The Tangleroot Palace

by Marjorie Liu

  He said nothing. Just took a few jolting steps toward the woods. I grabbed him, afraid of what he would do. He didn’t fight me, but the tension was thick in his arm. I pretended not to see the sharp tips of his teeth as he pulled back his lips to scent the air.

  “They’re in there,” he said, his voice husky. “I tasted their blood last night.”

  I tightened my grip, both on his arm and the shotgun. Cats twined around our legs. “Did you like it?”

  Henry looked at me. “Yes.”

  “It’s not a sin,” I said, “to be yourself. You told me that.”

  “Before I was turned into this.” He touched his mouth, pressing his thumb against a sharp tooth. “I was called a demon last night. Dad put the torch to me himself, and I didn’t stop him. I kept hoping he would stop first.”

  I squeezed his arm. “Come on. Before the sun rises.”

  “I have time,” he said again, but gently, holding my gaze. “Please, let’s walk.”

  So we did. On the dangerous side of the fence, outside the border of the land: my cornfields, and the potatoes, and the long rows of spinach, green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I didn’t have a rabbit problem. Cats strolled along the rails and through the tall grass, which soaked the bottoms of my jeans. Henry did not notice the wet, or chill. He watched the forest, and the sky, and my face.

  “Stop,” I said, and knelt to examine a weather-beaten post. It was hard to see. I had no batteries for the flashlights stored in the cellar, but I had traded for some butane lighters some years back, and those still worked. I slipped one from my pocket, flipped the switch. A little flame appeared. I needed it for only a moment.

  “It looks fine,” Henry murmured.

  “You always say that,” I replied, and held out my finger to him. He hesitated—and then nipped it, ever so carefully, on the sharp point of his tooth. I felt nothing except a nick of pain, and maybe sadness, or comfort, or affection—love—but nothing as storybooks said I should feel: no shiver, no lust, no mind-meld. I had done my research in the library, which still stood in town, governed by three crones who lived there and guarded the books. I had read fiction, and myths, and looked at pictures on the backs of movies that couldn’t be played anymore. But in the end, none of it meant much. Problems just had to be lived through.

  I smeared a spot of my blood on the fencepost and said a prayer. Nothing big. It was the feeling behind the words that mattered, and I prayed for safety and light, and protection. I prayed to keep the monsters out.

  We moved on. A hundred feet later, stopped again. I repeated the ritual. Weak spots. No way to tell just from looking, but I knew, in my blood, in my heart.

  “They got through last night,” Henry said, watching me carefully. “Past the fence to the front door. That’s what started it. I was in the barn, cleaning the stalls. I heard Mom scream.”

  “I’m sorry.” I glanced at the sky—lighter now, dawn chasing stars. Sun would soon be rising. “I’ll swing around the farm today and see if I can’t shore up the line without your folks seeing me.”

  “Take Steven with you.”

  I shook my head, patting the tabby rubbing against my shins. “Won’t do that. If they try and hurt him—”

  “Then we’ll know. It’s important, Amanda.”

  I started walking. “Have him talk to me about it. His choice. No pressure from you.”

  Henry stayed where he was, clutching the quilt in one hand. His broad shoulders were almost free of burned skin, and so were his arms, thick with muscle. He had been teethed on hard labor, and it showed.

  But Henry was a good-looking man when he wasn’t burned alive, and it hurt to feel him staring at me. Staring at me like I wanted to be stared at—with hunger, and trust, and that old sadness that sometimes I couldn’t bear.

  I looked away, just for a moment. One of the cats meowed.

  When I turned back, he was gone.

  No one knew, of course. About the blood on the fence. Prior to last night, no one had known about Henry’s affliction, either. Just Steven and me.

  Small town. Caught on the border of a government-registered Enclave, one of hundreds scattered across the former United States. Not many official types ever came around, except a couple times a year with fresh medicines and other odds and ends—military caravans, powered by gas. No one else had fuel. Might be some in the quarantined cities, but I couldn’t think of anyone who would go there. The virus might still be active. Waiting on the bones.

