Mom opened her eyes, and tears spilled down her cheeks. Caleb traced a track through them with one finger, then sighed and sank to the floor, his lips twisting into a smile.
Mom sat up and looked at me, her eyes clear and focused, seeing me at last. “Liza,” she whispered, as if in pain still. “Lizzy, my baby, my girl.” She pulled me into a fierce hug.
I thought of all she'd hidden, of all she hadn't trusted me to know. I thought of how I'd found her and how she hadn't wanted to be found. But I hugged her back, drawing shuddering breaths, clinging like a child.
It took me several heartbeats to realize how silent Caleb was, several more to draw away from Mom. I put a hand to his neck. The skin was warm but I felt no pulse.
“Caleb,” I called. No answer. I turned the word to a command. “Caleb. Kaylen.” Still nothing.
My throat went dry. I promised Allie, I thought again.
Mom reached out as if to shake him, then drew away, pain settling more deeply over her features. I'd been willing to accept what Caleb asked, but what about Mom? What about Allie?
Caleb's silver eyes were still open. I looked into them, seeing again how like mirrors they really were.
How far was too far? How long until you had no choice but to let someone go?
Caleb's eyes grew brighter, bright as metal, bright as moonlight. I didn't look away. I stared into those eyes, and as I stared I saw—
Caleb kneeling beneath a gray sky, sifting dark soil through his hands. Around him blackened trees rose like bones from the dead land.
I stood in that same land, saw those same trees. “Caleb,” I called. He didn't hear. I walked toward him, and my legs were lead, almost too heavy to lift. Cinders crunched beneath my feet. Above a pale sun shone, giving no heat.
My skin was pale, too. My clothes were washed of all color. I knew I was here in mind only, that back in Kate's house my body slumped motionless as Caleb's. I called his name again. I tried to walk faster but I couldn't. I could only take one step, and the next, and the next. I reached out to touch Caleb's shoulder. He looked up, and there was no surprise, no grief, no curiosity in his gaze.
“It is finished,” he said.
“Not yet.” I reached for his hand and pulled him to his feet. He neither helped nor hindered me. His weight was like a sack of grain. But when I turned and started walking again, he didn't ask me to let him go. He walked with me.
Our steps were slow, though, too slow. I felt the land dragging at my feet. I wanted to stop, to gather my strength, just for a moment or two. Dust blew through the air, blurring my sight. My legs were lead, heavier than lead. Without realizing it I fell to my knees. Caleb's hand slipped from my own. I stared down at the blackened earth, knowing I needed to stand but not remembering how. Amid the cinders I saw dark maple seeds, gray mulberries, black acorns. I clutched a small dark nut in one hand—perfectly round, it belonged to no species I knew. Dead, I thought. Dead and gone. I was the one who had gone too far, beyond any place where things grew.
Yet the seed was cool in my hand. I felt the green deep within the nut calling me, begging to be called. Seeds weren't like people. Even when they seemed to sleep for years and years, something living remained in them, awaiting the call of sun and rain. Father had warned me often enough of the dangers seeds held.
But Father was gone. And the green in the nut kept calling me, begging to be called.
I remembered the green vines that had twined around Karin's hands. I remembered the weeds around our house and how they fought me year after year. I remembered how corn and squash fought me, fought my town and all its harvesting.
I clutched the nut tighter. I remembered how my town fought the corn and squash in turn, because we knew they would keep us alive. I remembered Matthew struggling to breathe as Caleb healed him. I remembered how tightly Allie had clutched the rope above her as she crossed the river.
I remembered how I'd called for Karin's help when the trees had attacked us. I remembered how I'd reached for Matthew's hand out of a dark river, because I knew without thought, without reason, that I, too, wanted to live.
I remembered Rebecca's cries. I remembered how my sister had come back at my call, clinging to shadow when nothing else remained. Most things wanted to grow, given a chance. I found the strength to stand and reached for Caleb's hand once more. The seed in my other hand shivered, green struggling to break free. Around us the gray land turned to silver, shimmering bright. Silver surrounded us, veined everywhere with green—
I blinked in the brightness, and all at once I was looking down at Caleb, and he was looking up at me, while Mom watched us both, tears drying on her cheeks. Caleb opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. “I'm sorry,” I said. My voice was stiff, as if not used to speech. “I know I should have asked. Allie says you should always ask before calling someone back. Only I can see well enough Mom needs you here, and Allie, too, so I couldn't just let you go. And, well, you didn't seem to mind, not like Tallow.”
