The tree that looked like Riini opened its trunk, and I could see a handful of threads. They glowed brightly, and some were nearly as thick as my finger. I touched one and saw a memory—a young Sagam, Joxii holding a younger Riini.
Two adults were dancing in the middle of the room, laughing. The children stared on, until the father drew Sagam into the dance and then dragged Joxii, the mother plucking Riini from her arms and the whole family circled the room, their feet beating a rhythm even when there was no tune to drive the dance.
I gasped. “Is this all that’s left?”
“Yes.” Riini pulled at the edges of her open chest, drawing it closed around the last threads of memory that she had kept.
I thought of the memory with Yorîmu. It was not the first time she had said something similar. It was not even the time I valued the most. I had so many memories, enough that I could sacrifice one so Riini could keep hers.
“Take it.” I looked away as Riini grabbed hold of the blue thread, yanking it out.
She knelt on the ground, the cave we were in suddenly becoming the flat surface of the tree stump that had once been an elder tree. Riini cracked off one of her toes, and in her hand I could see it was the root from an elder tree.
She placed it on the ground, then wound the blue thread of my memory around it. She covered both with one hand, the other on top.
For a second nothing happened, then the thread and the rootbegan to glow, pulsing with my heartbeat. From between her fingers, a small shoot of green emerged.
Riini gasped in happiness. But I could tell it was going to fade, the same way I knew a moment before the magic of my ice melted.
I rushed forward, placing my hands on top of hers, watching as the green shoot grew between my fingers, the trunk widening. It spread our hands apart, and just when it looked as though it was going to stay alive, I saw the tips of the green leaves turn brown, gold racing through the veins, dark sap beginning to leak out of the trunk.
Riini’s face fell, her eyes turning down as moisture collected in the corners of her eyes. “It needs more and this body has no more to give.”
“How much more?” I asked.
She shook her head and I closed my eyes, seeing the threads there just as clearly as I had when they were between her fingers. I plucked a blue one out, a memory of my father on one of the first days of winter, his cheeks red from the cold, his braids perfectly plaited. He stood before my mother, pledging his allegiance to her as he did every winter.
I tore it from where it was rooted, twisting it around the trunk of the tree and knotting it tightly. The tree flared with life, the leaves regaining their color, the branches growing upward.
Reaching through my memories again, I searched for another blue thread. I found one:eating warm maple buns with my sister while we hid from our mother’s sixth wife who was supposed to be watching us to make sure we didn’t get into the treats before dinner.
I tore it out, wrapping it around the tree’s roots. I ran my fingers over it, the blue thread pulsing with life, and yet I couldn’t remember what had been in that thread. Had it been important? Had it been something I would miss knowing?
The tree touched the ceiling of the room and burst through, letting in rainbow lights that drifted down to the ground. Riiniwas gasping, crying in earnest. She placed both hands on the tree trunk, her wooden palms matching the bark.
No, they didn’t match. The tree was consuming her, reeling her in. With a frown, I reached out, pulling on her shoulder.
“Riini?” I asked.
She turned to me, but her face froze, losing its life. I tried tearing her loose, but she had already become one with the tree.
I lost my grip on her and stumbled back, barely keeping my feet. I blinked, and suddenly we were back in the greenhouse.
The tree had shattered the pot it had been planted in, its roots growing over the table and down into the stump of the burned elder tree beneath it. It had grown so tall that it had shattered the glass of the greenhouse, and the shards lay around us along with Riini’s body.
I dropped to my knees next to her, shaking her shoulder. Lady Chaliko had backed up, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide as she pressed her back against the wall of the greenhouse, her gaze fixed on the tree that was continuing to grow.
The roots pushed up around us, and I scooped Riini’s tiny body in my arms, grabbing hold of Naî by the back of the neck as though she was a kitten. I stumbled over the roots, finally reaching Lady Chaliko.
“We need to get out of here!”
My words seemed to shake something loose in her. She nodded, gesturing, and I followed her out the door as the elder tree consumed everything left in the greenhouse.
The humid air seemed cold compared to the warmth inside the glass greenhouse. We stared as the tree finally stopped growing. It was twice as tall as any elephant, its trunk shattering the greenhouse into nothing more than shining glass and strips of warped framing.
I shook my head, staring at the green leaves, shocked that it had grown from just a few of my memories.
What had they been? What had I given up to grow this?