  Twenty years, waiting. Little or no manufacturing in all that time; no currency, no airplanes, no television or postal service, or ice cream from the freezer; or all the little things I had taken for granted as a kid and could hardly remember. Just stories now. Lives that were and would never be again. The past, gone unmissed.

  Maybe it was for the best. Survivors of the Big Death had to make do with leftovers. Farming experience was more valuable than guns. So was living without electricity and plumbing. Which meant—to the dismay of some—that Amish, and folks like them, now held the real power. Government was encouraging them to spread out, establish new agricultural communities—from Atlantic to Pacific. Nothing asked for in return, though it had created an odd dynamic. I’d heard accusations of favoritism in business dealings, complaints about cold shoulders and standoffishness. Other things, too—bitter and sour.

  But not all communities were the same, and if you were a good neighbor, the Plain people were good to you. Even if, when you knew them too well, they had their own problems. Religion was no cure for dysfunction.

  I rode in the wagon beside Steven. Brought my shotgun—unloaded in case anyone checked. Shells were in my pockets. Knives, hidden inside my boots. We weren’t the only ones on the road, which had been one of those two-lane highways back in the old days. Still a highway, just not for cars—which rusted at the side of the road. Relics of another age. None had been dumped in the fields. Plenty of land, but it needed to be used to grow food. Vast vegetable gardens and grazing cattle surrounded several battered trailer homes. Little kids playing outside waved to us, and went back to chain the dog.

  Steven and I didn’t talk much until we reached the border of his family’s farm. I made him stop twice and each time, pricked my finger for blood. Blessed the fence.

  “God has a plan,” Steven murmured, watching me.

  I glanced at him. “I hate when you and Henry say that.”

  “Better God than the alternative.” He leaned forward, studying his hands—his trembling hands. “I want God to be responsible for what changed us. I want God to have a reason for us being different. We’re not demons, Amanda.”

  “I agree,” I replied sharply. “Now let me concentrate.”

  “You don’t even know how to do it,” he murmured, still not looking at me. “Or why your blood works against . . . them.”

  Because I will it to, whispered a small voice inside my mind. But that was nonsense—and even if it wasn’t, years of considering the matter had given me nothing worth discussing. The same instincts that had led me to dot fence posts with my blood seemed just as powerful as the driving urge of birds to fly south for the winter, or cats to hunt—or Henry to drink blood.

  I worked quickly, and climbed back into the wagon. Steven clucked at the horses. I kept my gaze on the fence, watching for weak spots—listening for them inside my head. But it was near the gate where I saw the breaking point.

  “Those boards are new,” I said, jumping down and crouching. “Or were, before last night.”

  “Dad replaced them. No one told Henry or me.” Steven’s voice was hoarse, his face so pale. He looked ready to vomit. “Found out too late.”

  “You don’t have to do this. We can go back.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I need them to understand. None of us could stop what happened.”

  Not before, I imagined him adding. B
ut we could stop it this time.

  I stared past Steven at the woods. “It’s been hard for you, these past few years. Helping your brother pretend he’s human. Keeping up the illusion, every day, in your own home.”

  A strained smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Lying all the time. Praying for forgiveness. Wears on the soul.”

  “Cry me a river,” I said. “You know you’re a good person.”

  “By your standards, maybe.”

  “Ah, my weak morals. My violent temper. The jeans I wear.” I gave him a sidelong glance. “I thought pride was a sin.”

  He never replied. I finished blessing the fence and pulled myself back in the wagon. Less than a minute later, we turned up the drive, almost a quarter-mile long, from the fence to the house. It was a sunny day, so the bright white clapboard house glowed with light. Purple petunias grew in tangled masses near the clothes line; chickens scattered beneath the billowing sheets, pecking feed thrown down by a little girl dressed in a simple blue dress. A black cap had been tied over her head, and her curly brown hair tied in braids. She looked up, staring at the wagon. Steven waved.

