Then I was back, still myself, still a Dryad who is not a Dryad; only my surroundings had changed. Instead of weightless in the center of a tree of light and bright potential, I was physical, flesh crafted from the idea of flesh, clothing crafted from the idea of clothing, standing next to the server which acts as my primary home. The inside of the case is lined with wood, and thin strips of my former roots run through the circuitry, breaking up the easy flow of electrical power. It should never work, my server; it should be a dead, useless thing. But my mother made it for me, as a home to hold my heart, and she was better than the rules of physics. Her work is good.
I look like her. I know that, because it was her the face I chose to emulate when it became time for me to grow more adult, to set aside childish ideas and ideals and step into the hole her absence made. Her hair was red and brown, mixed together like an oak in autumn, while mine is the pure gold of an aspen in the same season. I could make my hair look like hers, if I wanted to, but it would be cruel. I am already a reminder of what has been lost. There is no need to make myself into her reflection, not when my mind will ever and always be my own, and never hers at all.
“There you are.”
I turned. My other mother—the one who lives, the one who did not save me, but who saved my first mother, once, in a time when I was not yet sprouted—stood in the space behind me, her hands behind her back, smiling.
“Did you have a nice nap?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. It is an untruth: I do not sleep the way things with bodies of blood and bone sleep, the way people or cats sleep. I . . . drift, awash in the delicate lace of information, and allow myself to dissolve into the sap, until I am as much idea as identity, and when I come back together, I am refreshed. But I do not sleep.
Sometimes, it is appropriate to lie to your mother. I learned this long ago. Learned it too well, in some ways, and I am paying for that flaw in my code. I am paying every day.
Li Qin frowned, displeasure pulling her lips into a delicate arch. The mother I do not resemble is beautiful. Her skin is tan undershot with gold, and her hair is black, as are her eyes. She had much of the raising of me, and she only ever treated me as her own child. It hurt, to know that I had put that expression on her face.
“What is wrong, Mother?” I inquired, as politely as I could.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“You are talking to me.”
This time, Li Qin sighed. She was wearing one of my other mother’s old T-shirts, this one advertising some software convention that happened years before my replanting. It hung on her like a shroud. I had not seen her wear it before, and I doubted I would see her wear it again. She has been working her way through her wife’s wardrobe for the past three years, wearing each piece as many times as she can before it must be washed, before the last traces of my mother’s skin and scent are wiped away. It is her own form of mourning, and I envy it, a bit, because it is not an option for me. My clothing is made of the same light as my flesh, and while I can change it on a whim, it carries no trace of my mother’s hands.
“You know what I mean, April,” she said patiently. “I want to talk to you. Are you in a position to do that?”
She always assumed I was busy with the minutiae of the company her wife had created, to which I had become heir upon my mother’s death. It was a pleasant delusion when I wanted to avoid her—all I had to do was bring up my responsibilities and I would be free from whatever uncomfortable conversation she wanted to have.
Sometimes, it is appropriate to lie to your mother. If I tell myself that enough times, in precisely those words, perhaps I will forgive myself for believing it.
“I am,” I said. “What do you desire, Mother?”
“Are you solid?” she asked.
I nodded, and she embraced me.
It was a curious thing, to be embraced by my surviving mother. Li Qin had been absent when January died, sent away for her own protection. She left me a child, and came back to find me a woman and herself a widow, her wife and one true love killed by someone we had both considered a friend. When I had reconfigured myself into something closer to the woman who made me, I had not considered how it would change the way I received Li Qin’s hugs.
If I had, I might not have done it. It was not right, for her to be shorter than me, for her head to come up to my breastbone and not rest against the top of my head. It was not right. But it was not right for me to retain a child’s appearance after what I had done, either, and if anyone was suffering here, it was me. That, at least, was fair.
She held me for a count of ten before releasing me, pushing me to arm’s length and looking at me gravely. The skin around her eyes was tight. She always carries her concerns there. I remember my other mother running her thumbs over the skin under Li Qin’s eyes, stroking and stroking, working the worry away.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
I frowned, attempting to formulate a response. Sometimes, when Li Qin asked that, she genuinely wanted to know my condition. Other times, she seemed to want me to tell her I was fine, that I was well, that I needed nothing from her aside from her presence, which was easily given.
Li Qin sighed, seeing my hesitation. “I need to know, dearest,” she said. “It’s part of what I need to discuss with you.”
“I am . . . well,” I said. “I have been working with the code. It soothes me.” It also led to my misplacing blocks of time. Our programmers work on the code from the outside. I walk through it like a gardener, planting and replanting the commands I need with a sweep of my intangible hand. Together, we can make things that work faster and more cleanly than anything mortal. More, when I was in the code, I could not dwell over what I had done, or what I had the potential to do again.
“Good,” said Li Qin, looking relieved. She had a project of her own: the Duchy of Dreamer’s Glass, over which she had claimed custodianship when the true Duchess, Treasa Riordan, “mysteriously” vanished. There was no mystery to it for those of us who had been there. Riordan was marooned in Annwn, trapped there due to her own machinations. Presumably, she was still alive. She might demand her duchy be returned to her if she ever found herself back in the Summerlands. It seemed unlikely. The routes between Annwn and the Summerlands have been sealed for centuries. She had been able to find one way through. I doubted she would find another.
Silence sprouted between us like a weed, unplanted, unruly. I have a great deal of respect for weeds. Still, it seemed unwise to allow this one to flourish. The soil of our relationship has become fertile and welcoming to weeds since Li Qin left and returned.
Since I allowed my mother to be killed.
“Why are you here?” I asked, knowing she would read my bluntness as efficiency and not rudeness. No one understands my ways better than Li Qin. Not even January understood them as well as she does, because January saw me first as her daughter and her darling, while Li Qin saw me as the immigrant I was, lost, in need of education. January would have loved me no matter what. So, I believe, would Li Qin, but she chose to teach me what I would need to survive in this world, alien as I will always be to it.