Spring came to the island of Seaggis in a warm breeze, bringing with it green grass, new leaves, birds, rain, and light. I busied myself with trying to revive the garden which had been forgotten outside of my window; pulling up thistles and weeds, churning up the dark, damp soil, and nurturing the brave wildflowers which grew here and there.

“It was my brother’s,” Taelon had told me when I asked him why it had been in a state of neglect for so long. “I haven’t enough time to care for it, especially now.”

He had been very willing to let me take it over when I suggested I might, for something else to do, and occasionally, he brought me something new to plant in it. Some carrot seeds, a flower bulb, or some herbs. And he promised to bring me more if he ever found anything interesting.

I was thrilled seeing the things I put in the ground take root and grow, as though their roots were mine, and kept me grounded when the wind of memory and grief threatened to blow me away.

“If it keeps growing as nicely as it is, we’ll soon have a proper garden right here, and we won’t have to trade for vegetables when we have our own,” I told Taelon one sunny morning as we both sat together at the round, grey wood table, him sharpening a knife and me watching him do it.

“Well, if you want it, then that’s alright,” he said. “But can you manage it on your own?”

“I can. It’s not all that big, and the rain does most of the work for me. You could help if you wanted; make farming your profession, and then you wouldn’t have to do everyone else’s work to get vegetables.”

“I see the wisdom of it,” he admitted. “But I do not fancy it.”

“Why not?”

“If I am to settle into something permanent, I would rather it be something I take real pleasure in. Everyone says a man’s profession is his second wife. If you are to enter either; marriage or work, make it be something you’ll enjoy. Not just something you can tolerate.”

He said it so dryly that I felt mysteriously insulted. “From your tone, I gather you take a very dour view of marriage.”

“Why, no, not at all,” he disagreed, perplexed. “Only those made for wealth and status alone, with no thought to love or even simply convivial compatibility.”

“But those marriages are a form of love, are they not?” I pressed cautiously. “That two people should come together, whether or not they like each other, so that their children may grow up in comfort; surely that is a sort of great love indeed.”

“If it were so, I would agree. But it never ends.” Taelon rubbed his thumb unconsciously over his wrist. “Those people will then insist on their children marrying partners they do not love, and they their children, on and on, only for more material benefit. Does living in a house with three floors and hordes of servants truly make up for all the unhappiness inspired in a family, especially children, by a husband and a wife who live in disharmony?”

“I suppose it might not,” I conceded. “My family is not wealthy, and my parents do love each other very much. I did often want for things, but I don’t think I would have given up what I had for them. Still, even caring for each other as deeply as they do, there was often something come between them. Usually, money and fear they would have no way to provide for me.”

“There is trouble in every marriage,” Taelon said. “Would you not be more determined to push through it if the person next to you was one you loved?”

When I didn’t answer, he sighed. “Either way, farming is too unpredictable. It takes skills and guidance I never had. Besides, I do not mind what I am doing now. There is not the dreariness of repetition that grows dull. It is always different, and I learn a bit of everything by doing it.”

“But you can’t keep doing what you’re doing forever,” I cautioned. “You’ll want to find something at some point.”

“And I shall,” he agreed. “One day, I shall find something I want to do.”

I mulled over the conversation in my head as I sat down next to my little garden. It came to me suddenly that I hadn’t any idea what I wanted to do with my life. Would I stay as I was? Cleaning, gardening, and wandering the beach? What about marriage and children? I had not thought much about either subject since James had been killed. And even then, though at the time they’d felt like assurances more than possibilities, the idea always seemed off in the future.

But I am in the future, I thought. Many girls my age would have begun such journeys by now.

Thinking too much about marriage made me think too much of James; something I didn’t feel like doing, so I put it all out of my mind and instead, reached out my arm to brush the tender leaves of a dandelion, only to hear a dreadful tearing sound and feel the entire seam at my shoulder give way.

My one and only dress, fated to fall off me in tatters before the end of the week.

When Taelon arrived back a few hours before sunset, he found me sitting by the fire, my hair tangled and my skin smudged with dirt while I held the sleeve of my dress on with my fingers.

“At first glance one would think you were fighting with the plants, not caring for them,” he remarked, very unhelpfully upon casting his eyes to my sorry picture.

“I really do have the worst luck,” I spat. “I’ve worn this dress for over three months and now it chooses to fall apart!”

“I would say it is better it has done it now, rather than while you were still on the ship,” he reasoned.

“You may be right.” I sighed. “Is there anyone here who is good at mending?”

