Chapter 28

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Chapter 28

The rest of the journey seemed to drag and pass too quickly at the same time. With only a few brief stops, Andala and Cricket made good time. Soon the scenery grew familiar. Dark as it still was, this place was imprinted upon her, childhood memories etched at every turn. There were the chestnut trees whose bounty she'd looked forward to collecting every autumn. There was the flat green field where she'd loved to play, running through the grass, soaking up the sun. The houses were spaced far apart here, so there had rarely been other children around. But Andala hadn't minded that. She had been a solitary child, quite content in her own company, though she'd loved spending time with her parents, too, before it all went wrong.

She had run away the month after her father died. He'd been ill for a long time, so it had not come as a shock, but without him in the house, without his gentle presence to take the edge off the tension between her and her mother, Andala had not been able to stand it. That was ten years past now. She had been barely a young woman, only just fifteen. She had not returned since.

All too soon, the house came into view. Andala slowed Cricket. She felt peculiar, as if all her senses had sharpened. The cold sent rushes of goosebumps beneath her clothes. The scents of summer 205 still lingered in the air, anomalous with the growing chill. Even the starlight seemed brighter as it shone upon her childhood home.

She blinked, and they had rounded the bend; blinked again, and they were at the gate. Andala dismounted and tethered Cricket. Her heart was beating unpleasantly fast. Why had she come here? What had possessed her to think this was a good idea?

Oriane. You need help saving Oriane.

Andala steeled herself, stiffening her resolve. She only hoped her mother would be able to give the help she sought.

Her hand looked white as a glove as she reached towards the door. She froze. She had almost seized the handle out of habit. Clenching her fist, she knocked softly instead.

It seemed an age before any movement sounded inside. But then there were footsteps, and the click of a key turning in a lock, and the creak of the door as it opened, familiar as a loved one's voice.

And then there they stood: Leilyn and Andala, mother and daughter, face to face after ten long years.

Did Leilyn recognise the woman who had run away as a girl? Or was it a stranger who now stood upon her doorstep, with nothing but a faint echo of familiarity in her features? One hand on the door, a candle in the other, Leilyn stared, stock-still, half her face in shadow. For a moment, it registered nothing but shock. Then—

‘Andala?' she whispered.

Andala nodded. ‘Hello, Mother.'

‘ Andala. '

And then Leilyn had flung the door wide, and pulled Andala to her.

‘Andala,' she kept saying, tears in her voice. ‘You've come home.'

No tears formed or fell from Andala's eyes. She did not know what she had expected to happen; whether she had thought the 206 years between them would fall away, her becoming a child again, her mother an angel in her eyes, all crimes forgiven. Instead, she felt oddly detached from the scene, as if it were somebody else her mother was embracing, and she a bystander watching on. There was a chasm inside her that held the two of them apart – a vast emptiness that had opened all those years ago, grown wider with the death of her father, continued expanding in the years since. It was part of her, and no brief reunion would close up its edges.

Eventually, Leilyn stepped back. She kept her hands on Andala's shoulders, surveying her face by the scant light of the candle she had set to the side. Andala could not imagine what she saw there.

A frown finally appeared on Leilyn's brow, but all she said was, ‘Come inside out of the cold.'

A strange mixture of resentment and longing came over Andala as she followed her mother into the house. It was much as it had been the day she had left. The same cushions on the comfortable chairs, the same vases full of flower cuttings on every surface. They moved into the warm glow of the kitchen, where Leilyn busied herself with the kettle.

‘I'll make tea—'

‘I don't want tea,' Andala said abruptly. Then, after a beat, she added with forced politeness, ‘Thank you. I'm quite all right.'

Thankfully, Leilyn hadn't seemed to notice Andala's harshness, or had chosen to ignore it. ‘Sit, then,' she said, smiling, pulling out a seat at the worn wooden table. Andala took it, and her mother sat down opposite her.

