Chapter 16

16.

         “. . . we met at a festival, maybe four years ago. It was at my village but it’s not always there, it changes depending on the year. I don’t know how they decide. He wasn’t from my village but we met there. I backed into him while getting out of someone’s way and made him drop this heavy piece of fruit he was carrying, right onto my foot. Somehow he caught me, right in his arms, but the jolt nearly sent us both over. I remember . . . all I could see was his face silhouetted by the sun, my head was spinning and I felt like I was going to fall any second and above me was just this . . . man, I couldn’t see his face, it was all exaggerated and shadowed and I don’t even remember thinking if he was handsome or not. All I remember is wondering if my foot was broken.
         “He managed to carry me to the side of the fairway to sit down, though I think it was half momentum and half strength that got us there. The whole time he wouldn’t stop apologizing. I was in so much pain that after a minute it just became this background noise, all part of the festival, all the shouting and the laughing and the chattering, all of it was just swirling around me and I remember it was hot that day and I was starting to sweat and my foot was throbbing and I just didn’t care. So I just let him babble, figuring after a minute he’d exhaust himself or I lose my patience and we’d part and go our separate ways. I figured in a few years it would make a funny story.
         “Out of nowhere he offered me a piece of fruit. Later, he said it was all he could think of to do. I told him that, judging by the bruise forming on my foot, it might turn out to be a little overripe. I also said I hope it didn’t taste as bad as it felt. I was probably harder on him than I needed to be, but it was so hot out and now I was in pain and, really, offering fruit was probably the most inane thing to ask someone. It was the last thing on my mind, trust me.
         “One of the weird things about him . . . when you said something that . . . hurt his feelings or upset him, he . . . he wouldn’t yell or stop talking to you or pout or anything . . . he’d just this look in his eyes, this wounded, sad look . . . but he wouldn’t stop talking to you and that’s what he did and the whole time . . . it’s like he’s trying to put on a brave show and he doesn’t want you to know and . . . it can’t help but leak out his eyes. I felt sorry for him. Even now I can’t help it, it makes him look so . . . torn, like he’s trying not to withdraw and he has no choice but he’s trying not to anyway, for your sake, for everyone. It always struck me as . . . noble I guess. It’s weird. I don’t know why. I don’t know. I should have pitied him but . . . he didn’t make it look pathetic. Anyone else, it would have. But not him. I don’t know why.
         “Eventually I made him stop apologizing. I told him I was really okay, I didn’t think he’d made me a cripple. He seemed relieved and then he said, he asked me, if it was okay with me, if later, if he could take me to . . . most nights of the festival they had this dance, mostly what everyone would do during the day except maybe a little more dressed up and sometimes there would be music . . . anyway he asked if he could take me.
         “I told him that he was welcome to ask for a dance if he saw me and I would make every attempt to go but I just wasn’t sure. My hurt foot, you know. And he gave me that sort of pained look and he smiled and he said, okay. Okay, he said. I told him I’d see what I could do. I figured I had plenty of friends I was going to see anyway so really, what was the harm? And he helped me up, took his fruit and walked off. I never thought I’d see him again. All the people from the surrounding villages gather for the festivals and the chance of running into the same perfect stranger twice . . . it’s pretty slim. I know, some years I’ve actually tried and have had no luck.
         “The strange thing was, while he was gone I kept finding myself thinking that he wasn’t all that bad looking and he had been fairly sweet the whole time, if a bit awkward but sometimes . . . sometimes you just find that stuff endearing. I can’t explain it. A thousand other men . . . they could do it and I would think it to be such an annoying trait. He did it and . . . and I couldn’t get him out of my head.
         “I don’t remember which of us found the other first that night. He says he did and I swear it was me. He told me he knew exactly where I was going to be, like it was fate. I thought he was just being dramatic, trying to impress me. Some days I think it worked more than I wanted to admit. He asked me how my foot was and I said he had one chance not to step on it and that was it, he’d have to find another partner. He laughed. He said he didn’t think he’d need to.
         “That night was a blur. We danced, talked, I think at one point he dragged me up to the band and we played with them. He sang a song that he swore wasn’t about me but . . . it might have been. It was hard to make out the words, it’s so hard to figure out what memories are when, sometimes I think I remember that night with absolute clarity and other days . . . I feel all out of sequence.
