Mad Sisters of Esi, page 35
I am Wisa Kilta, you say. You say it again, louder. I am Wisa Kilta!
Your voice echoes back to you.
Then you do the worst thing possible.
You begin to explore these chambers.
You have a universe at your feet; you have understood this now. You have also understood that the girl you were on Esi (but you’re not that girl anymore) would find joy in discovering this universe. In categorizing and speaking to it. And so that is what you try to do: explore us as you would a new and strange landscape.
But we are not a landscape. We are a cosmos. A small one, but we are growing bigger with every moment. We are not made for your eyes. The more carefully you look, the more scared you become. It is as if you have played with us for years and years but only now do you notice our claws. You stay close to your yakuth. You tremble.
It hurts us, your fear. We are not trying to scare you. But our vastness is terrifying, for it is the mirror that reminds you of your fragility. You feel the tininess of your lungs, the brittleness of your bones. Your body has no more substance than dust. It is so easy to vanish.
We almost lose you then. You have fallen apart so completely, there’s only the barest thread of you left. You hold on to that thread, and you whisper, desperate: Quir.
We answer. We push through space and time, through boundaries we didn’t know could be crossed, to give you what you need.
We sing.
Our song is tart and sweet, powerful and relentless. It sweeps through chambers with fervor, melting everything into a current thick with color. You are swept up in it. You are lost and found. This is our gift to you, our rope thrown to a drowning sailor, our beloved.
For in that flood, you see them.
Grandpa. Magali. Jinn. Your grandpa is dancing in foolish looseness, an absent-minded smile on his face. He is old, but he is still Kua; he’s dancing to music other than what you are hearing, the twang of a luddite strula. And Magali is grinning at you with love, her hair streaked with the odd white hair, wrinkles sprouting from the corners of her eyes. She is holding Jinn’s hand, whom she must have married by now, and these—oh, please, let it be—these are her children, small and light, clambering over you, asking questions you cannot hear, pulling your nose and checking your hair for shellfish. They giggle with a joy beyond you. They are so perfect, it hurts.
Then the song ends. Only the fabrics remain untouched; everything else is a thick sea of paint. Opposite you is your sister.
Not the hallucination of your sister. Your sister. She is older, dressed in sailor robes, her hair stiff with salt. She is so beautiful—still strong, even in her frailty, like the black sea never stood a chance with her. She can see you.
You’re part of my dream, aren’t you? she says, laughing and crying.
Or you’re part of mine, you whisper, reaching for her.
Then the sea moves and she is gone.
• • •
We are looking at:
You. Your nose is in line with our face, your eyes enormous. This is a time from Esi; we have just been born; the edges of the moment are blurry and indistinct. We are crying, although we don’t know why. Perhaps we tried to become something and couldn’t. Perhaps we saw where we wanted to go but didn’t know how to get there.
You rub our head with your thumb; you make shushing noises. Don’t cry, little Quir, you say. If you cry, I cry.
We cry harder, just to test the theory. It’s true: you weep. You cradle us to your chest, cupping your hands around us and in the slatted darkness, we feel safe, warm. It’s you and me now, darling, you say softly. It’s you and me.
We assume it is a promise.
• • •
It is as if the song breached a boundary between us and the black sea—now you flow into your sister’s surroundings, a gift from her double sight.
Oh, these visits are everything. You learn that your sister is a traveler. You would not have imagined it: you thought your sister is a tree, made to grow roots and keep them. But this is not how it turned out. Magali lives on ships, builds fragments of her life on quays and uproots them to keep moving. Jinn is with her, although you do not see him; when you visit, Magali is alone.
I used to see you in nightmares, she tells you. You used to scream for me, over and over, and I could do nothing.
Your sister is collecting the black sea’s song. She travels across it, capturing the music she hears in notes and glass vials. Later, she tries to draw the melody. We have seen this image in Kua: his head bent, hand tracing a pattern beneath the surface, searching for a shape. Magali is studying the songs’ shapes and depth. She wants to understand their reach.
What a strange impulse it is, to sing. To throw your voice as far away from you as it will go. To make a home for a feeling.
It’s incredible, she says, showing you her notes. The joule sings to ask the earth to churn for it, but the sleeping squids, they sing to conjure up dreams and these dreams hold the questions that the Caspian philosophers are beginning to study. There is so much in song, so much we haven’t understood. How good is it at holding memory? Can it stay still in time?
You like seeing her like this—alight, alive. These visits heal you. You go back to tending your worlds; you forget about Myung. You dance and teach your yakuth to dance too. You are happy. We believe it, we do.
I’m coming to find you, Magali says.
You smile; you kiss her knuckles tenderly. You know it will not happen; that quest will take more time than either of you has. But it’s okay. This is enough.
• • •
Sometimes, you think about the girl you saw in the time cobweb.
You’re not looking for her anymore. But you wonder how she exists. You have traveled through so many chambers by this point, and there has been no sign of human life. You have not seen a single other person except this girl. How?
