The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  In the darkened living room, she curled up on the couch, a soft blanket over her shoulders, and looked out at Mrs. Oliver’s garden. Small lights lit the path, and the strange, out-of-season foxglove flowers bowed their heads in a gentle breeze.

  “I can’t sleep either.”

  Shula jumped to her feet.

  A gentle laugh came from across the darkened room. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Shula.” It was Mrs. Oliver, sitting in the easy chair. Shula hadn’t noticed her, hadn’t expected her to be here in the middle of the night.

  “I did not know you were there,” Shula said. If she had been any more startled, it was entirely likely Shula might have used her magic and lit herself on fire. In addition to terrifying Mrs. Oliver, it would have ruined the couch. Not to mention the carpet. She could have caught the house on fire.

  “She’s getting worse,” Mrs. Oliver said. “She’s getting worse, and so I can’t sleep.”

  Shula didn’t know what to say to this. It was true. “Yes,” she said.

  “Have you ever lost someone you love?” Mrs. Oliver turned on a standing lamp next to the chair. She looked small and alone in the weak light.

  Shula could not bring herself to answer the question. “Have you?”

  Mrs. Oliver leaned back in her chair. She stared into the garden. “Is it very strange if I say that I don’t remember, Shula?” She pushed her blonde hair back from her face and held it in both hands, a gesture that, for some reason, Madeline found endlessly infuriating. Shula, though, had a sudden jolt of emotion as she realized that she was sitting in the dark, talking to a mother. Not her mother, no—that could never happen again. But someone’s mother. Talking about their feelings. Talking about important things. Shula did not care how this woman held her hair back when she was thinking.

  “How can this be?” Shula asked.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. I have this feeling that something is missing. That I have lost someone, but I can’t remember who. Maybe more than one person? I feel sad, Shula, I feel sad all the time. I try to put on a happy face and do the little social events with the women in the neighborhood, play my racquetball and plan the parties, but it doesn’t work. Of course I am sad about our Maddie, too.” She began to cry.

  Shula went down the hallway to the nearest bathroom and returned with some tissues. She sat on the floor by Mrs. Oliver’s legs. She debated for a moment, almost afraid to do what she wanted, because Mrs. Oliver sometimes seemed so cold, but then she thought, Isn’t that the exact way I make myself seem to other people? I make myself cold so they won’t come close, even though that’s what I want. So she leaned her shoulder against Mrs. Oliver’s leg and laid her head on the older woman’s knee. Mrs. Oliver stroked Shula’s hair. Shula closed her eyes. Her own mother used to stroke her hair like this. It felt familiar and forgotten and impossible and wonderful all at once. A tear ran down her face.

  “My mother is dead,” Shula said, and it felt like an admission. She never spoke about this if she had the choice. It seemed that Mrs. Oliver didn’t even know.

  Mrs. Oliver’s hand paused for a moment, then continued stroking her hair. “I’m sorry, Shula.”

  Shula could not say anything in response to this. If she spoke, she would sob. Either way, no words would come, so she stayed silent.

  Mrs. Oliver slid from her chair and took Shula’s face in her hands. “There is always a home for you here.”

  Shula sobbed now, and Mrs. Oliver took her into her arms. They sat there, crying together, for what seemed like a long time. A noise came from Madeline’s room: the sound of coughing, and a painful wheeze, and then silence again, and Shula stopped crying immediately and moved to Madeline’s door, checking to make sure she was still asleep. Madeline lay on her back, propped on a pile of pillows, her face contorted in pain, her mouth wide open, as if that would somehow allow more air into her lungs. As near as Shula could tell, she was still asleep.

  As Shula walked back to the living room, she realized for the first time just how much Madeline had put her parents through. She had left them without warning and disappeared to the Sunlit Lands. There she had found a cure—and then rejected it—and fought a battle that was not her own. Madeline returned without explanation, sicker than ever, and with two strangers in tow: a Middle Eastern teenager and a little girl from another world. On top of that, Madeline had no patience for her parents’ questions and refused to even try to answer them. She’d made it clear she wanted Shula and Yenil in the house, and that was the end of the conversation. It was a strange interaction. Shula didn’t understand it, but maybe that’s how families operated in the United States. But poor Mrs. Oliver: her daughter was dying, and she didn’t know the truth about any of it, about anything.

