by Lou Aronica
Chris held up a hand. “Tamarisk was definitely Becky’s idea.”
“It was your idea to create a world for bedtime stories, though.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Which you did to take Becky’s mind off of her cancer treatments.”
Chris nodded slowly. “That’s how it started, yes.”
Miea stood up and moved next to him on the sofa. She was practically vibrating with energy. Was this the same woman who’d spoken in such a dire way about her home during their last meeting?
“This is my theory: I think Tamarisk became real because of Becky’s illness. The two of you weren’t just telling stories to ease Becky’s mind. You were creating a world where she would never be sick.”
The revelation hit Chris all at once. He saw himself in Becky’s room in those early days after her illness, fully convinced that she would get better. He’d intended the stories to help with the transition. Instead, though, Becky’s body only managed to force the cancer into retreat. As it turned out, it had been an unwinnable fight from the very beginning. Was it possible that the stories really did have another purpose? Could Miea be right about this? Were they creating a world where Becky was okay? If so, then this was a greater fantasy that he ever imagined it to be.
The stories—the time together creating them, the imagination they unlocked, the special language they allowed Chris and Becky to speak together—had always been precious to him. Until now, though, sitting in Tamarisk and hearing this remarkable news, he’d only begun to realize how precious they were.
The images were too much for him to handle. Becky’s little-girl voice telling the first of the Tamarisk tales. Her more mature voice whispering in his ear that Tamarisk was real. Her expression when she learned that her illness was back. Her rolling on the ground without a care with the chestatee.
A sob wracked his body and he covered his face with his hands. He cried uncontrollably for several minutes, the flood releasing a wide variety of emotions at once.
At some point, Sorbus arrived with the argo. Miea touched him gently on the shoulder and asked him if he wanted a cup. Chris nodded and lifted his head, taking the carved wooden tumbler filled with effervescent brew. He sipped slowly, allowing the bubbles to play over his face, then breathed deeply and looked up at Miea.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“I have no idea.”
“There’s more. At least I believe there is. Dyson told me about what happened with Becky and the chestatee out on Mendana Island the other day.”
“I’ve been trying to make sense of that.”
“I believe I already have. Again, this is just a theory, but I think it is a very sound one. The discrepancies in the readings when Becky and you are in the fields ties in with this. I think the news we received from Dr. Nella and the revival of those plants shows definitively that Becky and Tamarisk have a symbiotic relationship.”
Chris put his cup on the table. His head was clearing. “Are you saying that the blight and Becky’s cancer are related?”
“I’m saying they’re the same thing. Becky is healthier here than she is in your world, and our world is healthier when she’s here. The difference is simply a matter of scale.”
That made sense to the degree that any of this made sense. What were the implications, though? What did it matter? “Still, at the end of the day, Becky is very sick at home, with no hope of a solution, and I suppose that means there is no solution available for Tamarisk, either.”
“Except if Becky lives here permanently.”
Chris startled at the sound of those words. “Is that even possible?”
“I think it was always meant to be.”
“But she gets yanked back into our world at entirely unexpected moments. She doesn’t have any control over it. How could she possibly stay?”
“The night Becky and I met I’d been meditating on the troubles we were having here. As I did, I found myself speaking to someone who looked like my father but didn’t speak like my father. That led to the path opening between Tamarisk and Becky. Last night, after speaking with Dr. Nella, I meditated in the same way, hoping to meet that presence again. It came to me this time without the guise of my father. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what it looked like. It spoke in phrases I didn’t completely understand, but then I felt a powerful sense of energy coming from it and into me, and it said, ‘Read the signs.’”
“I met that thing,” Chris said dazedly.
“You did?”
“The first time I came here. It juiced me, too, and it said a number of baffling things. ‘Absorb this and all other resources.’ I’ve been trying to figure out what that meant since I heard it. It has to do with what we’re talking about now, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe it does. I’ve spent most of the day trying to ‘read the signs’ and I think I have something. I believe if she truly decided she wanted to stay, Becky could do so—but only if she decided that she would stay here permanently. That’s what the signs mean about her health and her effect on our ecosystem. The biggest sign was that she was even able to get here at all. I think she goes home because she thinks of Connecticut as home. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe here is home and if she acknowledges that she’ll stay.”
“And she would remain healthy here?”
“I think she’d be as healthy as she is here right now. Certainly, she would not have cancer. Read the signs.”
Chris wanted desperately to believe Miea’s theory, even though he knew she had no way of testing it. While her suppositions were hardly scientific, they made sense. Becky wasn’t sick here. Her contact with Tamariskian plants made the plants healthier. She even made hungry chestatees playful. Could she really live here, though? Nothing that he knew suggested it was possible.
Yet it was the only choice Becky could make. Her time back home was ticking down fast. Here—if she could really stay here—she would be free of illness, of pain, and of fear of death. If Miea was right, Becky only needed to make the decision to stay here forever and her cancer would disappear.
