Chapter 18 The Trunk Fire
Sarah looked up. “Wooo! Look at the stars tonight.”
Although preoccupied by Sarah’s previous statement, Simone did look. Orion was striding up over the bare treetops, looking warlike and hopeful.
“Don’t say anything for a minute, Sarah, I’ve got to think.” She jumped up. “Let’s walk to the Barger monument, OK? I think better when I’m moving.”
The girls started off, going silently among the stones.
Yes, a funny thing to say on Halloween. Simone had never considered the day. With sudden suspicion she began to rehearse in her mind everything she could remember of what Metuza had told her. In retrospect it all seemed questionable. What were the odds, in the first place, of meeting someone with news of Clay? He had supposedly died in obscurity on the other side of the continent, and yet by an amazing double coincidence, Metuza both knew of it and had met Simone. Too amazing to be believed.
Furthermore, would the wealthy, elevated Zeezur family have admitted a beggar-adventurer to their house, allowing him to stay the night? Why? And if this Peter had wanted Metuza to go away with him, why would he have told her the ugly truth about his background? Did Peter even exist?
If he did, he had supposedly gained information from Clay to use in his role as a Pretender. What information? Metuza had said nothing about Peter claiming to be a descendant of Lila come from the Old World; she had even been surprised when Simone had asked whether Peter had been born in the Fold. Yet making a claim to be from the Old World was surely the most important thing Clay could have told him.
In addition to all this, the original objections to Metuza remained: that, however young, she had married into the Fold’s chief family of witches and had been a traveling companion to the Smoke Hag. Finally, she had called Halloween her day, while giving Simone that oddly familiar look.
They had reached the same columned monument on which, in July, Simone and Clay had come close to being sacrificed. Simone stood on the steps and looked it over.
“Have you finished thinking yet?” asked Sarah, who was getting impatient in the cold.
“Just about.”
The only question was how Metuza knew Clay’s name, approximate age, and hair color. Could she have met him?
“What are you thinking about?”
“I think, Sarah, that the person who told me Clay’s dead is a liar and a witch.”
Sarah sat down by a pillar, hugging herself. “What have witches got to do with you and Clay?”
“Everything. Two of them were here, I mean right here at this monument, on the night Clay and I left.”
“Wow! What were they like?”
“You would have liked the looks of one of them; he was definitely your type. A handsome devil with dark eyes and thick eyebrows and....”
“And what?”
Simone held up a hand that signaled Sarah to give her a moment. In her mind’s eye she saw Ven Magus grinning in the light of two candles, his eyebrows knit together. That was it!—the very same expression as Metuza. Magus was just a title, but Simone could now guess Ven’s last name. Ven Zeezur and his sister Metuza had the same eyebrows, the same smile!
Suddenly, Simone started dancing around under the stars, waving her jacket clad arms. Sarah laughed and began to dance too.
“What are you doing?”
Simone circled as elegantly as she could. “I’m dancing a filsle, I’m a Lusetta. Wave your arms, Sarah.”
Sarah waved her arms. As they whirled in the dead leaves, exuding visible breath, Simone began to sing in Gellene.
In the village of Ruin, by the riverside,
Where the Loopers dance and the rowboats glide,
And the yokels bark and the puppies play,
I lived for a year—or was it a day?
Sarah understood most of this. “Why are you singing?”
“Because of a resurrection. Clay just got resurrected! The girl who told me he’s dead had every reason to—to....”
She stopped dancing. “Angfetu!”
Sarah only knew that this meant ‘remembered.’ “What did you remember?” she asked.
“It’s a name, the name of a friend of mine who died just after being visited by this witch I’ve been talking about. They didn’t find a mark on him, but she must have murdered him somehow to keep him from proving her a liar. Oh, to have my hands around her neck!”
Simone grabbed Sarah by the arm and started back toward Cemetery House. “Mom said I should get Clay back, and I’m going to. Would you give me a lift tomorrow back down to that convenience store?”
