Twisted Roots

Vines in all shades of green slither out of the ground, moving in waves as they follow the orders of the fingers that hover near them. They wriggle their way upward and across, forming walls and floors, leaving spaces for doors and windows. Tiny twists reach away into whimsical curls along the forming walls that slowly become speckled with purple flowers.

When Ennara is finished, she sits back on her heels and lets her hands settle onto her lap. With a triumphant smile, she looks over to her sister. “Look, Anaya! A little dollhouse, just for you!” Delight spills from the four-year-old in a mix of squeals and laughter as she places her dolls inside the house spun of vine and flower.

The summer sun cascades through the leaves and sprinkles down around the girls. A crisp breeze moves the woods around them, reshaping the sunlight on the ground until it looks like shimmers on the surface of a lake. Ennara slips her sister’s loose locks behind her ear with gentle fingers and rubs the girl’s arms to warm her. Summers in Raynard are always chilly, but this one seems more so.

Anaya jumps to her feet and prances around to the other side of the house, singing and speaking for her dolls. Ennara leans back against a tree and listens to the tale her sister spins about a woman planting goodnight kisses on her daughter’s forehead as she tucks her into bed.

She wonders if Anaya wishes for the same from their mother and silently hopes to be wrong—being too familiar with the disappointment of such tender wishes left ungranted. Ennara tilts her head back against the trunk of the old oak tree and lets Anaya’s whispers carry her to dreamland.

The sun is halfway across the western sky when a breeze whips through the woods and stirs Ennara awake. She finds Anaya snuggled into her arms asleep and pulls the child deeper into a warm hug while she rests. Through small windows in the canopy above them, an orange sky peeks through, decorated with strips of pink clouds. Ennara finds herself envying them as they float carelessly overhead. What duties do clouds have? Who do they answer to?

A bush rustles only a few feet away. Ennara watches it intently. Their private wood—enclosed in stone walls so tall Ennara can barely see the top when standing beside them—was built to keep the outside out. Still, from time to time something manages to wriggle its way in. Her body becomes still as the tree she leans on while she awaits the visitor’s appearance. The nose emerges first, seeming to bounce up and down as it sniffs the crisp air. It hops further out, and again until it’s in full view: soft, grey fur, dark eyes, long pointed ears. The rabbit chews grass as it watches and listens to its surroundings.

“You’re safe here,” Ennara says. She watches it nibble the grass for several uncounted moments before the rabbit darts out of sight at the sharp sound of a child’s squeal. Ennara’s eyes fall upon the wall of stone lingering not far from where they lay. The stones separate them from the village on the other side. Protecting them, her mother would say. But stone can’t protect them from everything. The children’s voices wind up through the trees and fall over their side of the wall. Ennara leans her cheek upon her sister’s head and listens to their laughter.

“Do you ever wish we could play with them?” Anaya says.

Ennara forces a smile and leans her sister up to look her in the eyes. “Why would I, hmm? When I have the most wonderful friend right here.” Ennara tickles her sister until she elicits a giggle from deep in her belly. “Come,” she says, releasing her. “Show me what you can grow.”

The young girl reaches down to dig her fingers into the dirt.

“No,” Ennara says. “Try it without burying your hands.”

“But, I need to root it,” Anaya whines.

“Come, you can do it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I am six years your elder. I know more than you think,” Ennara says. “Give it a try. Just like I do.” Anaya holds out her hands, palms facing the sky. “Good,” Ennara says. “Now, imagine what you’re trying to grow. See it in your mind as clearly as if it were right in front of you.”

Branches blacker than night peak out of the grass and stretch upward. Anaya takes a breath and lifts her hands slightly. The branches continue to grow until together they form a small, lopsided bush.

“Yes. And now...” Ennara encourages.

Anaya’s lips press together in concentration. Buds form, growing ever so slowly until they burst open with deep red petals.

“Yes!” Ennara says. “Wonderful.” Though, not enough.

Another sound enters the wood.

Footsteps.

Heavy.

Hurried.

Ennara pulls Anaya to her feet and they wait for the source to reach them.

“Your Royal Highnesses,” their governess, Hiyyath, says as she bursts into their little clearing. “The Fair Sapphire sails into the harbor. Come, come!” Hiyyath engulfs Anaya’s hand in her own and leads her away.

“I want to play!” the child protests, letting a doll slip from her grasp as she flails her arms.

“Not now, I’m afraid.” Hiyyath tugs the girl forward. “Your Majesties would not be pleased if you were not at the gates to greet them.”

Ennara picks up the fallen toy. “Hush,” she says to Anaya, holding the doll up and her free hand above it, threatening to fill it with vines enough to burst its seems if she doesn’t comply. To her relief, Anaya quiets her cries and stills her limbs, falling into a quiet step beside her governess.