“Can I stay here with her?” Chris said impulsively. He hadn’t really thought it through, but how much thinking was required? The most important thing in his world would be here, and Tamarisk would offer endless opportunities to discover. Nothing at home rivaled that.
Miea tipped her head sympathetically and shook it slowly. “That’s not what the signs suggest. This is Becky’s world, Chris. It was created for her—you said so yourself. You can’t get here on your own. I believe that means you can’t choose to stay here, either.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” he said sharply.
Miea looked at him carefully. “I don’t know any of this for certain. What I’m saying to you now is the result of speculation and meditation. None of this can be proven ahead of time, Chris. I believe it, though. As strongly as I’ve ever believed anything.”
“What if Becky chooses to keep me here?”
Miea’s expression clouded. “I don’t believe daughters can make that choice.”
That means I lose her either way. Of course, there were huge differences.
“Where would she live?”
“Right here in the palace with me.” Miea smiled softly, almost as though she were trying to spare his feelings. “We would be like sisters.”
Miea’s eyes were gleaming when she said this. She’s been thinking about this all day. Chris had no doubt that Miea would love and care for Becky. He’d never be with his daughter again, but he would know that she lived a life of comfort and wonder. Could he—or any parent—wish for more?
Of course I could. I could wish that I could share it with her.
This wasn’t like sending her off to college. Not long ago, he’d lamented the fact that once she went away to school, she would only be a visitor when he saw her. Now there wouldn’t even be the visits. If Miea was right, though—and when it came down to it, he really had little choice but to believe along with her—she wou
ld live. She would live a remarkable life. A life even she never would have dreamed.
“I guess we should go tell her,” he said, a little un-steadily.
Miea put a hand on his. “Give yourself a chance to get used to it first, Chris. Tell her when you get back home. I have another idea for how to spend our time together today.”
While she waited for her father and Miea, Becky explored the courtyard. Even now, when the kingdom was facing so many problems, she seemed to find something new wherever she looked. As she bent to examine a nearly translucent flower, her eyes fell on a tiny blue-orange-silver bird with a topknot of dark feathers. It hopped toward her first on one leg and then the other, twisting its head quickly from side to side. When Becky took a step in its direction, the bird emitted a loud call, something between a chirp and a bark. The volume of the sound so completely surprised Becky that she tumbled over and landed on her butt. Becky laughed, and the bird—she remembered now that it was called a hobcaw—took a peck out of the sole of her sneaker before flying off.
Becky didn’t get up immediately. She enjoyed running her hands through the tufted blue grass, inhaling the chocolatey smells of the Tamariskian soil. From this level, things even sounded different, as though the insects had their own music. Becky laid back and breathed deeply. She always felt so good here. She felt lighter, almost as though the gravity was different in this place, even though she knew it wasn’t. At this moment, it was nearly impossible for her to believe that things were going terribly wrong all around and inside of her.
Dad had been in with Miea for a while now. What were they talking about? It had to have something to do with Dr. Nella’s examination, and since Miea didn’t want her involved, it definitely couldn’t be good news. Maybe they were taking so long because Dad was having a tough time dealing with it. Becky knew how hard he was taking everything, even though he was trying not to show it. It was a little bit like when he and Mom got divorced.
No, actually, it was entirely different.
She rolled over and laid her cheek on the cool grass. The sensation comforted her. She knew one day soon she would no longer be able to visit Tamarisk and she wanted to memorize these feelings to hold on to for however long she had left after that.
What were those last days going to be like? No one wanted to talk to her about that part, but Becky knew they were going to be ugly. If she was lucky—if you could call it that—she’d fall into a coma before the worst of it.
She’d avoided thinking about this because it was so unbelievably scary. Dying wasn’t bad enough. It had to be a painful death, too. Becky didn’t want to die. And even with how she’d been feeling at home lately, it was so surreal to consider that it was just around the corner. In her heart, she believed that she still had so much life left. She had so many things she wanted to accomplish, so many things she thought she was supposed to accomplish. It was hard to imagine—especially now, lying here, enjoying this as much as she did—that she was about to be shut off, cut down.
She shuddered and sat up. Don’t do this. Don’t torture yourself. It doesn’t make anything better. Becky tried to get her head back to where it had been just moments ago, but the music she heard in the air now seemed to be out of tune. A couple of distinct, flat notes disrupted the rich harmonies of the birds and animals. She shook her head, but the sounds remained.
“Beck, are you okay?” her father said from a distance. She stood up and turned toward his voice. Miea was walking with him.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just checking some stuff out.”
She went toward them and tried to read their expressions. It was obvious that her father had a lot on his mind, but he didn’t look upset exactly. Miea, on the other hand, seemed happy. Even more surprisingly, she hugged Becky and kissed her on the cheek when they met up.
“You’ve heard from Dr. Nella?” Becky said, her eyes flitting between Miea and her father. Dad seemed about to say something, but Miea spoke up.