  “Anna is getting big,” I said, just as the little girl dropped the bowl of chicken feed and ran toward the house—screaming. I flinched. So did Steven.

  He stopped the horses before we were halfway up the drive. I slid out of the wagon, watching as a man strode from the barn. He held an ax. My unloaded shotgun was on the bench. I touched the stock and said, “Samuel, if you’re not planning on using that cutter, maybe you should put it down.”

  Samuel Bontrager did not put down the ax. He was a stocky, bow-legged man: broad shoulders, sinewy forearms, lean legs, and a gut that hung precariously over the waist of his pants. He had a long beard, more silver than blond. Henry might look like him one day. If he aged.

  Last time I had seen the man, he had been admiring the new horse, a delicate high-stepping creature traded as a gift for his eldest daughter. Smiles, then. But now he was pale, tense, staring at me with a gaze so hollow he hardly seemed alive.

  “Go,” he whispered, as the house door banged open and his wife, Rachel, emerged. “Go on, get out.”

  “Dad,” Steven choked out, but Samuel let out a despairing cry, and staggered forward with the ax shaking in his hands. He did not swing the weapon, but brandished it like a shield. Might as well have been a cross.

  I took my hand from the shotgun. “We need to talk.”

  Rachel walked down the porch stairs, each step stiff, sharp. Her gaze never left Steven’s face, but her husband was shaking his head, shaking like that was all he knew how to do, his eyes downcast, when open at all.

  “Out,” he said hoarsely. “I saw a crime committed last night that was against God, and I will not tolerate any who condone it.”

  “You saw a young man save his parents from death.” I stepped toward him, hands outstretched. “You saw both your sons take that burden on their souls.” To keep you safe, I didn’t add. Making amends for what they couldn’t do years ago.

  I might as well have spoken out loud. Rachel made a muffled, gasping sound, a sob, touching her mouth with her scarred, tanned hands. I saw those memories in her eyes. Samuel finally looked at his son, his gaze blazing with sorrow.

  “You held them down,” he whispered. “You held those men down . . . for him.”

  I gave Steven a sharp look, but he was staring at his father. Pale, shaking, with some strange light in his too-bright eyes.

  “They were going to kill you,” he breathed. “I did nothing wrong. Neither did Henry. We did not forsake the Lord.”

  “You held them down,” Samuel hissed again, trembling. “And he ripped out their throats. He used nothing but his mouth to do this. We all saw it. He was not human in that moment. He was not a child of God. He was . . . something else . . . and I will not have such a monstrosity in my home. Nor will I bear the sight of any who would take that monster’s side.”

  “Samuel,” I said, looking past him at his weeping wife, who swayed closer, clutching her hands over her mouth. “Those were not human men he killed.”

  “Then what was my son, if those were not men?” Samuel tossed his ax in the dirt and rubbed a hand over his ashen face. “I would rather have died than see my own child murder.”

  He was telling the truth. I expected nothing less from a man of his faith. Nor could I condemn it. He believed what he believed, and it was the reason so many towns and Enclaves had become safe places to live. It was also why so many local men of the Amish were gone now, in the grave.

  And why Anna Bontrager did not look like either of her fair-haired parents.

  “Steven,” I said quietly. “Get out of the wagon. We’re going.”

  “No,” he whispered, flashing me a desperate look. “Tell them, Amanda.”

  Tell them what happened years ago in the woods.

  But I looked at Steven, and then his parents, and could not bring myself to say the words. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  “Steven and Henry’s belongings,” I said instead. “We’ll take them.”

  “Gone,” said Rachel, so softly I could barely hear her. She drew close to her husband’s side, and her bloodshot gaze never left Steven’s face. “Burned.”

  Steven sank down on the wagon bench. Breaking, breaking—I could hear his heart breaking. I suddenly hated Henry for not being here. For asking me to do this.

