Rowan (17 page)

“That sounds very familiar,” Tristan said with a dark look. “And your shirt helps to change people’s minds about nuclear energy?” he asked.

“Probably not,” Lily said with a self-deprecating shake of her head. “But a girl can dream.”

Lily wandered into the center of the tent, taking a closer look. It was a storeroom for all kinds of supplies, including clothes. She turned to find Tristan, still standing by the entrance, thinking deeply.

“Tristan?”

“Sorry,” he said, snapping himself out of it. He led her to a small pile of dresses. “Do you see anything you like?”

“I don’t really do dresses,” Lily said, balking. “Is that okay?”

“Sure,” Tristan replied, gesturing to the jeans she was wearing. “Women wear breeches here, too, although not usually women of your station. But whatever you prefer.”

“My station, huh?” Lily mumbled uneasily.

Tristan didn’t comment, but he watched her carefully. She was an American. In her mind, everyone was supposed to be equal. To mask her disapproval, she turned more attention than necessary to the pile of “breeches,” feeling the odd but supple material between her fingertips.

“What is this? Is it leather?” she asked, pulling her hand away. “I don’t wear leather or fur.”

“It’s wearhyde. Very much like leather, except it’s grown from a culture.”

“So this was never part of a living animal?”

Tristan shook his head. “A few cells taken from a living animal, but that’s all. Raising an animal takes a lot of green and a lot of space. It’s much less expensive to just grow replicas of their skin in the stacks. I’ve noticed you wear a lot of cotton.”

“Yeah,” Lily said, looking down at her outfit. The way he’d said “cotton” made it sound like gold. “Is it expensive here?”

“Most natural textiles, like cotton, wool, and linen, take a lot of land to grow,” Tristan said.

“It’s a big country. Plenty of room,” Lily replied. She thought of the towers of vegetables and the hydroponic greenhouses she’d seen in the cities, and of how they seemed now, in retrospect, to be a kind of vertical farming. She also recalled how heavily guarded they were. A strange notion occurred to her. “You do have farmland and ranches here, don’t you?”

“Yes, but not many. The Woven started to overrun most of the continent almost two hundred years ago. All the large farms and homesteads in the west were lost,” Tristan said.

“Tristan?” she asked carefully. “What are the Woven?”

“They are a mistake,” he began quietly. “About two hundred years ago it was decided that in order to build our cities larger and more efficiently we needed stronger, bigger animals that didn’t require as much food. Animals specifically designed for new types of labor.”

“Two hundred years ago, huh?” Lily interjected. She wasn’t a history genius, but she’d just studied this period in depth last year for a civics project. “We had an industrial revolution about that time in my world. So, how did you make the Woven? Did you breed them?”

“No, that wouldn’t have been possible, not on the scale that we needed. The witches wove the germinating cells of many different types of creatures together. Some generations of Woven were very successful. We still use them today.”

“The things at the bottom of the vegetable towers,” Lily guessed.

“Guardians, they’re called,” he replied, nodding. “Others, especially those that were part insect—”

“Part
insect
?” Lily exclaimed. Tristan nodded and continued.

“They were harder to control. They got loose.”

“
Insect?
” Lily repeated again, trying and failing to tamp down her culture shock.

“They’re very strong,” Tristan said with a shrug, like that would explain why they were made.

“So is iron. We made a bunch of machines to build our cities.” She made a rueful face. “But I guess they sort of took our world over, too.”

Tristan gave her a puzzled look.

“Forget it. I’m just trying to understand it all.”

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” he said, his brow furrowing compassionately.

“Yes.” Lily shrugged, feeling overwhelmed. “Is there anyone who can help me get back to my world?”

“Honestly? We thought it was impossible to do what Lillian did.” Tristan sighed helplessly. “None of us has a clue.”

“I just want to go home, Tristan.”

“I know you do.” He moved closer to Lily, and put his hand on her upper arm to comfort her. “But I’d be sorry if you did. I much prefer you to the Lillian we have here.”

“Yeah.” She smiled up at Tristan. “But she’s a hag.”

They shared a much-needed laugh, and Tristan gestured to the piles of clothes. “Pick whatever you’d like. We should hurry.”

