“John?” Leena called out in the old woman’s croaky voice.
She heard a muffled response, then a sudden crash, the sound of a heavy body falling to the floor.
“John?” The old woman tried to stumble out of bed, but her bones were too weak. She crumpled onto the rug, her cheek pressed against the rough fibers.“John? John?”
She continued to beg weakly, each time her voice growing fainter and fainter as no response came. Leena, in the old woman’s body, inched toward the door, but by the time she reached the threshold her consciousness had begun dimming. All she hungered for was to see John one last time, but she could not reach the knob.
When Leena awoke, it was to see the gaunt, jaundiced face of the old woman outside the salt circle, still on the floor, still reaching.
Finally, Leena dreamed of her mother.
Leena remained herself this time, except she was no more than five years old, growing wild in the refugee camps that bordered the shores of Morland.
Her parents had fled Algaraa when she was still in her mother’s belly, months before civil war had broken out. Another professor at Baba’s university had threatened to report her father for lecturing anti-monarch sentiment to his students. The punishment for that would’ve been swift—death not only to him, but to his entire clan.
Mama had been nearly seven months pregnant when they were smuggled out of the country, then onto a rickety boat to weather the tumultuous Westin Ocean to reach Morland. She knew some Algaraans had chosen to endure the deserts that surrounded the country, in the slim hope they would reach the lands beyond, but most had died of thirst and sunstroke on that journey.
There in the camps, in a state of transience, Leena was born. Rami would follow in two years.
Leena’s recollections of the camps were brief. She remembered the salty sea air bringing cold gusting winds to rattle their tents, theconstant gnawing hunger, the watered-down stews, her parents forcing her to practice her Morish letters while the other children played.
This time, in her dream, she was back in her tent.
She was a child again, sitting barefoot as she practiced reading from a book,A Guide to Botany.She remembered Baba’s excitement when he managed to procure it for her from one of the camp overseers, and the hours she and Rami had spent marveling at the detailed pictures of trailing vines and thinly veined petals drawn in ink.
Grimvines for inflammation, Marigolds for cuts, Dew Roses for heartsickness.
Her mother sat beside her cross-legged on the floor, her dark-brown curls so much like Leena’s own. She was darning a sock.
Leena sounded out the letters as she read aloud to her mother. “Deathgrip, also known as Death C-comes to Wolves, in large q-q-quantities can para-para-er…paralyze, but in small am-amounts can be used to treat…wo-wounds?…It has been his-torically used to hu-hunt wolves…” She trailed off, staring longingly at the rare sunshine, wishing to play with the other children, and frowning when she saw Rami toddling after the bigger kids.Why was he allowed outside when she was forced to study?
“Continue,Leena,” Mama warned, catching that wistful look.
Reluctantly, Leena looked back at the book, but the words had disappeared and the page was now blank. Only the ink drawing of the Deathgrip remained, and beside it the detailed illustration of a dead wolf struck down with an arrow dipped in the nectar of the flower.
“Continue reading,” Mama repeated.
“I’m trying to.” Leena’s voice was high and childlike; she was unable to tear her gaze from the dead wolf. She jerked upright, a sudden panic clawing her throat. “Is Rami still sick, Mama? Where is Baba? Is he alive in Newtorn Prison?”
Her mother’s tone was exasperated. “Leena,hayati,you can goplay after you finish your lesson.” Suddenly, there was a flickering in Mama’s expression, an odd change that transformed her pretty face into something subtly inhuman. She lurched toward Leena, grabbing her in a tight grip. “Leena, my love, you must listen to me. The Wake will take Baba. You must save him, my brave girl. I know you have suffered so much, but you must save him,hayati.”
Leena cried, and when she looked down she saw that the book had disappeared from her hands. She looked around, unable to find it anywhere in the tent. She began bawling now—great hiccupping cries that tore through her small frame, afraid that her mother would scold her.
Mama cradled her to her body, as if desiring to return her child back into herself. “Beware the promise of Weavingshaw. All Avons are demon-kissed, my love—”
Leena jolted awake, panting as she lay alone in her bed. Her neck whipped back and forth as she searched for her mother, but the room was empty of all ghosts tonight.
Mama had died when sickness spread through the camps—perhaps a punishment on the displaced for daring to leave their homeland. This was the first time since Mama’s death that Leena had seen her in any form; even her dreams had shied away from resurrecting that dear face. Leena held a hand to her aching heart, willing the tears to stop, willing those brown eyes to look upon her once more.
Leena remembered that shehadlost the book, and had been so distraught about it that Mama had had to go fetch Baba to calm her down. They had later found it by the foot of an old tree near where the children usually climbed, and Leena had kept it close ever since. She withdrew it now from beneath her mattress to trace over the etched letters on the cover. But it was such a minuscule memory, it felt unfair that her brain had decided to take her there rather than the thousand times Mama had hugged her to sleep, holding her like a precious bird, or Mama nuzzling her forehead when she came in from playing.
Was this merely a murky dream left by her fevered state, entwined with a long-forgotten memory? But how could it be? Leena had never heard of the Wake before.
She was sure that Weavingshaw and Lord Avon had laced themselves into the alcoves of her mind, rising to the surface when the fever broke in, and yet—
The urgency of her mother’s voice as she whisperedTheWake…It didn’t feel like the stab of a memory, but the infliction of a living fear.
Leena felt the constant throb in her head turn into a more blinding headache. She could not coherently think past it, or the need to close her eyes again and sleep deeply.