Caleb drew a long, uneven breath, then another, more steady. He sat up and solemnly lifted my chin. “Do not apologize, Liza. It was well done.”
I cried then. Not for Mom, not for Caleb, not even for myself. For the memory of a seed, shivering in my hand, not understanding it was in a place without life or color or hope.
I realized I held something. I looked down, unfolding my fingers as I did.
A small red-brown nut lay cupped in my palm, perfectly round, save for a small crack in its shell, thin as good nylon thread from Before.
Chapter 18
I had a sister once. She was a beautiful baby, long-limbed and graceful, eyes dark as shadows through mulberry trees.
A month after her birth I crept out before dawn. I followed the road, carrying an oil lamp in one hand. My breath frosted in front of me. Maples and sycamores whispered among themselves, but I didn't fear them. I listened, as Father had taught me always to listen. I knew I had magic enough to keep the trees at bay.
The hillside where Rebecca had died was a patchwork of blackberry and sumac. “Go away,” I whispered, and the bushes gently parted, letting me through.
I searched for a long time, but no bones remained, no sign that anything but brown roots had ever troubled the earth. Finally light touched the horizon, and I blew the lantern out. The sky was gray as old embers.
I opened my other hand and stared at the nut that lay in my palm. The crack in its shell remained small, but I felt the green within yearning, like the shadows of the dead had yearned, to be called.
I dug a hole in the dirt with my fingers and buried the nut there. “Grow,” I whispered to it. “Seek sun, seek water, seek air. ”
I waited, but nothing happened. Sometimes what we want or don't want doesn't matter in the end. Sometimes magic doesn't listen after all. I patted the dirt down and returned to the road. I heard Allie's footsteps even before I turned. “You should know better by now than to leave us behind,” she said. Her hand rested on a wolf's back; he'd been sniffing the ground as they walked. Allie drew her hand away, and the wolf sat, regarding me. I regarded him back, knowing his gray eyes. I would always know him, whatever form he took.
“I wasn't leaving,” I said.
Allie tugged on her braid. Samuel had patiently worked all the tangles out. “That's what Matthew thought, too, but I wasn't so sure. So Matthew said he'd go with me, and Dad agreed. Boys aren't always silly, you know.”
“I know.” I reached out to scratch Matthew behind the ears, then drew away, embarrassed.
Matthew's nose nudged my hand back into place. Allie laughed. After a moment, I laughed, too. “You do have a wet nose,” I said, kneeling to put my arms around his neck. Matthew rested his head on my shoulder with a contented sigh. I thought of how he'd followed me against all reason. A few snowflakes fell, and I watched them land in his fur. Maybe everything wasn't dust and ashes after all.
“Look!” Allie cried.
Reluctantly I drew away, looking where she p
ointed.
Amid the brambles of blackberry and sumac a green sapling rose from the hillside, sprouting branches, sprouting leaves, grasping for the sky. Even as I watched, the central shoot darkened to cinnamon brown. The green leaves grew bright, and brighter still, and then all at once green gave way to a brilliant orange-red—as if the leaves had caught a bit of sun and didn't want to let it go. Those leaves were perfectly round. Quia leaves. Leaves from Faerie.
Allie grabbed my hand. Beside us Matthew stood, ears cocked forward, fur bristling along his back. The tree kept growing until it was tall as I was, and taller still. The sumac and blackberry bushes around it began changing, too, their leaves catching shades of rust and scarlet. Suddenly frightened I shouted, “Stop!”
The quia tree grew on, heedless as the River of my command. A branch released an orange leaf. It fluttered to the ground. Wind blew another leaf toward the road. It landed in Allie's hair, and I hastily pulled it away.
The leaf wasn't warm, in spite of its fiery hue. It was a leaf, nothing more, nothing less. Other leaves began falling, too, doing no harm. Matthew caught one beneath his paw and sniffed it uneasily. The flurries stopped, but the air still smelled of snow.
Once leaves had changed color in autumn, burning fierce as fire, falling soft as snow. I stared at the orange leaf in my hand, thinking of the seed I'd brought back from a place beyond either my world or Faerie, a place where the time for growing was past.
“I think it's all right,” I said slowly. “I think it's only—autumn. The way autumn used to be Before.”