Lily started shuffling through the clothes, looking for something that might fit her. There was only one pair of pants that looked about her size. While she tried on the buttery soft leather-like jackets, Tristan found her a shirt. Lily touched it, noticing that it was made of something like linen.

“Is it okay for me to take this?” she asked, aware that he was choosing something expensive for her.

“Of course,” he replied, giving her a funny look. “You can have anything you want.”

The whole way down to the lake, Lily worried that Tristan had given her the linen shirt because of some misguided belief that she, like Lillian, had the right to certain privileges that others didn’t. Lily didn’t believe in elitist nonsense like that. It bothered her so much that she stopped Tristan, turning him around to face her, as they reached the shoreline.

“I’m not a lady, you know,” she blurted out. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she wondered if that statement implied the same thing here as it would in her world. “What I mean is, I’m not entitled to any kind of special treatment. In my world, I’m just an ordinary girl. Well, mostly ordinary.”

Tristan looked surprised at first, and then pleased. He tilted his head down closer to hers, moving slowly. For a moment, Lily wondered if he was going to kiss her, but he stopped a teasing distance away from her mouth. “I don’t think you could be considered ordinary in any world,” he said.

He was flirting with her, she realized, and she immediately felt suspicious. Not because he was technically her guard and she was his prisoner, but because flirting came too easily to him. Just like it did to her Tristan. She took a step away from him.

“I thought you wanted to clean up?” he asked after an awkward pause.

“That’s the plan.”

“Well, go ahead.”

“Aren’t you going to give me some privacy?” she asked incredulously.

“Can’t. Wouldn’t want you to run away again, now would I?”

“I’m not going to undress in front of you,” she said, offended.

He stepped back and turned around. “Is that better? I promise I won’t peek.”

Lily stared at Tristan’s back while she peeled off her mangy T-shirt and shredded jeans. Her white Chucks had been on their last leg before she’d come to this world, and after a night of marching through the forest primeval they were utterly destroyed. She quickly stripped off her underwear and bra, jumping when Tristan faked a turn around with his head.

She squealed and ran into the water, shouting, “Don’t, Tristan! I’m totally naked!”

His shoulders shook, and he tilted forward with laughter, but he honored her wishes and didn’t turn around. “It’s really charming that you’re so modest. Are people usually this shy in your world?”

“Yes!” Lily shouted through chattering teeth. “Sweet jeezus, this lake is cold!”

Lily took a few deep breaths and dunked her head underwater. She washed as quickly as she could, then ran out of the water. She took up a small square of material that Tristan had brought. It was some kind of synthetic fabric that turned out to be incredibly absorbent, and she dried herself with it in a few fast swabs. When she was fully dressed in her new outfit, she told Tristan he could turn back around.

“What?” she asked, when he gave her the once-over.

“You look like a rebel,” he replied with a little shake of his head. The way he said the word “rebel” made it clear that he wasn’t talking about disaffected youth. “I know you don’t understand yet, but trust me, it’s incredibly ironic.”

Lily fell into step next to Tristan, scrunching her curls dry with the ever-thirsty bit of fabric as he led her back to the fire. Apart from the growling in her empty belly, she felt remarkably at ease.

The wearhyde pants and jacket moved like the softest of leather on her legs and across her back, the boots were well-balanced and light, and the smog-free air was like a blessing to her lungs. The hills rolled and stacked themselves into the distance, just as they did in Lily’s world. The leaf-covered ground shuffled and crunched underfoot in exactly the same combination of birch, oak, and beech leaves as she remembered from her woods. The landscape was bigger, the trees older, and wildlife wilder than anything she knew, but this was still a New England forest in late autumn.

Lily had read Emerson and Thoreau. She’d read
Walden
sitting on the shores of Walden Pond, but she hadn’t felt like she was experiencing that same natural wonderland that they’d been moved to expound upon so long ago. It might have been because even at Walden Pond, she could hear the traffic on Route 126 droning away a few hundred yards behind her. But she finally understood all the poetry. Like a fish that had been pulled from its bowl only to be placed on the other side of the glass, she had a new perspective on a room she’d lived in her whole life. Except unlike the fish, she could breathe better outside the bowl.

