The Necessity of Stars

by E. Catherine Tobler

  “They had a name, Delphine,” I blurted out. “Tura. Their name is Tura, and they... They were the trees. The trees had shadows and then they didn’t, and Tura pulled themselves back into a form that was...part tree, part insect? I can’t... It doesn’t make sense.”

  Delphine pulled me toward the kitchen table and sat me down. She padded back toward the stove and kettle, drawing mugs out of the cupboard. “Then we’ll sit and talk until it does make sense.”

  6

  When I don’t remember my own name, I will remember this.

  Tura took my skin and made it their own. This was how they became the trees; they slipped into the skin and became. They were skilled at mimicking almost anything, but the natural world was the easiest. Tura had never thought to mimic a human, had never thought to touch us because they had come to hide.

  They were two: predator and prey. Tura and his kind were pursued, and they watched as their own were slaughtered, consumed. Past the point of any return—like Earth, Tura said as they became my spine. Strength felt like freedom and purpose, and with Tura running down my thighs, discovering my bones, I could do anything.

  Pursued, Tura continued; to the brink of extinction, and so they had fled. They were not mice—the predators were not snakes. Each were intelligent, but one consumed the other—until their society collapsed and became something else. In their flight, they had found Earth, had found its warming environment to be just to their liking. There was plenty to eat here, plenty to drink, and it wasn’t only the fish. It was the sunlight and the heat, Tura said. Like the trees, they would drink it.

  Tura stood across from me in the darkness and it was my face I saw, my old and wrinkled face. I reached an equally wrinkled hand out, to touch the chin, the cheek, and it was me. My pale, hunched body stood across from me and Tura moved as a tree could not move, bending and flexing joints as I never now could.

  They had been here an age, long before I had even been born. Been here—at Irislands, I realized—they had watched Sugden, they had watched me. Tura told me of the world, how it had been—so many people, so many machines, and now so much of it lay in disarray. Tura told me the story lodged in the tree rings, how the world began to change, how it began to heat, which allowed them to become something they had never been before—free. They lived without being hunted, they developed family units and had children. They lived. My garden, they said, was their masterwork, so many of their people united in a purpose, in survival. Tura’s kind had remade the world—small portions of it, in any case.

  But now the problem had come—the predators had come. The incident in the park, Tura said—but before that, smaller things, smaller encroachments.

  The lily pond. They would have eaten you, Bréone.

  I startled at my memory within Tura’s memory. Saw them rip the lily stems from the ground, and haul me to safety. They had touched me before, then—they had.

  The hunting had begun, and so many of them could not remember what it had been to be hunted, they rushed to welcome others of their kind with open arms, only to be destroyed. I asked how Tura could know—did they watch the news, and my question was hedged with a laugh, because I knew this would not be the answer.

  They were a collective, Tura said; as the trees were a collective. A network, Tura said. As the trees communicated with each other, so did Tura and their kind. Becoming the trees only enhanced their ability. Through a network of deep-running roots, and branching canopies, Tura could push their consciousness toward others, could see and know through others, without leaving the garden at all.

  This changing, Tura said, was another kind of armor. We wear armor to protect ourselves against a violent assault, I told them, and Tura nodded, nodded until I was certain it was my own head making the gesture. The violence and horror they had seen coursed through me—for a long breath, I became as Tura was, the trees and the roots and the network of information. I knew everything, and it was too much.

  I was also remembering:

  I am standing in a pond, the water gathered around my waist, the lily stems tickling my legs. There are no leaves on the trees that arch over the pond—it is winter, and yet the pond has not frozen. Every branch above me is bare, but for the spruce and pine. My feet curl into the mud of the pond bottom and I am filled with a desperate need to get away. From what? From who?

  I was remembering:

  I know that I am dying. And then I am not. I am on the edge of the pond, spluttering water, trying to make sense of the net of branches above me. They are clouds of darkness, blooming nebula as my eyes try to readjust. And then they are solid, only trees after all, but I hear voices in the trees, and I think I’m imagining them. I can hear their stories, they are running, the trees are running, and they can’t outrun what is hunting them, so they will sit unmoving and outwait the world. They will drink in the sunlight, they will swallow the snow, they will—

  Tura hauled me from the water. Tura saved me from another of their kind, the kind that meant to break my bones and suck the marrow.

  Tura dropped my skin and returned to my side. They placed their star hands on my shoulders, and took a deep breath. They touched their forehead to mine. Tura remembered everything, and offered to remember it for me. They could keep my skin and remember. They could become what I no longer was.

  I thought of the empty spaces in my garden, where all the trees had once been, where Tura and their kind had...subsumed them. What happens to the trees? When you become?

  We become the tree, we become.

  The tree—

  Is us.

  When I don’t remember my name, I—

  I will remember. This.

  7

  Every morning, it took me a moment to remember where I was. I never simply knew that it was my bed, my house. Regular work used to provide structure, and while I tried to do the same thing every day, I remained something of a loose end. Some days, I didn’t remember what I had for lunch, even though I was convinced I had the very same thing as the day before. I didn’t remember eating it, so how could it be? I worried that I wore the same clothes every day, for I had set them neatly together, as if to make it easier on myself. I only knew I didn’t wear the same clothes by the pile of laundry that eventually needs doing.

