Chapter Forty-One Simran
Chapter Forty-One
Simran
The snow is falling. I’m going to see her. Wish me luck.
Source: Letter from Vina Patel to Hari Patel
There were no kings and queens upon the Isle.
Perhaps that would not always be the case, but for now the Isle was free of monarchs and archivists alike.
In the Tower, as golden autumn swept in, turning the sky dove gray and pelting the city with rain diamond-sharp with cold, Simran and the librarians cared for books freed from their inky chains.
The librarians cataloged and organized, as Simran sewed and glued and mended fragile tomes.
Simran carried out her work by a window with the shutters open to the air, so she could feel the freeing bite of cold, and stare down at London as it changed.
She watched it ripple and shift hue and depth like the silver sea.
Woodlands sprouted from nowhere, then withered away.
Once, bombs ricocheted across the city, and carried with them the grief-scent of a tale that made even Cora weep.
She left to visit Vaughan after that for a month, welcoming the forest, its familiar enchantments and terrors, safer than the new tales sweeping over the land. Simran remained.
Hari came to visit her, Galath his shadow. But Vina did not.
“You told her not to,” Hari said, when Simran finally kicked through her own pride and found a way to question it. “She took that seriously, Sim. Did you think she’d ignore you?”
“I don’t know,” Simran muttered.
Hari sighed. “Oh, Sim,” he said. “You’re really fucked-up. If you want her to come, tell her. Hell, let me tell her.”
But Simran didn’t.
I always push people away, Simran thought grimly, one night in her old apartment. That was why she’d done it, hadn’t she?
But no. Not exactly.
She needed time. Her lives were a huge wound, a dark weight she carried with her everywhere. Until she could look at them, she wasn’t sure she could let herself love.
Some nights, Maleficium appeared in her room, traveling in nefarious ways all familiars could travel, from Hari’s cottage to Simran’s fireside.
Simran insulted her, and fed her ham, and slept with Mal curled against her stomach, a fluffy seashell, a purring warmth against her.
In the dark of night, she heard Maleficium’s voice for the first time.
Love, Mal said. Home.
“I love you too, foul creature,” said Simran. She petted Maleficium’s head. “I can’t believe you spoke to Hari before you spoke to me. After all the times you scratched him too…”
Autumn swept by. Winter crept in, long-fingered.
The Tower had become a library. New tales arrived every day, as songbirds and mice, as loping foxes and watchful owls; as books, and pamphlets, newssheets and letters, carried by the Isle’s folk to the Tower’s gates. The library hummed with whispers, as stories blossomed inside its walls.
Simran’s work was done. The books were safe in the care of the librarians, and there were dozens of folk among them now who could mend a book’s spine more artfully than she could.
The monarchy was shattered, the tales free.
She could be anything she desired now. Not a scribe, or even a witch; not a librarian either.
She could choose to never touch another book again.
She watched the silvery water run through the Thames.
She thought of her parents, who’d come here for safety, and lost her, grieved her. She wondered what they would have wanted for her, if they’d known she’d have this chance. To go home? Back to a world that shaped stories with its mortal dreams and mortal hands?
She had no heart in her to leave the Isle, and was not sure she could. She’d bound herself so thoroughly to her tale, after all. The Knight and the Witch, no longer a tale of bloody sacrifice, but of cursed people breaking free, finding the miracle of survival.
They could make anything of their tale. The thought was as terrifying as it was joyful. She’d yearned for a life, a full and rich life, and now she had the possibility of one before her.
And she couldn’t stop thinking of Vina.
She went back to her flat. There were still half-empty wine bottles on the table. Oliver had visited, reminiscing about the “good old days”: Lydia, and the molly-houses, and being young.
Strange, to think she’d get to be… not young.
She pulled out new paints and a canvas she’d bought on a whim in a sweet, glass-fronted art-supply shop one chilly evening.
She’d felt foolish, lugging the canvas back to her flat, but now she was grateful for her own impulsivity.
Her fingers itched. Her heart ached to speak.
