The Greykeep Chronicles

I didn’t know how.

I want to say that first, because people who weren’t there tell it now as if I walked into the chapel and laid my hands on Meriel and that was that. It wasn’t like that. I’d said I think I can grow the rest, kneeling on the chapel floor with the torn flames in my hands, and I’d meant it. And then I’d gone up to bed and lain awake until four in the morning, staring at the ceiling, with Seraphina asleep beside me and little Uriah in his cradle at the foot of the bed, thinking: how?

I’d never grown anything in my life. I borrow. That’s what I do. Someone has a thing and I ask, and they say yes, and I carry a little of it after. I’d never made a thing that wasn’t there.

At four, Seraphina said, without opening her eyes, ”You’re thinking so loudly the baby’s going to wake up.”

”Sorry.”

”Go and ask someone,” she said. ”You always know what to do after you’ve asked someone.” And turned over and went back to sleep.

* * *

So I went down to the little kitchen. Because at four in the morning, that’s where everyone goes.

Helena was there, of course. Hair down. Slippers on the wrong feet. Eyes shut. Filling the kettle. She sleepwalks down every morning at four and has done for twenty years, and nobody has ever woken her, and she has never once spilled anything.

And Selvane was at the scrubbed table, wide awake, with two cups in front of her.

”She came down at a quarter to,” said Selvane quietly, nodding at Helena. ”I heard her on the stair. I thought I’d keep her company.” She pushed the second cup across the table toward me. ”She poured two. In her sleep. I think it was for you.”

I sat down. The tea was hot, and strong, and exactly the way I like it.

Helena, at the stove, still asleep, said very clearly: ”Thyme.”

Then she put the kettle on the hob and went back up the stairs to bed.

* * *

Selvane and I looked at each other.

”She does that,” I said. ”Says things. In her sleep. Nobody knows if they mean anything.”

”Thyme,” said Selvane slowly.

And I remembered. Selvane on her knees in the herb bed, with a sprig of thyme pulled up by accident, holding it out, stricken. And Helena, not looking up: Put it back in. Firm it down. It’ll forgive you.

”You can’t stick a torn root back on,” said Selvane. She was turning her cup in her hands. ”I asked her. That afternoon, after. I asked what you do when you pull up something you didn’t mean to and the root breaks. And she said you can’t mend it. Not the broken bit. You put back what’s whole, as deep as it’ll go, and you firm the soil around it, and you water it. And it grows the rest itself. New root. From the old.” She looked up at me. ”But only if there’s something living left to grow from.” She paused. ”And she said a thing that’s grown back is always strongest at the join. After.”

I put my hand flat on my chest, under the breastbone. Where the seeds are.

”There is,” I said.

* * *

I went to the north tower next. All hundred and forty steps.

Carol was awake. She sleeps worse than I do. She was sitting in the window seat in her nightgown and Ignatius’s old green coat, with her chin on her knees, watching the dark over the river, and Ignatius was asleep in the chair by the window with a book open on his chest.

She didn’t turn around. She knew it was me. She always does.

”You don’t know how,” she said.

”I think I do now. Helena told me. In her sleep.”

Carol turned around then.

”I need your half,” I said. ”The seed. We kept them together. Half each. I can feel mine of Meriel. But it’s only half. I can’t grow a whole thing from half a seed.”

She looked at me for a long moment.

”Borrow?” I said.

Carol made a noise. Not quite a laugh.

”They’re as much yours as mine,” she said. ”Idiot.” She got up off the window seat. ”You asked me that about the rivers. At Westmere, with the stone. I said the same thing then.”

”I know. I’m still going to ask.”

”I know you are,” said Carol. And put her hand on my chest, flat, over the place under the breastbone. And I put mine on hers.

”Take,” she said.

* * *

It’s hard to describe what that’s like. The seeds.

When we were three years old, my sister and I sat on the floor of a great hall and gave back everything Varrick had stolen in twenty years of war. Every domain. Every river and hearth and crossroads, every name, every small god’s whole self, torn out and kept in cells. We gave them all back. I don’t remember doing it. I was three. But I remember the floor was cold, and Carol’s hand was warm, and I remember being very tired afterward and falling asleep with my head in Aurelia’s lap.

And we kept a little of each. Not on purpose. The way your hands keep the smell of whatever you’ve been holding. A little of every god, tucked under the breastbone, half in me and half in Carol, so that between the two of us there’s a whole one of everything.

Caitlin calls it a pocket full of warm stones. Except the stones are rivers. And now, under my hand and Carol’s, two half-stones that had been apart for twenty years slid together and were one.

A candle. Small. Steady. A chapel with everyone gone home.

Meriel.

* * *

We went down to the chapel at dawn. Carol and me. Ignatius came behind, still half asleep, carrying the book.

Everyone was there. I hadn’t asked them to be. They’d just come, the way people come to a house where someone’s ill.