  I tried to sleep at the same time every night, and set an alarm for the same time every morning. I didn’t always get up right away; when I didn’t remember where I was, it helped to look at the screen beside my bed. I told my screen to scroll through my family photos—and how did I remember that?

  The past was closer than the present, so I remembered each child’s birth, each child’s step. I remembered my wedding and I remembered that I did not love him enough, but hoped I would love my children enough. (Can we ever? How do we know?) My screen slid from face and face, and every moment was familiar. But were they only familiar because I told myself they were? Everything that happened in the past was more real to me than present, everyday life.

  This was the face of my son. My firstborn, the triumph of my husband’s life—he said, until our daughter was born and he turned his back on his family entirely. This was the face of my son, beloved but coddled, because he was first and we knew nothing in the raising of him. Had we done the right thing, having a child? What kind of world were we sending him into? But no parent knew—since time began, no one could ever know.

  In the photograph, he was seventeen. We had gone to Paris to “see the sights,” as it was still done, though those sights had changed. I was curious about the Seine and how much it had flooded since our last trip to the city. The old train tracks were completely submerged, but now even the hover rail supports were being consumed by the river.

  “Even if every shred of ice cap melted,” my son was fond of saying, “it would not erase Paris from the map. Paris flooded before, you know—countless times, probably. Subways and wine cellars, all gobbled by water. Paris is still standing. Paris will always stand.”

  Two hundred years ago, in 1910, Paris
had what they called “the Great Flood.” Winter rains flooded the river eight meters above its normal height. The streets had been awash in garbage—and, as my son liked to imagine, bodies. (Zombie stories persist—the undead ever with us.) The railway had been underwater then, too, but in two months, the waters retreated. Now, the river did not retreat; it took the land it had claimed.

  My son had loved the city. Did he still?

  The screen shifted. This was the face of my daughter, the terro—

  “No, that’s Delphine’s daughter,” I whispered.

  My daughter the school teacher—that was it, wasn’t it? She didn’t love Paris half as well as my son did—she liked the country life, because it was simpler. Cities, she said, were too confusing. I allowed that city streets could be baffling in their organization, but one had to appreciate a subway with clearly marked stops and locations.

  She always shook her head when I tried to explain how they worked to small-her. The roads on the hard ground were fine with her, she insisted. I came to realize she was not confused by the city so much as she was afraid of it. As my son boasted about Paris beating back the floods, my daughter saw the truth: Paris had flooded, every subway tunnel swallowed. She did not want to be there should it happen again.

  The face of my former husband was not among those I cherished, nor among those I used to remind myself where and who I am. This was never our bed, only ever mine. It is the distinct lack of him that helps me remember. This was never his house, though he lived here for a time; his work always kept him away, he was fond of saying, but I rather thought it was my work that kept him away, for he was not a man to live in a woman’s shadow.

  Slowly, I remembered where I was. Remembered my conversation with Delphine, but also my conversations with Tura.

  Tura took my skin.

  Had that happened?

  I stretched my arms out and could not see that it had. I was flawless—well, no. My body was wrinkled and scarred, carrying its age about for all to see. What I could not see was any sign that I had slipped right out of my skin. It was a dream, I told myself. A fancy made by a mind in decline. Tura had said they could remember for me—I could tell them everything, and they would remember. Wouldn’t that be a lovely thing?

  What was true was that Tura and I had started to share tea in the garden every day—Tura did not understand the heated water, nor why I soaked leaves in it, but they happily ate the tea itself. I am not sure Tura understood the kindness of Darjeeling; like coffee, it was increasingly hard to come by, its land flooded, the plants often rotting where they stood. If not for the connections of the UN, I doubt very much I’d have tea at all.

  It was all a jumble—had Delphine seen Tura? No—no. I felt that was the right answer as I sat up and told my screen to shift to the news reports. I would remember introducing Tura to Delphine of all people—wouldn’t I?

  On the news, worry about the Kingdom had deepened. The media black out continued. People wanted to know what was happening; the Kingdom very much didn’t want anyone knowing their business. There were rumors the UN had a plan in place, but no one knew the details. Tensions were high.

  I went to the garden and Tura came down from the trees. Or, rather let their tree form dissolve, to reclaim their true form. Leaves vanished and bark too, that startling night-sky skin emerging, but Tura couldn’t fully shake the tree; their arms and legs were as thin as branches still, the form refusing to retreat entirely.

  “It has been a long time,” Tura said, folding their long legs into my wrought iron chair. “I am older now, and have perhaps spent too many days hiding. I forget this shape. The young have it much easier.”

  I grunted a little at that. “Some things are universal,” I said, and I went back inside to make us a small meal. Tura liked frogs and fishes best, but would often eat alongside me, saying they had observed how humans bonded over shared meals and understood it was necessary for us to do the same. Not necessary, I said, but I had grown more comfortable around Tura over the course of our teas and meals.

  Tura picked up a cucumber sandwich between their long fingers, this time popping the entire thing into their mouth. But then I remembered what they had said.

