Chapter 20: A Doll of Fallen Petals
Sisters and Ribbons
Shallowroot may not have been as dark and imposing as Thornwood, but the air weighed far heavier the deeper we travelled the bog. An unnatural silence grew more immense with every step along the wet and winding path. Not even the horses were willing to fight back against it.
Vaelis continued her presence with us, lucid but nervous. It was almost comical – were the way her eyes darted between trees not so unsettling – to see a goddess so frightened by nothing at all. Jasmin had given her the box from Blue Stone, which helped, but it was little comfort from whatever was holding her.
When the temple finally came into view, we couldn't convince the horses to take a single step closer. I couldn't blame them, especially since my own feet barely had strength to rise from the muck.
Immense didn't do the temple justice. In contrast to Thornwood's dark and twisted trees, the plants of Shallowroot showed deference to the lovingly hewn stone pentagon that dared observers step one foot closer. Clear space lent to the illusion that the bog was built for the temple and not the inverse. As we stood awed by the scale of it, a cool breeze carried an unfamiliar scent – softer than fine linen, just sweet enough to spark a smile, like rain under sunscorched bark. For a moment, Vaelis was still. Then the wet rot of the bog sneaked back in, twisting that comfort into something vile and nameless.
Garden without a gardener, indeed.
A chill ran down my spine at the similarities between this temple and the one in Thornwood. Five raised platforms, one higher than the rest, each on a separate edge of the space. Crumbled columns slumped sadly in the corners. I couldn't place it at first, but something was different as well.
Vaelis was the first to enter, the first to act, stepping across the space toward the highest of the platforms. Her scarlet hair whipped about freely at every breeze. Before beginning to climb the stairs up to the platform, she stopped and kneeled, laying the box she carried beside her.
Jasmin and I caught up just as Vaelis began tearing scraps from the clothes she wore and fidgeting about with her hair. Several breaths of silent fighting passed without success before her violet eyes met my silver.
"Afina. Help," tears were welling at the corners of Vaelis's eyes as she spoke. "I can't tie it like your sister once did. Like Linna."
"I'm sorry Vaelis," I said the words as softly as I could, "but I don't remember how Linna wore her hair. Remind me. It's been too long."
Dropping the scraps she had been fighting against, Vaelis took her hair in two parts, splitting it evenly on either side of her face, and I caught a flash of a younger woman, too large for her age, red-eyed with deep blue hair like Afina's but longer, tied symmetrically on the sides of her head. Linna.
I knelt beside Vaelis and smiled at her. "Oh, I remember now," I half-lied, knowing it would do Vaelis well. "Let me help." I looked up at Jasmin. "Do you have two ribbons, preferably violet, we can use to tie her hair?"
Jasmin shrugged, but moved to the position on Vaelis's other side. "No, but I think we can make these bits of cloth work." After a few seconds of battling with a knife to even out the scraps Vaelis had torn from her clothes, Jasmin gave me one, and we worked to fix Vaelis's hair. "There, just like Linna. Like your beautiful Mavi."
Satisfied, Vaelis stood and began her long climb to the top of the platform. We followed, a few steps behind, holding hands. Jasmin had been too worried for my safety to let me enter the temple in Thornwood after my dreams, so we certainly hadn't gone into it together. This was special.
A small altar stood in the centre of the raised platform, and something on it caught my eye. Amid dried and cracking flowers. Surrounded with rolled papers and small boxes. Tucked between grander offerings than were strictly necessary. A doll, plain and roadworn.
Its wooden face bore a permanent smile, slowly fading with age and wear. A crack had split the side of its face and been repaired with workers' tar. Where once its glassy gaze looked out at the world with hope, only a single bead remained, a testament to workmanship. Its once brilliant yellow dress had faded, barely even worthy of the descriptor 'sandy' anymore.
Stains covered every surface of the doll's body to some extent, emblematic of the love its owner once showered upon it. Though its life hadn't been all bad. Split seams in several places had been sewn back together with silver or gold threads. This little dolly, she had come a long way from home.
There was no way I wouldn't recognise her, given that Delia's husband had made the doll when their first daughter was born. He'd gone to every shop in town buying the most important things, but dolls were uncommon in Powell's Square, so he made it, carving and sewing and placing every single detail with love.
Beneath the doll was a scrap of paper. I couldn't read what was written on it, as it was penned in Old Fleurian, but the handwriting was home, comfort, care.
"Delia's alive," I whispered as I took the paper from the altar.
Jasmin tugged my arm to make me look toward her. "Are you certain?"
Handing her the note, I nodded. "Can you read this?"
She took a beat, turning the paper about for several seconds. "If your sister wrote this, she has terrible handwriting. And her grasp of Old Fleurian grammar is worse than your grasp of subtlety. But I think it says 'Gold is fleeting, roots never forget'. Not that I have any idea what it could mean."
"It doesn't matter," I said resolutely. "She's alive. I need to leave a message for her, just in case she comes back. Stay here."
The run back to the far corner of the temple, through the bog's unpleasant path to the horses, and back was miserable. Even if the stench didn't foul the air so completely, I hadn't run that far in almost a year, since before Delia had been taken in my place. I hadn't needed to. And learning to fight took precedence over continuing to run and be free once I finally recovered fully.
My last breathless steps back up to the platform, Delia's hideous vase in hand, found Vaelis gone and Jasmin holding the box from Blue Stone.
"She put the flower on the altar and gave me the box, not letting me look inside," Jasmin explained as I caught my breath. "She said I'd know when the time comes to open it, and why."
"That sounds like her," I huffed as my lungs slowly worked back their normal pace, "and I think we should trust her."
I turned my eyes back to the altar, where they settled on the impossible scarlet flower, perfectly matched to Vaelis's hair or Linna's eyes. The memory wasn't mine, but I knew it on sight.
Bloodleaf. A bittersweet weapon, made to relax the senses, but not the mind. The only sacred bloom without a twin, and the reason Vaelis was more counsel than sister to the other goddesses. The words flooded into me like so many dreams before it.
Jasmin had placed a silverthorn next to the bloodleaf, her own offering to Aurelin, a plea for change, for luck, for fortune.
Beside the two flowers, Delia's ugly vase was an eyesore, but I had to be certain Delia knew if she came back that I was well. I poured some water into the vase and set both flowers in it gently, the same way Jasmin had with the silverthorn alone.
I took out a strip of my own paper and left Delia a message under the doll. 'Roots will crumble, thorns remain sharp.' It was clunky and not as poetic as the Old Fleurian would be, but she would know it was me. As a final gesture of hope, I took out our mother's dagger and cut a small lock of my hair, wrapping it in a bit of string so not a single strand of sapphire would be taken with the wind.
Once the gift was safely tucked in the doll's dress pocket, I stood and looked to Jasmin.
"I suppose we've lingered long enough, darling," a weight in my stomach fought against the words. What if Delia was nearby? What if she knew a way out of all of this? What if we could face this together, sisters? I couldn't let myself succumb to those possibilities. "Why not let's make our way to the edge of destiny and plunge headfirst into the darkness."
"Very well, dearest," the subtle curve of her lips told me she saw through every bit of bravado I attempted. "Let's."