by Sarah Chorn
In having the space to just exist.
Chris made his way back into the cabin, hung up his hat on a peg by the door, and set to chopping up the meat and the potatoes. He worked quietly, and for once, that hush was comfortable and warm. Arlen watched him, watched the way he bent to his task, completely focused on what he was doing.
“What would you have wanted for me, if I’d stayed out here?” Arlen asked.
For a moment, Chris stopped moving. Painted in the glow of the shine fire, he looked like a statue, violet and shimmering, eyes piercing, muscles flexed. Then, he shook himself, scraped the meat and potatoes into his big black pot, poured some water into it, and set it over the fire. “What would I have wanted for you?” He asked, his back to Arlen.
“Yes. What would you have wanted for me? How would you have wanted me to end up?”
“I wanted for you what I wanted for all of my kids, Arlen.”
“And what was that?”
He turned then, fixed Arlen with his steely gaze. “I just wanted you to be happy. That’s it. Nothing more, and nothing less. Is that so hard to believe?”
Was it hard for him to believe? He wasn’t sure. He’d been raised as an Esco. Everyone wanted something from him. Even Matthew wanted something from him. But Chris wasn’t everyone else. He was quiet and determined and never danced around any topic. He’d been honest so far. It seemed impossible to think that someone would only yearn for his happiness and nothing more.
“Arlen,” his father said sometime later, after they’d eaten their stew and were lost in their own thoughts. “We need to go soon. Tomorrow.”
“Go where?” He asked, yawning.
“I’d like to take you to Grove. I’d like you to meet your sister and after that? I figure you have some thinking to do. You can’t hide from the world out here, no matter how much you want to. You are set to inherit after Matthew. You’re too important to hide away. What’s more, you’re a very important person, and you’re missing. Matthew will send men out here sooner or later, and I don’t want them to disturb this place. It’s not just a house, it is a cathedral to all I have lost, to everything I am, and I won’t have people tramping through it. We need to go before it gets that far.”
Something cold and bitter wrapped around his bones, stole away all the warmth he’d just felt. “I don’t want to go back,” Arlen said.
“I know, son, but you’ve got some decisions to make and a life to live, and no matter how we cut it, staying out here much longer will put me in danger and I like to think that maybe you don’t want that.”
“I don’t,” Arlen admitted.
He knew Chris was right. He knew it was time to go, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to leave this sanctuary he’d suddenly found. He didn’t want to leave the first place that felt like home, and he certainly didn’t want to face the company. Here, he could push all matters of business, of Matthew Esco, out of his mind, but out there, he wouldn’t be able to.
“My legacy became my leash,” Arlen whispered. A deep well of darkness opened up within him. What would he do? His mind turned to business, to the life he used to know.
There was nothing in Union City for him anymore.
Union City was all he knew.
Matthew Esco was likely worried about him, and Chris was right, the longer they stayed out here, the higher the likelihood that Matthew would send people to find him, and he didn’t want that. More, Arlen was set to inherit Shine Company, and while he had been a passive participant in company matters, he had a measure of authority he had never exercised.
For a man who had spent so much of his life feeling powerless, he suddenly realized he had all the power in the world. He could fell an empire. He could fell a man.
He could change a legacy.
He could end a dynasty.
More, he felt a great loyalty to Christopher Hobson. He wasn’t a stranger anymore, but a man he had taken to thinking of as family. If leaving this place would help his father stay free of the law, then that is what they should do, no matter how desperately it hurt.
He was divided. He felt that rip all the way through him. He was a scion of the company. A creature of Matthew Esco’s creation. A son of Shine Territory, and the wanted, lost child of the outlaw Christopher Hobson. Would he ever not feel torn in half? Would he ever not be at war with himself?
“Okay,” he finally said. “We go tomorrow.”
“Your suit is ruined,” Chris said as he cleared up the bowls. “You’ll have to keep wearing the buckskins you’ve been wearing.”
