into frustrated silence, or Madeline would lose the strength to continue, leaving Shula unsettled and thinking of her family again.

  As Shula sketched the trumpet-shaped flowers, she thought of Amira, trying to remember the good things and not dwell on the grief or pain. She thought about how Amira would sit beside Shula, too close, as she sketched, making it hard to get her lines straight, jostling her, asking a nonstop series of questions about what Shula was drawing. How she would beg for drawings of cats. Shula found it hard to get cats quite right, with their long bodies and the almost supernatural way their shape changed when they slept or stretched or sat. “No, no, a cat!” Amira would shout, laughing, every time Shula tried. It became a joke between them. When they walked the streets of Aleppo together, if a cat sauntered toward them out of the shade, Shula would say, “No, no, I wanted a cat!” and they would both laugh.

  Shula’s pencil stopped moving across the page, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the flowers. Her hand moved to Amira’s silver cross around her neck, clutching it so hard that the edges nearly cut into her skin. Her other hand rose to her face, stroking the smooth line of the scar that descended from her left eye to the corner of her lip. Instead of flowers she saw flames, and her grip on the cross tightened, her lip curling up as her hand began to shake. A sharp pain built as she balled her fist tighter and tighter. She thought of Amira, of the last time she had seen her. Thought of her parents, and the fire, and the man who cut her face, and of her father, a pastor, praying to a God who did nothing, did not intervene or help or answer in any way. Her whole body shook, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

  A ringing echoed in her ears. She hunched over, grabbing her right fist with her left hand.

  The ringing again. A bell.

  The doorbell.

  Shula gasped, letting go of her cross, and the world rushed in again. She unfolded her hand, becoming conscious of a piercing pain in her palm. She had drawn blood this time.

  She hurried to the door, hoping the doorbell hadn’t woken Madeline. She shook her hand as she walked, pressing her thumb against the tiny wound on her opposite palm. The front door had windows on either side. She peered out at an older man in a black suit. He rang the bell again before she got to the door. She yanked it open.

  “What is it?” she snapped, upset she hadn’t heard it the first time, angry that he might have disturbed Madeline.

  The man smiled, the wrinkles around his pale-blue eyes crinkling. His white hair was thin, and a pair of wire glasses perched on his nose. He wore a priest’s white collar. “Ms. Oliver?” he asked, and when Shula didn’t immediately answer, he asked, “Madeline?”

  “No,” Shula said, taken off guard. This priest had come at the exact wrong moment. Her palm ached. The feelings about her family had been stirred up again, and reentering the present took effort. She wasn’t sure what to say, and her English wasn’t good enough to produce a worthwhile sentence with all of the competing messages struggling to exit her mind.

  The old priest’s eyes fell to Shula’s hands. She clutched them together, not wanting him to see the wound, but he was looking at her wrist.

  “Ah,” he said. “So you are Madeline.”

  Shula shook her head again and said, “No.”

  “It’s okay.” His voice held great gentleness. He pushed up the sleeve of his coat. He had a mess of old silver tracks around his wrist, the telltale sign of the departed magic of the Elenil. “I have walked in the Sunlit Lands too. I met your friend in the hospital. He told me you had made a deal with the Elenil, and I saw on the news how a young woman had disappeared from the hospital. Imagine my surprise when I overheard one of the nurses saying last week that you had miraculously returned. You have been back for some time, I am told.”

  “I am Shula,” she finally managed to say. Her lip curled again. She was not like this, so weak. She prided herself on being strong. I am a warrior, she reminded herself. I walk through fire and am not burned. I am strong. I have been through the darkness, I have crawled through collapsed buildings to get where I need to go. I have no reason to fear this man. I am more powerful than he.

  Shula stood straight and pushed her shoulders back. “Madeline is sleeping. She does not want to see a priest. She does not want your prayers or your words. She wants to be left alone.”

  “Shula,” the man said, as if hearing her for the first time, realizing that she was not Madeline. He looked at her more closely this time, and something changed in his eyes. “Marhaban, Shula. Ismii Father Anthony.”

  Shula stared at him in astonishment. “You speak Arabic?”

  He la
ughed. “Only a little. Where are you from, Shula?”

  “Aleppo,” she said, still in shock.

  “I’ve never been to Syria,” Father Anthony said. “I would like to go one day.” He stepped forward.

