Everwhere
Liyana finds Goldie sitting in Leo’s branches. She calls up and waves. Goldie glances down with a guilty look, gripping the bough alongside her as if Liyana might be about to snap the branch in half and wrench it from her grasp.
‘I thought I’d find you here.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Liyana frowns. ‘Nothing, why – you’re always here, aren’t you?’
Goldie says nothing.
‘Can you come down?’ Liyana pleads. ‘We need to talk about Scarlet.’
Goldie leans back against Leo’s trunk. ‘Can we talk tomorrow?’
‘No, I’m sorry, it needs to be now.’
‘But I don’t understand . . .’ Goldie sinks to the ground at Leo’s roots. ‘How could she . . . ? And why didn’t she – why didn’t I know? And how—’
‘I heard her thoughts,’ Liyana says. ‘And I saw it in the cards.’
‘I thought she was okay, I thought she was getting better . . .’ Goldie drops her head to her knees. ‘I should’ve known.’
‘Don’t,’ Liyana says. ‘There’s no point in all that now. We’ve just got to help her.’
Goldie sighs. ‘But I just . . . I don’t understand, why didn’t she talk to us, why didn’t she tell us what she wanted to do? We could have helped, we could have—’
‘Stopped her,’ Liyana interrupts. ‘There’s your answer. People talk about things they want to do because they’re not doing them. I mean, suicides don’t share their plans, do they? If you’re actually going to do a thing, you don’t talk about it, you just do it.’
‘Oh, Ana.’ Goldie lifts her head and looks up. ‘Your aunt.’
Liyana nods. ‘We can’t . . . not now, we’ve got to focus on Scarlet.’
‘Yes, of course. But what can we do? She committed arson, she nearly committed murder. She’ll be locked away for the rest of her life.’
‘They’ll have to suspect her first,’ Liyana says. ‘And I’m guessing she didn’t leave many fingerprints.’
Goldie sighs again. ‘Where is she now?’
‘I don’t know. I couldn’t chase her; I was too busy trying to put out the bloody fire.’
Scarlet’s entrance is heralded by the rustling of leaves, a drawing back of the fog, a lifting of the mists and a splitting of the clouds for the moon to cast her spotlight to the stony ground. Liyana and Goldie watch their sister striding out of the fog.
‘Here I am.’
She is exactly the same but entirely different: radiant, luminous, incandescent; as if lit from within. She is straighter, taller, stronger than before, her lustrous hair a darker red. Her presence is grander, her impact greater. The fog falls away, but her imprint remains. Still gawping, now Goldie and Liyana see what the fog had first obscured – that Scarlet doesn’t walk but glides, hovering a few inches above the ground.
It’s only when Scarlet is standing before her that Goldie realizes she hadn’t been imagining things on the night of the conjuring: her glittering eyes are pitch black. She stares at her sister, more beautiful than any human being she’s ever seen: audacious, fearless, resplendent.
Scarlet smiles. ‘Miss me?’
‘What . . .’ Goldie loses her train of thought. ‘What . . . what has happened to you?’
Scarlet’s smile widens into a grin. ‘What hasn’t happened to me?’ She lifts her arms towards the unwavering moon. ‘I am all things. There’s nothing I haven’t done, nothing I couldn’t do. I am a Sister Grimm supreme.’
‘You say that like it’s a good thing,’ Liyana snaps. ‘You nearly killed a man.’
‘I nearly killed a cockroach.’ Scarlet shrugs, dropping her hands. ‘And I’d do it again. Perhaps I’ll make that my profession – since I’m seeking a job – I could be a modern-day superhero exterminating odious males for the good of womankind – what do you think?’
Goldie and Liyana say nothing.
‘I’ll need a costume, of course,’ Scarlet carries on, regardless. ‘Something spectacular. I rather fancy a cape. Dark red, to match my hair. No cowardly mask though; if I do a deed I want the acclaim.’
‘Stop it, Scar,’ Goldie interrupts. ‘Do you understand what you’ve done?’