“There was a problem with one of the reports. It seems that several of our machines have become unreliable lately. We’ll have everything for your next visit.”
“Does the ‘problem with one of the reports’ mean it says something bad and you’re making sure?”
“No, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.”
Miea didn’t sound like herself and this made Becky suspicious. “If you say so.”
“Becky, really. There is nothing in the reports for you to worry about. We just need a little more time.”
“Babe, it’s okay,” Dad said. “It really is.”
There was definitely more going on here than they were saying, but she was pretty sure at this point that her father wouldn’t have been able to hide it from her if this was a disaster, so she let it go. “How come you were in there so long?”
“Miea and I had a number of details to talk about. Especially after that thing that happened in Mendana on Thursday. We should have come out to get you, but we got caught up in speculation.”
Becky nodded. Though the timing was weird, her father could have been telling her the truth. She could imagine Dad and Miea getting into all kinds of theories about what had happened with her and the chestatee. She had a few thoughts about that herself.
“Well, we should really get out in the fields. You kinda used up a lot of our time in there. Who knows how much we have left now.”
“Your father and you aren’t going out to the fields today, Becky,” Miea said.
“What do you mean? We might be on to something with this chestatee thing.”
“I realize that. I also realize that we’ve all been searching endlessly for a cure to the blight. I think the best thing for all of us is to take a break today. It might give us some perspective.”
Becky looked at her father and he just shrugged. She turned back to Miea. “I’m a little worried that we’re running out of time. I mean all of us.”
Miea pulled her close again. Something was definitely off here. “I know you are. I need you to trust me on this, though. We’ve all been acting nonstop. We need to take the time to clear our thoughts.”
“Miea’s right, babe,” Dad said. “And I really wouldn’t mind getting a chance to just enjoy this place a little.”
“Okay,” Becky said slowly, looking at both of them strangely. “If you really think this is a good idea, I’ll go along with it. What did you have in mind?”
“I want to take you to the university,” Miea said. “My waccasassa is waiting for us.”
Chris is a good man , Miea thought as they flew. He’s had to maintain a brave face for his daughter so often in the past, and now I’ve turned his world upside down yet again. She was sure that his first ride in a waccasassa was fascinating to him, but the joy he showed must have required some work. He was doing that for Becky’s benefit, to prevent her from seeing that his emotions were roiling. They had to be. Dr. Nella had provided the revelation that would save both Becky and Tamarisk. Chris was right when he said Miea’s theory wasn’t a fact, but the facts they had fit, and Miea’s time in the darkness last night had given her further reason to believe.
The solution, though, meant Chris would never get to see Becky again. Even if it was greatly preferable to Becky’s other fate, Chris had to feel a profound sense of loss from this.
The bird landed in the open field behind the Humanities Center. Of course, there were no such things as casual visits where a queen was concerned, and a team had flown on ahead to prepare the school for her arrival. Dean Sambucus—looking a little grayer than Miea remembered—and a large coterie of students were waiting when Miea’s party touched down.
“It’s very good to see you again, Your Majesty,” the dean said when she stepped off the waccasassa.
“Thank you, Dean. It has been a long time.”
“A very long time, Your Majesty. I hope you’ll grace us with more frequent visits in the future.”
Miea glanced over at Becky. “I look forward to that.”
; Miea attempted to dispense with formalities quickly. The purpose of this visit wasn’t to bestow official greetings on the university. It was to show Becky and Chris a part of her life. Fortunately, Dean Sambucus and the others in his party seemed to understand and they left the three of them as alone as Miea could ever be in a public place.
The foliage around the campus was in full bloom. The university was a botanical paradise, displaying every species of Tamariskian flora the climate allowed. The School of Botanical Studies—from which both Dyson and Thuja had graduated—was the finest in the kingdom, with an elite staff of professors and research scientists, many of whom were on call elsewhere during the current crisis. This region of Tamarisk had been spared the worst of the blight up to now and, given what Miea had learned today, would likely be spared forever. Miea realized there was a possibility that Becky would decide not to live in Tamarisk permanently, but she considered that possibility remote. How could Becky think of turning this down when death awaited her at home?
The first stop on their tour was Menziesii Hall, the ornately decorated auditorium built via a donation from her great-great-great-grandparents. Constructed from huge slabs of malheur, the building was carved by dozens of artisans over the course of years. At the time of its construction, artists considered work on a portion of the hall to be the most prestigious commission available, competed aggressively for the honor, and contributed some of their most passionate pieces.
“This place is incredible,” Becky said, running her hand over a carving of the hills of Custis.
“The detail is extraordinary,” Chris said. “So many artistic styles blended so seamlessly.”
Miea was delighted they were so impressed. “It’s even more of a masterwork than it appears. Each carving was ‘tuned’ by engineers so that the sound is consistent in every seat in the hall.”
“Wow,” Becky said, placing her ear against a wall, “I wish there was a concert playing here right now.”