  Shula moved to block the doorway with her body, swinging the door halfway shut. A fierce protectiveness for Madeline settled on her. What was he doing here? He had found out about Madeline at the hospital, he said, but how did he get her address? What could he possibly want? “Madeline is sleeping,” Shula said again, her arms loosely at her sides.

  “Of course,” he said. “I understand. Shula . . . I need to talk to her. To both of you. Whatever Hanali is planning, he’s not worried about your well-being, I promise you that.”

  Mrs. Oliver’s car pulled into the driveway. Sofía was driving. Mrs. Oliver came walking up the sidewalk while Sofía fetched the groceries from the trunk.

  The priest glanced back at them, then locked eyes with Shula. He held a business card out to her. “Call me, Shula. We need to talk.”

  “Why, hello,” Mrs. Oliver said. “Shula, who’s this?” Mrs. Oliver stopped, brushed a stray hair out of her eyes, and looked at the priest. She froze. “Tony? Is that you? But you look so . . . old.”

  “Wendy,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is my house, Tony. I live here.” She put her hand to her head. “You’re not a priest.” Mrs. Oliver’s legs started to give way, and she sank toward the ground.

  Father Anthony grabbed hold of her forearm and helped her ease into a sitting position. Sofía raced to her other side.

  “I don’t want to see you, Tony,” Mrs. Oliver said, her voice rising into a panicked wail. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Tony, I don’t want to be reminded—”

  Father Anthony leaned toward her ear and spoke some low, quick words. Mrs. Oliver went limp.

  He looked at Shula. “Let her rest for a little while. When she wakes, give her water—as much as she will drink.” He straightened, tugged his jacket into place, and walked down the sidewalk. Sofía watched him go, a scowl on her face.

  The priest turned at the end of the driveway and walked down the street. Shula didn’t see a car. She didn’t watch him for long, though, because Sofía was helping Mrs. Oliver to her feet. With Shula’s help they got her up the few steps and inside to the nearest couch.

  Madeline stood in the hallway, pale and sweating, clutching her phone. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Shula, something’s wrong.”

  5

  NIGHTFALL

  “So,” the boy said, “the name is both true and untrue.”

  FROM “THE GOOD GARDENER,” AN ALUVOREAN STORY

  Nightfall caught up with them after less than a mile, carrying weapons for each of them. He had doubled back for the embiggenator, but it had fallen through the floor. He’d seen it near where Break Bones and Bezaed fought and decided it was too risky to try to get it. It was hard to believe Nightfall was a ten-year-old boy, the way he seriously handed out the weapons. He gave Jason a short knife, a quiver of arrows, and a bow. Jason was relieved to see that the bow had the design on the side that meant it could be used with magic. He had been practicing without magic at Baileya’s insistence, but so far he had only managed to bruise his forearm by snapping it with the bowstring so many times. He could hit the target now, at least. If there was no wind. And if he stood relatively close and the target stood very, very still.

  Eclipse received a short sword. She grinned when the pommel hit her palm. Shadow got a knife slightly larger than Jason’s, despite being only six years old. Jason started to object, then had to admit that this was probably the wisest way to divide up the weapons. Nightfall had a small but heavy stone hatchet, with Scim markings up the handle and moving along the head toward the blade.

  “Any sign of who was winning?” Jason asked.

  Nightfall shook his head. “Break Bones was bleeding from cuts to his shoulder and arm, but he fought as fiercely as the Kakri warrior when last I saw them.”

  “And Bezaed? Had he been wounded too?”

  Nightfall shrugged. “He was thrown from the top of the house by a unicorn. I suspect he has some bruises at the least.”

  Delightful Glitter Lady popped her head out of Jason’s pocket and let loose a happy squeal. Jason patted her head. “Good girl. Way to smash the bad guy.”

  “I’m the one who bit him,” Shadow said, arms crossed.

  Jason slapped him on the shoulder. “First blood goes to Shadow!”

  Shadow grinned.

  Trying to cover their tracks was pointless. The Wasted Lands were dry, dreary plains, punctuated with the occasional brittle shrub or pile of refuse. Perpetual darkness was the norm, and a gloomy thickness hung in the air most days. If you could call them days at all. The dry, dusty ground beneath their feet left easy evidence of their passing, and the time it would take to erase their tracks would slow them so much it wouldn’t matter.