You ponder this question for years, and slowly, the answer begins to form. You don’t say anything to us. Not yet. But we catch you staring at doors for longer than is necessary. Watching the fabrics more closely. Vague impressions coalesce in your mind—you know this girl; you’re sure of it—but the answer is just out of reach.
You look at Magali-ilk.
Magali-ilk turns up in the moments you need her. When you search for Myung or when you are exploring, she is by your side. Now, when you look at her, she doesn’t look very much like Magali. Oh, she is the sister you remember on the beach, but you have seen the real Magali now and she has changed in ways you could not imagine.
Still, there is something sweet about this hallucination. You love her; we know you do. Perhaps she is an anchor to a simpler time, where the black sea followed rules you understood. Perhaps you simply love her, the hallucination herself. After all, who else has been by your side?
You hold her hand and ask: Are you lying to me?
She doesn’t answer. She lies down next to you and watches the fabrics flutter, for she is a part of your mind and she knows you already know the answer.
For one day, you will wake up with the story of the girl in you. You will have figured it out. And you will crawl to Magali-ilk, your heart hammering and your palms sweaty. You will take her face in your hands. For, of course, she is your hallucination, but she is not only your hallucination.
Quir, you will say.
Her face won’t change. But in this light, you will imagine that her eyes look limpid and large. Like a little black bat’s.
You will be crying.
Oh, my darling, you will say. Oh, my beloved. I know who the girl is. You mustn’t. You can’t.
The Story of Ourselves: Part Two
The first time we realize you die, we see it. You are playing a game with Magali-ilk, laughing, running, and then in the same chamber, you are there, older, frailer. When you smile, your face crinkles. When you lift your hand to pet your snow-white yakuth, still as young as the day you imagined him, we see the structure of your bones, stare at your veins winding down your arm like rivers.
We don’t know what is happening. We scramble through space and time. We look at you again, carefully—weeping in the first room, reveling in your first yakuth flight, hunting desperately for Myung, and it’s true . . . you’re changing. Slowly, ever so slowly, time for you is running out.
We cannot believe it.
We do not believe it. Time is endless. Everything here lasts forever, changes only when they want to, if they like. You are here now. You live in us, not on Esi or the black sea; you don’t follow their laws anymore. You follow ours. Don’t you?
• • •
But you are dying.
We cannot look away from it any longer. In black sea time, you should have died already; you are a sea turtle, with centuries under your skin. Still, you haven’t escaped death entirely. It comes for you, only slowly. Run! we want to shout. Look, there it is, Wisa—flee.
But you don’t notice anything. You move through chambers, playing with your yakuth, talking to your sister—the imaginary one and, when double sight lets you, the real one. You haven’t realized the story of Myung and Laleh, not as yet. You are content. This is your universe now; you have made a home.
We try to save you. Gossamer fabrics flutter slowly to life. They reach for you. Pieces drift gently onto your shoulders; they try to stick. They attempt to stitch themselves into cocoons that will keep you preserved. But they only rot off, obeying a language of living we do not understand. Why can we not keep you? Why won’t you stay?
• • •
You learn you are dying at the same time you realize who Myung is. The knowledge is entwined; each one is born from the other. You hold Magali-ilk’s face in your hands. The sister we made from your memories so you wouldn’t be lonely.
Oh, my darling, you say, and you are talking to us. Oh, my beloved. I know who the girl is. You mustn’t. You can’t.
Dying doesn’t scare you. Perhaps you have expected it. Perhaps you know no other way. All things must end, you tell us, but it is a small wisdom given to small humans. We can do better. We can change this.
You grow agitated. Quir, you say. You must let me go.
The chambers echo your voice back to you; it rings among the fabrics.
Quir! you shout. Let me go.
We don’t answer. You were made in a sea different from this one; you were shaped by small possibilities. We can offer you a bigger, wider world. We can show you what you cannot imagine. And once you see it, how could you walk away? You would love it. We believe it, we do.
We will keep you. We are determined. We have learned to reach for what we want. You taught us this.
You take matters into your own hands. You look for the girl. Maybe if you find her, you can get her to change our mind. Maybe it will work. But when you do find a girl, in the World of Bird and Leaf, it is not the one you saw but another one. You see Laleh.
You are startled—you didn’t expect this. But you overcome your surprise and grab her wrist.
Listen, you say. There is still time. Tell it it can’t. Tell it—
But the chamber swallows her up, and you don’t know if she’s heard you.
• • •
You grow older. You change.
It is difficult to describe. Suppleness gives way to rigidity, but not only in your limbs. We have seen it before, on Esi: in the settlements you took us through, and then later in the luddite colony. As people grow older, the giving of adulthood disappears—or changes. Changes, perhaps. Their eyes become stonier, their opinions more defined with an edge of sharpness to them. They look at society and drift away from it. Sometimes peacefully, an old man who falls asleep at every gathering around the fire, snoring gently among cup clinks and conversation. Sometimes acerbically, a woman who states what she thinks with vitriol that goes beyond the moment, throwing her full conviction behind her words; you don’t know why it means so much to her.
Your changes are different but the same. There is no society here, nothing to drift away from but yourself. You grow slower. You take your time. You notice the time cobwebs falling on your shoulders and you let them lie; they make you feel stronger. You know they will rot away soon.