  I grabbed my shotgun off the wagon and touched Steven’s leg. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  He gave me a dazed look. Samuel, behind me, cleared his throat and whispered, “Take the wagon and horse. I don’t want anything he touched.”

  I ignored him, still holding Steven’s gaze. I extended my hand. After a long moment, he took it, and I pulled him off the wagon. He kept his head down and did not look back at his parents. I pushed him ahead of me, very gently, and we walked down the long driveway toward the road.

  Samuel called out, “Amanda.”

  I stopped. Steven did not. I glanced over my shoulder. Samuel and his wife were leaning on each other. I wanted to pick up handfuls of gravel and throw it at their faces. I wanted to ask them to remember the bad days, and that violent afternoon. Maybe the choice not to act had always been clear to them, but not to Henry. Not to his brother.

  “If you keep the boy with you,” Samuel began, but I held up my hand, stopping him.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t threaten me.”

  “No threats,” Rachel replied, pulling away from her husband, pushing him, even. “We care about you. Our families have always been . . . close.”

  More close than she realized. Close enough that she would not want me here, should the truth be known. All those little truths, wrapped up in lies.

  All I could do was stare, helpless. “Then don’t do this to Steven. No matter what happened last night, you have to forgive him. Isn’t it your way?”

  Rachel’s face crumbled. Samuel clamped his hand down hard on her shoulder.

  “Forgiveness isn’t the same as acceptance. Steven will be held accountable,” he said, with ominous finality.

  Rachel shuddered. For a moment I thought she would defy her husband, but she visibly steeled herself and gave me an impossibly sad look that reminded me of my mother when she would dig out old pictures of my brother.

  “I know about the violence that was committed against you,” she whispered, so softly I could barely hear her voice. “But don’t let that be an excuse to harbor violence in your heart.”

  “Or my home?” I gave her a bitter smile. “There are just as many kinds of violence as there are forgiveness.” I looked at Samuel. “You set Henry on fire. You killed your own son. No one’s free of sin in this place.”

  I turned and walked away. Steven waited for me at the end of the driveway. I grabbed his arm and marched up the road, holding him close. Even when the Bontrager
farm was out of sight, I didn’t let go.

  I said, “You told them what happened to me?”

  “She just knew,” Steven whispered. “It was the same man and she knew.”

  I didn’t want to think about that. But I did. I had time. It took us more than an hour to walk home. Longer, because I detoured to check other parts of his family’s fence; and then mine. No need to bless any other borders in these parts. Folks had their own problems, but not like ours—though the road, between his place and mine, had a reputation among locals: few travelled it at night. Years ago, men and women had gone missing, parts of them found at the side of the road, chewed up.

  We walked slowly. Met only two other people, the Robersons: a silver-haired woman on a battered bicycle, transporting green onions inside the basket bolted to the handlebars, and her husband, ten years younger, riding another bike and hauling a homemade cart full of caged chicks. On their way to town central. Mr. Roberson wore a gun, but his was just for show. I was the only person in fifty miles who still had bullets, but no one knew that either, except for Henry and Steven.

  Steven kept his head down. I forced myself to wave. Mrs. Roberson, still a short distance away, smiled and raised her hand. And then glanced to the left, to the young man at my side.

  Her front tire swerved. She touched her feet to the road to stay upright, but it was rough, and she almost spilled her onions. Her husband caught up, deliberately inserting himself between his wife and us. He touched his gun.

  And then they were gone, passing, pedaling down the road. I stopped, turning around to stare. Mr. Roberson looked back. I felt a chill when I met his gaze.

  “Amanda,” Steven said.

  “What,” I replied, distracted, thinking about the farm and the land, and those crops I would need help harvesting. I thought about the pigs I wanted to buy, and all the little things I needed that only town businesses—businesses run by Amish—could provide.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and then, even more quietly: “Everyone is going to know. My parents have already told the Church about Henry and me. We won’t be able to stay here.”