The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  I wonder if there’s anything else I can do, to keep her at bay? Crosses? Holy water? Garlic? Surely there’s some truth to the old wives’ tales about banishing demons, right?

  ‘Then I’ll finish the floors later, so the noise won’t agitate you, okay?’ I nodded, though I had been rather amused at the second son of Arcadia acting like a domestic on behalf of his slave. Sighing Kohén massaged his way up the back of my neck and to the base of my skull. ‘I know you’re probably going stir-crazy in here Larkin…’ he said softly, and I nodded again. ‘But I know from talking to my father yesterday that my mother blames us both for Kohl’s misery, and I won’t have you abused for making the only choice that you were allowed to make as my Companion.’

  The notion that he was doing me a good turn by locking me in the slave quarters and fucking me around the clock should have made me laugh, but I heard the fact that he believed what he was saying in his voice and that made me want to cry instead, so I nodded mutely, realising that Kohén wasn’t really trying to comfort me- he was trying to come to terms with his own behaviour, which was something that I should have been doing too.

  ‘Believe me, if I had it my way, we’d be out every day- drinking, dancing, celebrating… but I really can’t risk sending you out there until the future is a little more certain, and I know you understand why right? Just a few more days, though, and then Kohl will go back to Pacifica, most of the nobility will bugger off to where they belong, my former companions will leave and Karol…’ Kohén kissed the back of my head. ‘He will propose to Ora, I am sure of it. And once he’s spoken for, you will be given your freedom to walk the castle halls again.’

  I sighed again, but nodded in acquiescence. I didn’t want to walk the castle halls- I wanted to bolt through them, climb the fences standing between myself and the tidal falls and then dive right off the side- a swan dive!

  ‘Good.’ Kohén sat up. ‘I’ll clean your room and stay with you for awhile today, but unfortunately I will have to leave for a few hours at some point. My father wants to talk to me about the protesters, and I would feel a lot better if I could see Kohl and Karol in the flesh and gauge how they are handling this business on their ends, you know?’

  I rolled over in his arms and frowned at him.

  Protesters? What protesters?

  Kohén frowned back. ‘If you don’t want me to go-’

  I shook my head firmly and wheeled my finger, indicating that he should rewind. He frowned and then said: ‘Oh, the protesters. I haven’t mentioned them?’ I shook my head. Kohén shrugged. ‘A bunch of miscreants have been loitering around the perimeter fence for days now. Banished individuals, Godless folk, pirates… I suppose they caught wind of the fact that a lot of people have come to Arcadia this week, and have sensed the opportunity to make a nuisance of themselves. Most are just asking for food, water and blankets, and we’ve given what we have of course, but a few are begging to be allowed in, and others are demanding it or more supplies. It’s not a big problem, but it is causing us strife. A lot of the other leaders are watching closely to see how we handle it here in Eden, and there’s a fine line between us being thought generous and compassionate, selfish and hard-hearted, or weak.’

  I nodded. I could imagine Elbert Yael calling Elijah stingy for not helping them enough just to cause trouble, while secretly thanking God that the ruffians weren’t banging on his door.

  Kohén cocked his head at me. ‘I’m sure you have a million questions, suggestions and recriminations- about everything- so if you care to write them down later, I’ll happily answer all that you need me to once I return. But rest first, all right? I miss your voice and your smile, so if you need to spend the day in bed as Cherry suggested, feel free to do that and I swear I won’t try to molest you in it, okay?’ I made a face at him, but he chuckled. ‘Hey, it’s going to be hard for me to keep my hands off you too, but I want the old Larkin back more than I want to ravage this silent one! Last night was amazing as always, but I miss you crying out my name…’ he ruffled my hair over my face. ‘Even if you do tend to follow it up with a cuss word.’

  I was glad that I could not respond, for I was certain that he would not appreciate my answer: I was never going to be okay or ‘normal’ again. My hopes were gone, my happiness was gone and now, I’d lost my voice as well and Kohén was beginning to believe his own lies. I mean, only three days had passed since he’d broken my heart a second time- so how long until I faded to transparency, like my father, thanks to Kohén’s blind faith that this was the garden I was destined to grow old in, when it was obvious that I was more like the ivy on the windows- suffocating the castle, and leaving everyone in shadow?