Then there was Tristan. She glanced over at him as they neared the center of the camp. His shape, his scent, even the length of his stride were all the same, and all were second nature to Lily. He wasn’t the version of Tristan who had hurt her, but he was still basically the same person, and that was the problem. He had the same easy way with women—the same flirtatiousness. Even though this Tristan had never done anything to hurt her, Lily found herself bristling at the same charming smile she used to love.

As they joined the main group congregated by the fire, she recalled Lillian’s words.
You belong here,
and wondered if it was true. Then she thought about the Woven out there in the woods, and decided that she most definitely did not. This world was far too scary for Lily.

She looked up and saw Rowan staring at her over the fire, his eyes searching hers. Any thoughts of belonging were abruptly discarded. Rowan definitely didn’t want her here, and his distrust colored everything else. Rowan glanced from Lily to Tristan, and then his eyes darted swiftly away, like he knew her well enough to make assumptions about her character. It annoyed her beyond reason.

Lily had just taken a seat by the fire with Tristan when the sachem came striding stiffly into view. Everyone jumped to their feet at his approach and Lily followed suit.

“Don’t get up,” Alaric said gruffly. He bent over the fire and ladled out a bowl of what looked to Lily like lentils and potatoes. “Did Lady Juliet’s guard return yet?” he asked Rowan while he served himself.

“No. We should move camp as soon as possible,” Rowan replied. The sachem shook his head gravely.

“The elders have been summoned,” he said. “We can’t leave until they’ve seen her.”

“Wait,” Lily interjected anxiously. “Juliet’s guard is missing? Is she okay?”

The sachem looked up at her as he ate. “You would know that better than we would,” he said. “Have you felt like she’s in distress?”

Lily sat very still and searched around inside herself. She had no idea what she was looking for. “I don’t know. I don’t feel anything.”

“That’s good. It means she probably isn’t dead,” Alaric replied. Lily stared at him while he ate, trying to figure out if the sachem was being intentionally callous or if he was always so blunt. She stared a bit too long.

“You’d better feed this girl before she steals my bowl,” Alaric said with a sideways grin. Embarrassed, Lily was about to protest that he’d misunderstood her stare when he continued. “What can she eat, Rowan?”

“She needs poultry and salt, Sachem,” he answered immediately.

“No. I don’t eat anything that came from an animal,” Lily insisted, shaking her head. “I’ll have what the sachem’s having.”

Rowan met her eyes, his face unmoving. He looked back at Alaric. “She’ll have poultry and salt.”

“No, I won’t,” Lily said simply. “I don’t eat meat.” She glared at Rowan, but he wouldn’t look back at her. Alaric held up his hand in Rowan’s direction, trying to stave off the impending argument. He turned to Lily.

“Why?” Alaric asked, a curious glint in his eyes. “It is perfectly natural for people to eat meat.”

“Maybe it was once,” Lily conceded. “But the world I come from is very crowded. The animals live in cages, stacked on top of each other in horrible places in order to feed people more meat than they need. I stopped eating it years ago.”

“To make up for the sins of everyone else in your world?” Rowan snapped, an eyebrow raised in derision. “Or do you just do it to prove that you’re superior?”

“I do it because I believe it’s wrong,” Lily said, standing up and facing Rowan over the fire. He jumped to his feet and met her eyes, his body straining toward her like he wanted to launch himself over the flame and shake her.

“And would you force that belief on everyone else?” he yelled back. “Even if not eating meat made them sick? Even if it made you sick?”

Lily didn’t have a response to that. She repressed the image of her dresser drawer full of slogan-emblazoned T-shirts, especially the one that read I’
M VEGAN
. A
ND YES, THAT DOES MAKE ME BETTER THAN YOU
.

“What a lively debate we’re having,” Alaric said wryly. He waved his hands at both of them, indicating that they should sit down. “Tristan, would you serve Lily some lentil stew?”

“She can’t have it, Sachem, there are potatoes in it,” Rowan said, taking his seat next to Caleb. “Potatoes are a nightshade. They are poison for her until she learns how to transmute their alkaloids into power. If she refuses to eat poultry—which is a neutral, nonreactive food for you, by the way,” he added, shooting Lily a withering look before continuing, “she may have cooked oats for energy. For protein I’ll figure something else out. Lentils without potatoes, maybe.”