Meriel on the front bench, in her veil, with her hands folded. Soren beside her, holding one of them. Ilyra on her stool. Selvane on the bench behind, with a cup of Helena’s tea she’d carried all the way from the little kitchen without spilling. Benjamin next to her, not quite touching her shoulder. Aurelia by the wall. My father in the doorway, in his socks. Mary on the back bench with her book. And Elenos, sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the front row, with his eyes shut.

”I asked him to come,” said Meriel’s slate, when I looked at Elenos. She’d written it on Mary’s slate and held it up. ”He’ll know when it’s right.”

Elenos opened his eyes.

”I’ll tell you,” he said, ”when it sounds like two people.”

* * *

Fifty candles were lit on the stone table. The ones Meriel had relit herself, one row at a time, in the four days since. The other hundred and fifty stood dark, with their thin black wicks and their old wax.

I knelt down in front of Meriel on the stone floor.

I took the torn flames out of my coat, where I’d carried them since Ternhollow. They were still warm. Still trembling. Still ragged at the edges, thin as paper where they should have twined tightest.

”May I?” I said.

Meriel looked at me. Then at Soren. Then she nodded.

”I don’t know if it’ll work,” I said. ”I want you to know that. I’ve never done it before. I’ve never grown anything.” I swallowed. ”If it hurts, stop me. Put your hand up. I’ll stop.”

She nodded again.

And put her own hands, both of them, over mine. Over the flames.

* * *

I put them back first. The torn part. What was whole of it.

The way Helena said. As deep as it would go. Into the long quiet room inside her, the chapel full of names, down to the far end where the altar should be, to the ragged cold hole with the salt and iron smell. I set the flames down in it as gently as I could, the way you’d set a seedling in a hole you’ve dug, with the roots spread.

They didn’t fit. I knew they wouldn’t. The ragged edges sat in the ragged hole and didn’t meet, and there was a gap all around them, cold and empty, where Ruan’s three nights of holding on had worn the rest away.

Then I firmed it.

That’s the only word I have for it. I put my hands, my real hands and the other ones, the ones I use to borrow, around the place where the flames sat, and I pressed. Gently. All around. The way you press soil around a root so it knows where it is. So it knows it’s home.

And then I reached for the seed.

* * *

The seed was in me. Under my breastbone. Whole, now. Carol’s half and mine. A small, steady candle, in a quiet chapel with everyone gone home.

I didn’t take it out. You don’t take a seed out to plant it. That’s not how it works. You plant it where it is.

So I held it. And I held the torn flames. And I held them toward each other.

And I let the gray come.

* * *

It came the way it had in the iron room. Up out of the middle of me, where all the gods I’ve ever stood next to live together. Gray. The gray of the very first minute of dawn, before the sun, when the dark is just remembering it’s going to be light. A gray with every color folded up inside it.

It went out through my hands into Meriel’s hands, and down into the long room, and into the gap around the torn flames.

And something grew.

I felt it. Like a root. Like a white thread of new root coming out of an old one, feeling its way through dark soil. Out of the seed, the steady candle I’d carried for twenty years, a little thread of it reached out, and found the ragged edge of the torn flames, and knew it. The way you know a voice you haven’t heard in a long time. And it twined.

Not mended. I want to be clear. It didn’t stitch the tear. It didn’t patch it.

It grew the rest. New. From the old. The way Helena said.

* * *

It was slow.

That’s the other thing people get wrong. It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t a flash of light and a gasp and done. I knelt on the chapel floor with my hands around Meriel’s for what Mary says was an hour and forty minutes. I don’t remember most of it. I remember the cold of the stone through my knees. I remember Meriel’s hands, thin and dry and very steady over mine. I remember Carol, behind me, with her hand flat on my back between my shoulder blades, the whole time, not moving.

And I remember the gray going out of me. And out of me. And out of me. Like water out of a jug that you didn’t know was so big, until you start to wonder how much is left.

* * *

At some point, Elenos said, very quietly, from the floor:

”Not yet.”

I kept going.

A long time later:

”Closer. It’s one voice. It’s getting louder. But it’s still one.”

I kept going.

The new root had grown all the way around the torn flames now. I could feel it. It had filled the gap. It was twining through the thin places, the paper-thin places where the two flames should have twined tightest and had worn through, and it was making them thick again. Making them whole. But it was only the one flame it was making. Only the one voice.

Two people, saying the same name, at the same time.

And I understood.

* * *

”Carol,” I said.

My voice sounded strange. Far away. As if it were coming from the other end of the long room.

”Carol. Say a name.”

She didn’t ask which. She didn’t ask why. Her hand on my back pressed a little harder, and she said, clearly, into the quiet chapel:

”Teo. Who wasn’t anyone’s but his own.”

And I said, with what was left of my voice:

”Heard.”

* * *

And it twined.

I felt it happen. The new-grown flame, the one I’d grown from the seed, heard Carol say the name and heard me answer, and it learned. The way a child learns a song by hearing two people sing it. It reached for the old torn flame, the one that had been Meriel’s for longer than there had been an Accord, and the two of them wound together, the old and the new, the way two people’s hands wind together when they’re saying the same thing at the same time.