“I am.”

“You?”

“Are you surprised?”

“Yes.”

He knelt by me and rubbed the cloth of my sleeve between his fingertips.

“Well, if you can do it as you say, won’t you offer to?”

“I would,” he said. “But wouldn’t you rather have a new one instead? Even if it is fixed, it will only keep falling apart, and come winter you will want to have something else to wear.”

“I haven’t anything to trade for one.” I crossed my ankles together. “My skills may be of some use to you, but they certainly wouldn’t be to anyone else; at least not worth something valuable like a good dress.”

“I will mend this for you,” Taelon said. “Then, tomorrow, make your way into town and see if you can secure a deal. I will do whatever work is asked for it.”

“I couldn’t let you do that.” I shrunk back. “Not while I owe you so much. I’ll do it myself.”

“I would not mind.”

“I would.”

He out a long, thin needle of bone and a spool of thread from his pocket.

“You carry those around with you?” I asked.

“They come in handy with a lot of things.”

“Should I take it off?” I tugged on my dress. “Only, I don’t know what I would wear instead of it.”

“You can leave it on.” He smiled and pinched the edges of the split cloth together in his hands and tilted his head to see how they best fit back together. I didn’t miss how a pale shade of red kissed his cheekbones.

I watched as he threaded the needle, and then also while he slid the smooth head through my sleeve. At first, I winced every time I felt the needle brush my skin, worried it would prick my arm, but after a minute had gone by, and without any pain on my end, I gradually began to relax.

He had the tip of his tongue tucked just visible between his teeth, and a furrow in his brow as he worked. Sewing was no impressive feat, anyone knew, but he had this way about him. An ability to make it seem, to anyone who was watching him, that what he was doing was utterly fascinating; and so it became.

Just like when I had stood watching him as he dug through the carcass of the sheep, I now sat unable to look away from him and the needle between his fingers.

“It should hold for now,” he told me when he finished, cut the string, and tucked the needle and thread back into his pocket. “At least until tomorrow.”

I surveyed his work, glad to see that the stitches were all very small,

tight, and even. Indeed, they as good, if not better than mine would have been, and I took the next moment to compliment him.

“You could be a tailor,” I said. “You’d be good at it.”

He thanked me, pleased I was satisfied but told me that mending a dress, and making one were very different.

I thought he was just being modest.

The next day I walked down to the village in search of someone who could make me a dress. There was only one shop on Seaggis that was labeled as a Dressmaker’s. It was owned, as Taelon had informed me, by an elderly man named Rollo Byrne, who, while almost ninety-eight years in age, was known to be a most reliable Dressmaker.

“The only concerns I’ve heard,” he’d added, “Is whether or not he’ll die before finishing it.”

“Hello?” I called, stepping inside the musty shop. It was dark, with only two small square windows on either side of the door, but through them came light enough that I could see the roles of fabric sitting in tidy piles on the counter.

My mother had made all my dresses out of the same material; usually green or brown, very simple and while warm, not very soft or beautiful.

I ran my hand over the patterned surface of a bolt of cloth and felt a thrill as the smooth material pleased my fingertips. Blue, red, purple, yellow. There were ribbons and embroidered belts and many other treasures I had no names for.

Oh, I thought. Oh, if only I could have a dress made from such beauty, surely, I would be the happiest girl in the world.

“May I help you?”

I jumped when I noticed that I was not alone. A short old man peered at me from behind the wooden counter. He was thin and shriveled, almost completely bald, with only a few tufts of cloud-white hair sticking up in odd angles here and there over his scalp. He wore a deep grey tunic, yellow hose, an embroidered jerkin, and a bright red belt. He was, for lack of a better way to say it, a strange-looking person.

“I was hoping I could have a dress,” I told him, raising my voice in case he was hard of hearing; one malady that came with becoming old, as I’d seen.

He winced. “You needn’t shout, girl. I can hear you just fine. Well, you want a dress. What would you give me for it?”

“What do you want for it?”

I had understood from my mother that it was unwise to let a stranger know what you had and didn’t have before striking a deal.

“Hmmm.” He surveyed me for quite some time, one of his brittle fingers drumming against the countertop.

“Since you look like a nice lass, I’ll make you a deal,” he said generously. “I’ll make you two nice dresses and let you take one that has already been made if you make me a promise.”

“What sort of promise?”

“When I’m taken home,” he said. “Promise me you’ll come back here and take care of anything you find needing taking care of. That’s all, and if you’ll promise to do this, I’ll do everything I said I would.”

