Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(123)
This is, in fact, very close to how it happens later. Except for the moment when Richard puts up a hand and says, “Wait, back up, there’s a tree matchmaker and it’s possibly magic? Shut the front door!”
Jenny knows the tree is magic. It brought Frau Hermann to her baker. In a roundabout way, it brought Jenny to Lena. But most importantly, the tree has delivered Jenny to herself.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.
MAY 2020
Miles gets a text from Chloe.
ChloeintheDark: Hey. Have you seen this?
It’s not about their mystery but a link to a video that’s gone viral. In it, a white cop kneels on the neck of a handcuffed Black man. “I can’t breathe,” the man says over and over. Miles can hear the fear and desperation in his voice. The scene is being filmed by a teenage girl, Darnella Frazier. She cries and pleads for them to stop while still somehow managing to capture this terrible moment. She is refusing to let this crime pass without witness. And then suddenly, horribly, the man goes silent.
On Twitter, Miles’s whole feed is George Floyd. The internet has joined in one huge scream of outrage. Chi does not show up for class. Instead, she provides a link to her Instagram, where she’s a posted a video about a protest at Barclays Center near downtown Brooklyn on Friday night, the first night of the first holiday weekend since lockdown. “I’ll be there, near the front doors. Anybody who wants to, come join me.” In closing, she raises her fist. “No Justice. No Peace.”
Miles sits in the empty living room. The TV is on with the sound down again. Along with reports from exhausted nurses like Mom Lisa fighting the pandemic are now images of makeshift memorials to George Floyd and people taking to the streets to fight for justice in his name. On the wall above the TV hangs one of Mama D’s photos of some German teenagers swinging a sledgehammer at the Berlin Wall. Miles can’t sit still anymore. He paces the house, Dodger following behind as if he senses a new energy in him. When he thinks of going to a protest in a huge crowd of people during Covid, he feels afraid. Is it irresponsible? Is it disrespecting the sacrifices Mom Lisa has made to keep him safe? But Miles has been playing it safe his whole life, letting other people like Danny and Amy and Chi and even the Moms Squared carry the burden. He can’t afford to wait seven years to see if his cells make him someone new. He will become someone new today.
Nothing changes until we decide to change things.
He DMs Chi. “Hey. I’ll see you at the protest.”
There’s no need to end with “unless the revolution happens first.”
It is happening.
And Miles will be there.
THE TALE OF THE HARE AND THE DEER
The next morning, the hunter rose early. He dressed as a simple peasant and set off for the forest with the eager rooster at his side. They found a spot in the forest where they could observe the oak. The hunter was a patient man. Not patient like a mother. His was a patience born of cunning, not love. But it had been a very long day. The sun was tiring and the hunter, too. He was angry that he had allowed himself to entertain stories of forest magic. There was no sign of the weavers or even of a hare or deer. It was just an ordinary forest. He would scold the field mouse on his return, remind her not to tell such tall tales. Magic—ridiculous! But even the hunter had to admire the majesty of the oak tree. After all, it had survived for hundreds of years. He would take back a souvenir. He drew his knife. In the high leaves, the birds twittered nervously as he approached. The hunter patted the craggy trunk and frowned.
“What is it?” crowed the rooster.
The hunter held up a finger for quiet. He moved his hand to another spot. There it was again: a strange, steady beating. Slowly, the hunter circled the oak. Then he began his climb. By now, the birds were frantic. The leaves shook with their screeching. The river caught their cries and carried their warning along the rocks to the other animals of the forest and to the trees themselves, who whispered urgently along their roots. Help. Oh, help!
The hunter reached the last rung. There was a knothole, that shimmered like diamonds. The birds screamed and beat their wings, raising the alarm as the hunter peered inside. Inside was the oak’s mighty heart.
Another man might’ve felt wonder or awe. He might have experienced a oneness with the universe. Transcendence. Exultation. The hunter felt only rage at having been duped. He plunged his knife into the great, pulsing heart of the wise old oak and twisted the blade. The bark had grown supple with its love for the sisters; it yielded easily to the steel. The mighty oak cried out. The other trees cried, too, for they were all connected and felt its pain as their own. The great lamentation reached every part of the forest. It found the hare and the deer, who were just returning from their last mission.
“What is it?” they cried. “What has happened?”
“Oh, come quickly, sisters! Do not tarry!” the trees responded.
The ground was slick with snow. It was hard going. The deer slipped. Her legs were cold. Why had she insisted on wearing those shoes? The hare and the deer raced back in time to see the hunter wiping his blade clean of the oak’s blood. Oh. The agony of it! They wanted to run to their beloved friend, to dress its wounds, but they did not dare move from their hiding place. Already, they could feel the magic that disguised them ebbing away. Soon enough, they would be exposed as Saga and Freya. Two ordinary girls.