         “I fell in love with him that night. Sometimes I wonder if I had a choice. He used to tell me it was a good thing I didn’t because he wouldn’t have known what to do otherwise. We sat in the grass, just talking, our heads almost touching. I remember a torch burning above us and the smoke getting in my eyes and making them water. He wiped the tears away and his touch was so gentle, it barely felt real. I had to keep telling myself this couldn’t be happening. It didn’t happen like this. It never did. You went and found a guy you could tolerate to give your parents grandchildren because that was how it went and while over time you might grow to feel something for him that could be love, it was more familiarity than love. That’s what I always thought. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I guessed if everyone else went through it, it couldn’t be too bad.
         “We went back to his home later, as the sun was rising. I don’t remember him asking me. I think it was just assumed. Not because it was . . . proper or tradition or . . . anything like that. It felt right. Natural, I guess. I’d never felt like that. He held me and the world went somewhere else, there was just us. Just him. We kept talking in whispers and his breath tickled my ear, I laughed and had to bury my head in his chest to make him stop. It felt right. Everything did. In a lot of ways it still does.
         “We . . . made love that night, and it seemed to take so long and be over so absurdly fast and at the end all I could think of was how happy I was. It was my first time and he said it was his and yet . . . it felt like we were picking up where we left off. I can’t explain it. When I was a kid we’d all gather and listen to my father tell stories . . . he used to tell so many, about why the world was the way it was, of adventures and epics and . . . you sat there and he could convince you it was all magic. The world was magic and we never realized it because we were living in it but if you knew how to look you’d see. Everything, the trees, animals, the river, there was always a marvelously exciting story that made it seems so much more exciting than what you’d think. And always at the end the people, nobles or farmers, they all found true love. Like I said, magic.
         “Sometimes me and my father, we’d watch the sun fall and we’d see the sky fill with those tiny lights and he’d tell me . . . he’d say to me, true love lights the sky on fire. And that’s what they were from. I believed it. Even when I found out my father’s stories were, you know, just stories, I still believed that one. It felt right. If one thing had to be true, that was it.
         “I think I saw one appear the night I was married. After the ceremony and the party after, I stood out there by myself and watched the sky and . . . maybe it was there. I don’t know. Even if it didn’t, I was so happy it didn’t matter. I felt like . . . all these dreams, everything was just laid out before me and it looked endless and I could . . . anything I wanted . . . so many things . . . I . . . I wanted to be a good wife and raise a family and . . . and maybe when the kids were older, or even when they weren’t . . . I was good at making things. Once. Out of wood or . . . or clay. People used to tell me how beautiful they were. I thought maybe in my spare time I could sell them and . . . help out. Or just make them, for family, for my kids, to make people happy.
         “A year later we had the baby and it was all working out. This road was just stretched out ahead and . . . I couldn’t see the end. It was so beautiful, our plans. Every day was beautiful. I didn’t think it would ever end. I knew it would, but it would change, because that’s . . . life is change. And I knew it would always just for the better. I just knew. And it has. It did. Life was so good.”
         The woman who kept saying her name was not Jula lifted her head and looked at Kara with haunted eyes. “But now I don’t know if any of that ever happened . . .” She lowered her head again, her hair obscuring her face and silently her shoulders began to shake again.
         Helplessly Kara watched her, unsure of what to do. The woman had been a mess when she had first run into Kara, barely coherent and it had taken several hours to calm her down. Exhausted she had fallen asleep, clinging to Kara with a painful tightness, even as the night itself got steadily colder. Kara did her best to warm the woman but even as the morning sun was rising she still shivered violently.
         She had been able to talk more after waking up, but emotionally she was fragmented, tears springing to her at any moment, sometimes talking like she was unable to stop, her words coming out in great swooping bursts, a range of subjects almost stream of consciousness in its randomness. At other times she was withdrawn, staring at the near distance for so long that Kara wondered if the world had ceased to exist for her.
         “It’s okay,” she said, reaching out and hesitantly patting the woman on the shoulder. “Whatever it was, it’s over now, okay? You’re fine.” To her own ears she sounded utterly insincere. But she didn’t know what else to say.
         “Is it over?” the woman asked, her voice harsh. With both hands she pushed her hair away from her face and looked up at Kara. She doesn’t look much older than me, Kara thought. Most of the blood from her face had been cleaned off, but her nose was still misshapen, a soft clay sculpture that an uncaring hand had simply grabbed and squeezed before letting go and allowing to harden. The woman said it didn’t hurt as much anymore, but Kara wasn’t so sure. She thought she knew how to accelerate her healing but she was afraid she might heal the nose the way it was. It would have to be rebroken again, maybe. Kara’s stomach churned at the thought. Seeing her own wounds had been bad enough, she didn’t want to have to inflict it on someone else.
