“After I fumed at Keegan for her bluntness, she decided to stay long enough to help me with the garden. I think she might have felt bad at first, because my aunt had passed away a year before and I was missing her fiercely. And while I wanted to refuse her help … Keegan told the most amazing stories in the evenings, and I decided if she wanted to help restore my aunt’s garden for free, who was I to turn that away?
“The garden came back together, slowly but surely, with both of us working side by side. Sometimes we argued, but most of the time we were laughing and enjoying each other’s company and stories. When she eventually left, I told myself not to hope. I thought she wouldn’t return for a long while. She had always been a roaming sort of soul, never prone to stay in one place too long. But she came back not a week later, and she chose to stay with me, and I knew she was the one, as silly as that might sound.”
Attie was smiling, dimples flaring as she leaned on her shovel. “Not silly at all. Although I cannot even imagine you saying a cross word, Marisol. You’re like a saint.”
Marisol laughed. “Oh, trust me. I have a temper.”
“I can believe it,” Iris teased, to which Marisol tossed a weed at her in playful reproach.
They returned to their work, Iris watching the ground soften and crumble beneath her efforts. She spoke before she could stop herself. “I hope we get to meet Keegan soon.”
“As do I, Iris. She will love you both,” Marisol said, but her voice was suddenly tremulous, as if she were swallowing tears.
And Iris realized Keegan must have been gone for quite some time now, if the garden had fallen into this much disarray again.
* * *
Iris, full of nerves, wrote to him that night:
Would you ever want to meet me?
He replied, swiftly:
YES.
But you’re also six hundred kilometers away from me.
Iris countered:
If I had wings, I would fly home for a day. Since I don’t, it’ll have to be whenever I return to Oath.
He asked:
You’re returning? When? Do you know, or will you wait for the end of the war?
P.S. You truly don’t have wings? I’m shocked.
She paused, uncertain how to respond. It suddenly felt as if she had a host of butterflies within her, and she typed:
I’ll return most likely when the war is over.
I want to see you. I want to hear your voice.
P.S. I most certainly don’t have wings.
She sent that confession over the portal, and her mind added, I want to touch you. It took him a minute to answer, which had her biting her nails and fervently wishing she had kept those things to herself.
Until he wrote:
I want the same.
Perhaps we could go irritate the librarians of Oath with our quest for missing myths, or I could take you to meet my nan over tea and biscuits. I think she would take a shine to you. You could also settle the debate about my chin being too pointy and sharp, and if I look more like a knight errant or a rogue. Or maybe we could even just walk the park together. Anything you would like, I would too.
I’ll be here, waiting for whenever you’re ready to see me.
She read it twice before hiding her smile in the crease of the paper.
* * *
Dear Ms. Winnow,
We have on record that one private Forest M. Winnow of Oath enlisted for Enva’s cause on the first day of Shiloh, nearly six months prior to your query. He was sorted into Second E Battalion, Fifth Landover Company, under Captain Rena G. Griss. We are unable to provide you with any further information at this time but advise you to write to the E Brigade C.O., stationed in Halethorpe. Please be advised that mail running through Southern Borough has been unreliable, and hence could be the reason why you have not received word from Private Winnow or his C.O.
Best,
William L. Sorrel
Second Asst. to Brigadier-General Frank B. Bumgardener
{22}
To Make Iridescent
A war with the gods is not what you expect it to be.
You expect what history tells you of mortal affairs, which are battles that rage for days and nights, sieges, heavy casualties, food rations, ruthless tactics and generals, secret missions that lead to surprising success, and a white flag of surrender. You expect numbers and heavily guarded maps and a sea of uniforms.
But it’s also a town that must lock itself up during the night, to hide its light from stalking hounds. A town that must be vigilant even more so during the day, prepared for earth-shattering consequences provoked by something as gentle and ordinary as walking the street you grew up on.
It’s a school-turned-infirmary filled with wounded bodies and souls and lives, and yet they are people so full of bravery and hope and determination it makes you hold a mirror to your own self when you’re alone. To find and name what lurks within you. Relief, shame, admiration, sadness, hope, encouragement, dread, faith. And why such things are there in your bones, when you’ve yet to give yourself up to something so selfless.
It’s wondering what tomorrow will bring. What the next hour will bring. What the next minute will bring. Time suddenly feels sharper than a knife grazing your skin, capable of cutting you at any moment.
Iris stopped typing.
She stared at the jar on her desk—her mother’s ashes. Her breath felt shallow, and a knot formed in her chest. She was still debating where to spread them. If she should do it soon or wait.
What would you like, Mum?
It was quiet. There was no answer. Her eyes drifted back to the page as she sorted through the tangle of emotions she was feeling.
She still hadn’t seen the front lines. She still hadn’t experienced any sort of battle or catastrophe or hunger or injury. But she had felt loss, and she sought to see the war through that lens. A few minutes passed, and Iris sighed.
I don’t know how to write about war.
As if sensing her debate, Attie knocked on her door.
“How’s your article coming along?” she asked.
“Harder than I expected,” Iris confessed with a sad smile.
“Same with mine. Let’s take a walk.”
The girls left via the B and B’s back doors, through the freshly tilled garden and down the next street over, into the golden field that Iris could see from her bedroom window. The grass was long, touching their knees as they walked side by side. They were far enough away from the town that they could speak freely, but close enough that they could easily make it to shelter if a siren went off.
To Iris’s surprise, Attie didn’t ask for details on what she was writing about, or why it was coming so slowly and arduously. She asked, “Where do you think Marisol’s wife is?”
“Keegan? Marisol said she was traveling, didn’t she?” Iris replied, fingers tracing wispy seed heads. “I assume she’s in Oath, or perhaps another city up north.”
Attie was quiet for a moment, squinting against the late afternoon sun. “Maybe. I just have this strange feeling Marisol is lying to us.”
That gave Iris pause. “Why would she need to lie to us about that?”
“Maybe lie is the wrong word. Mislead is better suited, because she’s trying to protect herself and her wife.”
“Protect them from what?”
“I don’t know,” Attie said. “But something feels odd.”
“I feel like Marisol would tell us if it was important,” Iris replied.