  Madeline was kind, loving, thoughtful. But not toward her parents. Her father was scarcely there at all. Madeline said he didn’t deal well with illness and had been largely absent since her sickness set in. Her mother was cold and aloof and concerned about many of the wrong things, but Madeline treated her with a contempt that Shula found unsettling. She knew how families worked, knew that there was deep hurt, probably on both sides, and that Madeline didn’t act this way for no reason. And yet . . . Shula did not want to treat Mrs. Oliver the same way. She wanted to treat her with respect, with kindness, with thankfulness for letting her live in her home. She wanted to be honest with her. She struggled with this, because to be honest meant to make a decision for Madeline, too. But to not be honest with her . . . Shula didn’t want to treat Mrs. Oliver the same way Madeline did.

  Mrs. Oliver was still sitting at the foot of the easy chair, her hair disheveled, wiping at her face with a tissue. Shula took her by the hand and led her to the couch, sitting beside her. “I have something to tell you,” she said. “It is about a place called the Sunlit Lands.”

  A strange glimmer of recognition flared in Mrs. Oliver’s eyes. “I know that place.”

  Shula’s eyes widened. What did this mean? Maybe Mrs. Oliver had misunderstood and thought she was talking about something else. “You do?”

  Mrs. Oliver nodded slowly. “I had a dream about it, I think. It’s like . . . like Narnia?” She shivered. “I never liked those books.”

  So she did know something. Shula frowned. “The Sunlit Lands are another world. They are next to our world. It is . . . it is a place filled with magic and monsters and war.”

  Mrs. Oliver smiled dreamily. “Oh, Shula. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “There are people there, powerful people, called the Elenil.”

  The older woman’s hand clenched hard against Shula’s. “Don’t talk about them. We don’t talk about them, not here. Not in my house.”

  “Mrs. Oliver. I want to tell you what happened to Madeline. Where she was last year.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Oliver said, her eyes rising to meet Shula’s. “I know something happened, but what was it? Where was she? Where did she find you? How did she come to be with Yenil?”

  Shula took a deep breath. “An Elenil named Hanali came to her in the hospital. He offered to heal her with magic in exchange for a year’s service to his people. Madeline agreed. That’s why she was missing for so long. But she discovered that the reason she could breathe was that she had been linked to Yenil, who was giving her own breath to Madeline. Madeline couldn’t stand this, so she broke her magical link, and we came home, here, to you. I came with her to help with Yenil, and to be with Madeline.”

  As Shula spoke, Mrs. Oliver’s eyes had unfocused, as if she were staring far away. “Where was Madeline?” she asked. “Where did she go? Where did you come from? And Yenil?”

  Shula leaned toward her. “Mrs. Oliver? I just told you. Hanali—”

  Mrs. Oliver hissed. Hissed like an angry cat, her lips pulled back to show her teeth. Shula pulled away, and Mrs. Oliver’s face slowly returned to normal, an almost placid, dreamlike look replacing the furious mask of a moment before. “I wish I knew, that’s all. What happened to Madeline, where she went
.”

  Shula shivered. She tried one more time. “There is a place called the Sunlit Lands—”

  Mrs. Oliver’s back arched, as if she had been hit with a jolt of electricity. Her hand jerked toward the ceiling, and for a moment Shula saw a flash of light from Mrs. Oliver’s left wrist. A sure sign of magic, one that Shula had seen a thousand times before on her own wrist, on Madeline’s, on nearly all the humans in the Sunlit Lands, but much brighter. An afterimage of a primitive tattoo burned in her eyes.

  Mrs. Oliver wept softly, her face in her hands.

  How could this be? Had Hanali done something to her? Was this part of the deal with Madeline? Somehow Shula didn’t think so. The magic looked different, messier, more painful. “Mrs. Oliver? Have you ever been—somewhere like Narnia?”

  Mrs. Oliver’s face twisted with rage and regret. “Not like Narnia . . . oh, how I hate even the name of that place! They told me it would be all wonder and magic, but it wasn’t, not at all. It’s all loss and pain, pain and loss.” She stood. “They told us they would come for our daughter one day, told us we wouldn’t be able to stop them. But I know, Shula, I know.” She was like a sleepwalker, rambling and nonsensical, her words slurring together.