I couldn’t think of a reason to say no, so I gave him my word to do as he asked. Immediately, he took my measurements, handed me a dress, and told me that the other two would be ready within three weeks.

I could not help but feel proud of myself as I walked home, skipping every other step, and decided that I would make an excellent barterer.

The dress I had been given was a bit too loose around the waist when I put it on, so I synched it up with some rope I found in the pantry, and let it be. It wasn’t all that pretty, either; only a simple thing made from a rough green fabric that hung just past my ankles. But it wasn’t my old one, and I had two nicer ones being made, so I couldn’t feel unhappy.

“You found some luck then,” Taelon said when he came back himself and I told him what had transpired. “But you be careful when making deals like that. Sunah knows what you might get into.”

“I’m sure it will be alright.” I dismissed his concerns with a wave of my hand. “It’ll only be rearranging things or cleaning a bit. Nothing bad will happen.”

“If you are certain.” He didn’t look satisfied. “Just be more careful in the future, won’t you?”

“Are you worried about me?” I teased because it felt right that I should.

“Yes, I am,” he said seriously.

“Why?”

He crossed his arms, and his feet at his ankles, looking ruffled. “Am I not allowed to worry for your wellbeing while you are staying with me?” he asked quietly, “Do you find it improper?”

“. . . No.”

“Good.” He stood up from where he’d been seated at the table and rolled his shoulder. “I think I’ll go to bed early.”

I glanced out of the window and noted that the sky was still a wash of blue and orange. Night had not yet settled in. “It’s not dark yet,” I told him importantly.

“I know, but I’m tired.”

“Are you feeling ill?”

“No, I’m quite alright. It’s only that I was rounding up some horses today, and it takes a bit out of me. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“I see. Goodnight then,”

He smiled, and I was relieved because I knew then that he wasn’t upset with me, for whatever reason there might have been.

“Goodnight, Ingrith.”

I always looked forward to the Lychme festival as the brightest part of spring. It fed every heart and soul with a sense of freedom and peace with the mere mention of the name; the way nothing else could.

When I was a child, I would lie out on the grass at night with my family and we would look up at the sky and tell stories, or mention small, unimportant things that we suddenly thought of; even if they were as useless as a remark on the weather, they were precious; because everything spoken under starlight was precious.

As the threat of war loomed closer, Lychme was celebrated less and less. Three years in a row I hadn’t celebrated the festival, so I was pleased and eager when Taelon asked me how I wanted to celebrate it.

“How did you celebrate it when I wasn’t here?”

He dipped a feather quill in a pot of ink and scribbled some words onto a piece of rough parchment, a letter to his sister, he had told me when I asked.

“When my brother was here, we celebrated with the other people in the village. When he wasn’t, I stayed by myself. What did you do?”

“It was my family and I.” I felt a tug at the corners of my lips, urging me to smile at the memory. “We would sleep out underneath the stars for a night and then plant our wishes in the ground.”

“Only one night? Isn’t it supposed to be three?”

“It is still cold in Saje when Lychme arrives. If we were to sleep out for three nights, we would surely get very ill.” I stopped when I noticed that Taelon was staring at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

He shook his head and went back to his writing with an affectionate and slightly incredulous smile playing with his lips.

“What is it?” I asked again.

“You—” he pointed his quill at me, “—are terrible at hiding things.”

“I am not.” I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you never tell me anything about your life when I ask, but then you just let things slip out at random times without realizing it.”

“Like what?”

He began to write again, and I tracked the pattern of the ink underneath his hand with my eyes.

“In the past three weeks you’ve told me that you are sixteen, you have no siblings, your father works with horses and carts, and you lived in Saje.”

“When did I tell you that I lived in Saje?”

“Just a moment ago.”

I huffed out a breath. “I have a loose tongue,” I allowed. “I see your point. Is there anything else that you want to know then? I should know, preferably so that I can tell you on purpose.”

He put down the quill and crossed his arms over the table, his lips slightly parted as he considered his reply. Finally, he gave a dismissive half-shrug and broke eye contact.

“I do have one question,”

“What is it?”

“How would you like to celebrate Lychme here?”

He took me by surprise, and I had to stop for a moment to think of a suitable answer.

“I’ve never celebrated in a large group of people,” I began. “I’m not sure it would feel right here when I don’t know anyone.”

“Then it will be us.”

“If you don’t mind. You could celebrate with everyone though; you do know them after all, and I don’t mind being alone.”

