Page 11

THE CHILDREN’S GARDEN

WREN

W hen the Council is quiet and the days are still warm, my feet lead me, inevitably, in one direction, to one place, to one person, where my heart is safe and my secrets kept in locked rooms. He is a feather of hope in my world, a crack in the wall where the light pours through in promise.

And if I am free, drifting on the wind, I will always float towards him, as though he commands the breeze.

I do not need to look for him; the bones are whispering to me, guiding me to the far curve of the wall near the Northern Arch, in the Children’s Garden.

Not flowers, just a delicate section in the bone wall where most of the children are sheltered, their tiny bones the only ones in our village that are laid in decoration.

The children are patterned in sweet blooms, shapes of petals not seen since before the dark times.

Ivy runs along the wall here, dust green on pale white — the single place the villagers let the flowering vine grow wild, twisting in and around the fragile scapulas and sternums, helping keep them anchored in place.

Anywhere else the clinging tendrils dry the mortar, weakening the bone structure, but in the Children’s Garden, it is as though even the plants want to protect our most valuable Offerings.

Since I was chosen as Keeper, I have never named a child for Reaping or Rendering.

Almost all of the most recent bones in the Children’s Garden are from before my eyes went white and I was still guiding souls named by the Council; only one has been added to the ivory flowers since.

Slowly, slowly, during my tenure, the almost sickening anxiety all parents feel from the instant they fall pregnant has morphed into a cautious gratitude.

They do not know why the Sun God has seemingly never called for a child, nor, apparently has the Earth demanded one, but are increasingly hopeful with each Offering that passes without a child being chosen.

In thanks, a new tradition emerged — from the moment their children are born, they light ever burning candles for the Sun God, and leave small dirt holes outside the infant’s window for the Earth filled with the best meat from their meals.

No parent would dare let the flame go out or the pit go empty, even if it has been long enough that I is for Infant has faded from a numbed acceptance to a toothless threat.

These small acts of obsequience are the only guards between me and the wrath of the Gods.

I do not know what I will do if they stop.

Or if the Gods refuse my own Offerings made in the children’s stead to keep them from fire or blade. At the thought, the twisting scars under my vertebracelets flicker briefly with the memory of bright pain.

Dragging my fingers along the wall, I swallow hard. Perhaps, I whisper to the bones beside me, perhaps I would…I would refuse to guide anyone at all..until the Gods promised… The bones shudder in response, and I do not confide in them further.

The liquid sound of a lute calls like a bird in the thin mountain air, pulling me from my grave thoughts, and it slows my feet. A man is singing softly, a love song I have never heard, and the words make me want to cry.

“I shall take you to the river

Where the wild waters flow

And I’ll crown you with flowers for your starfire hair

A bower your bed

and the night sky your hom e

And I’ll sing you a love song so sweet and so fair…”

Looking up, he meets my eyes immediately, as though he has been waiting his whole life for me.

Tahrik, Tahrik , his name like the call of the birds from outside the walls of the village.

A short, sharp chirp, a trill, a song on my lips and in my mouth.

Tah- REEK , Tah- REEK , an unexpected burst of music in a soundless world.

Head tilted, gaze locked on mine without wavering, he smiles, the slow, sweet curve of a lover’s mouth, and continues singing to me, and for me, alone.

His voice is soft but sure, sounding as though he is making a handfast vow.

“You’ll give me your heart

And I’ll wrap it in ribbon

I’ll keep it cocooned from the Storms and the rain

It is my only treasure

I’ll always defend it

To keep you from harm and protect you from pain

Until, until, until the stars fall

Until, until, until we’re grey

Until, until, until we’re shadows

And my bones will sing for yours until end of days…”

I don’t know why, but the words are an ache in my heart, and my vision wavers as my eyes fill with tears.

It is water gladly given. Tahrik doesn’t move, doesn’t look away from me, his face softening as he watches me react to his song.

The air is still and the bones are silent, giving us a moment that seems out of time, that seems like stolen happiness from somewhere other than our here and now.

His voice cracks slightly on the next verse, rough with emotion, and then steadies.

“I don’t breathe lest it’s beside you

I don’t see lest you’re in view

If they ask me of my purpose

I’ll answer my heart song so pure and so true

Until, until, until the Storms cease

Until, until, until I fade

Until, until, until the world stop s

My bones will sing for yours until end of days.”

The last strum of the strings hovers in the air, like heat on a fallow field, and I know, as soon as it fades, we will be jerked back into the present, our little drops of sunshine dissolving in the shadow of bone.

Suddenly, violently, I wish for nothing more than the Keeping to be ripped from me; I don’t care if it leaves me bloody and broken behind it.

I want the promise of the man before me, a small house in the village with scrawny chickens and dirty floors, of mudstained children and cold winter evenings sheltered by the hearthfire.

I want the feel of his hands on my skin and the taste of the song in his mouth, and it is a dream so overwhelming and excruciating that I cannot breath.

“Keeper,” he whispers, quiet as new bone, and I incline my head.

“Tahrik.” His name is a fever dream, a longing to accept the promise his song made.

He offered something with those words, knew that I would hear them, and gave them to me as a gift.

And I want, bone, flesh, and blood, to take them, and him, into my heart.

What will you do if the bones call for Tahrik?

My mind whispers. The Sun God is jealous of happiness. What will you do?

But this is not a happiness to be jealous of, this painful, desperate longing, this unfulfillable wish — this is like the Storm rains — a poisoned blessing, life and yet not life.

The Council will never let me go; the bones will never release me.

I exist with a foot and a hand and half my heart in the grave, and I will never condemn another to live in the veil with me.

The note wavers, wanes, til it is more of a memory of sound than the sound itself exists, and then it, and the moment, are gone.