‘I was there, wasn’t I?’ Scarlet raises her eyes to the heavens. ‘And it wasn’t on a silly whim. It was planned and, I may say, executed to perfection.’
‘Wait’ – Goldie stares at her, incredulous – ‘you admit to it? You won’t even try to . . .’
‘And why shouldn’t I?’ Scarlet grins. ‘Weren’t you listening? If I do the deed, I want the acclaim. Wouldn’t you feel the same?’
Goldie and Liyana exchange incredulous glances.
‘So, you’re going to confess?’ Liyana says. ‘You’re going to hand yourself in?’
Scarlet’s laugh shakes the boughs of every tree, rumbling through the ground and shivering every root. ‘And why should I do that? If I’m incarcerated then I’m no use to anyone.’
‘Then what will you do?’ Goldie stares at her sister. ‘If you’re not going to run. How do you think you’ll get away with it?’
As if considering this, Scarlet breaks into a beatific smile. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that.’
Goldie presses her feet into the soil, in her anxiety trying to grip the ground, as little shoots begin to sprout, twining up between her toes. ‘I don’t understand . . .’
‘Oh!’ Liyana exclaims, putting her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, no.’
Goldie turns to her. ‘What?’
But Liyana doesn’t take her eyes off Scarlet. ‘The cards, I saw it . . . The Devil . . . a malevolent spirit, the shadows . . .’
Pride illuminates Scarlet’s radiant face.
Goldie looks from sister to sister. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘When . . . when we resurrected Leo,’ Liyana says. ‘We released you.’
For a moment Goldie doesn’t understand; then she recalls that spite and vengeance wait in the shadows; dark spirits that linger on – a malignant mark left by Everwhere’s vanquished creator. Slowly, Scarlet starts to applaud. ‘Well done, sister. I was starting to wonder if either of you was ever going to get there . . .’
‘But I don’t – but, how?’ Goldie says. ‘How did that happen?’
The unwavering moon illuminates Scarlet as if she’s standing beneath a theatre spotlight, the fog swirls about her like smoke. Goldie and Liyana watch their sister begin to stride in slow, considered circles of contemplation. As she walks, her fingers spark. When Scarlet stops before the tree and reaches out to stroke the smooth bark, caressing the constellation of tiny crescent moons and stars scarred along the trunk, Goldie steps forward.
‘Don’t touch him.’ She still doesn’t understand what’s happened to her sister, but can feel malevolence perfuming the air. ‘Or . . .’
‘I could burn you, if you like.’ Scarlet presses her cheek to the trunk and whispers to Leo, as if Goldie hadn’t spoken a word. ‘I could put you out of your misery. Just say the word . . .’
Leo’s branches quiver, as if a breeze has blown through them, though the air is still. Do what you wish with me, but don’t hurt her.
‘Oh, yes!’ The deep rumble of Scarlet’s laugh shudders through the trees and shakes the ground. ‘But this would be by far the best way to hurt her, don’t you think? Watching you burn to the ground would be more painful than any death I could conjure?’
Goldie’s propelled forward but Liyana grabs hold of her and pulls her back. Goldie’s scream entwines with Leo’s twisted branches. In response, a raven caws.
‘Oh, you’re both so ridiculous,’ Scarlet snaps. ‘And I won’t burn him, though God knows he deserves it, if only for being so insufferably gallant.’
‘Stop!’ Goldie shouts. ‘Stop!’
Another ecstatic smile spreads across Scarlet’s beautiful face as she turns to her sister. It’s unnerving, still, how radiant she looks, though why the paradox of beauty and evil coexisting should be such a hard one to accept, Goldie isn’t certain. She searches Scarlet’s black eyes for a glimmer of affection or sisterly affiliation, but sees nothing except the glint of her own reflection.
‘It would be a mistake not to fear me,’ Scarlet says. ‘I could, if I wished, burn you alive before you noticed me lift a finger to do it.’
‘You can try.’ At Liyana’s words rain clouds gather above, so dense and thick it feels as if the sky is descending as darkness closes in. With a great crack of thunder, the clouds are ripped open to tip torrents of water down upon them all.