There was a moment of silence as they looked at each other. The past decade hung in the air like an oppressive scent. The two of them had resembled one another ever since Andala had been born, and now that she was older, she found the similarity more striking than 207 ever. It was like looking into some enchanted mirror, seeing herself in the future. It made her throat feel tight—

A muffled thud sounded above their heads, a noise like a footstep landing on the floor of the room upstairs – the one that had once been Andala's.

Her eyes shot upward, then back to Leilyn. ‘Who is here with you?' she whispered.

Leilyn looked uncomfortable, almost sheepish. ‘I was about to tell you,' she said. ‘They—'

But before Andala could find out who they were, she heard the footsteps move across the room, down the stairs, into the hallway outside.

Andala shot up from her chair. A man stood in the doorway, just beyond the kitchen's light, features hidden in the shadow of the hall. But she knew who it was. She'd know that silhouette anywhere.

‘Girard?' she breathed.

Before he could respond, a smaller figure appeared from behind him. A girl of five years old peered shyly around her father's back. A girl with pale skin, just like Andala's, almost luminescent in the gloom. A girl with long black hair, just like Andala's, that fell over one of her wide, dark eyes. And before Andala could still her tongue, she had whispered her name. The name she had given the girl herself.

‘ Amie. '

It had been there from the moment Amie was born. Before that, really. From the moment Andala had known she would exist.

The fear. The temptation. 208

Girard had been overjoyed when she'd told him. That had only made it worse. This was the last thing the two of them needed. Had he not felt them drifting apart? Or had he felt it the same as she had, and thought that this would be the solution, the thing that drew them back together?

It was not that she didn't love Girard. She did. She had done since a week after they'd met, when she was a bargirl of just seventeen. But things had changed. Andala had changed. She loved him still, but not in the way she had before.

Girard knew what she was, of course. She had told him a few months into their dalliance, after he'd noticed her running off at the same time every evening. He thought the nightingale was beautiful. Magical. Something to be cared for and celebrated.

She did not want to be beautiful or magical or celebrated. She did not want to be the nightingale. Try as he might, Girard never seemed to understand that, just as he would never have understood if she'd tried to explain to him why she did not want this child.

It wasn't only that she worried about what kind of life the child would have, with two parents who no longer loved each other as they should. There was something bigger, more dangerous, that she was afraid of.

Andala worried that she would do to the child what her mother had done to her.

It would be so easy. So quick. She could do it the moment the child left her body, sending the power along in the rush. Or any time in those early days – there would be a year or two, perhaps more, where the infant would form no memories, and would never know any different. If they had always been the nightingale, in their little mind – if they could remember nothing from before … Would 209 that not be forgivable? Would it not differentiate her from her own mother and what she had done?

But the choice was the thing. Andala knew that. She had not been given the choice to control or accept her own fate. It had been thrust upon her, and she'd had no say in the matter.

She would not do that to somebody else.

It frightened her, though – the chance that her willpower might slip, that in an instant of pain or weakness, she might do something she could not take back.

In a handful of moments – where Girard's excitement bubbled over so strongly it was contagious; or where she felt the baby kick and a little thrill of wonder went through her – Andala found herself questioning her feelings. Was she happy that she was to have this baby? And if she was, was it only because some part of her knew the child could offer a means of escaping her curse, should she choose to take it?

The closer the day came, the bigger the child inside her grew, the more strongly her fear took hold. She was sick with it. She did not trust herself. She tried to tell Girard that he should not trust her either. But his belief in her good nature had always been unwavering, no matter what she said or did that should have convinced him otherwise. He was certain that as soon as she laid eyes on the child, all the thoughts and fears and temptations she'd been having would fade, like the sky after the sun sank beneath the earth.

Girard was good, and kind, and he had loved her more than she ever deserved to be loved. But he did not know what it felt like, to be the nightingale. He could never know how it felt to spend every minute wishing you were something other than what you were, or how strong the desire to fulfil that wish could be. And he would never believe her capable of inflicting harm on their child, no matter how deeply Andala knew she was capable of it herself. 210

The night before the baby was born, Andala resolved to leave.

