Authors: Cyndy Aleo
He takes her hands before she can pull away from him and leans forward so she’s forced to meet his eyes.
“Dee, look at me. Really look at me. I’m still me. I still like bands no one else has heard of. I still have a drawer full of t-shirts with holes around the neck. My hair is probably still standing on end because I'm rubbing the top of my head like Aladdin's lamp hoping a genie will pop out who'll tell me how to make everything okay with you. I want things to be okay with you. I need them to be.”
It crushes him when she flinches away from him and pulls her hands free, like he's some sort of monster. For the first time, he wonders how much of his chivalry was about protecting her from the
Dziwozony
and how much was about protecting her from a truth that would undoubtedly alienate her. Right now, she doesn't look like she's ready to so much as talk to him ever again, much less start playing house any time soon.
He has to face that she may not want him now. And what will he do if she doesn't? Yesterday she seemed okay with finding out answers, but today —
“I think I need a few minutes to wrap my head around all of this, you know?” she says. “I mean, first you tell me you have a different name, then you tell me you're even older than my great-grandfather. I need a few minutes here to process that I’m suddenly the heroine of a teen novel.”
She doesn't give him a chance to answer. He can sense that pushing her even a little right now will drive her away for good, so he moves his chair back to give her room to pass.
She stands up and walks out of his room. For the second time, he watches her walk away from him, wondering if she'll return. His power feels heavy in his grasp, and now he remembers the weight of it on his shoulders, the reasons he wanted to be normal, to be human. He wishes the responsibility wasn’t his to carry, and for a moment, that he could be what she wanted him to be: a normal, human man who wants nothing more than to marry her — eventuall
y
—
and make babies with her. He has so much in his grasp, but not that.
They’ll never have that.
17: Opening
Of all mothers, Donovan guesses Grace has fewer of these moments than most, even in the multitude of years Van — Jakub — says they have been on their own, in hiding, with no family or country where they belong.
She debates whether or not she should make some kind of noise to alert Grace, but in the end, her nervous fidgeting makes the decision for her. Grace looks up and appears unashamed of her vulnerability having been witnessed.
“You'll forgive me, please,
”
she says. “I did not think you would be downstairs so soon. I was thinking of making some tea. Would you like some?”
Donovan nods and follows Grace to the kitchen, perching on a bar stool while Grace moves from the counters to the stove in the graceful manner Donovan has always associated her with. Donovan never asks which type of tea is going to be handed over; it's always perfect and suited to whatever kind of mood she happens to be in. If she has to guess, though, today's will be sweet and calming. Probably something with chamomile.
“You have a lot to think about,
”
Grace says while she fills the kettle at the sink, her back to Donovan. “I am guessing my son was inelegant in his explanations and made you feel awkward and overwhelmed, which is why you are down here with me instead of upstairs with him. It's also why he is upstairs sulking in his room instead of down here with you.”
Donovan flutters her hands. This may be the longest conversation she's ever had with Grace, and she can’t even think what she wants to ask her now that the door’s been opened for her. So many things run through her mind, all begging to be the first questions asked.
“So what's your real name?” is what she blurts out before she can even think of what she wants to know first.
Donovan wants to pound her head on the tile counter top, but Grace tilts her head back and out peals a full-throated laugh.
“That was not the first question I thought you'd ask, but I like it. Start with the easy things and work your way around to the tougher things. My birth name isn't that far off, actually. It's Grażyna. The English translation is Grace.”
“Why is Van — Jakub's — so different then?”
Grace hands her a cup, the steam rolling off the top of it and a bright sunflower dangling over the side with which to pull the tea ball out by once the tea is done steeping.
“More protection, I suppose,
”
Grace says, setting down her own cup. “It would be too obvious if both our names were the same in English. 'Vance' means 'from the fen' which is where we are from, in a way.”
“And Jakub? What does that mean?”
“Supplanter.