The shadow sister laughs, its lightning cackle splitting open Scarlet’s mouth. ‘Oh, that’s too vain – really! You think I’m here just to kill the two of you and’ – she nods in Leo’s direction – ‘the tree. No, your deaths will be an incidental pleasure; but it’s the burning of Everwhere itself that I’m here for. Total detonation. Annihilation. Obliteration.’
Impossible. With a single word Liyana and Goldie share the same thought, but their shock – and fear – renders them silent. The rain ceases.
‘Oh, you might think so,’ Scarlet says. ‘But you’d be wrong. This place’ – she casts her hands open in a faux embrace – ‘is not indestructible. Of course, the shadows alone cannot manage it, which is why I decided to join forces with your darling sister.’
‘B-but,’ Goldie stutters. ‘Then surely you’ll annihilate yourself too, whatever the hell you are.’
Their shadow sister draws a sigh up from the bowels of the earth. ‘Ah, yes . . . It certainly will be a holocaust.’ A grin contorts her exquisite face. ‘No survivors, neither the living nor the dead.’
‘But why?’ Liyana echoes Goldie. ‘Why would you do that if you won’t survive to see it?’
Scarlet frowns, slowly shaking her head, as if Liyana is the greatest of fools. On the pale skin of her neck and hands the veins begin to throb, her blood now an inky black.
‘My goodness, you disappoint me, my dear. Ignorance I can forgive, but not naivety. Any conqueror worth his salt would sacrifice himself for his cause. Does not every suicide bomber do the same? And what of soldiers who fight despite knowing they’re outnumbered? To commit murder while contriving one’s own survival is cowardice. To die for the cause is heroic; the greatest of honourable acts.’
Goldie and Liyana stare at the creature open-mouthed, incredulity having struck them dumb, horror having crushed their hearts. Neither know how to answer, how to stand, how to face or respond to such vile, iniquitous feelings. Without turning each reaches for the other’s hand, their fingers lacing together, Liyana pulling Goldie back from the edge, Goldie anchoring Liyana to the ground.
But, what now?
I don’t know.
Liyana glances at Goldie, an idea having struck her. Mami Wata?
Goldie nods.
‘Ah, yes!’ The shadow laughs and Scarlet applauds. ‘What a fun little plan! I do so love an exorcism – it’s all quite erotic, don’t you find? Being delved into like that.’
Goldie’s eyes go to Liyana, who looks blankly back. They cannot share their thoughts here without being overheard, cannot formulate more elaborate secret plans. So what choice do they have but to try this one?
‘Let’s get on then, time is ticking and I’ve got things to do, worlds to destroy.’ The shadow-Scarlet opens its arms wide and walks backwards, stopping just short of Leo’s trunk. ‘Be careful now,’ it says. ‘I don’t want to end up trapped in a tree – it’d be most unfortunate and I’d be forced to punish you most elaborately.’
It grins again, polluting Scarlet’s poor face, and Goldie hopes that the shadow is wrong to dismiss them so lightly, that its monstrous hubris might be its downfall. History, after all, is strewn with the corpses of those who believed themselves invincible. Teddy had told her their stories and, to soothe herself, she recites them silently now: Caligula, Caesar, Attila . . . as if those mad, terrible ghosts can reduce their foe or build their ranks. The Battle of Morgarten – Teddy’s voice echoes in Goldie’s ear – 1,500 Swiss soldiers beat an Austrian army of 8,000. The Battle of Salamis . . .
Without waiting, Liyana begins to mutter, incanting her spell.
‘Hold her tight!’ Goldie shouts to Leo, hoping he’ll move faster than Scarlet.
Instantly, Leo’s two lowest, thickest branches reach out to wrap around Scarlet’s waist, pulling her fast and tight against his trunk. In the same moment, Goldie wrenches thick ropes of ivy from the soil, to bind Scarlet’s arms and legs, fixing her to the tree.
‘My, my.’ The shadow surveys its shackles. ‘This is cosy, isn’t it? This is—’
‘Mami Wata,’ Liyana cuts it off. ‘Mami Wata muna roƙonka don . . .’