  *

  The rest of Thursday morning passed slowly and rather pleasantly despite my duress, and I was very entertained for about an hour when Kohén took it upon himself to straighten up my room, proving what a fussy thing he was by cleaning for so long that he exhausted the solar-charged power pack on the vacuum. He stripped my bed and vacuumed the mattress, inside my closet and even our slippers, poking his tongue out at me when I snorted, and then re-starting the machine by giving it a tiny blue zap so that he could finish doing the skirting boards with the brush head.

  ‘Shut up, dust is gross, and spiders crawl over people when they’re sleeping,’ he said as he strained to suck up a tiny spider’s wed from the corner behind my door. ‘I yelled at our maid for not getting all the Spiderwebs and cobwebs when I was like, nine, you know. Mother said I was rude for talking to the help like that and punished me by making me do it for myself for a week, and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve been doing it since.’ He chuckled at himself. ‘In fact, I asked for my very own vacuum cleaner on my tenth birthday, and I still have it now. Not that I need to charge it in the sun, like the others.’

  I lifted my eyebrows, surprised to learn that. All these years I’d imagined Kohén putting up his royal feet while a maid vacuumed around the spoiled prince, so to learn that the opposite was true was disconcerting. I hated the fact that though I’d grown up in his house, I’d never seen him in the part of it that he actually called home. He ate breakfast in there, and read, and studied and chatted with his family- and I’d never seen any of that because I wasn’t deemed worthy of it!

  Kohén chuckled again. ‘And you know what? After she saw what a good job I did in my own room, she ended up swapping maids so the other rooms upstairs would look as good as mine did.’ He made a face. ‘Not Karol’s, though. He’s a slob, and he doesn’t like people in there so I doubt it’s been cleaned properly in years.’

  I made a face back at him. I’d seen Karol’s sloppy bedroom once, and didn’t particularly want to see it again.

  After he’d finished cleaning, Kohén took out all of the trash and dirty clothes and lines and returned with clean sheets to make up my bed with, a bottle of champagne with more strawberries and a tray of tiny finger sandwiches, motioning for me to go to my vanity to eat while he re-made my bed. But I couldn’t- the nibble I had of the strawberry tasted bitter, and the chicken on the sandwiches smelled funny to me, so when Kohén went into the shower, I slid most of it into the trash can that he’d just emptied and opened the wine instead, taking it and The Count Of Monte Cristo onto the rug in front of the fire that he’d started for us, after remarking that it was getting colder and colder outside and that later he’d bring a thicker blanket in for me. I’d only shrugged- I’d been feeling sweaty in that room since the moment I’d awoken in there on Wednesday night and suspected that claustrophobia was going to guarantee that I’d feel toasty warm right through the rest of the fall and winter. Possibly even for every day of my life from thereon out. Why would I need a blanket, when I was going to have a Nephilim wrapped around me until I lost my looks?

  I tried reading but the words blurred together, so I lay down and stared at the book on my side and pretended to be absorbed by it, while Kohén produced a lovely golden guitar, propped himself up on my window-seat and began to play softly, providing m
e with background music. Once I realised that he was too focused on singing and strumming to pay much attention to what I was doing, I gave up on reading and watched the flames dance only inches away from my numb skin in the lit hearth instead, amazed that Kohén had passed up the opportunity to show off his incredible voice in favour of housekeeping and performing a private concert for a hostile audience of one. I wanted to appreciate him for trying so hard to please me, but thinking about the fact that Kohén wasn’t in the spotlight where he ought to be reminded me of how the world had also been deprived of Kelia’s beautiful voice because of me, so I sipped from my third glass of marshmallow champagne for the day and willed myself to get drunk. I’d always enjoyed the taste of alcohol but now I enjoyed how it softened my most violent thoughts around the edges, so I drank it without tasting it at all, and marvelled over how I was losing sensation in my body too, along with my senses. Experimentally, I extended my fingertips towards the coals where the flames were flaring the most brightly, frowning when I did not feel them overheat and wondering how close I’d have to roll to that fire in order to absorb any warmth from it.