“Simone! Your Mom will kill you if you leave again. But sure I will. I go back to college tomorrow, but I can run you down first thing.”
At her back door Simone made a few more plans with Sarah and then watched her drive away, going to the nearby development where her family’s new home was. A real home. Hesitating in the darkness, Simone found that she did not want to go in. Her home was anywhere and nowhere, but not here. Her home was—and was not—in Ruin village and the Palace of Reflections; on the Mountain Track or at a khan in Trans-Titan; even in the cemetery—but not in this house.
Her mother had believed Gelen, and not her. That was exactly what she should have expected. Susan Tanner had always been insensitive and stubborn, quick to reach wrong conclusions and almost invincible in holding to them. Now she loved Gelen. Simone felt hit by a force that drained and defeated her. What had she been blathering about in the cemetery just now? Would she go get Clay in order to please her mother? This mother? Why? And how would she get Clay, anyway? She would have to pass Tsawb again, this time going the wrong way. Impossible. Then she would have to search a whole continent, all the time wondering if Clay was really alive after all. Metuza’s lying did not prove that Clay was alive.
She sank down on the back step and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets. Faintly from the kitchen she could hear the voices of her mother and Gelen, her ghastly family. No one to go home to.
She jumped up and strode back toward the cemetery. Another girl would have had to pick her way carefully, but after years of exploration at all hours, Simone might have passed through it blindfolded and never have been injured or lost. Here she had never been frightened or ill at ease. Rather, the sense of so many departed souls was comfortable and reassuring. They at least were fixed forever; this at least would not change. Nothing is written in stone, her mother was fond of saying, but here everything was quite literally written in stone. Birth and death dates everywhere: infants, youths, adults; soldiers, philanthropists, paupers, cripples; believers and atheists. All safely tucked away for eternity. That was something anyway, and no small thing.
The townspeople might see this place as peripheral and unimportant, but then so probably had these sleepers seen it. Simone felt a kinship with the unseen hand that gathered them here so patiently, so quietly. She hoped that hand would be gentle with her when her time came. Gentler, she hoped, than her own hand had been with Gelen.
She had come to one of the plainer areas of Greenlawn. No statues or obelisks or above ground crypts here, just medium stones. The sort of area she had often passed through on the way to somewhere else, somewhere more interesting. Now she paused and avoided asking herself the question—but the Question asked her—where she was going.
She felt she must give some answer, so she said, “I just left home, and I’m going off by myself.”
Simone, the Questioner told her, I am your home-fire. I claimed you on the southern plains beneath the stars.
This sounded reasonable to Simone. “I remember,” she said. “But I haven’t been so sure of You lately. Everything fell apart back there in the Fold. You had big plans for me, but I blew it. I never even made it to Eschor, let alone made peace there. Well, You must have known from the start that I’m not the empress type.”
I knew. But my plans are deeper than those
of my enemies. They were all fooled by you, my little soldier. You won the battle for Me.
“You mean the Battle of the—the battle in Trans-Titan?”
Even as Simone asked the question, she knew that was not what was meant. Some greater battle had been won, of the sort that is impossible to write about in history books. Razatella had said that the whole Fold would be singing the Parting Song; not just in Trans-Titan, but in Eschor—no doubt against the edicts of Solomon—and in Tirasite lands, and far away in the Silent Cities. Not just humans either, but Sarrs, Sarrs in the Forest of Darkness, of course, and in Argura; but also in the mountains, and in Dragonland, and on the Pons.
The Fold felt different now to everyone who lived in it. When the trumpet call had sounded in the darkness, it did not matter that the trumpeter was ‘not the empress type.’ Hearts had responded anyway. Nothing seemed so sweet to them now as the hope of a golden era of peace and unselfishness. So the great chess game had begun, as Mald had described it, and the crumblies of Farja—Monophthalmos and the Smoke Hag—had lost the opening.
Simone was as shyly pleased as a little girl whose father has called her beautiful. He had said ‘my little soldier.’
“I know what battle you mean,” she said. “But what will become of the Fold when I don’t return?”