Hiyyath leads the girls out of their wood and to the large palisade at the head of the main bailey. The stone walls closing them in draw a half-circle off the side of the castle. Two flower beds, protected by walls no higher than Anaya’s waist stretch out like suns shining on either side of the center walkway that leads from the gates to the steps of the castle. Ennara waits patiently beside Hiyyath, whose hands will remain a weight on Anaya’s shoulders until the very last second.

It comes.

Thunder booms from the gates as they begin to open. Hiyyath promptly adjusts Anaya’s posture and checks Ennara’s. The first through the palisade are the Queen and King, riding majestically upon two great steeds. The princesses look up at their parents in awe. Wagon upon wagon follow the procession into the bailey, tempting Ennara’s curiosity.

King Donar is the first to dismount. His tall legs carry him in only a few long strides to the side of the queen’s horse where his daughters wait. With a quick wink at the young girls, he reaches up to help his wife to the ground. He plants a kiss upon her cheek with a wide smile before they turn to greet their daughters.

Hiyyath taps each of the princesses’ shoulders and they take the cue, dipping into a curtsy. When they rise, the corners of their mother’s mouth are pulled down—not deep enough fold her skin, but not too shallow to be missed by her eldest. When the girls straighten, she goes to them.

“My darlings,” Queen Mariel says half-heartedly as she embraces them in turn. “I’ve missed you.”

“Mother, Ennara has made me a dollhouse!”

“Is that so, Anaya? With her magic?” Anaya nods and the Queen’s smile touches her eyes for a moment. “How delightful! And you, what can you show me?”

“This.” With a proud smile, Anaya turns her palms up and summons a bush up through the cracks between the bailey stones. The dark branches reach up, taller than her last until deep red flowers bloom. The Queen glances from the bush up to the King, her smile gone.

“She didn’t have to reach into the ground to root it,” Ennara says.

“Well done, Anaya,” Queen Mariel mumbles before standing to make room for the King, who reaches down with a gift.

“For you, child of the night.” He kneels down to Anaya—her skin fair as the moon in the frame of her midnight black hair—and hands her a trinket made of gold and embedded with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Anaya turns it over in her hands, hardly knowing what to do with it but enjoying the reflections of light in the jewels. Seeing her occupied, Donar turns to his eldest.

“And you, my shining sun!” He smiles at Ennara—her yellow locks so nearly white they could have been spun from rays of the sun itself. She glances at Anaya, who she finds so distracted with her toy that Ennara feels the freedom to accept the extra attention. “What gift is there to give to the girl who can hold the world in her hands?”

“What is it, Father?” she asks.

He opens his palm to dangle a velvet bag before her. When Ennara reaches for it, Donar pulls it away. “Ah-ah,” he says. “There is magic in this bag. A powder called morphsbane brought from a very old Spinner in Kimmeranz. It shall turn one of your creations into something permanent.”

Delight warms Ennara’s face.

“Shall you try it?” Mariel says, eager.

Ennara opens her palms toward the sky. Concentrating, she begins to form a ring of vines with leaves the shape of teardrops and flowers carrying dewdrops upon their petals.

When she’s finished with her creation, she looks to her father hopefully. “Watch,” Donar says as he tips the pouch over and a vial tumbles out. He opens it, spilling shimmering powder over the vines. The creation turns to a silver far stronger and more lustrous than anything formed by man. Donar retrieves the crown from Ennara’s hands and places it upon her head. “Fit for a queen.”

“Thank you, Father. Are there more gifts in the wagons?”

“Not for you, I’m afraid.”

“I am in great need of rest after our journey,” Mariel says to the princesses. “Hiyyath, I may call them to dinner. Meanwhile, I’m sure they have lessons to tend to.”

“Their lessons are complete for the day, Your Majesty.”

“Then do them again. A Queen should not be subjected to such shallow curtsies.”

“Your Majesty,” Hiyyath bows as the Queen is led away, her hand held in the King’s.

“Much more, Hiyyath?” Ennara asks, her legs and toes aching with repeated curtsies.

“So sorry, my dear. The next time you greet the Queen, we must be sure to have it right. Only a few more times. And, again...” Ennara follows Hiyyath’s cues as she slips one foot behind her and bends low enough to the floor she considers falling over for a nap on the rug.

“I see Anaya’s magic strengthens.”

“We’ve been practicing,” Ennara grunts through the pain in her muscles. Hiyyath signals for her to take a break and the Princess gratefully shakes out her legs. “I mean to teach her to grow like me. Mother would be pleased, then.” Hiyyath looks down with an exhale and signals for the practice to resume. “You disagree?”

“Chin up. And, again.”

“Hiyyath?”

“I do agree. Your mother would be very pleased to see your sister’s powers improved.”