For a split second the shadow rises from Scarlet’s body, so she’s enveloped by a thick dark mist, and for a moment they see her face again – as it was before – until the shadow sinks back into her flesh.
Buoyed by hope, Goldie joins Liyana’s incantation and together they chant: ‘Mami Wata muna roƙonka don taimakawa wajen raba wadannan rayuka biyu. Muna rokon ku don taimakawa wajen fitar da magungunan, a sake dawo da mazaunin jiki zuwa jikinta da kuma kawar da duk masu fadar.’
‘A parasite, am I?’ Scarlet’s lips are as inky as her eyes. ‘Couldn’t you have come up with a more fitting metaphor? An incubus, perhaps. Or succubus. The latter evokes the blood sucker, don’t you—’ It’s interrupted by a sudden scream that slaps against the air as Scarlet’s face contorts into a paroxysm of pain. Goldie gapes at her twisting, writhing sister.
‘Don’t,’ Liyana shouts. ‘Don’t stop!’
‘Muna rokon ku don taimakawa wajen fitar da magungunan . . . ’
Scarlet’s scream pierces the sisters, pushing them back with the sheer force of the sound. They stare at her, horrified – Can she survive this? Can she emerge unscathed? – but do not pause in their chant. ‘Mami Wata muna roƙonka don taimakawa wajen raba wadannan rayuka biyu—’
There’s a sudden shift in the scream, as if Scarlet is convulsing not with pain but pleasure: sighing, moaning, shivering with great waves of delight. Then, she’s laughing. It is laughing, a deep tremendous rumble that shakes through Leo so violently it snaps twigs from branches, raining his pieces down upon the sisters like a pestilence. Then it is giggling, as if caught by something mildly amusing, as if appreciating a mediocre joke.
‘I don’t . . .’ Liyana trails off. ‘What’s—’
‘It’s mocking us,’ Goldie says. ‘We did nothing.’
‘Oh, my dears.’ The shadow smiles. ‘Don’t be like that; sulking is so unbecoming. Anyway, you ought to be proud of your efforts. For a first-time exorcism it wasn’t too bad, I felt a definite twinge or two. I’m sure, if you’d had a few more days of chanting in you, extraction would have been truly imminent.’
‘Fuck,’ Liyana spits. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’
‘Now, now, my dear.’ Its voice is taut as a wire, ready to snap. ‘Let’s not get carried away.’
‘Or what’ll you do to me?’ Liyana shouts. ‘I can’t imagine what’s worse than being burned alive!’
That malicious grin again. ‘Then you’ve a poor imagination.’
Liyana opens her mouth but, as she does so, she falls to the ground. Goldie stares, horrified, as Liyana starts to scream, pressing her hands to her temples, tearing at her hair, her face contorting into a mask of such terror that Goldie is paralysed, transfixed.
‘No! Nya, no! Don’t!’ Liyana’s scream cracks through the air like lightning. ‘Koko, Koko, stop!’ Liyana scratches her face, drawing rivulets of blood down her cheeks. ‘Please, no, no, no!’
At the sight of her sister’s torture, Goldie is seized by such rage that all fear and care go by the board. She reaches out towards Scarlet, her shadow sister, hands outstretched; instantly, vines of ivy lace around the creature’s throat, tightening so fast that it’s being throttled before it’s even aware of what’s being done. Goldie pulls the vines tighter, ever tighter. As the blood drains from Scarlet’s face, her head falls forward as if snapped at the neck—
Unable to continue, Goldie drops her hands to her sides and the vines go slack.
Slowly, Scarlet lifts her head, opens her mouth, clicks her jaw from side to side. ‘Ouch.’ She fixes large, black eyes on Goldie. ‘For someone so intelligent, I’m surprised you didn’t realize that sooner.’
Goldie drops to her knees, defeated. But, at least, Liyana is silent now.
‘What a conundrum.’ Its laughter prickles like static through the glade. ‘How to kill me without hurting me: seems like an unsolvable puzzle, wouldn’t you say?’