  “If we do not find Baileya,” Eclipse said, brandishing her sword, “we should take Wu Song to the Aluvoreans.”

  Shadow spit on the ground. “Tree people.”

  “Better than the Kakri getting him,” Eclipse said.

  Jason didn’t want the kids fighting, not when they were running for their lives. Well, his life, anyway. “We’ll find Baileya. She always keeps tabs on me.”

  “Someone is coming,” Nightfall said.

  Jason twisted to look behind them. Was it Break Bones or Bezaed? But he couldn’t see anyone. The Scim kids had better night vision than him.

  “A rider,” Nightfall said.

  Jason looked at the kid. He was looking ahead, not behind.

  “Take cover,” Nightfall ordered, low and urgent. He and his siblings scattered, hiding behind the scrubby bushes. They had practice, clearly, because Jason couldn’t see them even though he had watched them settle into their hiding places.

  “It’s Baileya,” Jason said, even though he couldn’t see her yet. He knew it was her. She was always keeping watch, for one thing, and for another, well . . . he just knew when she was nearby.

  “What if it is someone else? Hide!” Nightfall hissed, but Jason knew it was her. She would be riding on her brucok, the giant ostrich-like creature she had stolen from her brother in the desert. That brother (yes, there were more than one trying to kill him) had been named Caramel Popcorn. Or something close to that. If he and Baileya really got married, he was going to have to work hard to remember all the names of her siblings.

  He could see her now in the darkness. Maybe Nightfall couldn’t tell, but Jason knew the way she moved, the easy way she rode on the brucok’s back, casually holding her twin-bladed staff in the crook of her arm. Jason hated that bird. It had sat on him in the desert, tried to bite him any time he was close enough, and hissed at him when he got too close to Baileya. She had suggested that Jason give it a name so that “a natural affection will spring up between you two.” He had gone through a long list of names: McNugget, Foster Farms, Drumstick (then Baileya had objected that calling it a food name would only create more tension), Birdy McBirdface, Less Delightful Glitter Bird, and Captain Emurica. The bird had slowly become Jason’s worst enemy. Sure, the Elenil and the Scim and the Zhanin were trying to kill him, but this bird truly hated him. So Jason called it Moriarty, after Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis.

  Once the kids could see Baileya better, they appeared from their hiding places, but they still gathered around Jason at a slight distance, as if they were all his guards. Eclipse turned the hilt of her sword in her hand nervously, and Shadow held his blade straight ahead, as if waiting for someone to impale themselves on it.

  Baileya wore the loose, flowing blue top she liked best. In battle she tied it down with her sash, but now the sash was wrapped around her waist, a likely sign that she hadn’t run into trouble on patrol. Her dark hair was pulled back, and Jason’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight of her golden skin and the spray of brown freckles across her cheeks. Her si
lver eyes flashed at the sight of him, and a wide smile spread across her face. She slid from the brucok and ran the few steps between them, wrapping him in a tight hug. Jason was always surprised by her excitement to see him. Something about her running to close the space between them made his heart sing.

  “Wu Song,” she said, “you come out to meet me.”

  They pulled apart, their hands on one another’s forearms. Her arms were solid, layered in muscle, but graceful and smooth. He squeezed them. “I’m always glad to see you,” he said, and Baileya beamed at him.

  Moriarty made a honking sound, then hissed at Jason. “He doesn’t like it when I’m close to you,” Jason said.

  “He’s jealous,” Baileya said, and gave Jason a peck on the cheek.

  “We have been stopped too long,” Eclipse said. “It is dangerous. We should move.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Jason said. “We need to run.”

  “Running is our life,” Baileya said, “so we must take what small moments we can.” She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. “You are clever, though,” she said to Eclipse, “to see the coming trouble. A cohort of Elenil are scouring the Wasted Lands, headed this way. The captain of the guard, Rondelo, rides at their head upon the noble stag Evernu. Some dire change has come that the captain of the guard would leave Far Seeing and enter the Wasted Lands.”

  Eclipse looked up at her, hands on her hips. “Where will we go then, Baileya? What is our destination?”

  Baileya’s brow furrowed. “To the house, I think. We can defend it against a small cohort. They are moving fast, but not so fast that we could not reach home before them. It is even possible they are not seeking Wu Song.”

  “Possible but unlikely,” Jason said, and Baileya smiled at him. Something about his outlaw renegade fugitive status was cute to her.