“That’s fine,” Arlen said. It had taken him some time to get used to, but after a few days, he decided he liked the weight of them, the feel of the soft leather against his body. His boots were still serviceable if damaged, and his shirt was dirty beyond repair, but it would do. For now. If anyone from the company saw him, they’d think he’d gone native, but it couldn’t be helped.
“They’re a bit big on you,” the outlaw said. Arlen had been holding them up with a rope Chris had pulled out of his pack days ago. “But if you don’t mind, I don’t either.” He got up and rummaged around in a crate that hid under the small bed. “This should help.” He held up a leather belt lined with turquoise beads. “Lila made it for me. I used to wear it all the time but I couldn’t… after she died, I just couldn’t.”
Arlen took the belt gently, and wrapped it around his waist; the tightest hole kept his pants in place far better than the rope he had been using. “Thank you.”
“It will take a few days to walk there.”
It hit Arlen, suddenly, that they were really leaving in the morning. Not just going for a hike, but actually walking way. He wondered if he’d get any more moments like this, just the two of them. The idea that this could be the end of what just seemed to be beginning, was too much to bear.
“It was never going to be enough time, Arlen,” Chris whispered. “But I’m glad we got what time we had.” His hand landed on Arlen’s shoulder, squeezed gently.
Soon, they would return to the real world. He would meet his sister, and then all of this—the time away, the past, the answered questions—soon it would all be over, and he would have to face the future. He would have to make decisions.
Chris moved to the other side of the room, to that box of treasures from Arlen’s infancy. He rummaged through it before visibly steeling himself. His body went rigid, shoulders stiff. He bent his head, his violet hair hiding his expression. He looked like he was praying, and maybe he was. Finally, he straightened up, closed the latch on the box and put it back on the shelf before he slowly opened his hand to reveal the heart-shaped locket glittering in his palm.
“I want you to have this. It’s yours, Arlen. It always has been, always will be. You don’t have to wear it…” He looked so bashful, standing there with the locket in his hand, holding it out like a peace offering. Arlen’s heart thudded, his vision blurred with tears.
“Are you sure?” He asked.
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life,” the man replied.
Arlen fingered the chain. His fingers fumbled with the clasp. He looped it around his neck, and an instant later Chris was turning him around, fastening it, letting the locket fall beneath Arlen’s shirt. “I’m honored,” Arlen said, hand resting over the small golden heart.
And he was. This was suddenly the most precious thing in the world to him. He never wanted to take it off. Never wanted to forget where he’d come from. His story was long and fraught, full of pain and yearning, but it made him who he was and he was proud of who he’d become. He’d never known his mother, but now it felt right that he would wear her image over his heart, that he would have her with him through the days ahead. He liked to think that maybe he carried some of her with him. His artist’s heart. His ability to feel so strongly. His restless, dreamer’s soul.
“We will leave at first light,” Chris said. “To Cassandra.”
His sister. His people. His family.
/> “And then?” Arlen asked.
“Then, you have some decisions to make, I think. I’ve given you what I have, Arlen, what time will allow, but now it’ll be up to you. What will you do? What can you live with? Only you can decide that.”
“Matthew Esco—"
“No amount of time can turn poison into wine, Arlen. That man has a reckoning coming to him, but it doesn’t need to be your job to put him to Fate’s judgment. He raised you. He’s the life you know. As much as it pains me to say this, you owe him more loyalty than you owe me. Whatever you decide, I will understand and give you my blessing, even if it sees my head in the noose.”
“Chris—"
“Not now, Arlen. Let’s just enjoy this night.”
Cassandra is wearing sunlight.
I do not know if I am awake or dreaming, but I like that image of her. She is standing at the edge of my bed, dressed in golden light.
I close my eyes.
We are thirteen, running through a butterfly-freckled meadow. Our fingers are laced together. My heart is singing so loud I swear the entire world can hear it.