On the ground, Liyana moans. Darting over to Liyana’s side, Goldie rests her hands on her sister’s cheeks so the blood draws in and the scratches begin to seal up.
‘We can’t risk damaging this pretty one now, can we?’ The shadow’s grin slices through Scarlet’s cheeks, as if it’d just slit them open with a knife. ‘And, just in case you were thinking of sacrificing your lovely sister . . . you should know that extinguishing her body won’t extinguish my spirit. It’ll take far more than that. So, my dears, if you can’t exorcize me and you can’t extinguish me – what do you propose to do?’
In Leo’s branches, a raven caws. Once, twice, thrice.
A second later black wings swoop down, beating the air now filled with the cries of screeching birds. For a moment the sky is darker than it’s ever been, any glimmer of moonlight blocked by the clouds of ravens. Hundreds, thousands of outstretched talons and pointed beaks. And, before she hears Leo’s plea in her mind, Goldie is pulling Liyana up, dragging her away, stumbling as he begs: Run to the shadows, hide!
Liyana gasps as they run, but doesn’t have breath to ask, just as Goldie doesn’t have breath to answer; dashing over moss and stone, through curtains of leaves, past fallen trunks, over rocks, towards the darkness. But, before they tumble into the gloom, Liyana pulls back.
‘No’ – she tugs at Goldie’s hand – ‘we can’t.’
This is the darkness they’ve been advised since girlhood to avoid and they know too well the impossibility of resisting the poison of spite and vengeance – they only have to see Scarlet to know the dangers of possession. A few seconds of listening to the whispers will send them mad, render them mute, strip them of every strength and skill they ever had.
‘Trust me.’ – Goldie pulls at her sister – ‘Please.’
They’re barely an inch from the shadows, their feet almost encroaching on the inky, slick, slithering darkness. Together they step into the undergrowth.
‘How will we survive this?’ Liyana feels the shadows clawing at her, their touch stickier than she’d imagined. It’s like walking into treacle, except that the shadows slip off like oils from their skin as they walk.
‘I don’t know,’ Goldie admits. ‘But Leo wouldn’t endanger us. Bea must have a plan.’
‘I fucking hope so,’ Liyana mutters. For she can already hear the rising chorus, the insidious words wanting to burrow into their brains, twisting and wrenching, undoing everything they’ve ever believed to be right and true, until they’re malevolent, then demonic . . .
‘I think she’ll—’ Interrupting herself, Goldie screams and scrambles back.
All at once the creatures have surrounded them, elongated fingers reaching out, twisted, sunken faces fixing the sisters with hollow eyes, their rattling bones beating out the clarion call of their invitation to madness, destruction and despair.
Liyana and Goldie run.
They run on and on through the dark, turning, darting, slipping, only just evading the clawing grip of the shadows. Time slips sideways again, stretching and folding, rising and falling, so they might have been engulfed by the undergrowth a few swift minutes or a dozen sluggish hours.
Out, now.
At Bea’s words, Liyana seizes Goldie’s hand and pulls her on.
Left.
Right.
Onwards.
Yes!
Following Bea’s instructions they run towards the dim light. Finally emerging, bodies streaked with dirt and filth, but minds mercifully untouched, Liyana and Goldie collapse to the ground, gasping for breath, pressing their faces into the moss, gripping vines of snaking ivy, holding tight to the earth, weeping with fear and shock and relief.
Far away a raven’s call.
They’re here.
They stream like salmon, fiercely determined to reach their destination, accelerated roots twisting through the soil, pressing ever forward. Hundreds of sisters rushing, leaping, flying towards the arena, called to the place they must meet. Liyana and Goldie slip into the throng, carried on waves of nervous excitement, chatter undulating through the evershifting group, purposeful, terrified, fervent . . .
When they reach the glade silence falls like a blanket dropped.
Their shadow sister stands at Leo’s trunk, absently burning fresh scars into the wood, elaborate patterns of concentric circles, as if she’s stubbing out packets of discarded cigarettes. Goldie’s screams cut a path through the swarm of women and girls, and she hurtles forward, before arms grab hold of her and pull her back.