  “Maybe you should go to bed—”

  “No!” Mrs. Oliver’s eyes flew open. “No, I have to protect her. Especially at night. Especially when she’s dreaming.” She snatched Shula’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come with me. Come, I’ll show you.”

  She dragged Shula out the back door. The night air was bracing, frigid. The pale light from the moon shone down on the garden. Mrs. Oliver dragged her toward the small pond, where Yenil made her faerie houses—little huts made of flowers and sticks. Mrs. Oliver stepped on them, kicking the sticks and spreading them into random piles. “Every night I destroy them,” she said.

  But Shula had seen them many times when she played with Yenil in the garden. Madeline loved those little houses, and so did Yenil. They would be so sad to see them knocked down.

  Mrs. Oliver grinned at her, a smile wild and desperate. Shula’s heart beat faster, and she pulled her hand away.

  “Then these flowers,” Mrs. Oliver said, her lip curled up in disgust. She waved her hand over the patch of foxgloves. She snatched one of the stalks and crushed the bells between her fingers. “They come through the flowers,” she said. “Have to pull them up by the roots, have to smash them all.”

  A sudden compassion came over Shula. Here was a woman who had lost her daughter—was still losing her daughter. She needed help, not for Shula to draw away from her. Shula wrapped her arms around the older woman. “Mrs. Oliver. Let’s go inside. You should go to bed.”

  “The flowers!” she said, shaking Shula off and falling to her knees. “Have to get the roots.” She was grabbing the stalks, low, and yanking them out of the ground. “Help me,” she said, pleading. “Help me!”

  Shula knelt beside her, and together they pulled all the flowers up, yanked them out like weeds. Shula shivered in the darkness, her hands and knees wet with dew. The plants came up easily enough, and soon a large mound lay between them.

  Mrs. Oliver cried out and pounced on the pile, and her hands came away clasped together. “I caught one. Look!”

  She opened her hands, and there, in her palms, was the crumpled form of an insect. Shula peered at it. “A moth?”

  Disappointed, Mrs. Oliver shook her head. She slid the moth into one palm, and with her other hand pointed along the broken body. “Do you see its arms? The little legs. The tiny face. It’s a faerie.”

  Shula leaned closer, and yes, it was dark here and hard to see. But she didn’t see a faerie. She saw a moth. Crushed, dead, but ordinary. The dust from its wings rubbed off on Mrs. Oliver’s hands.

  “Good job,” Shula said. “You did it. You protected Madeline.” She stood and held out her hand to Mrs. Oliver. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Still in her dreamlike state, Mrs. Oliver took Shula’s hand. “I did it,” she said. “I protected her, like a good mother. I did it.” She kept mumbling this over and over, all the way into the house. Shula pointed her in the direction of her bedroom, and she wandered off, mumbling to herself.

  Shula put Mrs. Oliver’s teacup in the sink and folded the blanket she had put on the couch. She checked on Madeline . . . still restless, but breathing. She looked in on Yenil, who had thrown off her covers and was sprawled on the bed. She tucked her back in, then lay down beside her. Yenil usually struggled to fall asleep without Shula or Madeline nearby. Tonight, Shula didn’t think she could sleep if she were too far from Yenil. She wanted to make sure she was safe. The house was quiet and still. She fell asleep easily.

  She woke in the morning, late. Yenil had already gotten up, had somehow climbed over Shula without waking her. Mrs. Oliver was in the kitchen wearing her racquetball clothes, her blonde hair perfectly coifed, a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. Madeline sat looking out the window into the garden. Shula put her hand on Madeline’s shoulder. Madeline looked up, smiled at her, turned back to the window.

  The pile of uprooted flowers was gone. In fact, a new crop of foxgloves grew where they had been. The faerie houses stood intact on the shore of the pond. Astonished, Shula turned to Mrs. Oliver.

  Mrs. Oliver smiled at her, took a sip of her coffee. “Did you sleep well, dear? As soon as my head hit the pillow last night, I dozed straight through. I saw your teacup in the sink, though. Trouble sleeping?”