I open my eyes.
Edward is speaking with Cassandra in low tones. I cannot hear their words, but I see her agony. I see the sorrow that is shredding her. Her body shudders and quakes. Her tears fall like rain. I would like to do nothing more than shield her from her pain but…
I close my eyes.
We are fourteen, in the meadow. The world is just starting to shrug off the embrace of winter. She stops suddenly and weaves her fingers through mine. “You take this ordinary world,” she says, “and make it magical.”
I am powerless before her. I did not know it was possible to be both lost and found in the same breath.
I open my eyes.
“You do not need to be here, watching me die. Go, and live your life,” I say. Or I think I do. She doesn’t answer me. “Cassandra, you do not need to die.” As though my dying will end her as well. As though it is two of us with consumption, rather than just the one.
“What do you think is happening to me right now?” Cassandra shouts. She hardly ever raises her voice. It cuts through my shine-drunk state and I suddenly focus as I haven’t been able to in a long time. “What do you think this is, Ianthe? I am dying slowly, with a thousand delicate cuts.”
“But you don’t have to,” I press. The thought of a world without her in it nearly undoes me.
“There is nothing left to me, Ianthe. I am ready.”
She is. I can see it.
My fatalistic, beautiful Cassandra. Something has changed in her recently. All her fight is gone. She does not look like she is alive, merely just living.
I love her. I ache for her.
I close my eyes.
We are fifteen, sharing our first clumsy kiss.
When I was a child, there was a time I was upset about something cruel Jack had said to me, and I ran into the meadow so I could wallow in my agony. Annie came to comfort me while I was weeping. “Look at the sky,” she said, “and be calm.”
But the sky is not calm. It is turbulent and temperamental. Sometimes it tears itself open and drowns entire landscapes. I feel like the sky.
I am torn open.
The walk home from where I found my father in the meadow was the longest journey of my life. As soon as I was within distance of the cabin, I saw Tomas turn to me, watching me carefully, and I kept myself as calm as possible so I might slip under his eye.
“Everything okay?” He asked.
“Yes, thank you. They weren’t home, so I left the basket,” I told him. I flashed him a smile, opened the door to the house, and slipped inside.
I was not as good at acting as I had hoped, for as soon as the door shut behind me, Annie had her hands on my shoulders. “What’s wrong?” She asked.
“My da,” I said, and the tears started flowing, my breath hitching. It was an ugly, messy, horrible affair, but somehow, they got the story out of me.
“We have to get him,” Annie said. “We can’t just let him die out there.”
“We’re being watched,” Jasper replied. He sat down at the table, the chair groaning under his weight. “How can we get to him? How far out is he, Cass?”
“A little less than halfway through the meadow, just off to the side of the path in the grass.”
No one spoke. Each second of silence felt like a small eternity. I wanted to scream. I felt thin and transparent. In a breath, I would crack.
“There’s the tree outside,” Jack said, scampering down from the loft. “We cut it down a few days ago. It needs to be moved. Maybe Cassandra and I could move it. Maybe the lawman out front could help us.”
And there it was, the plan, thought up from the one person I expected it from the least. After that, we were all in motion. Jack and I went outside, trying to look as unconcerned as possible. We made our way to the large oak that had been eaten through with beetles and made a great show of trying to hack it into smaller bits until, after a few moments, the lawman, Tomas, took pity on us. “Let me see the ax,” he said to me. “I can get through this quickly enough, if you two are willing to move the pieces of it.”
We made quick work of the tree, stacking the dead bits of it in the woodpile near the barn. When it was all cut up, the three of us worked to move the pieces. Annie, Jasper, and Harriet must have run into the meadow to retrieve my father while we were away from the house, moving the wood. I saw them neither leave nor return to the cabin.
