by Anya Josephs
I do allow myself the luxury of shoving the silky pillow from the bed into my pack. I know that this trip won’t be an easy one, that I won’t be comfortable again as I am in this bed now for quite a long time. I want to take a small piece of that comfort with me, something to soothe the difficulties of the journey and remind me of how cloying even the greatest luxury can become.
There’s one more thing I need with me. Wincing at the damage done to such a lovely and ancient object, I rip the map out of the book. I don’t have time to trace the whole detailed map onto another piece of paper, and I know that I won’t be able to bear the weight of the whole bound volume with me on this enormously long trip. Instead, I will have to do my best with this single page. I trace out my route with one finger: from the star in the center, the Capital, over to the silvery dot in the distant East.
Iashome.
And mine too, I hope. I believe, with a clarity I’ve never felt except in the cavern when Sisi was crowned.
The maid returns with the pack of food I’d asked for. I thank her and send her back to bed. As soon as she’s gone, I begin digging through the pack, eager to see how many supplies she’s brought me. She was very generous: three paper rolls of two dozen hard-baked crackers each, a wheel apiece of two different kinds of hard cheese, a pound of dried cherries and one of dried apples, and even a log of dry beef sausage.
If I’m careful with it, this is easily enough food to last me for three weeks’ journey, perhaps a month, even if I need more than usual to eat since I’ll be walking so much. And it’s now the height of summer, so hopefully I’ll be able to find some berries and such along the way.
I tie everything up in my canvas sack, as neatly and carefully as possible, and then slip out of the room to find the last of what I’ll need.
Luckily, my long weeks of wandering unseen through the palace give me an advantage. I am resolved not to take anything that isn’t mine if I don’t have to, but there are a few tools I’m certain are necessary. I return to my room with a compass, some rope, and a brick of matches pilfered from various supply closets before I imagine anyone has noticed I’m gone or could have seen me on my way.
All packed for my journey, I take up the pen, ink, and paper on my desk, and begin to compose my notes of farewell.
The first is to the family as a group. I know that not all of them will be able to read it for themselves, but I hope Jorj will agree to read it to them. I’m not sure if what I’m able to put down is right. I want to find words that will stem the feelings everyone will have when they find my bed empty in the night, but I’m not sure what that reaction will be.
Will they be furious? Upset? Devastated?
Or will they not even care?
I look to my pack as that thought crosses my mind and let it make my resolve even firmer. As frightening as it may be to leave everything behind, I can’t stay here, where I have no purpose, no reason, and no one to care for me. Still, this last task has to be done. I can’t just disappear without a word to anyone as to where I’m going and what I’m doing.
They have to at least have some reason to hope that I’m safe. I want to leave them with that much, in case they want it.
To all of you who are so dear to me: Aunt Mae, Aunt Sarie, Uncle Willem, Cousin Will, Cousin Merik, Cousin Belerd, Cousin Merri, Cousin Jorj, and little Mali:
There is no way to say this lightly.
There is no way to say this that will not hurt you, as much as that is the last thing I want, for I love you all dearly.
But here it is, for I feel I owe you the truth: there is no place for me back at Prinnsfarm. There never has been. You have loved me well, but you have never needed me there, and so there is nothing for me to do but to leave. I have to figure out who I am and where I come from.
I believe that my mother is out there. I’m going after her, however far I have to look. I hope I will come back with good news, and with a sense of who I am and what I ought to do.
I, like Sisi, am coming of age. I hope that I will find my place in life as she has found hers. You must think on the fact that, two years ago, none of us would have believed that she could find the happiness she has here in the palace. My own journey may seem just as unbelievable, and yet I know it is possible for me, too, to find my place, but not if I go back to the farm. There I will only rot, like fruit that has been left on the branch for too long. I must harvest myself now, while it is time.
I will miss you all bitterly, and our home near as much. Take care of one another for me. Tell the baby about me. Don’t forget me, wherever I go.
All my love,
Jeni
It isn’t easy to write, but when it’s done it feels right. It feels like enough. I’ve done the best I can to tell them of my plans, to let them know my reason for going, without giving them any hope of following me and making me come back. I try not to dwell on what their reactions will likely be. If I’m going, I should not let too many of my thoughts stay behind.
The next letter is to my father. I know I ought to write something just to him, even though it’s hard to figure out what that is. He and I have never had much to say to one another, and so it’s difficult to encapsulate everything that has been underneath all our long silences as I begin to put pen to paper. But I’m leaving, and I know this might be the last thing I ever say to him. I don’t want to leave with regrets and questions, and I can’t make him open up to me. I have to be the one to bridge the gulf between us now, at last.
Dear Papa,
Thank you for what you said to me tonight. It is the first time I have ever felt that you and I understand each other. That we know a little bit of what is in one another’s hearts.
And I know there is love in your heart. Love for me. I wasn’t always sure, but now, as I’m leaving, I know that it is there, unspoken and steady. Just like you. It isn’t easy for you to show it. I know how much you miss my mother, how different I am from you, everything that stands in the way of us loving one another.