“Ingrith.” He blotted his finger experimentally on the page and examined it for any ink that might not have dried. “You must stop thinking that every offer I make is a sacrifice on my part and for your benefit alone. There is no sense in it.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t feel that way if I weren’t so in your debt.”

“Maybe you should consider that I may feel in your debt as well.”

“What reason could there possibly be for that?” I exclaimed.

“If I told you, you would dismiss it,” he said, concentrating on lining up the edges of the parchment perfectly as he folded it into fourths.

“Well, now I’m curious, so you must tell me.” I leaned toward him on my chair, and he edged away, dark lashes fluttering against cheeks whispering of a blush.

“Go on,” I urged. “I won’t laugh at it, or whatever you’re imagining.”

“If you must know, it is that I find having someone here, with me, comforting,” he said, weaving his hands together. “It felt strange to be by myself, and I enjoy your company.”

“Well, if that’s true, then I’m glad,” I said. “And I’ll try to believe it.”

His smile was pleased. “Then should we celebrate Lychme together?”

“Yes.” My smile was the same. “I would like that.”

For the first two nights of Lychme, sleeping out of doors was impossible. It rained the first night, and the ground was muddy and wet the next. On the third, we dragged out the mattresses and two quilts and set them, side by side but apart, out on the grass and lay down on our backs.

The night sky was like an ocean above us, dark and unknown with thousands of lights blinking and glittering like eyes watching and seeing all.

“What are your thoughts?” Taelon spoke without looking at me. His eyes were fixed on what was above us.

“I feel as though I should be frightened,” I whispered and extended a hand upward, watching my fingers open to the blackness. “I could fall into it at any moment and be lost forever, and yet I’m not frightened. I’m only frightened of the thought.”

“What do you think it is?”

I cast my eyes to the side and saw that Taelon’s hand also reached for the darkness. His white fingers were brilliant against the opposing sea of black, catching the light of the moon.

“Isn’t it the home of the gods?” I asked. “That’s what I was told; that each light is a throne that awaits its master’s return and burns in the flame of eternity. That’s why they glow.”

“I was told this as well.” Taelon halted, chewing on what to say next. “But . . . where does it go?”

“What do you mean?” I let my hand drop and rested my arms behind my head.

“When the sun rises from the ocean, where does the night sky go?”

“I don’t know,” I answered with honesty, and felt no shame in admitting it.

“Do you want to know?”

“No,” I said after a moment of thinking about it. “No, I don’t think I want to. At least, I don’t think that I need to. I’m fine with just letting it be. I feel . . . some things don’t need to be known.”

The silence that fell after my words was one of thoughtfulness and wonder. A silence that might have remained unbroken but for the sound of a sharp tap near the edge of the trees that startled me out of my head.

I sat up and peered in the direction the sound came from. After a moment, I heard it again.

“Taelon,” I whispered. “Taelon, I heard something.”

He turned and propped himself up on one elbow to listen.

Tap.

“There it is again! You heard it, didn’t you?” I whirled on him to provide a satisfying explanation.

“It’s probably a Lulodun.”

“A what?”

“Lulodun. A Tree Tapper.”

“What are they?”

Taelon was almost invisible to me in the dark, but I heard his voice and it sent shivers down my spine.

“Do you know the Legend of the Continent, Ingrith?” he asked. “The one telling us that Sunah turned to stone, and the gods’ souls descended from the heavens?”

“Of course, I do. Everyone does.”

“Well,” he said. “There’s a different one that very few people have heard, and only the ones here believe it. You know of the island of Gatcha?”

“It’s Sunah’s heart.”

“But not everyone thinks so.”

There was a shuffling sound, and I imagined he’d settled down on his back to look up at the sky.

“Some people say that the heart of Sunah is a different island completely.”

“Seaggis?” I asked slowly. “Do you mean Seaggis?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” I had never considered that something might not be the way it was told to me. Gatcha had always been the heart of Sunah, everyone said so, and it was uncomfortable to think of it differently.

“Sunah’s heart would have been the seed of all her power, wouldn’t it? Even if it were vastly decreased when she came to earth, it would still be there.” He paused, then continued.

“There is a story here, that when Sunah and all the others turned to stone and became islands, the power in her heart ran amok. Without a body to channel it, it went wild. They say that the roots of the first trees that grew on the island ran so deep that they reached the core of the heart and absorbed the power until they weren’t trees any longer. They became huge, stick-like figures with long, flat faces and dull teeth in a mouth that never opened unless to sing, and arms, sharp as spears. They walked on cloven hooves, with their eggs on their backs, watching from the edge of the forest. When they saw a particular person who they took an interest in, they tapped the nearest tree to signal for their comrades to join them.”