Tomas was a nice man, and at any other time, I likely would have felt bad for pulling one over on him. He told us about his own two kids as he worked, and then stories about his childhood, and funny things he’d done that had got him in great trouble with his parents. I tried to laugh. I tried to act like nothing was bothering me, but it must have shown that I was nearly sick with worry for at one point he grabbed my arm and stopped me in my tracks. “What’s wrong?” He asked. “Is someone treating you poorly?” He looked pointedly at Jack. The war between us was not secret, and our property had been watched long enough for every lawman who made their way out here to know how we hissed at each other like feral cats.
“No, nothing like that,” I said, sniffling. I wiped at my nose. I hated the fact that my tears were all real, and so was my anguish. I was so very hurt that this man, sent here to guard us, was seeing a piece of my pain.
“Then what is it?” He asked. He was so kind. He should have earned a living some other way. As it was, being a lawman meant that no matter how much I liked him, I would never respect him, and he was kind enough to deserve more from me.
“Ianthe,” I said, settling on a partial truth. “Is unwell, caught a bit of a cough, and I am worried for her.”
“I see,” he smiled at me. “The best healers are in Shine Territory. I’m sure she’ll be right as rain within a few days, you’ll see.”
“Dinner!” Annie called from the cabin. It was dark, and a pool of yellow light spilled from the open doorway. The smell of stew and freshly baked bread filled the night. Hours must have passed. Hours with the three of us cutting up that tree, and moving the pieces of it. “Thanks for helping them, Tomas,” I heard Annie say as I ran past her and into the house. “Would you like some stew?”
“No, ma’am,” Tomas replied. “My replacement will be out here soon and I’ll ride on back home to eat with my wife and kids. Smells mighty fine, though. You enjoy.”
I could not have cared less about the stew or the bread. I did not care for the warmth of the house or the quiet that filled it. I had eyes for only one person, and I instantly found him. They had managed to bring him inside, managed to get him from the meadow, and now he lay sprawled across the bed that Annie and Jasper shared.
I had never seen him look anything other than strong, whole, and hale. Now, he was wan, his skin sallow and nearly gray, even his hair seemed to have lost its shimmer. His eyes were closed, and I studied his bare chest, making sure it rose and fell with his breath. If not for that, I would h
ave guessed him to be dead. A large gash tore through his middle, sewed up with black thread, doubtlessly coated in shine.
I wanted to run to him.
I was afraid to touch him, lest my presence undo whatever the shine was doing for him. So I stayed, frozen, in the doorway, marking each inhale and every exhale. Marking how low my strong father had been brought.
I sniffled.
“He’ll pull through this,” Annie said, resting her hands on my shoulders. “He will, because that’s who he is. He tries to do right, no matter what is in his way, and his work isn’t done. That, in there, isn’t a body resigning. It’s a man healing himself so he can keep fighting. Don’t you doubt me, Cass.” She turned me so I could meet her eyes. Her chin was quivering, her cheeks wet with tears. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me, or herself, and somehow that made it all the worse. I threw myself into her arms and let my worry tear me apart.
It was then that we heard the knock on the door. Three strong wraps of a fist. Jasper and Annie exchanged a look. “It’s me!” Imogen shouted, voice muffled. Jasper went to the door and opened it just enough to let in Imogen and Ianthe, then closed it firmly behind them. Harriet and Jack crept down from the loft. Our small cabin was filled to bursting.
Ianthe met my gaze. She looked terrible, shrunken and ill, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen and I wondered why Imogen had dragged her sick daughter out in the dead of night, but I did not have to wait long for my answer.
“He’s dead,” Imogen said as soon as the door closed. It was then that I saw how wan she appeared, how hollow her eyes. “Ben was at the shine fields. He shouldn’t have been there!” She shouted, heedless of the lawmen outside who might overhear her every word. “He should have been in the mines! He’s dead! Your fucking brother. HE KILLED MY HUSBAND!” She was screaming now, wailing. Her anguish rolled over the world like an ocean wave, drowning us all.