Wait. It must be done as one, together. You cannot defeat it alone.
The shadow turns to the crowd, its malicious grin breaking across Scarlet’s face, hands clasped as if in celebration.
‘Well, I certainly didn’t expect such a marvellous turnout,’ it exclaims with faux joy. ‘Whatever have I done to deserve such a warm welcome? I feel like a queen at her coronation!’
‘We’re not here to greet you,’ Goldie spits. ‘We’re here to vanquish you!’
‘To separate you,’ Liyana mutters, ‘from our sister.’
At this, a cheer rises from the crowd and, for the first time in a very long while, Goldie is lifted by a sense of camaraderie and belonging. She glances to Liyana, who nods as they take hands. Above, Bea circles the gathering.
All of you join hands. Unite your strength, double it, triple it, magnify it beyond all measure!
Instantly, every sister takes the hand of the sister beside her: sisters of fire, earth, air and water unite to control the elements at their fingertips. Sparks fill the air, cracks of lightning pierce the sky, roots undulate under the earth and gathering winds whip through the glade.
‘So it’s going to be like that, is it?’ Sparks flare at Scarlet’s fingertips. ‘Well, if you want a massacre instead of a coronation, then it’s a massacre you’ll get!’
Flames ignite at Scarlet’s feet, rising to encircle her. Goldie and all daughters of earth lift their hands as a copse of oak trees start to shake, ripping their roots from the soil – like monstrous white spiders escaping premature burial – and begin to stagger forward, an army of grotesques sending tremors through the ground with every step. The sisters of air draw the strength of the winds to channel a fierce rain to extinguish Scarlet’s fire and, though it’s replenished over and again, the flames never have a chance to rise.
Instead, Scarlet releases flaming arcs from her upturned palms which meet the mirrored arcs of fire from her sisters; the blazing collisions exploding with such force that the leaves of every tree in the glade ignite like tinder, raining down in hot ash to scorch the sisters below. Under the assault, dozens of sisters start to stumble and fall. On the ground they writhe and clutch their temples, heads thrown back, mouths open like howling wolves.
‘What’s happening?’ Liyana shouts. ‘What’s going on?’
She’s met only with blank, terrified stares as more sisters fall. Goldie, separated from Liyana, wants to run to Leo, to take refuge in his branches, to make certain he’s not burning, but she looks to the sky for Bea.
‘Help!’ she shrieks. ‘What’s wrong with them? What’s—’
Then Goldie falls. A thick grey fog fills her mind; her limbs feel heavy as lead; poisoned thoughts gather in strength and begin to spiral, dragging her into a maelstrom of despair . . . She cannot go on, only wants to die.
Stop! Another voice pierces the dark, a glimmer in the fog. Expel all thought from your mind, don’t listen to the shadows, don’t doubt your strength!
While fires rage and the ground shakes, a few sisters begin to pull themselves up and stand again. Goldie seizes hold of a static tree root and clutches it tight. Bea’s voice pushes through the shadows, a bright trumpet over screaming violins: You are magnificent, glorious, powerful beyond all measure! Now, pick yourself up and fight!
As Goldie’s struggling to drag herself from the ground, she sees Liyana standing above her, reaching out to pull her up. The moment she’s upright, Goldie’s pushed from the path of a ball of fire which crashes instead into moss and stone, flames rising and flaring until Liyana spreads her fingers, extinguishing them. Then she, joined by every sister of water still standing, turns to the moon and howls to the sound of great rolls of thunder rumbling across the sky. Seconds later, the clouds open to douse the glade in torrential rain.
The shadow-Scarlet circles her hands, lobbing fireballs at the trees. But the rain is too heavy and each is extinguished in a gasp of smoke. She throws again and again and again; crashing arcs of fire blaze from her hands, flashing into the air, only to be snuffed out.
Goldie looks to Leo, to the army surrounding her. Grabbing three sisters of earth, she forms a hasty circle, channelling their collective energies towards Leo. A moment later, his roots are pulling up from the soil and he begins creeping away from the glade towards the safety of the river. Whatever happens tonight, Goldie cannot – will not – watch him burn.
