Mama interrupted Arin’s thoughts. “Arin, could you get the plates, please?”
Arin jumped up to carry plates to the table. She poured berry juice for everyone. Ven tried to help with getting utensils, and Naelin began folding napkins, until Mama shooed the two of them back into their seats, saying they were guests.
In minutes, everything was ready.
Standing at the head of the table, Mama sliced the nut bread. Using the knife as a server, she laid a piece on each plate as she said in her storytelling voice, “In the beginning, there was only light and darkness, and we were alone, floating in the light and dark for uncounted time, until at last a child was born, a baby girl. It was the first birth.”
Sitting in her old chair with the creaky seat, Arin felt like she hadn’t ever left. Their meals always started like this, with a story to say thanks. Mama and Daddy liked the old traditions—they never skimped on charms in the roof, they left the first cut of wood outside for the fire spirits to claim, they planted acorns to appease the tree spirits every spring, and they always told a gratitude story before eating.
I’d missed this in the palace, Arin thought. She hadn’t even realized she’d missed it. Everything had happened so quickly: Daleina’s poisoning, the invasion, her apprenticeship. As soon as we’re done in Semo, I’ll come back.
“. . . the newborn child spoke one word, ‘Earth,’ and the spirits of the earth were born from her command. They fashioned earth beneath our feet so we could stand. She spoke again: ‘Air,’ and we breathed freely for the first time. ‘Water,’ and we drank. ‘Fire,’ and we were warm. ‘Wood,’ and we had trees for homes and plants for food. ‘Ice,’ and we had seasons to grow and seasons to rest. And so we multiplied, until we were too many for the world. And she spoke again, one more time, ‘Die,’ and the spirits who had made our home became our scourge and sought our deaths. And so we cried out to the baby, ‘Save us!’”
Daddy took up the old familiar tale in his deep, soothing voice that made Arin think of lullabies: “So she laid her body in front of the spirits. Ice froze her skin. Fire burned her. Water drowned her. Air tore her limbs. Earth buried the pieces. And then Wood caused her to grow. From the pieces of her body grew stalks that blossomed, turned to fruit, and ripened. When the seed fell it was in the shape of little girls, and the spirits listened to what they said. The place where she sacrificed herself became the first sacred grove, and the first to fall from the fruit of their mother became our first queen. It is she we thank for this meal, for our home, and for our lives. Her blessing on us.”
“Her blessing on us,” Arin echoed, and she bit into her mother’s nut bread and sighed happily. She’d tried to bake this bread in the palace ovens, and it hadn’t tasted the same. Maybe it was the kind of wood Mama burned in their oven, or maybe it was the type of nuts they harvested. Or maybe it was some other kind of magic, unknown to queens and champions and other fancy folk. But this . . . it tasted like home.
“We tell another version of the tale up north,” Ven said. “In ours, the baby is a woman called the Great Mother of Spirits. And her body split apart to form the different groves—one for Aratay, one in Semo, one in Chell, one for Elhim, and one for Belene.”
Mama poured pine-needle tea into mugs, and Arin got up to help hand them out to everyone. Even though she hadn’t been home in months, she didn’t think to act like a guest. Naelin and Ven were the guests, not Arin. This was home, even if she knew she wasn’t staying. She loved the way it smelled: the spice of the tea, the warm sharpness of the wood-stoked oven, the fresh baked bread. The palace always smelled like flowers. And sometimes like blood, she thought.
“Would you like to tell us the tale?” Mama asked Ven politely.
“It’s supposed to be sung, and you don’t want to hear me sing it, trust me,” Ven said. “My sister is the one with the beautiful voice. She’s a canopy singer.” He helped himself to a pile of leaf-wrapped boar meat and then stuffed one in his mouth.
Arin wished for a moment that they were actually traveling to Ven’s family, not to the foreign land of Semo, and that this were only a short, simple trip. For now, I’ll pretend it is.
They all ate for a moment in contented silence.
“I saw Eira when we arrived,” Arin said to her parents. “She said you had a surprise?” Perhaps they’d sold the house and were going to move to Mittriel to be closer to her and Daleina! It would be nice if the four of us could be together again, wherever we are. Maybe it would make Daleina happy. Her sister looked perpetually tired and worried. But Arin would miss Threefork. They’d moved here when she was four years old. I didn’t even realize how much I missed it here. Lately, she’d been too busy to even think or feel.
Both her parents grinned as if they were little kids about to open a present, and then they began speaking at the same time: “You’ll never guess—” And “It was extraordinary luck—” Then they stopped, laughed, and Daddy said, “You go first.”
“Honey, do you remember the old bakery that you and Josei planned to buy and fix up? The one in Fawnbrook? You two were saving up enough money on your own, and we were so proud of you. It was so grown-up of you to have a plan and pursue it.”
Arin felt a lump in her throat. Of course she remembered. It had been her and Josei’s dream. As soon as they’d saved enough and as soon as they could, that’s what they were going to do: buy the old shop, fix it up, and start a bakery. She’d do fancy cakes for weddings and festivals, and he’d run the front of the shop and deal with the customers. They planned to marry too, when they were old enough, and live together in a home behind the shop. They’d talked about it all the time.
Mama beamed at Daddy. “You tell her. You were the one who did it.”
“We both did,” Daddy said. Reaching across the table, he squeezed Mama’s hand. “Arin, we bought the bakery. It’s yours! Your mother and I have been working on fixing it up, according to your plans.”
Arin felt as if bees were swarming inside her head. She opened her mouth but no words came out. Their bakery. It was a dream from what felt like years ago. Her and Josei’s dream. But he was gone, and she’d thought the dream had died with him. But now . . . Now . . . She looked from Mama to Daddy and back again. Both of them were beaming at her. “Really?”
“Really truly,” Mama said.
Arin felt tears on her cheeks. “That’s the most . . .” Words failed her. She couldn’t think of any that went far enough. Jumping from her seat, she ran around the table and threw her arms around her parents. “Thank you!”
Her parents beamed at her.
And then the memory of why she was here and where she was going crashed into her. “But I can’t. I have to . . . Please understand, it’s not that I don’t appreciate it or want it. I do! It’s just that . . . I can’t right now. It will have to wait until I come back.” If I come back. “I’m sorry, Mama, Daddy.”
Calmly, Mama picked up the ladle. “Don’t you worry, baby. I have faith everything will work out. Would you like some soup, Your Majesty?”
Arin jumped, but neither Queen Naelin nor Ven seemed at all surprised. “You know? You’ve known all along? I was right! Daleina told you!”
“Of course,” Mama said, patting her hand.
Arin felt a burst of love for her sister and her parents, for believing in her.
As the girl Arin babbled happily to her parents about her plans for after Semo, Naelin chewed on a sweet slice of nut bread and tried to keep herself from thinking, I shouldn’t be here. I should be in Semo already.
Suddenly, the room felt stifling. “Excuse me. I just need a little air.”
Arin’s mother nodded, understanding in her eyes. “Your family will be together soon.”