“But not pleased with Anaya? You don’t think mother will ever approve of her.”

“That’s enough, I suppose,” Hiyyath says.

“Thank you.” Ennara finds a seat on the sofa. Her head nearly meets the arm for a rest when the Queen’s head maid, Enfrailia, walks into the room.

“The Queen wishes the princesses to accompany her to dinner.” Hiyyath tilts her head sorrowfully at Ennara who tosses herself in a dramatic faint across the sofa.

Only the four royals sit at dinner tonight, each of them having more space than they need where they’ve spread apart across the great table. The King’s attention is divided among the food on his plate and the series of other options set before him that he picks at here and there when he fears his plate does not suffice. Anaya concentrates nearly as hard on using the utensils while resisting the very tempting urge to eat with her hands. Ennara eats quickly and quietly, hoping to escape the meal before long. She feels her mother’s eyes boring into her from the far end of the table—the intensity of the Queen’s stare as strong as her own desire to be invisible.

“Ennara,” Queen Mariel says. “Pass the pastries, will you?” The princess stands and reaches for the plate. “Now, now. Let’s be more creative, shall we?” Ennara sinks back into her chair, her posture sagging slightly. “Shoulders back.”

Spine straight and shoulders back, Ennara lifts her hand, turning her palm toward the dish of pastries. Vines grow out of the air beneath the dish until it’s lifted off the table. They begin tumbling forward, carrying the pastries along until they arrive at their destination in front of the Queen. Ennara draws a circle in the air with her finger and the vines curl around each other until they resemble a charger beneath the dish.

Delighted, Mariel lifts the dish of pastries up and away from the vines, setting it down out of the way. From a hidden pocket somewhere in her layers of dress, she pulls out the velvet pouch of morphsbane and sprinkles it over the vines.

“Beautiful, darling,” she says, lifting the charger up to admire her daughter’s work. With a flick of the Queen’s finger, a servant whisks the charger away. “You’ve come so far, Ennara,” Mariel says. “And you built a house for your sister today?”

“Only a dollhouse.”

The Queen offers a smile and continues with the food on her plate as if the pastries were never a thought. “Where did you do all of this?” Ennara looks down at her food, wanting to take some of it into her mouth for show, but having no desire to eat. “Ennara? Where were you playing today that you were able to make such a wonderful thing?”

“A gift, really,” Ennara says. “We were in the wood.” When her mother raises her eyebrows, she adds, “within the walls.”

“The best place for two young princesses. I must see it. Will you be teaching your little sister these tricks? Siblings do well to learn from their elders.”

Ennara glances over at Anaya who picks up a pea with her fingers and tosses it into her mouth before anyone can notice. “I’ll try to help her with her magic. I just have to understand it better.”

“Understand it?”

’“It’s so different from mine.”

“Different?” Mariel huffs. “You’re a Grower. She’s a Grower. That’s hardly different.” She takes a sip of wine and dabs her lips gently with a napkin. “Different would be Spinners, or Arresters. Even Willers, which would have been entirely better, but naturally I couldn’t have one of those,” she continues as if talking to herself. “At least Growers are rare. That is something.”

Ennara turns to find both her sister and father have fallen asleep at the table, Anaya still nibbling a leg of chicken while she dreams. “Mother,” she says. “Do you appreciate Anaya’s magic?”

“Of course. Magic has become a rarity. It must be protected and used wisely.”

“How can growing be used wisely?” Ennara asks. “I can grow vines into the shapes of anything I can imagine, but I cannot grow a single fruit to help the villagers in winter.”

“Perhaps someday. The elder Growers say your magic will age as you do. Your great grandmother, Queen Tilzda, was as Grower. She fed the kingdom so well, her contributions lasted for ages. My father was able to rule completely on the wealth she had amassed during her reign.”

“And now?”

Mariel’s stare shoots across the table and digs into Ennara like thorns. “Those are the worries of a Queen. We must all make our way, Ennara.”

Ennara finds herself unable to sleep that night. Instead of slumber, she waits by the window. The moon shines brightly in the sky, its light reflecting off the clouds so intensely they blot out the stars that try in earnest to shimmer. One by one, the candles within the castle dim until the only light that remains is from the moon and a few torches lit around the bailey.

The princess slips out of her room, closing the large door behind her with a click that echoes down the halls. When no one responds, she moves her bare feet quickly through halls, down stairs, and around corners until she’s outside in the open air of the wood.

“Please be there,” she whispers to herself as she sneaks quietly between the trees. Moonlight filters between the leaves to light up the ground where they left the dollhouse. “No,” she says, falling to her knees beside Anaya’s bush. Her palms run along the ground where the house was, feeling the flattened grass and an impression in the earth from something far heavier than the vines she wove. The house is gone.