  Shula looked back to the flowers. Then to Mrs. Oliver again. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. My sleep was . . . troubled . . . last night.”

  Mrs. Oliver pushed her lip into a pout. “Poor thing.” She patted Shula’s hand. She gave Madeline a kiss on the forehead. “I’m off to racquetball. Good-bye, darlings! See you this afternoon!”

  Shula followed her to the front door, stood at the window and watched as she pulled the car from the driveway and turned down the street. She hadn’t been dreaming. She was certain of it. No . . . the teacup was in the sink. So it wasn’t a dream. What was happening?

  9

  IN CHAINS

  Help me, dear friend, for I am trapped among the roots of this prison tree, and when the water rises, I will surely drown.

  FROM “JELDA’S REVENGE,” A SCIM LEGEND

  The Elenil made camp along a river, well outside of the Wasted Lands. They didn’t pitch tents or start a fire. The glowing orbs that had lit their way in the darkness of the Wasted Lands doubled as heaters. They floated near the Elenil, exuding warmth. Not that it was much necessary—the weather was pleasant enough that night. The crystal stars of the Sunlit Lands had begun to slide over the horizon, though the plentiful trees screened most of them from view.

  Jason and Darius sat side by side, leaning against a tree trunk. Jason was exhausted from shouting at the Elenil. The tears had dried on his face, as his hands were tied behind his back. Baileya would come, he knew that. Or Break Bones. Or possibly Delightful Glitter Lady. He had made sure to release her when the Elenil were distracted. The little rhinoceros had not been pleased to leave him, but she’d seemed to know what he needed.

  “You have to calm down,” Darius said. “If we’re going to get out of this, we’re going to need to be calm and think everything through. When the chance comes to run, you’re going to take it.”

  “You mean we’re going to take it,” Jason said. “Together.”

  Darius shook his head. “They took my mask. I’m not leaving without it. And believe it or not, I’d love to see that little weasel the archon again. If they want to walk me straight into his presence, that’s their mistake.”

  “Rondelo’s coming over,” Jason whispered, and they both fell silent.

  Rondelo crouched down, bringing his face to their level. “You mourn your fallen comrade. You are angry.”

  This was such a colossally stupid observation that Jason couldn’t find a strong enough response. He settled on, “You wear weird clothes and kill children.”

  Rondelo
frowned. “Your feelings do you credit, Jason. It is right for you to be angry. The archon will hear this story presented fairly, I promise you that, and we will live by his pronouncement of justice.”

  Jason snorted. “You might remember that I was part of the whole thing where his hand got chopped off. I don’t know that his ideas of justice and mine are going to overlap much.”

  “It may be so, but we are people under authority. We must trust that those above us have information we do not and are making decisions as best they are able. Perhaps in their place we would do the same.”

  Darius couldn’t stay silent for that. “An easy position to take when it is your own people in power. You didn’t submit to the Scim authorities when we were wronged in the Wasted Lands.”

  Rondelo said nothing to that, though he had the decency to look away. Jason thought he might actually be ashamed. After a moment Rondelo pulled two lengths of silver manacled chains from his belt. The chains were thin as twine, and they sparkled in the light from Rondelo’s floating orb. “I fear I must put these on you. They are magic chains. They cannot be undone, save by the archon himself. We are in the open, and the journey is long. I cannot have you plotting to escape. The only way out of these chains is to face the archon himself and submit yourselves to his justice.”

  Darius turned to make his wrists more easily accessible. He wasn’t one to fight the hopeless battles, not when there was a bigger problem to work on. “Pray that I don’t have a sword in my hand on that day.”

  Rondelo smiled at that, cut the thongs tying Darius’s wrists, let him put his hands in front of him, and latched on the chains. There was a flash of light as they closed over Darius’s wrists. “Thou hast a warrior’s spirit.” He held the second set up to Jason.

  “I hast that spirit where I don’t wearest handcuffs. No offense to you and Darius. It’s a conscious fashion decision I made some time ago. Not because of this current situation, I’ve just never liked the look. Makes my wrists look small.” He gave Rondelo an appraising stare, taking in his brocade jacket and the intricate silk stitching on his clothing. “I mean, you wear that crazy getup to go camping and catch fugitives. Surely you understand.”