Go back, daughter. Look for your brother.
That was all, or seemed all. But as she turned back toward Cemetery House, Simone saw what appeared to be a fire in the midst of the cemetery. She approached curiously. Between her and Cemetery House was a very large oak with its trunk improbably burning, and not just burning but blazing through and through. As she came nearer, she saw the wood of it was like glowing coal with shimmering highlights passing up and down. Its great branches were lit from beneath, and the nearby stones and crosses reflected the fire on their marble surfaces.
Simone had an urge perhaps akin to that of people on high buildings who feel tempted to jump. She wanted to walk into the fire. Perhaps this was partly because she felt it was another of the visions she had experienced lately: no tree ever burned like that. Yet if the fire was a vision, the tree certainly was not. She knew that tree. If she tried to walk into it, she risked knocking herself silly. And what if the fire did burn?
Simone paced around, thinking it over. She had absolutely no place to live, that was a fact. Her life did not seem worth two cents. Unless, that is, Ulrumman—or whatever He was calling Himself now—unless He could be trusted. He was calling her again, calling her toward the burning oak. Very well, she would test Him. Was she His daughter, as He said? Then let Him prove it.
Suddenly, she stopped pacing and strode at a fast clip toward the burning tree. Her hands clenched and her back stiffened. She could barely look at it now for its brightness, just feet away; she could feel and smell the fire.
“Goodby world!” she yelled, and walked through the tree. She found herself walking just as quickly as she burst out the other side, the flame clinging to her. She felt no pain, but from her hair to her shoes she was dripping fire, and on she went in the darkness like a human comet.
She looked down at her hands, now outlined by flame, at her feet leaving burning prints, and she began chanting happily, “A lamlef ba pris dalem et ba sandal, O nema prilem!” How beautiful indeed were her feet, whether in sandals or tennis shoes, she a Prince’s daughter!
In an effort to return to normalcy, Susan Tanner had spread out on the dining room table the papers and books she was studying for her Ph.D. candidacy. She did not look up when Simone entered the room.
“I’m back, Mom. Hope I wasn’t gone too long.”
“Not too long,” Susan said. “I called your father. He wants to see you, and—he—” She looked up. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing. Why, do I look different?”
Susan studied her closely and at last answered, “No. No different. I just felt something.”
“You felt something had changed?”
“Yes.” Susan did not like to show her curiosity.
It had been years since Simone had given her mother a straight report about anything that mattered. She felt that her mother was a safer and happier person when kept ignorant; and it was much less trouble. But Simone was presently in an exalted mood and so plunged ahead.
“You want to know what happened? I just met God by walking through the trunk of a tree.”
Her mother looked so weary and vulnerable sitting there. “Did you?” she said resignedly. “And what was He like?”
Simone bent down and kissed her on the hairline. “Totally loving, Mom. Awesome. Say, where’s Gelen?”
“In the front room. You aren’t going to bother her any more?”
“Of course not. Don’t worry.”
Simone crossed the house and found Gelen sitting in front of the TV, watching I Dream of Jeannie. Raising a hand to her cheek, the girl cringed away from Simone.
“Relax,” said Simone in Gellene. “I just want to apologize. I guess if you had wanted to hurt Mom, you could have murdered her in her bed weeks ago. I was wrong. You must like it here, that’s why you haven’t caused any trouble and why you haven’t tried to go back. I suppose that maybe this is the safest place you’ve ever been? When I hit you, I got the impression that you’re pretty much used to being beaten. Hm?”
Gelen said nothing, only watched her with frightened, cunning eyes.
“Anyway, I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again. You’re right, I am a pig sister.”
Simone left Gelen and went to her room where she slept the sleep of the just.
The next morning Simone’s mother went to the university, dropping off Gelen at school on the way. Soon after they left, Sarah picked up Simone and drove her down to the convenience store.
“Where do you go from here?” Sarah asked as Simone prepared to get out of the car.