I wish that I could write more clearly of some kind of forgiveness for that, but I don’t feel it. I am terribly angry. I believe that is part of why I am leaving.
My mother abandoned me. Did you have to do the same? It was almost worse, since you were gone though you stayed there right beside me all the time.
My eyes well up with tears as I write those words. I know I shouldn’t say it. I’ve been not saying it as long as I can remember. It’s always been in my heart, on my mind, but I’ve been avoiding ever putting it into words because I don’t want to hurt my father, and because I have no idea what will come of it. I can’t imagine that it would be a particularly productive conversation to have face-to-face. And, just like with Sisi, I can’t face the possibility of opening myself up, pleading to be seen and heard as I never have been, and being turned away.
But here is my coward’s way of making my feelings heard. Everything I’ve ever not said, I will write here, even though I’ll have no way of knowing how my father takes it.
I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry that I am going, that I am doing as my mother did and leaving you behind. I am sorrier still that I cannot be more understanding as I do so. I wished to leave with kind words, so that you remember me with nothing but fondness if I do not return, but you are honest enough that I doubt that is what you would want. I think you would want the truth that has never been spoken between us.
I wish I could have told you to your face, plainly. I wish everything was different for us. But if it were, I wouldn’t need to be going.
You said there’s no place for me here at the palace, and I do believe that. I do know that, in my very heart. There’s no reason for me to stay here.
But there’s no reason for me to return home, either.
You don’t exactly need me to make the farm run. I do have a job, but it’s one that you could easily do without me there. I have been happy at times, sad at others, like any child. I know you have loved me, in your quiet way, but I must try and find my home,
the way you have found yours on the farm. As you said, we are nothing without our place in this Earth. You have yours. I need to find mine.
I hope you will miss me, but not too much. I will miss you, and terribly so, but nonetheless, I know I must go.
I love you, wherever I am, whatever may happen. And whenever I think of you, know that I am thinking of the love you have shown me, and that I leave the bitterness, the anger, behind in this letter.
I hope beyond hope that you will do the same for me.
Jeni.
And finally, the saddest and hardest of them all. I don’t let myself think of what this last farewell will cost me, or what it means. I’ve already chosen to make the sacrifice for her sake, to let her go. This is just the last formality. Or so I tell myself, but my hand is shaking as I dip my pen in the ink, set it to paper, and write out the words.
Dear Sisi—
My darling, my love, my Queen of All—
I can’t do it. I let the pen clatter back down and put my head in my hands. What am I thinking? I can’t leave her, can’t leave everything I know behind when I don’t even know what I’m doing, where I’m going. I won’t survive the trip, much less find my mother and whatever it is that I’m looking for. The whole thing is only a temporary madness, and I ought to put it all right out of my mind. I stand up to start putting things away, about to begin unpacking my bags when I hear a knock at the door. I assume it’s the maid—I just won’t answer, and soon enough she’ll depart.
“Jena?” a voice calls.
It isn’t a maid at all. It’s Sisi. I would know her voice anywhere. And no one else calls me by my True Name.
I look around, desperate. There’s no way to hide everything, the letters, the parcel of clothes, the sack of food, unless I’m willing to make her wait. And knowing Sisi, it won’t be long before—
She lets herself in.
She stands in the doorway, arms crossed. Her unbound hair haloes her head, and she’s wearing a white shift, simple and stark against the dark brown of her skin. She’s clearly still half-asleep. She comes over to me, sitting next to me on our bed. My bed, I correct myself. This has never been ours, and we’ll never share again, but that feels hard to believe as I look back at her and the almost-familiar picture she makes there. We could be in our bedroom back at home. I feel the tears in my eyes again, and this time I can’t stop them from falling.
“I thought so,” she says softly.
“Thought what?”
“You’re running away.” It’s not a question.
“What? How do you know? I mean, what are you talking about?”
“You’re a terrible liar, Jena.”
“I know.” I always have been.
“You were bound to, sooner or later.” She sighs. “I could tell that you were becoming restless. I didn’t know when you would decide to go, but I felt sure that sooner or later you would determine you couldn’t stay here any longer. And you can’t exactly go home, can you?”
“So you believe that too?” I ask, eager for her reassurance. “I thought so, but—” It made me feel a bit mad, to be so convinced my home wasn’t really my home.
“Of course. You’ve never belonged at the farm.”
“And now you won’t even be there.”
“So you have to go somewhere else. Where?”
“East. I’m looking for my mother.”
She nods, unsurprised at my answer, though of course she has questions. She wouldn’t be Sisi if she didn’t have questions. “Why do you think you should look to the East?”
I show her the map.
“This is—”
“From one of the first books you brought up here. I always felt, I don’t know, drawn to it. And now I see—”
“Your mother’s name. You think she’s there.”
I shrug. “I hope so. I don’t know. But it’s somewhere to start. Somewhere to go.”