Right after the birth. The minute she could walk. There would be no time to waste. She would ask Girard to take the child away immediately, to give her time to rest. And then she would slip away, alone in the darkness, where she belonged.

Girard would be hurt at first, but perhaps one day he would understand. And the child – the child would never have to know her. They would never know what their mother was, or how close they might have been to becoming it themselves.

It was the only way. Andala would run, and she would not look back.

She had no other choice.

‘Andala?'

Girard was staring at her as if she were a ghost. She might as well have been; she could not move, could not speak. They were here – both of them. The husband and child she had thought she would never see again.

‘Daddy? Who is that?'

Amie's voice broke the silence. She was tugging impatiently on her father's sleeve, peering up at Andala with those wide, dark eyes.

The words seemed to break something in Girard. He blinked, his face crumpling. ‘Oh … That's, well—'

‘She's Daddy's friend, darling,' Leilyn broke in. She had moved to stand slightly in front of Andala, blocking her from Amie's view. ‘And she's Grandmama's friend too.'

Amie considered this for a moment, then announced, ‘I'm hungry, Grandma.'

Leilyn laughed. Andala and Girard did not. 211

‘Let's get you some breakfast, then, my little love.' Leilyn moved over to the stove, Amie darting into the kitchen behind her.

Without a word, Girard turned and moved further into the house. Andala followed.

The fireplace was blazing in the sitting room. Its merry crackle and warmth did nothing to stop the shivers that wracked Andala's body. She hovered near the door, hand clasped tight around the back of a wooden chair. Girard stood by the hearth, staring out the nearby window into the immutable dark, profile illuminated by the flames. He looked the same as he had when she'd left: tall, broad, with sun-browned skin and bronze hair tied back in a neat tail. She wondered if she looked the same, too, or if she seemed as much a stranger to him as she was to his daughter.

Finally, he turned to face her. ‘What are you doing here, Andala?' he breathed.

Andala gripped the chair tight enough to splinter. ‘I-I didn't know you would be here.'

‘We came to wait out – whatever this is – with Leilyn. I thought it might get dangerous out there at some point, and that we should probably all stay together.'

Andala nodded, swallowed hard. ‘I didn't know that she knew. About you.' A beat. ‘How does she know about you?'

Girard hesitated, then sighed. ‘I sought her out. After y— After Amie was born. I knew where I might find her, from what you had told me about her.' He paused again, then added in a quieter voice, ‘I needed help.'

Help. Of course he had needed help. She had left him on his own with a newborn child.

Only months before that, she and Girard had run off together, just the two of them: farther away from the town where they'd met, 212 farther away from Andala's mother and the life she had once known. They'd isolated themselves, just the way Andala had wanted it. Girard's parents had died years ago, so of course he had come here – of course he'd sought out the only other family Amie had. Andala had left him nowhere else to turn.

She became vaguely aware that she was still shivering, whether from cold or shock or guilt, she did not know. Her gaze had locked onto the darkness out the window, the shadows coalescing into a looming wall of black. She could not stop staring into the night. For the first time in years, a hint of that oldest form of fear crept back into her heart. It sent cold fingers through her chest, stilling her lungs, seizing hold of her ribs—

‘Andala?'

She blinked. Girard's face swam into view as he moved towards her. His eyes, seaglass green, glimmered with concern.

The air in the room suddenly seemed too thin. Andala swayed a little. Though her body wasn't aching the way it usually did, she felt weak, unsteady. Had she eaten anything these past few days? Time had all blurred into one—

‘Whoa,' came Girard's voice, distant, as if she were hearing it from underwater. ‘Let's sit you down. Easy, there.'

Hands, strong but gentle, guided her into an armchair by the fire. Father's favourite chair , Andala thought absently. I wish Father were here.