Like all humans, you ossify. You become more and more certain you must die. Magali-ilk tries to talk you out of it, but you lose your temper. This is your way; this is how it should be. Our Wisa, the Wisa on Esi, delighted in changing her mind. Now you are different. Your conviction is a sifted conviction, a belief formed from years of living. It means something. It is dear to you, your hard-won wisdom. You will not give it up for anything.
• • •
Quir, you whisper.
You are lying on your yakuth as it sleeps. Below you, water spreads as far as the eye can see; somewhere in this chamber, there is your island of weaving crabs. We don’t answer. Your dying has felt agonizing; even though we know what is coming, what we will do, this is still painful to live through.
Quir, you say and you smile. Your face crinkles; you are eaten in a map of wrinkles; your hair is snow white, like your yakuth’s. You are so frail. We fear the next gust of wind will break you, the next door swallow you whole. Our Wisa.
Quir, you insist and so Magali-ilk shakes out her sandy hair and transforms, spirit-like, into a black bat. She crawls onto your palm, looks at you carefully. We are listening.
I’m sorry, you say softly. I know this is hard. I am leaving and you are not, so I have the easier task of the two. But don’t be sad, my darling. We never truly leave the ones we love. Grandpa is here always. Magali is here. I carry them with me. When I go, you will have these worlds; you will have our pieces of time. It will be enough. It becomes enough. And if you grow sad and you cannot find me, quieten your chambers. Find some beautiful music. Dance. Dance like you mean it, Quir; dance like there isn’t enough wonder in all the black sea to capture the delight in your heart. And you’ll see, darling—you’ll see I’m always with you.
Gently, you stroke the little bat’s head.
Darling, you can go on without me, you whisper. Let me die.
• • •
You die.
Your yakuth wraps your body in its fur and carries you through worlds. It flies where we tell it to go. We take you to the chamber we modeled after your home. When you are reborn, we want it to be in a place that is as close to Esi as possible.
You will ask us: how did you think of it? You haven’t asked as yet, but you will. We know you. So we will tell you now.
You gave us the idea.
You were sitting at the top of a mountain; you were telling a cluster of yakuths the story of yourself. They were enthralled. The little ones pushed closer to you, drinking in your words. You were delighted by the attention. You had reached the part of your story where we are born. Where you ask us to become a nightdome and we take your breath away.
(We love this part.)
But that day you wandered from the script. You said: I didn’t expect Quir to become this. A whale of such magnificence was beyond my imagination. I don’t know how it happened; perhaps it was because of the stone egg.
We remember that egg. Ice pink and curdled white, blood red seams. Smooth to the touch. It tasted striated when we ate it, full of texture and depth. There are others like it on Esi, relics of a time you cannot remember but that we glimpse occasionally. Alchemists and boiling metals. Fabrics, pale and gossamer.
Magali had a stone egg like it, you said. Your voice was wistful; you were no longer thinking about the story. I loved it from the first moment she showed it to me. It reminded me of Quir, of the black sea swirling in its eyes. I imagine if you nicked the stone and unspooled it, you could find yourself holding a universe.
And this is it. One sentence: that is what we pluck. Universes compressed into stone eggs. Of you being bone and blood, and in that the seed of what makes you. The beginnings of another Wisa. That’s all we need—a little bit of you to remake you.
So that is what we do. Your yakuth lays you down gently on a rock. Then it flies off to grow as large as the chamber, wrapping itself around the circumference, before melting into a river and falling asleep. We spin a new Wisa out of the bones of the last; we stitch you with the gossamer fabrics of time so that you will be ageless, so that we never have to watch you die. So that you never leave us.
But we have learned from your last life, from your loneliness. And so we make you two.
• • •
We watch you now. You run through our chambers with no trace of tiredness in your limbs, no thought of death. We watch as you pick new names: Laleh and Myung. Although you will always be Wisa to us, we are glad. New names give you freedom, a chance to become someone else.
You don’t remember who you were before. This is not what we had intended but time works in ways beyond us. We are sad at first, but then we realize this is best. Many times you have told us you are a bird, made for the wind to slip off your wings. But you don’t know yourself as well as you think, for you are, in fact, a tree and your roots are entangled in Esi. You longed to be part of a forest.
Now you are free of that burden. You can be anyone you want: knight, princess, witch, explorer.
But even as we watch you find yourself, become sisters, step through your first door, even as we delight, we know it won’t last. For there will come a day when Myung will look at her reflection, and a new urge will be born.
Grandpa had a phrase in the colony: The tree lives in the forest but the forest also lives in the tree. No matter how many chambers you visit, you are still a tree. Your forest won’t die. You never stop searching for your family.
And so now we watch you wandering through chambers with a renewed purpose. The air is cold between your two selves. We see you try and understand Wisa’s presence in your life. Great Wisa, you call her. We ache. One of you, Laleh, will try and find a way to keep Myung in the whale. But Myung—we will lose her. We feel it, deep within us. She will go through chambers looking for more people. She will ask the many beasts of our belly: Do you know Great Wisa?