  Why can’t I feel the flames? Shouldn’t a fire be hot?

  This went on for hours: me roasting without burning, and he serenading me with that voice of his, which was as rich as hundred year-old scotch, but as silken as the downy fur mat beneath my body. Sometimes Kohén played popular tunes and hummed along with them, but sometimes he played things that he’d clearly written himself, and not a single lyric of his original songs escaped my drunken notice, because they were obviously about me. There was one about my ‘ensorcel’ eyes- that was unfinished, one asking why the deck of cards didn’t have a princess of hearts, one about a mermaid, one about a being who stole his soul with every kiss… songs that spoke of a girl who was so much more than a third-born whore to him, and that made me ache and wish that I’d taken him at his word on Tuesday afternoon, and had run instead of lingering to plead my case or take the fall that I still hadn’t hit the bottom of. How differently could this have all gone, if Kohl had leapt to our defence by making it clear that he had not taken my virginity, instead of drawing his sword? How completely could I have loved this boy with his velveteen voice and eagerly given heart, if he had not slept with so many girls to spare my purity, only to rob me of it and my freedom in the end anyway?

  How happy would I have been if I’d agreed to his terms at his ball last year, instead of assuming that mine were the only workable ones?

  It was an unwelcome thought, but one that I couldn’t drown out, even with the alcohol. I’d had a destiny, like every other third-born, and I’d done nothing but fight against it, only to end up in the nightmare I’d feared and under the worst case scenario- when if I’d just surrendered years ago, he would have released the other girls as virgins, and we could have had something more than this.

  No, I didn’t think that I could live like this, but I am living it now, and it’s not so bad… is it? We have chemistry, and something more than that, only it’s gotten lost under our deceit. But if I’d asked him to take me… it could have been wonderful...

  As flattering as it was that Kohén had written so many songs about me, I was vexed by the way they referenced me constantly as some sort of mythical enchantress; a mermaid, a siren, what sounded like a succubi, a witch… how were those lyrics fair? He was the one who had lain the trap that I had been snared by! He was the flawlessly beautiful one that had dazzled me for ten years before my looks had kicked in! He was the one who I ought to have stabbed in his sleep, and yet when I awoke in his arms, I was overcome by the need for him to be inside me! He was the one with the power, so why was I the siren? I was moved to the point of tears a few times, but they did not actually spill over my lower lashes until he began to sing an old Hawaiian song that I’d heard many times in Pacifica. In fact, it had been the song that had been playing when I’d stumbled onto Kohén’s orgy: ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow.’

  Kelia sounded beautiful when she sang that… she should have aspired to be an artisan, not a noble… oh God! Why am I just LYING here, accepting this fate? I should be rebelling! I should be fighting back! I’m an academic or a farmer, not a whore!

  Really? That glass of wine you just finished while wearing a negligee in the middle of the day suggests otherwise...

  Drunk and clearly in a maudlin frame of mind, I rolled over and clawed at the throw pillow under my head, weeping soundlessly into it, and Kohén must have seen my shoulders shaking with each wracking sob because he immediately stopped playing and came over to hold me. I tried to wrestle away from him, and wished that I’d had the voice to tell him that I needed to cry- I needed to feel all of this and if he didn’t allow me to, I would never be able to expunge my agony from my system.

  But I could not say the words and he would not let me go, and so I let the embrace happen and allowed my hurt and anger to bubble back up to the surface again and evaporate my tears. Those he could wipe away, but my growing anger and resentment he could not, and it was only a matter of time before I decided that a world without either Barachiel twin was better than living in one where Kohl was alive and well, but where Kohén was my keeper.

  That’s what I thought anyway, but as far as my actions went, I simply continued to lie there and allowed Kohén’s fingers to stroke my skin with his exquisite touch until I fell asleep and began to dream dreams that were as dominated by thoughts of him as my existence was in front of a heatless fire.

  6.

  I woke up at about four on Thursday afternoon in the worst mood that I’d been in yet. My head felt achy and my eyes blurry from the champagne and too much sleep, my mouth felt dry as did the rest of me from dehydration, I was so hungry that my stomach was actually cramping up painfully and to top it all off, remnants of a nightmare were clinging to me.