A blanket appeared on her lap, heavy and warm. Then Girard was dragging another chair over to sit by her side.

‘What's going on, Andala?' he asked.

Andala poured all her energy into focusing on his face. She owed it to him, to explain herself and why she was here.

She told him everything. The story was grim, but Andala felt better for having shared it. Purged. Cleansed. She had not realised 213 how difficult it had been these past few years, never being able to be truly open with anyone.

Girard let out a long breath when she finished speaking. Then he stared into the fire, his expression unreadable. Andala waited anxiously for him to move, to speak. But whatever she was expecting him to say, it was not what he eventually did.

‘I'm glad you found her, Andala.'

A beat of silent bewilderment. Andala blinked. ‘I'm sorry?'

‘The skylark. Oriane. She must mean a lot to you. I can tell that she does.' He turned from the fire to her, and she was surprised to see that he was smiling – a faint, strange smile, with happiness and understanding and regret all mixed up within it. ‘I'm glad you found her.'

Andala turned to the fire to avoid that smile. ‘You understand why I left, don't you?' she said, abruptly, urgently. ‘It wasn't because I didn't care about you.'

Girard looked down at his hands, clasped loosely together in his lap. He nodded. ‘I understand. I do. I know the two of us weren't the same anymore, and I know … I know how terrified you were that you might do to Amie what your mother did to you.' When he raised his eyes again, they glittered with a fine sheen of tears. ‘I'm afraid it didn't make it much easier to find you gone.'

Andala closed her own eyes against the burning that had started there. Seeing him like this, being reminded of what she'd done to him, made her want to undo every action she'd ever taken, every word she'd ever spoken.

They had loved each other, once. She knew they didn't anymore. But she still cared for him, and she knew he cared for her.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, knowing it was all she could offer, knowing it was not enough. 214

‘I know,' he replied.

They sat there together, the past swirling around them like a current. But when it finally washed away, strangely, it seemed to take a little of their hurt with it. Andala felt it, and she hoped Girard did too.

‘You're still getting the money I'm sending?' she asked quietly, after a while. Girard nodded slowly. Andala rushed on. ‘I wasn't trying to buy you. Or to suggest that money in any way makes up for what I did. I know it doesn't. It was just …' A breath, in and out. ‘It was the only thing I felt I could do, to make both of your lives a little easier.'

He smiled. This one was familiar, genuine, the one she'd seen on his lips so many times before. ‘I appreciate it. It has been helping.' He shook his head. ‘Why don't other parents think to warn people that children are so expensive ?'

A grin broke out on Andala's face, the first one she could remember for some time. ‘You mean they have to eat food? And wear clothes?'

‘More than you might think. Particularly the former. The way that girl can demolish a plate … It's a thing of wonder to behold.'

‘Wait until a few years from now, when she's really growing. She …'

But her voice trailed off, her face falling as she and Girard looked at each other.

A few years from now .

Andala had spoken without thinking. The words presupposed the existence of a future: for Amie, for them all. But if the darkness outside persisted … there would be no such thing as the future. Nothing beyond the black and the cold, and a slow, starving death.

‘What are we going to do?' Girard murmured.

Andala was touched by his use of the word we , but this was not 215 his problem to solve. ‘You're not going to do anything. You and Amie are going to stay here and stay safe.'

He frowned. ‘And your mother? Isn't there some way she can help you?'

Andala swallowed. ‘I don't know yet. That's what I came here to find out.'

Girard rose. ‘Then let's go and talk to her. There's no more time to waste.' He reached a hand towards her. ‘Are you ready?'

She hesitated. She wasn't ready at all. And a gnawing part of her feared that nothing her mother knew would change anything anyway.

But she had to try.

Girard's hand was still extended. Andala took it and rose from her seat, then drew him to her in a brief embrace. ‘Thank you,' she murmured.

He smiled as they broke apart. ‘Thank me when we work out how to get the sun to rise.'