Of course not.
Rowan pulled Lily against his chest and leaned back against the pillows. He was quiet for a while, just holding her. “The route that went through Arkansas on the Trail of Tears? That’s where my dad and I used to hunt. I was born somewhere around there.”
“So, you’re from Arkansas?” Lily asked, trying to get her head around it.
“I guess so,” he said, shrugging. “We don’t call it that in my world, of course. It’s confusing because there are some things about our histories that are the same.”
“I know,” Lily said, sitting up. “And I think I’ve figured it out. Our worlds used to be one. Then the Salem Witch Trials happened and our worlds split. Everything in history before the trials is the same in both worlds, but after, it’s all different.”
“Our worlds split?” Rowan brushed her hair back. “Why do you think that happened?”
Lily smiled down at him. “It’s always happening. Every choice we make is the splitting of one universe into two. In one universe, you go right, in another universe you go left. During the Witch Trials here, the witches were hanged.”
“And in my world they were burned,” Rowan said, catching on. “It was the burning that gave the witches incredible power—the ones who survived the pyre, that is.”
“And they took over your world,” Lily finished. “In my world, they died or ran away from Salem and hid.”
Rowan looked at Lily admiringly. “How do you know all this?”
“Your shaman told me,” Lily replied quietly, resting her head back down on his chest. “So, what tribe are you from, Rowan? You never told me. Cherokee? Choctaw?”
“Mostly Cherokee, but the tribes in my world have evolved. We’re not ‘Native Americans,’ as you call them. We’re Outlanders. We’re the survivors of the Woven Outbreak and the throwaways from the cities, so we’re mixed now. Outlanders are a bunch of different races all blended together and we speak whatever language mash-up we need to in order to get by,” Rowan answered, stroking her hair. “My mom was white, you know, but she never spoke a word of English.”
“You remember her?”
“No. But I was told she had blue eyes.” He tilted his head and looked down into Lily’s green ones. “And red hair.”
“That explains it, then,” Lily said, smiling up at him. “That’s why you can’t lay off the redheads.”
Lily’s smile dissolved. She thought of Lillian, and her claim that she became a murderer to save Rowan’s people. Lily didn’t know the whole story yet, but she did know that no one can lie in mindspeak. Lillian believed she’d saved lives by killing. That was her truth. After over an hour of reading about genocide and about how people like Buffalo Bill were seen as heroes in their day, Lily wasn’t so sure what the words “murderer” and “hero” meant anymore. Would she kill a few to stop what had happened on the Trail of Tears? And if she wouldn’t—if she wasn’t willing to get her hands dirty in order to save thousands of innocent lives—would that make her a bigger monster than Lillian?
What’s the matter, Lily?
I thought of Lillian.
Don’t. Put her out of your mind entirely or you may accidentally reach out to her in mindspeak. You’re here, you’re safe, and you’re going to stay that way.
Lily held her breath, waiting for Rowan to ask if Lillian had tried to contact her, but he didn’t. He didn’t even suspect Lily was hiding something from him. She tightened her arms around him and vowed then and there to never to reach out to Lillian again, no matter how much she still craved answers.
As long as I’m with you, I don’t really care where I am, Rowan.
She felt his arms tighten around her briefly before he let her go and got up. “I’ll take you back to your room,” he said quietly, and gathered her up in his arms.