Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Eurydice
I stood before the old door with the sun painted on its face. Already I smelled the flour; already I felt her fingers in my hair. I set my hand to the knob, turned it, and pushed in.
“Mama.”
Faint sunlight cast bands on the gleaming kitchen floor. My mother stood with her face to the window, her fingers dug deep into dough. She hummed that song she’d taught me when I was four, the one about the deep forest.
“Eury.” Her face turned, and a softness came over it. Brown eyes, hair pulled back tight. “You’re just in time for the rain. Come in quick.”
A good day. A very good day.
I began kicking my boots off into the corner, but her footsteps sounded behind me.
“Let me do that, my girl.”
My girl. She almost never called me that. The sound of it was like sunlight between clouds, warming.
She took hold of my arm, ushered me over to the table. She pressed me down into the chair and knelt before me. She took off my boots one by one. A very good mood.
“You don’t have to do that, Mama.”
Her heart-shaped face lifted, eyes soft. “Of course I do. My daughter deserves no less.”
My brows lowered. Outside, the rain had begun to fall—hard, sharp raps against the windowpanes. On days like this, when the rain came fast and heavy, she took to bed.
“You’re happy?” I asked.
She took hold of both boots and rose with them in her arms. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She crossed to the corner, set the boots down with careful precision side by side. Her humming had started up again; the words flowed through my mind:
“Deep in the forest, the green paths wind,
Twisting and turning, you lose what you find.
Step where it’s darkest, hush, don’t cry—
The trees remember, though years drift by.
Roots for your secrets, leaves for your fears,
Sleep in the hollow, child, nothing hears.”
The deep forest was full of twists and turns—an endless labyrinth of bark and leaves. Snaking, complex… Nothing hears.
“That song,” I said. “I haven’t heard you hum it in years. I thought you had forgotten it.”
She turned, smiled. “You never forget a song you learned as a child. It’s always there, waiting. Hidden.”
Waiting. Hidden.
The windows rattled with the rain. Outside, the hue had shifted to a curious green. Over-green, like Theo’s irises.
I pressed myself out of the chair.
“Going outside to wash?” My mother crossed back to the counter. “Be careful out there, my girl. The acid is terrible today.”
My girl. My girl, my girl, my girl.
I didn’t move. I swayed in place; the world had lost some of its solidity, some of its flatness. It always did when she was so kind.
“Mama,” I said, “you’re acting strange.”
She paused. She had just pressed her fingers into the dough. “Why do you say that, Eury?”
“Normally you take to bed on a day like this. But you’re so happy. You haven’t taken off my boots for me since I was five.”
She remained stiff, still at the counter.
“And you haven’t called me ‘my girl’ since I was eight.”
Beyond her, the rain sizzled on the windowpanes. The smoke rose, but not in small plumes—in a great hissing bath, like the whole street smoked.
I crossed to the door and opened it. The noise of the rain intensified, clanging off the overhang. The green hue was so thick, I couldn’t even see Jo the busybody’s window across the way.
“What are you doing, Eury?” my mother’s voice came from inside. “You’ll let the rain in.”
Deep in the forest, the green paths wind,
Twisting and turning, you lose what you find.
Step where it’s darkest.
“Mama,” I said. “Tell me the words to that song you were humming. I’ve forgotten them.”
She recited the words. All of them.
My mother never got all the words right. She’d taught me the tune, but Elisabet had taught me the song.
I stepped barefoot onto the stoop. My mother called after me, but I shut the door. The rain muffled everything; the smoke was like jelly in my throat.
Jelly. How did I know about jelly?
Step where it’s darkest.
I moved off the stoop and onto the cobblestones. My feet stung. My nose stung. My throat stung.
I walked out from under the overhang, into the rain. The green smoke rose so thick, so high, I couldn’t even make out the other side of the street or the high outer wall. I coughed and coughed, pressing my eyes shut—
I stood before the old door with the sun painted on its face. Already I smelled the flour; already I felt her fingers in my hair. I set my hand to the knob—
And turned around.
The rain hadn’t started yet. The sky hung full with it, ready to open up. Across the street, Jo the busybody’s window was open. I could see her there, in her kitchen. Probably husking wheat.
“Jo,” I called out.
She didn’t look up, didn’t notice or hear me.
I stepped off the stoop and into the street. I jogged over to Jo’s stoop, climbed up the steps—
I stood before the old door with the sun painted on its face.
No.
I leapt off the stoop, ran. Ran down the street toward my almost-father’s home. I blinked—
I stood before the old door with the sun painted on its face. Above me, the sky’s fullness hung like a mantle. The air was electric with anticipation—a day of heavy rain.
My hand wanted to rise, to touch the knob, but I resisted. I wanted the smell of the flour, the feel of her fingers in my hair.
Today was a day of heavy rain. A rare day. Not a happy one.
I never wanted to go home on a day like this.
Anywhere but here. And yet…
Step where it’s darkest.
I raised my hand to the knob. I turned it and pushed in.
“Mama,” I said.
The kitchen was empty. The bedroom door was shut.
A sob came from the bedroom. Brief, sharp, like Mama had taken a wound.