The sisters of earth, all now standing, raise a chant which draws the remaining trees together, clustering around Scarlet, trapping the thick billowing smoke within their canopy of branches. Inky veins ripple under her skin close to rupturing and, in its impotent rage, the shadow sets itself alight. Now Scarlet is a towering pillar of fire, flames licking and spitting, rising above the trees.
‘Hold on, Scar, hold on!’ Goldie shouts, calling to all the sisters of earth, who raise their arms, slinging ropes of ivy to knot tight around the tree trunks, binding them as they bow down and close their canopy of rain-soaked branches over the fire. The rain thickens and the winds whip and wrap around the trees, goading, teasing, taunting . . .
The explosion is tremendous. Nuclear. An apocalypse of fire. In a single shockwave of flame, the trees are obliterated and the earth cleft, opening a gigantic chasm that pulls everything it can grasp within. Every sister runs or flies from the rapidly expanding black hole, their screams swallowed by the thunderous cascade of descending soil and stone, of upwrenched roots and tumbling trees.
Until, at last, all is silent.
Slowly, every sister pulls herself up; shaking and trembling, soaked with rain and tears, blood and dirt, hoarse from screaming and mute with shock, they stand and survey what they’ve done.
Scarlet’s cry is soft, so soft that they don’t hear but only sense her. At once, every sister crowds around the edge of the crater and peers into the carnage of rocks and trees, limbs and soil. Quickly, Goldie, along with every other remaining sister of earth, plaits undulating vines of ivy into a rope and drops it into the darkness.
‘Take the rope,’ Goldie shouts down. ‘It’s safe.’
And when they feel a tugging weight, they slowly lift her up.
Emerging from the gloom, Scarlet is emaciated, stripped and raw; as if she’s undergone torture, ripped from the moorings of sanity, heart still beating but barely alive.
She’s pulled into Liyana and Goldie’s arms, where she’s held in an impenetrable embrace and gently, gradually healed: broken bones knitted together, wounds soothed and sealed, scars smoothed out . . . And as her body re-joins so, tentatively, does her mind. Now and then twitches flicker across Scarlet’s face, like static on a TV screen; now and then she cries out; sometimes she screams. Until, at last, she is silent and calm.
While Goldie and Liyana tend Scarlet, other sisters work to heal and save the lives of those among them who can be saved. When all that is done, the sisters of earth join to close the chasm and flatten the ground, binding a tight blanket of moss to lay over the land, a fresh sheet of skin on the surface of Everwhere, covering a grave for the few sisters who were lost in the fight. A long time passes before the sisters begin to disperse, wandering off in twos and threes, not needing to speak or say their goodbyes, knowing they will soon return to see one another again, for they are bound together now.
When Scarlet is finally able to sit up, flanked by Liyana and Goldie, they all see the thin line of blood trickling down Scarlet’s leg. They stare, breath held, until Scarlet lets out a deep sigh and begins to cry. Her sisters take her hands and whisper their solaces. But to their surprise – and hers – these are tears not of grief but relief.
In Leo’s branches, the raven perches, waiting.
Goldie
Goldie presses herself into Leo’s trunk, clinging to him as she did the first time, as if it’s been a full century since she last saw him. She doesn’t need to speak – which is fortunate, since she can’t form sentences – for he can hear her thoughts and feel her pulse.
When Goldie finds the strength and the will, she climbs into Leo’s lower boughs and sits while he wraps smaller branches around her body.
It’s okay, it’s over now.
Goldie nods.
I love you.
Goldie nods again. ‘I . . .’ She tries to echo his words but finds that she still cannot speak.
I didn’t know I could walk and, I must say, I prefer a riverside view.
He is trying to make her smile but this she cannot do either.
Silence stretches between them and when at last Goldie makes her declaration it is so quiet she hopes the words might be lost to the wind. ‘I – I’m going to let you go.’
What? I don’t—
‘I know you’re unhappy,’ Goldie whispers. ‘I know you’d rather be free.’