”There,” said Elenos.

His voice cracked.

”There. That’s it. That’s two. That’s two people.” He was on his knees on the chapel floor. ”That’s her. That’s her sound. All of it. That’s her.”

* * *

I took my hands away.

I had to put one of them on the floor to stay upright.

Meriel didn’t move. She sat on the bench with her hands open in her lap, where mine had been, and her veil back, and she looked at nothing. She looked inward. The way you look when you’re listening to something in another room.

Nobody breathed.

Then she opened her mouth.

And said, in her own voice, low and dry, like pages turning:

”Heard.”

* * *

Every candle on the stone table lit at once.

All two hundred. The fifty already burning, and the hundred and fifty dark ones, all together, in the same instant, with a sound like a great soft breath let out. Tall and white and steady, all of them, without a single flicker. The whole chapel went gold. The gray stone walls went gold. Soren’s face went gold, and wet.

Meriel put her hand on his cheek. The way she had when she couldn’t speak.

”Soren,” she said. ”Who waited.”

And Soren, crying, said, ”Heard.”

* * *

She turned to Carol.

”Carol Clara Grey,” said Meriel. ”Who says the names in the dark, alone, every new moon. Who will never have to do it alone again.”

”Heard,” said Carol. Her voice was shaking.

Meriel turned to me.

I was still on my knees. I was still leaning on one hand. I couldn’t see very well; everything had gone soft at the edges, the way it does when you’ve stood up too fast.

”Garrick Elias Grey,” said Meriel. ”Who grew it back.”

I tried to say heard. I don’t think anything came out. But Elenos, beside me, said it for me. And that counted. Two voices.

* * *

And then Meriel did the thing I’ll remember longest.

She stood up. She walked to the stone table, past the two hundred candles burning gold, and she stood in front of them with her hands at her sides. And she looked at Carol. And Carol, after a moment, understood, and went white.

”No,” said Carol. ”Meriel. Don’t. That’s what opened the seam. That’s how he got in.”

”I know,” said Meriel.

”Then don’t.”

”I started to say it,” said Meriel quietly. ”For you. You asked. Someone should.” She looked down at her own hands. ”And besides. I want to know.” She glanced at me, on the floor. ”A thing that’s grown back is strongest at the join. That’s what Helena told Selvane. Isn’t it.”

Selvane, on the back bench, put her hand over her mouth.

”I want to know if she’s right,” said Meriel. ”If it’ll hold.”

And before anyone could stop her, she said:

”Malachar. Who holds everything, and is holding on so hard he can’t feel any of it.”

* * *

Nobody moved.

The two hundred candles stood tall and white and gold.

None of them flickered.

Not one.

I felt for it. I couldn’t help it, even as tired as I was. I reached into the long quiet room and felt for the place where the seam had been, where the flames had been torn out, where I’d planted and firmed and grown. Waiting for the cold. For the salt and iron smell. For a hand reaching through.

Nothing came.

The join held. Old and new, twined together. Stronger than it had been before it was torn. There was no seam anymore. There was nothing for anyone to get their fingers into.

”Heard,” said Carol, very softly. Because a naming needs two voices. Even that one.

And Meriel smiled.

* * *

That’s the last thing I remember clearly.

I remember Meriel smiling, in the gold light, with all her candles lit. And I remember thinking: good. That’s good. And I remember starting to stand up, and the floor of the chapel tilting very gently sideways, like the deck of the Tern when Benjamin brought her about.

And I remember Seraphina’s voice, from the doorway, where she must have been standing for a long time, saying my name.

And then I don’t remember anything at all.

* * *

Mary wrote it. She wrote it at the end of the first day, and then again at the end of the second, in the chair beside my bed, because I didn’t wake up for either of them.

Garrick did not know how. He lay awake until four. Seraphina said: go and ask someone.

Helena, asleep, poured him tea and said: thyme. Selvane remembered. You can’t mend a torn root. You put back what’s whole and firm it down and it grows the rest. If there’s something living left.

Carol: they’re as much yours as mine. Idiot. Then: take. Two half-seeds made one.

In the chapel, at dawn. Everyone came. Elenos listened.

Garrick put back what was whole and firmed it and let the gray come. He grew the rest from the seed. An hour and forty minutes.

It was one voice. He said: Carol, say a name. She said Teo. He said heard. It learned. It twined. Elenos: that’s two. That’s her.

Meriel said: heard. All two hundred candles lit at once.

She said Soren’s name. And Carol’s. And Garrick’s. Elenos said heard for him; he had no voice left.

Then she said Malachar’s name. On purpose. To see if it would hold. Not one candle flickered. A thing grown back is strongest at the join.

Then Garrick fell down.

Ilyra: he isn’t leaving either. He’s just tired. She has checked.

Seraphina has not left the room.

And under that, in a long, thin, gray hand, steady now, not slow at all:

Meriel. Heard. All of it. Every name. Thank you.