”
Grace takes a sip of her tea, grimacing at the heat. “In a way, that's exactly what he was. He took the place of everything for me: my life, my sisters — everything.”
“You miss them.”
Donovan knows it’s true; she doesn't need to ask. But she wants confirmation of something more and doesn't quite know what it might be or how to ask the right questions.
Silence stretches between them, broken only by Grace's deep breaths and both women sipping their tea.
“I miss … the idea of them,
”
Grace finally says. “I miss being part of something larger than myself. I was less me and more part of a whole when I was with them.
“We all had names, but no surnames; we were simply part of the sisterhood. But then when my Jakub was born, everything shifted and changed and nothing was the same. That whole I was part of? Was now against me and wanted my child dead, simply because he had been born with the wrong parts between his legs. As quickly as that, my sisters were now nothing to me. They turned against me."
“Could you ever go back?”
Grace's eyes narrow and a noise comes from her throat that sounds something like a growl. Donovan is off her stool and backing out of the kitchen toward the front door as quickly as she can, knocking things over while Grace advances on her.
Jakub, hearing things crashing in Donovan's wake, hurtles down the stairs in two giant leaps. He reaches the front door at almost the same time she does, placing himself between her and his mother.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“She wants to know,
”
Grace says, “If I can go back to my sisters.
”
She all but spits the words, fury boiling off her. Donovan cringes away, feeling the waves of Grace’s anger sweeping over her.
This is her limit, the one she’s been wondering when she’d hit. She knows what it is now, and she’s finally reached it. She wants to go back to her tiny apartment, curl up under the covers, and go to sleep and then maybe she'll wake up from this horrible nightmare soon.
“She doesn't understand,
”
he says to his mother. “She's trying to. She doesn't know what she's asking. I didn't tell her everything. Let me explain. Please.”
Before Donovan can reach behind her back and get her fingers on the doorknob, he grabs her elbow and pulls her along, dragging her back upstairs to his room. When they’re back inside, he shuts the door and gestures her back to his bed. She hears the door slam downstairs, so hard the windows in his room rattle in their frames.
Exhausted and frightened, she breaks down, curling up on the bed and giving in to the sobs that have been threatening since she first realized the man on the stairs trying to kiss her wasn't her Vance. And that makes her angry, because she’s not a girl who cries. She’s put up with a lot, okay, and she’s never once cried over it. Now she’s some wilting ingenue, weeping at the drop of a hat.
He gingerly sits down on the bed beside her, offering a box of tissues and a light touch on her back, hesitant at first, then a bit more confident as he gently strokes her until the racking gasps subside into staccato hiccups.
She takes one of the proffered tissues and blows her nose, loudly.
“That has to be attractive,
”
she says.
His token laugh is a brief burst of air combined with a half-smile.
“That question you asked my mother downstairs. What did you mean by it?”
Donovan is wiping under her eyes, where she's sure makeup must be running in sooty rivers. She stops her attempts at cosmetic damage control and rephrases her question, hoping her second try won't be as offensive as her first obviously was.
“All I meant to ask was, after all this time, and seeing how great you turned out, and how you wouldn't hurt a fly, if she says she's sorry and you agree to stay here with humans, will they let her go back? She seems like she's lonely without the rest of her people.”
He scrubs at his face with the heels of his hands before resorting to his nervous hair rubbing. She thinks that means attempt number two went just as poorly as the first.
“I don't think you understand,
”
he says. “There is no going back for her. Their laws say that male issue are to be killed immediately. They don't get fed. They don't get held. If they see the genitalia, they kill. That's all. Allowing a male child to live is a crime punishable by death. And there’s no jury trial.”
“There's no way of —“
“She could slay me this instant, in front of them all, and they would still kill her for her transgressions. She knew the decision she was making. She gave up her life for mine. She's just been biding time until they come for us both.”
“There's no way out of it? For either of you?”
He won't look at her, won't raise his eyes from the floor.
“Not that she's ever been able to see,” he answers. “And I know nothing about them other than my mother's stories.”