“What do they do then?”

“You do not know. It is what makes them such terrifying creatures. They are completely unpredictable. They may just stand there and watch you; they may intimidate you by pretending to dash at you, or they may run out, faster than a streak of lightning, slit your neck, dig their roots into your body and feed on your blood until there is none left in you.”

“How horrible!” I cried. “Why do you let us sleep outside? Shouldn’t we go in immediately and block the door?”

James would have laughed then if it had been he here with me. He would have told me it was just a story, and that it was silly to be frightened of stories. But Taelon didn’t laugh. He didn’t tell me it was all a jest to tease me. He didn’t tell me I was silly for fearing a story.

“I would not worry too much, Ingrith,” he said matter-of-factly. “No one has been killed in at least twelve years. They prefer men anyway, so if anyone is in danger it’s me, and I’ve been out here at night many times before. They have never once tried to hurt me. I never even heard them before now.”

I tried to settle down and asked a question to distract myself from the shadows. “How did you hear about them?”

“It was a song,” he said. “A song that was sung on the ship that took me here. An old woman was sitting near my brother and I, and every night she would take out a needle and thread and embroider the same cloth while singing it, then tear her stitches out and do the same thing the next night.”

“How did it go? The song.”

“I will tell you the words,” he said. "If you want."

“Alright.”

He cleared his throat and then spoke in a voice so low it was almost the hum in the trees.

“Lulodun, Lulodun, anyan runè dhar, bul jai runè necst ji badnum prhar. Lulodun, Lulodun, mogeom runè nhar, pbol ar’k nual runè masht’il pyal.”

Goosebumps shivered along my skin as they always did whenever I heard words spoken in the Grey Tongue. It was a feeling that gave me the sense that something might have happened; something should have changed, but it didn’t. The words were shells now, all power they once might have held was gone, and there was nothing but a lingering memory of what was, left inside them.

“What does it mean?” I asked. “That’s very old, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Taelon affirmed. “I don’t know what is being said, only that it’s a young woman who is singing it.”

“Perhaps asking them to free someone?” I guessed. “It sounded like a plea to me.”

“I always thought she was calling to them, asking them to gather around her.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Who knows?”

We didn’t speak anymore after that. Eventually, Taelon’s breathing changed, slower, softer, and deeper, and I thought he must be asleep.

I pulled my quilt up around my shoulders and turned my back to the trees, but it didn’t stop the prickling sensation along my skin, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I refused to turn; I refused to watch because I knew if I did, I would see the eyes of the forest staring back at me.

The next morning, we both awoke—very much alive—and buried our wishes near the roots of the cliff tree.

The thin, but wide shavings of wood had been difficult to write on, and I quickly grew tired, so I left it at three. The first one: That my family and friends were alive and well and that they would remain safe. The second one: That the wars would soon end, and the Radkkans would go back to Radkka. The third: Nothing but happiness awaited me in my future.

I patted the hill of earth covering my wishes and made one more silent one that they would grow strong and real with the long grass alongside them.

“What did you wish for?” I asked Taelon as I stood up and brushed the dirt off my hands. He remained on his knees, looking out at the ocean with a disquieted expression on his face. The spring breeze picked up his hair and blew it over his eyes, but he didn’t mind it.

“We spend so much of our lives wishing for things,” he murmured. “And then when we must choose some, we can hardly think of any. Why is that?”

He stood up and faced me, a look of exigency in his blue eyes, like he truly needed an answer.

I stepped through the grass to stand beside him, holding onto the rough bark of the tree to keep from feeling dizzy and watched our feet, toes brushing the edge of the cliff. If the ground underneath us was to crumble at that moment, we would die, but I felt willing to take the chance.

“Perhaps,” I enunciated carefully, thinking aloud. “Perhaps it’s because when we have the opportunity to make them real, we realize that we already have most of what we need.”

He said nothing to rebuke me, nor to agree with what I had offered, but I felt that he was deeply considering my words. After a minute or two passed silently, I touched his shoulder and told him that I would go inside and that he should come back soon as well. Then I made my way back, my quilt folded in my arms, and I stood in my room for a time at the window, watching as the dark-haired young man stood still by the tree. Though he didn’t move, I knew he was not peaceful. Inside, something was writhing in his heart and the stillness of his body could not hide it. Not from me, not from himself.

I stayed there, watching until he moved, finally, and walked back to the house. Only when he was safely at the door did I move away.