I’m not, of course I’m not. I’m happy. I love you.
‘Oh, Leo, my dearest one, I know you do.’ Goldie rests her head on his branches. ‘But you’re trapped here and I won’t live forever – I’ve been selfish. So very—’
No. He interrupts her with such force that he shudders. No! I, I, I need to stay with you.
Goldie hesitates. If he had only said want instead of need, she might have wavered.
‘It’s okay.’ A sob rises and she swallows it down. ‘I’ll be okay.’
I don’t believe you. You’re saying that so that I’ll leave you. But I know what happened before, I know what my death did to you. I won’t let it happen again.
‘I promise,’ Goldie says. ‘After this, I’ll go back and I’ll live and do all the things—’
I don’t want you just to live, I want you to be happy.
‘And how can I be happy’ – Goldie blinks away tears – ‘knowing that you are not?’
A sigh trembles his branches. I am happy. I’m happy whenever you’re here with me.
‘And when I’m not?’ Goldie shakes her head, still trying to rid herself of the gathering tears. ‘You’ll be here forever; for centuries after I die. And if I don’t release you soon, you’ll be trapped in this tree for eternity.’
Not eternity.
‘No,’ Goldie admits. ‘But long enough; until the sun finally implodes and this universe collapses, and Earth and Everwhere are folded into nothingness. Then you’ll finally be free.’
And, since he can’t deny it, Leo is silent.
‘You’ll be with me for sixty years or so,’ Goldie says. ‘Then you’ll be trapped for a hundred lifetimes.’
An exchange I’ll gladly make.
‘You say that because you love me, but I won’t let you suffer like that.’
But I won’t be able to speak to you, not as Bea does, you won’t hear my voice.
‘You’ll be here,’ Goldie says, gathering her strength. ‘I’ll hear you.’
Not words . . .
‘I know.’ Goldie presses a palm to his trunk. ‘But I’ll remember everything we’ve ever said to each other, every word.’
Or touch. We’ll never again . . .
Goldie hears the crack in his voice as he falters. And she can’t answer this, can’t convince him that she’s fine knowing that she will never again feel his touch.
Silence stretches between them once more until Leo realizes that Goldie won’t be the first to speak, won’t say anything until he gives his consent.
All right. But, wait. Wait until the last moment; let me hold you until then.
Goldie nods. So she sits in his branches and lets him hold her and holds him as the hours pass, until she knows she must not wait any longer, until she knows it is time.
Then she steps down from his branches.
I love you.
‘I love you.’
‘Goodbye’ is what comes next. She waits for him to say it, but he does not.
Goldie opens her mouth but finds that she cannot either; her throat is choked with tears, her eyes are fogged with them. She longs to touch him once more, one last time, but she doesn’t. If she did, she might never let go. Instead she looks at him, breathes him in, loves him.
Then, at last, she lets Leo go.
It is easy to release him. She needs no words, no incantation; a mercy since she still cannot speak. All she must do is twist and untwist her fingers, set her intention and focus. Until gradually the scars on the tree begin to shift and undulate and pulse with life. The circles uncurl and stretch to acquire the aspect of a bright white snake, scales etched with a mosaic of crescent moons and stars. With a flick of its tail, the snake slithers from the tree and into the soil: Leo’s soul seeping back into the ground.
Goldie brings her hands together, so close she cannot see a sliver of moonlight between them. Then, slowly, she pulls her hands apart. As she does so, the oak tree starts to crack and split, the trunk opening to reveal a bright light within. The tree’s branches are splintering until, with a single burst, they scatter into a thousand fragments, like petals blown on the breeze. Finally, the roots tear up from the soil, thick knotted fingers clawing from their grave to pull the tree asunder.
The released light is so bright, so sharp – as if the sun had suddenly burst into Everwhere – that for a moment Goldie is blinded. She cannot see Leo’s spirit lifting into the skies, ascending to sit among the stars. When she blinks, the light has gone.
‘I – I love you,’ she whispers.
But still she cannot say goodbye.