“Do you have to forget me again? Is it back to the same old thing now?”
She'll bear it to keep him safe. Now that she understands, she's sure she can live with the endless cycle of wanting more and never getting it. It will hurt, but she'll do it. Much as his mother has for a hell of a lot longer.
“No,: he says. “Whatever I am, apparently I’m at — or nearly at —the the age of maturity. There is no going back. We can only go forward."
She'll lose him in the end, then. Not that he was ever really hers. It doesn't stop her from sitting up and throwing herself at him anyway. He hesitates before he wraps his arms around her, gently stroking her back again.
They say nothing; she has no words and he's said everything that he can.
18: Sacrifice
She entertains herself for a few moments with a ridiculous fantasy of the sisters emerging from the forest, discovering the Internet and the joys of online shopping, and becoming slovenly and obese by eating newly discovered junk food and being unwilling and unable to give chase. She shakes it off before she finally turns and starts her walk back to the house, her return much slower than her run, giving Jakub and Donovan time alone before she returns.
It will be impossible for Donovan to understand, she knows. She can't find the words to say it aloud. From the moment Grace decided to meet Jakub when he returned, to prod his memory until it all came spilling out like marbles rolling under couches and down into heating vents, never to be retrieved, she knew she was letting something loose she won't be able to put back.
Jakub hasn't accepted it yet, but she knows she will not come out of this alive. Her one hope is that her son will. From the moment she'd run with him, she'd known she had one best hope: get out, keep him safe for as long as she could, and hopefully, by the time her sisters caught up with them, he'd be powerful enough on his own to survive without her.
She reaches the stream that surrounds their property and crosses it halfway, choosing a large boulder in the center on which to sit. There's a small break in the trees: just enough to let dapples of sunlight through to dance over her and the rock and the water.
The movement of the sunlight distracts her from her thoughts for a few minutes, and she enjoys the peace of her mind shutting off. It seems like it has always been working, the gears incessantly turning and her thoughts always assessing, looking for some small error in every moment of the day that will lead them straight to her.
Now there are no errors. Just simple deliberation.
Stretching out on the boulder, she raises her face to the sky, wondering how many of the sisters' myths are true. She knows they live an unnaturally long tim
e
— she herself is proof
—
because she has been able to track that time by the calendar of humans. And their life span is far healthier than that of humans, with much less illness. She knows they are larger. What she doesn't know are some of the other things, like whether the myth of a male born will bring about their eventual destruction, or whether some kind of afterlife really exists.
Some humans believe in life after death as well. Then again, some humans believe the
Dziwozony
are witch-creatures whose breasts are so huge they throw them up over their shoulders as they run through the forests of Poland like the fabled Sasquatch.
The first time Grace had seen that in a book after she'd taught herself to read in order to research what information the humans had on her people she'd nearly been kicked out of the library she was in for laughing so loudly.
That idea is still enough to get her laughing, even years later. She and her sisters tend to leaner, muscular builds. She doesn't think any of them had large enough breasts — that she could recall
—
to even require thinking about supporting with some kind of cloth as humans wear, much less being of the size to sling over one's shoulders.
Still, it’s an amusing idea and intriguing to think about why humans would come up with such a story. Does it make the sisters more fearsome somehow?
Reaching out, she tries to feel Jakub and Donovan in the house. He'll need her. He wasn't raised with the sisters, nor was he raised to be entirely independent. He was raised as a human: to need companionship, and to believe in love.
This is all second-guessing. She isn't sure if she taught him too much about surviving in the human world after her and too little about what he'll need to know to fight in the first place. In all the research, all the stories, all the short, offhand mentions in books, there is never anything about a male survivor. Never a hint that one might have gone before and succeeded.
There are myths about everything, but the one thing she wants most to believe in: is that someone has been able to do this before her. While occasionally a sister would cry for a day or two after killing a male infant, none ever spoke of regret or of doing things differently or wishing she could have kept the child. And now she will never know how they bore it.