For a time the tree kept growing and we kept watching it. At last the growing stopped. The quia stood tall as a young dogwood by then, and half its branches were bare. How long, I wondered, before new leaves started to grow? Not until the snows melted, perhaps.
A moment more I gazed at the hillside where my sister had died and where the quia tree now stood. “Rest well,” I said softly, and then I turned away.
We returned to town in silence, watching the maples and elms catch color ahead of us, reds and yellows and oranges leaping from tree to tree, advancing through the forest, a fire without heat. Magic, I thought. Maybe there had always been something like magic in this world.
At the edge of town I hesitated, glancing at Matthew. He walked on without stopping, though, head and tail held high, as if he were done with hiding. I wondered whether that was safe, even with Father gone. But if anyone tried to harm him, they'd have both of us to answer to, and perhaps the others as well. Maybe in time we would all be able to stop hiding.
Most folks were out in the fields—the flurries were reminder enough of the need to finish harvesting. Outside Kate's home she and Samuel watched the changing leaves beyond the houses in silence, the door open behind them.
Samuel reached for his daughter as we approached. He hadn't let her out of his sight yesterday, not even when we went to bury Tallow. Allie had cried as I set the old cat down in the earth, even as she told me I was right to let Tallow go.
Now Allie solemnly handed her father a yellow oak leaf she'd picked up from the road. Samuel clutched it in his hand. “I think maybe the trees will sleep this winter.” He grinned. “Almost like Before.”
Allie laughed. “That's silly. Trees don't sleep.”
Samuel tossed the leaf above him. It danced in the wind a moment before drifting down. Allie caught it again just before it touched the ground.
Behind them, Caleb stepped into the doorway. Mom followed, and Caleb helped her down the stairs. She was weak, she was pale, but she would heal now. Caleb had said so, and I was trying to believe it.
She wanted to heal now. I didn't need Caleb to tell me that.
At the bottom of the stairs Caleb drew away. He and Mom kept a careful distance, as if not quite sure of each other yet. I thought of how they'd walked together among the trees, unafraid. But that was Before, and autumn or not, I doubted the trees would ever be fully tame again.
Caleb stared thoughtfully at the bright leaves. Then he stared at me, just as thoughtful. “Well done, indeed,” he said, and nodded.
I held out the quia leaf in my hand.
Caleb grew very still. He took the leaf from me as seriously as he had once taken a quarter from my mother, turning it over in his hands. “There'll be seeds,” he said softly. “Within a few years. We'll go back then. We'll take the risk, if only long enough for planting.” He smiled, a small smile but a real one, reminding me of the young man in my visions. “Our worlds have always been linked, Liza. We forgot that during the War. We should never have forgotten.”
“Lizzy.” Mom started forward, then stopped, as if no more sure of me than of Caleb.
I walked toward her instead, slowly, steadily—until with what might have been a sob and might have been a laugh she pulled me close.
All may yet be well. Almost, I believed that. Not as a promise. No one could promise, not after the War, not after so many other things that couldn't be undone.
But the trees were releasing their leaves. Who knew what else might happen?
Allie twirled her oak leaf on its stem. Matthew leaned against his grandmother, and Kate draped her arm absently over his back. Leaves continued to fall. Snow flurries began once more. And my mother kept holding me, holding me close, as if this time she wouldn't let go.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to: Laurell K. Hamilton, Deborah Millitello, Marella Sands, Bob Sheaff, and Mark Sumner, who read the opening of Bones of Faerie before I left St. Louis; Jane Yolen, who also read the opening and kept asking when I was going to finish the book until I finally did; C. S. Adler, Dawn Dixon, Larry Hammer, Jill Knowles, Ann Manheimer, Patricia McCord, Earl W. Parrish, Frances Robertson, Roxy Rogers, Amy Stewart, Jennifer J. Stewart, and Robin Stewart, all of whom read and reread the manuscript for me; my agent, Nancy Gallt, who believed in the completed story; and my editor, Jim Thomas, who took the best book I knew how to write and showed me how to make it better.
About the Author
Janni Lee Simner caught her first glimpse of the St. Louis Arch on a cross-country camping trip when she was thirteen. She returned to St. Louis for college and lived there for eight years before making her way farther west. She currently lives in the Arizona desert, where even without magic the plants know how to bite and the dandelions really do have thorns. She's published four books for younger readers, as well as more than thirty short stories.
Bones of Faerie is her first young adult novel.
To learn more about Janni, visit her Web site at www.simner.com
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