She started to paint. Vague things flowed from her brush, like her scribe work had once flowed: deer among trees, and axes in cleaved wood; birds in the sky, and flowers growing from a knight’s outstretched gauntlet.
She’d never thought of herself as an artist, but perhaps that could change too.
Her mind was full. Joy rising out of the darkness.
Vina, dancing with her at the masquerade, smiling at her underneath the press of Simran’s knife.
Vina, tracing the contours of her face as they sat together on a rooftop under a gray London sky.
Vina, whom she loved like breathing. She’d fallen into love the last time they’d died—hurtled off the edge of reason as they’d stared into each other’s eyes and perished.
And the love had never stopped. It was a wing-beat, precious in her chest. But it was her burden to carry. Who knew what Vina wanted? How could Simran steal her life from her? She’d given Vina a choice, and she knew Vina might not choose her.
She’d let Vina go.
She was so lost in her own thoughts, in the scrape of her brushes on canvas, and the turmoil in her skull, that she didn’t hear her visitor until there was a steady knock at the door. Three knocks. She lowered the brush.
She wasn’t expecting visitors.
There were traps carved under the door. A knife that she grasped, and slipped into her pocket.
She opened the door, and—stopped.
There was Vina.
Vina, with her curling brown hair in disarray, her golden skin, her even more golden smile. Pale snow dusted her hair—the breadth of her shoulders, concealed under a dark coat.
“It’s snowing outside,” said Vina.
“I see that,” Simran said faintly. “You’re here.”
“Of course I am,” said Vina. “It’s the solstice and… and I’m here.” A pause. “Can I come in?”
“Yes,” Simran said hurriedly. She stepped back and Vina walked in and slipped off her coat. Beneath it her body was achingly familiar: strong and lean, broad-shouldered, smaller at the waist. The breadth of her, her steady strength.
“Where have you been all these months?” Simran asked.
“I’ve been traveling the Isle,” said Vina. “I’ve seen how it’s changed. New shores growing where old ones were lost. New tales rising up. It’s… it’s new. Different.” Her eyes shone with shy joy, when she met Simran’s own. “I’m glad we get to see it.”
Vina walked toward her, until there was a breath of distance between them, their shadows mingling.
“We made a bargain,” Vina said. “I’m here to tell you what I want.”
Simran’s heart was in her throat.
“Tell me,” she said.
“I want you,” Vina said simply, voice low and sincere.
“I love you. I’ve loved you hundreds of years.
I walked to your mountain to slay you, and I loved you.
I loved you when we were reborn, and I destroyed you again.
I loved you as all the people I’ve been, and all the faces you’ve worn.
I love you now that I’m no longer the knight, bound to a terrible fate.
I love you now that I’m simply Vina, a witch’s child and a very poor blacksmith. ”
“Poor in money, or poor in skill?” Simran asked, finding her voice through the great thudding beat of her own heart.
“I’m making a heartfelt speech, and that’s what you ask?
” Vina said, but her voice was fond, so fond.
“Both, really. I’m sorry to say it. I’m sure you could find better prospects.
But I couldn’t let you live your life without telling you how I feel.
It’s selfish of me, I know, to try to bind you to a tale you’ve been trying to escape all your lives.
But I had to tell you. What you do—that’s your choice. Always yours.”
Simran ached. Hurt and joy alike. She clasped Vina’s face in her hands.
“You’re the tale I choose,” whispered Simran. “And if I can live a thousand more lives, loving you, I’ll do it gladly.”
She wasn’t sure which one of them leaned in first, but they were kissing. Sweet as a homecoming, fire-sharp as good whiskey.
In the distance, beyond the door of her small flat, with its fireside and fiendish visitor cat, the Isle continued to change—shifting into clouds of ash, and sparkling buildings of iron and glass; graveyards, and metal birds soaring in the sky.
Joy and grief. Tales ugly and tales bright.
In the distance, incarnates rose and grappled with their tales, and in a ruined abbey among apple trees, an old tale of a prince slept and slept, waiting to rise again.
But Simran and Vina saw none of it, and if they had, they would not have cared. They were kissing in the place that would become their home, their hearth, and their whole lives lay before them, uncharted, endless with possibility.