         “I wish I knew if it was,” the woman continued. “Everything in my head it’s just . . . jumbled . . .” she pressed her the heels of her hands tightly against her eyes, grimacing in frustration. “Sometimes I remember it all one, another time it’s completely different. I don’t know what to believe.” She sounded too tired to be angry anymore, ready to accept whatever set of memories required the least effort.
         “Even my name,” she said, letting her hands drop and staring at Kara again, “I know, I know it’s not Jula but . . . what is it? Even my family . . .” her eyes went wide, briefly panicked, “they could tell me but . . . are they even my family? I don’t know. I just don’t know . . .” her voice was rising, gradually becoming more hysterical. Kara really couldn’t blame her for getting a bit excited but she wasn’t sure how dangerous the forest was and this woman screaming wouldn’t make it any safer. She had been found twice already, once by whoever had spoken to her last night and now this woman. The third person might not be so benign.
         “It’ll be okay, really,” Kara said brightly, injecting as much optimism in her voice as she could. It was an effort, she was stiff from sleeping against a tree all night, her clothes were torn and dirty and even with this woman she still felt very alone. “It’s just . . . it’s a shock, that’s all. Come on . . .” taking the woman by the hand and lifting her to her feet. “You just need time to . . . to get used to it. Then it will all fall into place. You’ll see.”
         “I hope so,” the woman said, not resisting as Kara pulled her up. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face had a hollow look to it, as if someone had excised pieces of her from underneath her skin. Her bones felt so thin, almost brittle. “I keep remembering . . . being happy and it’s like . . . it happened to someone else. Someone who was me. And I’m not . . . me anymore and I’m looking at this stranger’s life . . .” Her laugh was ragged and mercifully brief. “Or I stopped being me and became this stranger and now I’m me again. I don’t know. Which is it supposed to be?” The question wasn’t meant for anyone.
         “Maybe going back to the village will help,” Kara suggested, navigating her way over a series of roots that seemed designed to break her ankles. At least in the daylight she had half a chance. The sounds of the forest were oddly muted, but she figured the two of them talking and thrashing about had scared all the other local life away. Hopefully it didn’t attract anything else. More and more she was thinking it would be better to get somewhere fairly public, where there was less chance someone would try anything. Of course her and her father had tried that once before and it had failed. If it failed this time, she didn’t know who would rescue her. But it was the only idea she had. “We can find your family and they can help, they can sort it out . . .”
         The woman laughed again, nearly stumbling into a tree. “Oh, they may not even be there. Sometimes . . . sometimes I think we stayed where I was born, built a house there, I can . . . I can see the house going up, I remember standing in the shell of my home, before we finished the walls and moved in furniture and maybe I was already pregnant, but . . .” and she did fall against the tree this time, closing her eyes and resting her head against the trunk. “I can see myself traveling to his village and living in his house . . . and my parents . . . I don’t know where they are. Maybe neither village. Maybe nowhere.” The sound she made was a broken thing. “Only he would know, I guess . . . but I don’t think he . . .” she trailed off, biting her lip, as if unable to speak any further. “Oh . . .” she said finally, swaying a little.
         “Who is he?” Kara asked quietly. “Your husband?”
         The woman only nodded.
         “Did he . . . how would he know . . . he . . .” Kara had tried to probe the woman’s memories but everything seemed to contradict itself and it all was somehow true. It didn’t make any sense. She wanted to go deeper, try to sort it out, but she was frightened to. Ranos didn’t want to show her anything to do with reading minds and changing them. The little he had demonstrated had been under protest and he had ended the lesson as quickly as he could. It’s dangerous, there is no way to experiment, to practice. Every time, you work without a net. Kara had the sad impression he spoke from experience. “He did something to you, didn’t he? What did he do?” She suspected the source of the broken nose hadn’t been a fall down the stairs.
         “He did . . .” the woman stopped, swallowed, suddenly flinched as if stabbed, finally spitting out, “I think he did something terrible.” Kara could barely hear her. “But I don’t know.”
         The woman coughed, let go of the tree and took several steps away from it. “We should get to the village,” she said with sudden vigor. “Even if my parents aren’t there . . . I knew people. They’ll help . . . me and you . . .”
         “Great, we should be there in no time at all,” Kara said, taking the woman by the arm and helping her cross the maze of clinging undergrowth. If she could read the woman’s mind she might be able to risk a teleport, but Kara didn’t trust any of her memories. Where is everyone? Are they looking for me? Oh God, will they even know where to look? “Once you get a decent night’s sleep and some food, you’ll see things will look a lot better.”
         The woman smiled kindly. “Thank you,” she said, patting Kara’s arm. “I’m glad I ran into you . . . what are you doing in these woods? You seem young to be running around by yourself.”