“I think it’s better you not know,” Simone said. “Mom and I had another argument this morning, and she’s threatening to call in the police. I guess she thinks they’ll interrogate me with bright lights in my face to find out where I’ve been and where Clay is. Anyway, I don’t want you involved in any of that.”
“Does she even know you’re going?”
“She will whenever she gets home. I left a note. Say, can I borrow a few bucks? I lost all my American money where I was.”
“Well, I don’t have much,” said Sarah, rummaging through her purse.
“That’s fine, five will do. Thanks, you’re a great friend.” Simone paused, sensing some concern of Sarah’s. “Well, what?”
“Only—since you’re engaged, you definitely won’t be interested in Carl Besanto anymore, right?”
Simone laughed and patted her on the shoulder. “He’s yours, go for it. Oh, and my nevel’s still in your back seat. Just keep it for me till I get back. That way Gelen won’t have a chance to break it.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks for everything, Sar’. See you whenever.”
The Mullins Cave tour fee was five dollars. Simone pretended to sign the register and then hung back behind the class of fourth graders who were visiting. When guide and all had turned a corner, she ducked under the rail and swung off the wooden walkway. As quickly as she could, she made her way to the far wall and the pit in the floor. She climbed in and peeked over the edge to make sure that no one had seen her. Pulling out her flashlight, she removed her thick coat and paused for one last prayer. Then she began to climb into the narrow opening at the bottom of the pit, pulling her coat after her.
Soon she stood again in the small cave room with the unsolid black wall. She played for a minute at seeing how far she could shine her flashlight into the veil. Not very far. Then she walked through, and at once the same impressions as before returned: infinite space all around, solid ground underfoot. Even sooner than before she encountered Tsawb’s smell, like a hundred wooden ships rotting
on a wharf, and heard his breathing. He drew near in the vision form that made him look even vaster than in reality.
“You—have—not—brought—the witch!”
Though aware of the same physical paralysis as before, Simone answered as nonchalantly as she could. “No, Tsawb, it didn’t work out. The Queen Mother wouldn’t give permission.”
“You should have killed them both, rather than displease me. If you’ve failed, then why did you return, vermin?”
“Now that’s enough of that!” Simone flared. “Who are you anyway? A glorified doorkeeper. But I’m a Lila-me, traveling under the guidance of Ulrumman. Why do you think this Door exists? To keep closed all the time? That makes no sense. No, it’s here because Ulrumman wants a few to be allowed through, and I’m one of them. I’ve got authority, Shellshock.”
“Not over me,” Tsawb thought toward her.
“Who put you here in the first place?”
“The Guardian,” he answered.
This was puzzling, but Simone pushed on. “Well, bring him here. If he changes your orders, you’ll have to let me through.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“No!” Tsawb was very angry now. “That is what she said, the Fijata who was first to break my law, she—
“Whose law!” Simone snorted in the midst of this, but Tsawb did not hear her.
“—she spoke of the Guardian. But I drove him away ages ago because I would not obey any living being. Are you then the Empress? I care nothing for that. Since long before Quintus came, I am my own law.”
Simone considered. “Look, I could make you a little speech about how stupid you’re being, but let’s get to the point. You said last summer that Razabera broke through your Door, and she didn’t even outrank you like I do. So how did she do it? Because Ulrumman sent her, that’s how. Now if you don’t let me by, I’m breaking through!”
She concentrated all her energy on her right leg, trying to move it forward an inch. It did not move at first, but the same fire that had glowed around her the previous evening began to return, beginning at her right foot and spreading up her body.
Tsawb abruptly drew in his head and legs. “The light of Karasis! Not again! But you won’t succeed as the Fijata did. Remember, Empress, that I wait for you on the other side of the Door. If you pass through, I’ll rise and devour you.”
Simone could move again. She drew her knife and, rushing straight at the vision, saw him disappear. In his place was another black veil-wall. She plunged through, wondering if she would find herself in Tsawb’s temple or under Lucilla.
It was Tsawb’s temple. Putting away her knife, she noticed that the fire glow was already fading from around her.