I hovered near the front door, unwilling to take one step more. I should go right back out. I’d stay in the street with Theo until the moon came out. I’d linger in Elisabet’s bedroom until she got sick of me. I’d even go to Jo the busybody’s house and husk wheat with her.
Anything but this.
I couldn’t explain my aversion. I wanted her to be happy, yes. The world didn’t feel right when she cried, when she wasn’t at the counter kneading dough. Yes, all that was true. But it was something else, something I didn’t want to name that kept me from coming any closer.
This felt like it had to do with me. Like I played a part in it.
I wanted to run. But everything I’d ever run from, I’d never really escaped. It all came back around.
I shut the door behind me. The rain had begun, pinging against the windowpanes. I took my boots off one at a time, setting them in the corner like that might make everything okay. Boots upright, orderly—a tiny measure of safety.
Every moment, I itched to run. But that old song my mother used to hum about the deep forest wouldn’t leave my head. One line haunted me—a line Elisabet had taught me, because my mother could never remember the words.
Step where it’s darkest.
I turned toward the bedroom door. Approached on the balls of my feet, as though my heels touching the floor would burn them.
In some part of my mind, the bedroom door was always shut. Eternally, forever shut.
I hesitated in front of it.
“Think of a door, Eury. A door.”
Words I didn’t know, from a voice I didn’t recognize.
I set my ear to the door. Nothing—no sobs, no movement. But I knew she was there. Where else would she be? She’d lived almost her entire life in that kitchen or in the bedroom. And the rain had already intensified, pounding on the windows.
“Mama,” I said.
No answer.
I set my hand to the knob. The door had no lock. It was only a matter of turning it and pushing in.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to see it again. I would crack like glass. The world wouldn’t ever be right if I saw it a second time.
Better to run. Better to hide.
I pressed my eyes shut with my hand on the knob. No, no—
“Think of a door, Eury.”
Who was that? I couldn’t remember. I only knew this was the door. If I didn’t open this door, I would spend the rest of my life running away from it. Always returning to it, staring at the knob.
This door. I needed to open it.
The knob turned with ease under my grip. I pushed it open until it swung inward on its own.
There she lay, fetal in the bed, the sheets rumpled around her. A panel of green window light illuminated her. Her brown hair was mussed and sweaty.
Mama.
Her eyes opened, found me. Brown eyes. A flash of pain, of accusation.
This was my fault. Somehow it was my fault. This was the moment I should run.
But I wasn’t a child anymore. Anger rose in me—then softness. She was my mother, and she was suffering.
I came over to the bed and sat on the edge. “What’s wrong, Mama?”
I knew. Of course I knew.
“Leave me be, Eury.”
That wasn’t what she wanted. It was never what she wanted.
I reached out, took hold of her hand. She jerked it from me and writhed away, tucking her body tighter into itself.
Run, run, run.
No.
I lay down in the bed behind her and slid my arm over her. Tucked my face up against her back. “It’s okay, Mama. It’s okay.”
She fought me a little, but I held on tighter. And eventually she relented and cried while I held her. Every sob was a knife. My fault, my fault, my fault. Every time she made noise, I held her tighter.
My fault for what?
What had I done?
That was when I saw it. There, splayed open on the nightstand, illuminated by the green light. Her journal—and she’d written in it. A quill and inkpot sat beside it, the smell of ink still faintly lacing the air.
I held her until she fell asleep. When her breathing slowed—when I knew she had lapsed into unconsciousness—I unwound my arm from around her. I got up from the bed with a creak. Crossed around to the nightstand and stared down at the journal’s open pages.
Fresh ink. Those symbols she’d taught me as a little girl.
I never had an interest in reading. Always preferred to be outside, covered in dirt. So I’d never touched her journal. Never wanted to. But I saw the symbol for my name, staring back up at me from the page. And I picked it up and set my finger under the line and began reading.
My love. You were born today, under a storm.
My finger went still. I wanted to snap the journal shut. Wanted to throw it across the room. Wanted to tear out the page and crumple it.
But my eyes kept reading. Kept deciphering the symbols. Step where it’s darkest. Step into the deep forest.
I stepped in. I read and read until a line rose from the page and smacked me once, twice, three times in the face.
Not the same child. Not the same child. Not the same child.
My mother loved me, but she blamed me. She loved me but she resented me. She loved me… but she feared me.
Because I was a changeling. Because somewhere deep inside, she knew it.
I had sensed that. Saw it in her eyes on that day when I’d come into the bedroom and she couldn’t hide that feeling.
Run. Run. Run. Lock it away.
Now I remembered; I had all the pieces of her secret.
I understood her feeling. Any mother would feel the same, but it still fucking lanced me because I had to be the child and she the mother.
And she was my sun, because forget the real sun—she made the day begin and end.
I didn’t know I was a changeling, only that her feelings were inexplicable and inconsistent. The real sun at least had consistency.
I closed the journal. Not to run this time, not to lock it away. But because I wasn’t that girl anymore, so I knew now…
It wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t my fault.
I was Eurydice Waters. Eurydice of the Dip. A daughter of scorn. A human, but also a changeling. More importantly—
I’d walked through the door, and I hadn’t died.