Gently, Sisi takes my hand, lacing her fingers with mine. We sit in silence for a moment. I soak up the warmth of her touch, her familiar, steady presence beside me. I don’t know how long it will be before I can feel it again, and I want to remember it perfectly if I never do. “I wish I could go with you, my dear one,” she says.
“What? But you have Balion. Why would you want to leave?”
“Because you’re going on the great adventure I never had. I probably never will have one, now.” She smiles slightly, and I think of how she’d been when we set off for the Capital, full of anger at the way the Kingdom works, full of passion to change it for something better. She’s somehow, silently, given much of that up for Balion’s sake. I don’t think she regrets it, but I realize in that moment that I’m not the only one who has had to make sacrifices.
Somehow that makes it all much easier, and some of the bitterness that has filled me up ever since we arrived leaches away, replaced with a glow of tenderness toward her. It’s easy, suddenly, to find the right words to make her feel better, and to want to say them with a whole heart.
“You’re a penniless orphan who fell in love with the King and married him! What could be a greater adventure than that?” I’m teasing, a little, but I mean it too.
“I suppose. But I’ll spend most of the rest of my life in the palace or traveling on official business. My journeys from now on will take place in the royal library and around meeting tables. And if I change things, it will be through the slow process of law. No mysteries, no assignations, no revolutions. You, on the other hand, are completely free. You will go far, and you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“You think so?”
“I do. And I’ll prove it, too. I can’t go with you, but I can ease the way.”
“Sisi?”
“I’m giving you some money. For your trip. It’s in your bags, which are in the stables, ready to go. I had a horse saddled for you—consider it a wedding gift.”
“Sorry,” I say as I realize. “I guess I should have gotten you a wedding gift—since you’re the one who got married.”
She grins. “I got the most wonderful man of the Earth, and an entire Kingdom to call my own. I think that’s agreeable enough, as gifts go. I wouldn’t ask for more.”
“And?” Because I know her just as well as she knows me, and I know that there’s something she isn’t saying.
“And I thought this might be good for you. I don’t want to convince you to stay, Jena.”
“Why not?”
“Think of the night we learned we were coming here. You were afraid to even go down to the kitchen after you were supposed to be in bed. You were such a timid little girl, always in my shadow and frightened to be even there. Now you are ready to set off into the Kingdom all by yourself, ready to become a woman grown and independent. I want this for you, as much as I wanted it for myself. I could never wish anything more for you than to find this bravery in yourself: the knowledge that you have to find your place, and the courage to go out looking for it. As I have. As I have found it with Balion, much to my own surprise.”
“Sisi,” I say, suddenly overcome by emotion. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t…”
It’s the first time I can remember that I haven’t been immediately corrected for calling her by her childish by-name. For so many years, she’s been very insistent on being called by her True Name, ever since she was old enough to understand why women have True Names and by-names and why the former is forbidden. But this time, she doesn’t correct me, only smiles at me.
“No one will call me that anymore, I’ve realized. How I used to hate it. But from now on, I won’t be Sisi to anyone. It’ll be Your Majesty, or Lady Sisi at the best. Maybe I can even make them all call me Queen Sigranna. I don’t know that that’s what I want. I don’t know that I want to forget the girl that I was with you. Yet I have to let you go, little bird.”
“Why do you call me that?”
“It’s what your True Name means. Jena. Little bird. And you’re going to learn how to fly.”
She�
��s always insisted on using my True Name, just as she wants me to use only hers. She’s the only one that ever called me that before I came here to this palace, and I’d never been very fond of it. From Sisi though, this time, it sounds loving, affectionate. It sounds like a playful secret between us, the kind we will no longer whisper every night. Not ever again. I take her hand for a moment, and she leans in to kiss my forehead.
“Now, it’s getting late. You should go, if you want a good start on your trip by the time the others wake in the morning. You should plan on being outside the City walls by then, in case your father comes after you. I’m sending a guard to the wall with you, since there can be a great deal of danger in walking around the City by yourself as a young woman. I can’t ask a soldier to travel further than that without telling the King—”
“Don’t. I don’t need an escort. I want to travel alone.”
“He’ll go with you just as far as the Unplanned Regions just around the palace. It’s dangerous out there, and it’s changed since the last time there was a map drawn. Another thing I suppose I ought to have fixed around here once it comes time to govern. By morning, when you’re in the woods and you’re not likely to see anyone to bother you, he’ll be gone.”
I agree to that much, and Sisi nods conclusively. The business is over. It doesn’t seem right to end things at this moment, on this strangely mercenary note. We’ve been everything to one another for so many years, and now we’re about to say goodbye. I don’t know for how long, but certainly for long enough, and perhaps forever.
Finally, at that thought, the tears come properly, welling out through my eyes, rolling down my cheeks, hot and heavy. I fall into Sisi’s open arms, pillowing my head on her breast, and I cry and cry. She weaves her fingers through my hair, holding me, and for a long time I think of nothing except this. Except the fact that, for now, likely for the last time, we are together.