  “The young. Tura. You’re having children.”

  “I am not,” they said, shaking their head, “but others are. Have. Your world is...conducive.” Tura took another sandwich and another. I supposed they weren’t quite as filling as frogs.

  “Did you take my skin?”

  Tura went still and their skin flushed with the texture of a tree, as if they meant to hide straight away, but had to stop themselves. I had developed the habit of blurting out questions I desperately wanted to know the answers to; if I didn’t blurt, I never got around to asking. The irony is, maybe I had asked before and didn’t remember the asking. Was that irony? If there was a better word, I couldn’t think of it, which wasn’t saying much.

  “No, Bréone.”

  It could have been the truth or a lie. Did I trust Tura to tell me the truth? I had not known them long enough to be sure. But the memory of it was fierce: Tura standing before me, looking like me. Just a wish, I told myself, but I couldn’t shake it.

  I had the memory of a darkness, of a space only Tura and I occupied. I had the memory of their hands upon me, as they touched a human for the first time. They say only the young are capable of such arrogance, but here I had invented an entire scene where I was the first human Tura touched. Where I allowed Tura to become me, to inhabit my skin the way they did the trees. And why? Oh—to save everything I was. To, in my arrogance, agree that everything I was deserved preservation.

  But there had been more. Tura looking like the Normandy sky, the ombre of blue into black, the startling glow of their eyes in the darkness as they looked at me—me, all of me, naked and not hiding. Arrogance. Oh, Bréone.

  “Eta Carinae?” I couldn’t stop myself from whispering.

  “Five million more times luminous than your sun,” Tura returned and it sent a shiver down my spine, because I had not misremembered? I had not, but—“Not yet,” they said softer.

  I jolted as if burned by the words. Could a being remember a thing that had not yet happened? Could I? I had trouble remembering yesterday—how could I remember something in the future? And what of the past? That Tura had hauled me from the lily pond to save me from—from what? I leaned forward in my chair, and was reaching for Tura’s hand when my name was spoken sharply from the kitchen door.

  “Bréone Hemmerli!”

  I had wondered what would happen should Delphine come to the garden when Tura and I were having tea; I had not wondered what would happen should Secretary-General Sugden arrive. Sugden stood framed in my door, his pale cheeks flushed with color. His lips were parted, his mouth snarling, and each hand was braced against the door jamb, as if he might otherwise collapse. His security team was behind him, but only for a moment; they pulled Sugden back into the kitchen, and went through the door first, guns sliding from holsters.

  Some things about the world have never changed.

  The security detail fanned out into the garden, into the iris, convinced Tura was hiding nearby. That much was true. In the space of time between Sugden’s arrival and the guns coming out, Tura had vanished—the tree they often were had returned to the garden, standing there plain as day. The security team did not take Tura for anything other than a tree.

  “What the fuck was that, Bréone?” Sugden whispered the question, but strode toward me, all fury.

  A cucumber sandwich sat in my lap, perhaps tossed there prior to Tura’s escape. I picked it up and set it on my plate, before wiping my fingers on my cloth napkin. I refolded the napkin, Sugden’s body nearly vibrating with his anger. It seemed he knew what the fuck that had been. I thought about the Kingdom.

  I could have answered him in many ways, but worried about giving him too much information about Tura, about their kind. “I discovered it in my garden a few days ago,” I said.

  Call
ing Tura an “it” was distasteful, but I knew Sugden. For all I couldn’t remember, I remembered how this man treated those outside his circle. He barely tolerated me.

  “I don’t know what it is,” I added slowly, pretending to struggle with the words. “Do you?”

  Sugden’s security team was still prowling through the garden and Tura’s tree had not moved. I wondered what kind of perception they had in that form—where had their astonishing eyes gone? Did they even need eyes or was the form they assumed before me something they tried to make to assuage my comfort? I hadn’t wondered that before—at least, I didn’t think I had—and the idea was exciting. I wanted to write it down before I forgot.

  “There is...” Sugden cut himself off and sank into the chair Tura had occupied. “A theory.”

  Sugden’s security detail set up around the garden, and one of the men nodded at Sugden as if to say they had secured the area. Sugden relaxed then, and in his usual way, began to tell me what had happened in the Kingdom. It was information he should not have had—there was a media black out, after all—but Sugden spun a tale of aliens and treachery, and I listened in rapt attention, certain that Tura was doing the same.

  A lifeform similar to the one Sugden had seen here had appeared in Hyde Park. Black and festering, Sugden said—an oily wake behind it, and Sugden looked at the ground, as if he would find a similar mess, but the ground was only grass, as it had ever been. The lifeform stalked patrons of the park, consuming them at will. It had herded a group of people into the bandstand, and was torturing them for information about our world—only here, Sugden paused and raised a finger.

  “Kingdom forces took them out, Bréone. They knew exactly how to hit them, so the assumption is these are not alien lifeforms at all, but rather lifeforms made within the Kingdom.”

  What I recalled of the early news reports had been fire. Fire killed most things, of course, even in science-fiction tales of yore. Fire didn’t usually kill dragons, but Tura hadn’t seemed much like a dragon to me.