         At my age, you were already married, Kara thought, but kept it to herself. “I . . . was traveling with family and . . . we got separated . . .” a hollow feeling of loss took up residence in her stomach. Angrily, she chased it away. Someone would find her, and soon. They had to. “We just have to meet up again and we’ll be on our way. It’s . . . it’s just temporary.”
         “Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I hope you find them soon.” Talking seemed to get her mind off of her troubles, already her movements were more relaxed, more natural.
         “They’ll probably find me first,” Kara replied, grinning. “My dad is pretty good at this sort of stuff. Besides if he finds me first, then he gets to yell at me for running off.” Though maybe he’ll be so glad to see me in one piece that he’ll forget to yell. I shouldn’t wish for too much though. One thing at a time, Kara.
         The other woman laughed. Her body felt light, like it might break apart and drift away any second. Kara wanted to hold onto her tighter, to keep her here. She wondered if it was possible anymore. “Yeah, fathers are like that . . . my father, he used to tell me . . . he used to say,” her face scrunched up, like she was trying to push the reluctant memory through a dense screen, “that magic came from dreams and it was dreams that made the world magical . . . and that I needed to have as many dreams as I could so the world would stay . . . so the magic wouldn’t leave. And when I asked him what I should dream about . . . he said . . . he said anything . . . he said . . .” she inhaled sharply, stopping in her tracks, “my name, that’s what it means. It means `dream’.” She closed her eyes tightly, and something glistened underneath the lids, liquid crystal. “I’m sorry, daddy, I’m so sorry, I tried so hard . . . but I ran . . . I ran out . . .”
         The woman’s knees suddenly buckled, driving Kara to the ground as well, in an attempt to keep her from being hurt. “I don’t feel . . . what . . . what’s going on . . .” the woman muttered, confused.
         “Are you all right?” Kara asked, concerned. What’s going on? What’s happening to her? She was reminded again how quiet the forest was, even the rustle of the leaves was hushed. There’s nobody to help but me. Don’t let this happen. “Don’t strain yourself, okay? Just . . . just relax . . . we’re in no-“
         The woman coughed violently, seeming to shatter inside. Something wet hit the forest floor, red dots spotting the greenery. Looking up at Kara, her eyes suddenly looked very scared. A trickle of blood ran from the side of her mouth. She barely seemed to notice.
         Oh God. Oh God no. Kara felt her insides freeze. Don’t do this. Don’t. No.
         “I’m all right,” she said, even as she winced in pain and nearly collapsed. “I’m-“ she jerked again, coughing into her hand. Her palm came away crimson. With her other hand she gently reached up to touch Kara’s cheek. “I won’t even know your name,” she rasped softly, almost in wonderment. Kara was trying desperately to hold her up, but her grip was slackening.
         “Kara, it’s Kara,” she said quickly, out of breath. Tears sprang to her eyes. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. “But don’t worry about that, you have to-“
         ”Kara?” the woman said, testing it out. “That’s . . . that’s a nice . . . name. My . . .” she gave a weak cough, like broken glass, and began to sag in Kara’s arms, “mine’s . . .” Her lips, very close to Kara’s ear whispered a word she couldn’t make out. Perhaps it was the ghost of a breath already fading. Not all names can be spoken. No.
         “No, don’t!” Kara nearly screamed, as the woman went limp. “Don’t go, you can’t . . .” and she was already gone, tumbling to the ground, even as Kara insanely reached in, trying to find something to latch onto, something to make stay. You can’t do this. You can’t leave!
         A thing that was not a pulse and not a soul fluttered once, twice and slipped from her grasp. Afterwards, there was nothing.
         “No,” Kara said, pressing her hands to her ears, trying to block out the world. Hot tears infested her eyes, raked scars down her face. She didn’t pay any attention. It might not even be real. It’s not fair. She crouched over the woman, not knowing what to do or where to go. What did she ever do?
         “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t know her name either,” a familiar voice chuckled coldly. Kara’s head shot up to see the branches of a nearby tree shift and a man slowly detach himself from the foliage and float about halfway to the ground, his body somehow changing colors to match the environment around him. Yet the face was clear. The face, she knew. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? What counts is that we had some good years together. And that’s all anyone needs, right? A few nice years and it’s all worthwhile.” He almost sounded like he believed himself.
         Kara felt an equal mixture of cold anger and sharp fear course through her. Distantly she wished her hands would stop shaking. Clenching them into fists didn’t help at all. With a courage that seemed all in her voice, she hissed, “Get away from here.”
         Above her, Tolin only laughed.