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“The Lady of Salem,” announces Leto, the ranking captain. A flurry of stiff backs and crisp salutes follows.
“Captain Leto,” I say in greeting. I break off when I see my mother.
She’s in her nightgown. It’s frayed and soiled at the hem as if it’d been dragging through mud for hours. Her hair, a riot of flame-red curls like mine, is tangled and frizzy. Her bare feet tread the very edge of Walltop. They are so dirty I can barely see the blood from where she’s torn a toenail. The only reason I know it’s torn is from the crimson footprints in her wake. Her face is serene and a small smile softens the corners of her mouth, but her eyes blink and burn with an unhealthy light. A strange shame flowers hot pink in my cheeks. It isn’t her nightgown or hair or bloody feet—it’s the insanity in her eyes that I’m ashamed of.
“Mom,” I whisper. There’s something about seeing my mother behaving like this that turns me into a child. I am not the Lady of Salem right now. I am a scared little girl who is desperate to defuse a powder keg inside a woman I have never understood. “Come back from the edge.”
“You know, Lillian, all I have to do is squint my eyes and there’s nothing here,” she says, stamping her feet and holding her arms out wide. “No wall. It’s like I’m walking on air.”
Rowan slowly inches his way toward my mother. “What do you mean, Samantha?” he asks lightly. He sounds amused and curious, rather than worried.
“I mean that in other versions of this”—she waves her arms wildly to take in the city and the Woven Woods surrounding it—“there is no wall, and no forest full of monsters.”
“Other versions of what?” Rowan asks. He is within arm’s reach of my mother now. His hands are relaxed but ready at his sides.
“Other versions of the world,” Samantha says, smiling at him. She’s always adored Rowan. If I tried sneaking up on her this way she’d throw a fit. I’ve never been able to soothe her the way he can. “They’re all here, you know. Right here, right now, there are other lives being lived. Down there”—my mother points over the side of the wall at the ground hundreds of feet below, her eyes half closed—“there are houses. Children play in the grass.”
I sigh with frustration. She’s convinced her hallucinations are real.
“They do,” my mother says, rounding on me defensively. “I can see them, Lillian.”
“I’ve seen lots of things over the wall, Lady Samantha,” Captain Leto says kindly. “Children playing wouldn’t be the strangest thing, but it would probably be one of the nicest.” The rest of the soldiers around us chuckle sadly. Walltop guards see plenty of evil and very little of the sweetness of children.
“When I was young, the holy men of my tribe used to talk about multiple worlds,” Rowan says casually, as if he were having a completely sane conversation. “They told us that anything we could dream was true in some universe. They even told us that somewhere, each of us was a king.”
“That would be one of your shamans, now wouldn’t it, Lord Fall?” asks Leto, playing the same game Rowan is playing. Acting like this is normal.
“That’s right,” Rowan replies. His face lights up with a thought. “You should talk to a shaman, Samantha.”
My mother laughs nervously and looks out over the edge. “You think so?”
“I do.” Rowan nods emphatically, and the guards nod with him. Rowan holds his hand out to my mother. “My father knows the shaman of my tribe. I think you should meet him.”
“A shaman at the Citadel?” my mother says, fluttering a dismissive hand in front of her face. “Is that even possible? I hear the shamans refuse to bond with willstones, and aren’t allowed into the cities.” She looks at me uncertainly.
“I can make it happen,” I say. Anything to get her away from the edge—even if it means I agree to seeing one of those ridiculous shamans. Everyone knows it’s the hallucinogenic mushrooms they eat that make them imagine other worlds, but at this point I’d agree to anything. “I’d like to meet him, too.”
“You would?” my mother asks. She’s confused now. She was about to take Rowan’s hand, but she pulls it back. “It would be so embarrassing if anyone knew you had one of those shamans come to see you, Lillian.”
“Who’d find out? This is Walltop, Lady. No one here would ever say a word,” Captain Leto says seriously. “Now, why don’t you come into the guardhouse and get closer to the fire?” he adds in a congenial way. “We’ve got some tea on, haven’t we, Sergeant?”
“Oh, yes,” another soldier replies immediately. “S’not great, but it’s still tea. You must be icy cold, Lady Samantha.”
“That’s great,” I enthuse. “We’ll go have some tea in the guardhouse and tomorrow Rowan will arrange a meeting with the shaman.”
We all stare at my mother as she tries to make sense of what we’ve said. Her hand wavers over Rowan’s outstretched palm.
“I am rather cold,” she admits, and takes Rowan’s hand.
He leads her down off the edge and my Walltop men sweep in and take over. They shower her with promises of too-strong tea and too-dry biscuits as they unobtrusively surround her with their burly bodies and form a jovial barrier between her and the edge. I’m near to tears, and Rowan knows it. It kills him to see me cry.
“It’s alright,” Rowan says, pulling me close to his side.
“Is it alright?” I ask, my voice shaky.
“I’ll make it right. I swear it. We’ll make her better,” he promises …
… That was the beginning of my journey down this path, Lily. I met the shaman and I shouldn’t have. There was a reason witch magic and shaman magic were kept separate, although I didn’t know it then. But I did it for Mom.