  In the dream I’d been in a garden on a freezing cold night, trying desperately to pull weeds away from the plants that Martya and I had planted together. It had been too dark to actually see the weeds so I’d had to feel for them, and each one had been not only slimy and hard to grasp, but full of spikes and barbs that had stabbed into my skin, making my hands slip constantly, and then burn with what had felt like a million paper cuts. And as though that had not been awful enough, I’d quickly begun to realise that every time I pulled one weed out, a new one had regenerated somewhere else nearby, making the task entirely pointless anyway.

  But I was Larkin, the stubborn one, so I’d weeded on until the soil had been soaked with my blood and tears and probably would never have stopped- until I’d realised that it wasn’t weeds giving me so much trouble, but the very pumpkin vine of Martya’s that I’d been trying to save. It had mutated, turning against me and the garden that it had grown within, and when I’d seen this, I’d screamed in fury and the entire garden had exploded into a cloud of ash that had transformed again, becoming a swarm of glowing locusts that buzzed around me, thicker than a fog- choking me.

  Fortunately, my imagined scream had been loud enough to snap me out of the nightmare, but when I’d awoken needing comfort- even Kohén’s- and had discovered that I was alone because he’d slipped out to go on living his life, my terror and confusion had become fury. I’d stomped around the room, silently raging at him, Karol, and pretty much anyone that had ever wronged me in my life- so lost in my anger that I had mouthed to the polar bear rug under me to go fuck itself when I tripped over the corner of it that I had kicked up.

  I was pretty sure that I was losing my mind, and although I knew that it was the stupidest thing that I could conceive of doing, I reached for the rest of the peach wine that was still chilling in the ice bucket next to my bed, and then after a long swig from its neck, had stalked into the bathroom with the bottle still in hand, fishing out the book that I’d been trying to ignore for two days. Yes it was foolish to read it, but I was bored and my brain was dying from a lack of mental stimulation and too much physical indulgence, and reading something that was apparently goin
g to arouse my curiosity- and possibly even answer some of the questions that I was too afraid to ask Satan directly- was a temptation I was not strong enough to turn away from, not anymore.

  If I’m going to Hell anyway, I want to know what it’s like, what she’s about and what company I can expect to keep when I’m down there! I thought defiantly, opening the ancient cover and watching a fine mist of dust swirl up from within. I held my breath as I turned that dangerous first page, wondering if the questions about my father and mother were finally about to be answered, sort of excited to think that doing as I was could potentially set into motion a chain of events that would see me ejected from Eden and into the afterlife more rapidly. It was a scary thought, for sure, but scarier still was the possibility that the rest of my life would carry on as it was- of me drinking myself stupid enough to fool Kohén into believing that my glassy-eyed gaze was an adoring one. Days, weeks, months I could endure it for… but for the rest of my existence? No, I was fairly sure I’d sooner die and take Kohl with me!

  The book was titled: ‘As it is In Heaven: A History Of Eden’s Founders,’ with the words ‘First Edition’ printed beneath the title, and I exhaled a stream of air through my nose, disappointed after reading it. This wasn’t contraband! I’d been handed this book as part of my studies years ago!

  To be certain, I walked over to my bookshelf, scoured the titles with my puffy eyes and then plucked out my own copy, looking from one to another and thinking that although they didn’t look much alike, they were titled the same. The first edition that I’d been gifted was larger, thicker, smellier and older-looking, but the author was the same: Cadence Verity, a renowned Arcadian Academic/historian. She’d been interested in the Kingdom’s history growing up as an academic, and had spent a great deal of time researching the royal family during her apprenticeship, penning this text before her twenty-first birthday. She’d done such a wonderful job that she’d been transferred to the nobility upon completion of it, and had caught the King’s interest. His son Aidan had been about to turn thirty, so the king had pushed for the two to be joined, telling Aidan that he would give him the crown immediately if he chose a woman that was not only beautiful, noble and intelligent- but interested enough in the kingdom’s history to devote her life to it. Aidan had taken him up on the suggestion and had made Cadence his spouse and soon after, his duchess, and the book had been published and made accessible to the public after their first child had been born as the king’s gift to her.